Inside Steve's Brain by Leander Kahney

Author:Leander Kahney
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Industries, Management, Business, Programming Languages, Computers, General, Leadership, Biography & Autobiography, Computer Industry, Business & Economics
ISBN: 9781440632570
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2008-04-17T17:41:25.582000+00:00

Chapter 5

Passion: Putting a Ding in the Universe

“I want to put a ding in the universe.”

—Steve Jobs

At every turn of his career, Steve Jobs has inspired employees, lured software developers, and snagged customers by invoking a higher calling. For Jobs, programmers don’t work to make easy-to-use software; they’re striving to change the world. Apple’s customers don’t buy Macs to work on spreadsheets; they’re making a moral choice against the evil monopoly of Microsoft.

Take the iPod. It’s a cool MP3 player. It’s a great blend of hardware, software, and online services. It’s driving Apple’s comeback. But for Jobs, it’s primarily about enriching people’s lives with music. As he told Rolling Stone in 2003: “We were very lucky—we grew up in a generation where music was an incredibly intimate part of that generation. More intimate than it had been, and maybe more intimate than it is today, because today there’s a lot of other alternatives. We didn’t have video games to play. We didn’t have personal computers. There’s so many other things competing for kids’ time now. But, nonetheless, music is really being reinvented in this digital age, and that is bringing it back into people’s lives. It’s a wonderful thing. And in our own small way, that’s how we’re working to make the world a better place.”1

Get that last part: “that’s how we’re working to make the world a better place.” In everything Jobs does, there’s a sense of mission. And like any true believer, he’s passionate about his work. Yes, his commitment produces a lot of screaming and shouting. Jobs is no pussycat when dealing with underlings. He knows what he wants, and he’ll throw a fit to get it. Oddly, many of his collaborators like getting yelled at. Or at least, they like the effect it has on their work. They appreciate his passion. He pushes them to greatness, and, though they might burn out, they learn a lot along the way. Jobs’s secret: it’s OK to be an asshole, as long as you’re passionate about it.

Making the world a better place has been Jobs’s mantra from the get-go. In 1983, Apple was six years old and growing explosively. It was transforming from a classic Silicon Valley startup run by young hippies into a big corporation with blue-chip customers. It needed a seasoned businessman in charge.

Jobs had spent months trying to seduce John Sculley, the president of PepsiCo, to run the company. But Sculley wasn’t convinced it was wise to step down as head of a big established firm for a risky, hippie startup like Apple. Still, Sculley was tempted. Personal computers were the future. The pair met numerous times in Silicon Valley and New York. Finally, one evening, looking out over Central Park from the balcony of Jobs’s luxury apartment at the San Remo building, Jobs turned to the older man and brazenly challenged him: “Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life, or do you want to change the world?”

It’s perhaps the

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