The final book on the list, which means it is also the final blog post for this class.
Initially I was not looking forward to this book, the entire thing was in black and white and was completely unappealing, it was large and bulky and made me dread reading it. However the material in the book was a lot more interesting than I had predicted.
Steve Jobs is famous in the computer industry for starting Apple, a company that recently surpassed Microsoft in number of computers being used by customers with their operating systems. Also the creator of the famous Ipod, Ipad, and Iphone, Steve Jobs is pretty much a household name. Less people know about Steve Jobs and his role in creating Pixar, and it seems likely that very few people know about how unique Steve Job's was and how it led him to be as successful as he was.
Steve Jobs had a unique personality in many ways, one was that he had little or no control over his emotions, he could be furious one second, overjoyed the next, and then suddenly be crying his eyes out, all in the course of a few minutes. He was verbally abusive to everyone he met, and would arbitrarily call someone's work worthless without even knowing what it was. Then he would be told what it was, and a week or two later come back to that person with their own idea and present it as his own if he liked it.
Steve Jobs was also a supreme perfectionist, everything about all of Apple's products had to be exactly as Steve imagined them, both internally and externally. This, combined with his aggressive personality and sharp tounge, caused a lot of problems over time and drove off many employees. It also made Apple's products a cut above everything else.
In all regards Steve was pretty much a jerk with OCD, but the interesting thing is, people followed him. He would abuse them, put them down, cause them endless grief with his antics, and they would still follow him loyally. Several of them described Steve's charisma as a "reality distortion field" that you were subjected to and couldn't help falling in line with. I found this phenomenon quite intriguing, my personality has some similarities to Steve's, similarities that I've tried to get rid of for obvious reasons. I have a temper that I have tried to reel in, and I'm rather bad at concealing my emotions. I have mood swings like Steve, albeit they are a bit less frequent than his are. So why does he have a reality distortion field and I just made a lot of enemies? What aspect of his personality is so different from mine so as to create such a different result? Perfectionism? Aggressiveness? This is something I am puzzled about and am unable to find an answer too. I feel like I would have to meet Steve Jobs and experience his charisma first-hand in order to truly understand how it works. Unfortunately if I ever meet Steve Jobs I don't think it'll matter that much to me anymore, I'll have much bigger problems to deal with.
Before I go any further, I'd like to point out that when I use the word charisma I am not using it incorