25 Things I Learned from Steve Jobs

I just finished reading the Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson and frankly… I am speechless. I have been trying to write a blog post detailing my thoughts and opinions on the book… however… it has been extremely hard to put down words. I could write for hours about the honest and stark details describing the life of a man who revolutionized multiple industries because of pure passion. He also destroyed people with this passion. I finally came across a question and answer article about what we can all learn from Steve Jobs. It helped me form my opinion for this article.

It’s hard to not be emotional when reading this book. Jobs lived his life the best way he knew how – honestly and passionately. There were times when he cheated and lied… there were times when he had blinding episodes of genius… there also times when he was timid and comforting. He lived with his heart on his sleeve and had an uncanny ability to look deep into your soul… understand what drives you… the individual.

Jobs was a genius that understood what made the consumer passionate. He understood what products the consumers WOULD WANT not WANTED. I can find evidence of the Job’s manifesto (intersection of liberal arts and technology) in almost every aspect of my life from my music to my phone.

There are plenty of lessons to be learned while reading this book. I wanted to give you a couple of excerpts on what I learned, thought, and felt.

1. Passion Instead of Money. While he became a multi-millionaire at the age of 25, he never let money get in the way of pursuing his passion. A true entrepreneur builds a company that lasts… not a company to flip.

“It wasn’t that important, because I never did it for the money … I think money is a wonderful thing because it enables you to do things, enables you to invest in ideas that don’t have a short term payback and things like that … But, especially at that point in my life, it was not the most important thing. The most important thing was the company, the people, the products that we were making, what we were going to enable people to do with these products … I didn’t think about it a great deal … I never sold any stock — I really believed the company would do very well over the long term.”

2. The Purpose of Perfection. Steve’s father taught him that it was extremely important to craft every inch of a product with pristine passion and perfection. If you spend time perfecting every aspect… it will be much easier to love and eventually sell.

“One of the most important things he taught Steve was [that] it’s important to be a great craftsman, even for the parts unseen. When they were building a fence, he said, ‘You have to make the back of the fence that people won’t see look just as beautiful as the front, just like a great carpenter would make the back of a chest of drawers … Even though others won’t see it, you will know it’s there, and that will make you more proud of your design.'”

3. Independence Breeds Passion. From an early age Steve’s parents taught him that he was special. Whether good or bad, they shaped his life to be independent and different. This led to his ability to further believe in himself and his ideas.

“They said, ‘No, no, no, Steve. It wasn’t as if you were abandoned. You were special. We specially picked you out. You were chosen.’ … And as Jobs told me when he talked about it, [he felt] slightly apart, slightly independent.”

4. Innovation and the Distortion of Reality.  Steve had the uncanny ability to push people past their limits in order to get things done. His engineers accomplished things that mere mortals could not have finished in double the time. His reality distortion field… while sometimes destructive… worked to influence his team to build great products.

“The reality distortion field term was invented … by two engineers at the original Macintosh team. … Steve will say something like, ‘This piece of software needs to be written by the end of the week.’ And they say, ‘No, no, it’ll take three months.’ And he says, ‘No, in reality it has to be done by the end of this week and it will be done.’ And then it would happen.”

5. Influencing with Honesty. It isn’t known whether Steve would disrespect people in order to get them to work harder. It could be that Steve just hated most of the work completed by his employees. More often than not… he would disrespect people in order to get them to work harder.

“[Jobs] would say, ‘This is a dumb idea. This stinks.’ … In the original Macintosh team, they gave an award to the person who each year stood up to Steve Jobs the best.”

6. The Differences Between Two Titans. The truth of the matter… is this… we would not be where we are today without both Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. Their philosophies on computers and technology were very different but the battle ended with respect on both sides. Bill Gates was a business man. Steve Jobs was an artist. Bill believed in an open system. Steve believed in the value of closed and integrated. In the end, both sides won… but the argument can be made that Steve won.

“One of the things, though, that Bill Gates felt about Steve Jobs correctly was that he was not a great technologist. He correctly said, ‘Steve Jobs doesn’t code.’ He doesn’t … he’s not an engineer. On the other hand, Jobs felt, also correctly, that Bill Gates did not have intuitive taste. He didn’t have a passion for the aesthetics or the design.”

7. Rivalry and Respect Breed Genius. There wasn’t a hatred between Jobs and Gates… there was a respect that built over time. They were interlinked and revolutionized the world.

“[Jobs and Gates are] the binary star systems of the digital age: two stars whose gravitational pull is so strong that their orbits are linked. To say that they loved each other would be wrong. To say that they hated or disliked each other would be wrong. It was one of those complex digital-age relationships where there is both a rivalry and a respect, and they realize how interrelated they are.

8. Believing In The Power of Knowledge. While I don’t particularly agree with Steve’s stance on God (I believe in God)… I do believe that there is truth in something that endures…. both wisdom and knowledge.

“[One afternoon we] were sitting in his backyard … and he was not in the best of health at the time. … He said, ‘You know, I’m kind of 50/50 on believing in God. But I want to believe that something endures, that your wisdom that you accumulate, that the knowledge that you have somehow is able to endure after you die.’

9. Just A Great Quote.  

‘Maybe that’s just wishful thinking. Maybe that’s just like an on-off switch.’ And he goes, ‘Click, you’re off. You’re gone. It’s over.’ And then he paused for a moment and he said, ‘Maybe that’s why I didn’t like to put on-off switches on Apple devices.’ ”

10. Protecting Innovation. Steve had a major problem with Google in the early days of the iPhone. Eric Schmidt had been a board member of Apple and Steve somewhat blamed him for stealing the idea of the iPhone OS. He was passionate about his products and would fight to the death to protect innovation.

“I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple’s $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong,” Jobs said. “I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product. I’m willing to go thermonuclear war on this.”

11. Innovation Instead of Money. 

”I don’t want your money. If you offer me $5 billion, I won’t want it. I’ve got plenty of money. I want you to stop using our ideas in Android, that’s all I want.”

12. Understanding The Complexity of Life. It was interesting that he repeated… as if to reassure himself that he actually learned something in life. I would assume that he had regrets… like all of us… and he did learn along the way.

“Yes,” Jobs answered. “I did learn some things along the way.” Then, a few minutes later, he repeated it, as if to reassure […] himself. “I did learn some things. I really did”

13. Believe in YOUR Approach. Steve always believed in his philosophy on business and product design. He never swayed from the idea that end-to-end integration of hardware and software was the ideal way to build a technology company. He was integrated with his passion and perfectionism… and showed it in the company he built.

His personality was reflected in the products he created. Just as the core of Apple’s philosophy, from the original Macintosh in 1984 to the iPad a generation later, was the end-to-end integration of hardware and software, so too was it the case with Steve Jobs: His passions, perfectionism, demons, desires, artistry, devilry, and obsession for control were integrally connected to his approach to business and the products that resulted.

14. Experience is Everything. Steve knew intuitively that the experience of a product or service was the key to making great products. Without great experience and design.. a product was crap.

“We do these things not because we are control freaks,” he explained. “We do them because we want to make great products, because we care about the user, and because we like to take responsibility for the entire experience rather than turn out the crap that other people make.”

15. Focusing for Success.

Jobs’s intensity was also evident in his ability to focus. He would set priorities, aim his laser attention on them, and filter out distractions.

16. Blunt Honesty Sometimes Serves a Purpose. Steve lived his life in blunt honesty and sometimes absolutely ridiculous tantrums. There is something to say about the nasty edge serving a purpose to pushing people into innovation. “He got them to do things they never dreamed possible.”

“The nasty edge to his personality was not necessary. It hindered him more than it helped him. But it did, at times, serve a purpose. Polite and velvety leaders, who take care to avoid bruising others, are generally not as effective at forcing change. Dozens of the colleagues whom Jobs most abused ended their litany of horror stories by saying that he got them to do things they never dreamed possible.”

17. Elicit Change Through Passion and Profit. Apple had lost huge amounts of money when Steve returned for his second run. Johnny Ive (the brilliant designer) recalled being inspired by Steve’s ability to explain the important of passion, great products, and profit.

“I remember very clearly Steve announcing that our goal is not just to make money but to make great products,” Ive recalled. “The decisions you make based on that philosophy are fundamentally different from the ones we had been making at Apple.”

18.Infusing Perfection and Purpose. Because of his passion for great products and the building of a great company, Steve Jobs infused within the Apple culture a need to drive perfection when building and design a product.

“Steve Jobs was able to infuse into Apple’s DNA the design sensibilities, perfectionism, and imagination that make Apple likely to be, even decades from now, the world’s most successful company at the intersection of artistry and high technology”.

19. Mastering Integration is Key. Steve never really invented a product. However, he did understand the purpose behind consumer thought, rationale, and need. Integration all three components within technology is what made Steve great.

The saga of Steve Jobs is the Silicon Valley creation myth writ large: launching a startup in his parents’ garage and building it into the world’s most valuable company. He didn’t invent many things outright, but he was a master at putting together ideas, art, and technology in ways that invented the future.”

20. Controlling Your Destiny. Steve understood that the majority of the time… he was right. He could influence markets, technology, and products because he understood that perfectionism and experience was key. He controlled the majority of the products… because he knew he was right… intuitively.

“Using an Apple product could be as sublime as walking in one of the Zen gardens in Kyoto that Jobs loved and neither experience was created by worshiping at the altar of openness or by letting a thousand flowers bloom. Sometimes it’s nice to be in the hands of a control freak.”

21. The Power of Intuition over Intellect. Steve had both. He had the power of intellect and intuition when building the future of technology. He understood that sometimes intuition is more powerful than intellect.

“The people in the Indian countryside don’t use their intellect like we do,” he said. “They use their intuition instead … Intuition is a very powerful thing, more powerful than intellect, in my opinion. That’s had a big impact on my work.”

22. Understanding and Being Yourself. Steve lived life the best way he knew how… as himself. The majority of the time he was arrogant and an asshole… but there is a sublime beauty in someones ability to always be who they are… and never changing.

“So, you’ve uncovered the fact that I’m an asshole. Why is that news?”

23. Honest Assessment. Usually Steve was an a-hole. He believe that A Players were usually people… when given an incentive… could revolutionize the way they work and build product. While I don’t agree with Steve’s philosophy of degradation.. I do believe that his ability to move people (emotionally).. worked.

“Everything you’ve done in your life is s—,” he told one prospective employee, “so why don’t you come and work for me?”

24. The Power of Persuasion. Steve empowered people with his reality distortion field. He believed that is you were working with A Players anything was possible. They usually pulled off feats of genius because they were filled with the passion of their boss.

“Don’t be afraid,” Jobs would say, gazing deep into his interlocutor’s eyes. “Yes, you can do it. Get your mind around it. You can do it.”

25. The Genius of Jobs. Steve was a genius. He had the ability to take ingenuity, intellect, perfection, and overwhelming purpose to create a company that revolutionized the way we lived life. Steve wasn’t just smart… he was a genius,.

“Was he (Jobs) smart? No, not exceptionally. Instead, he was a genius.”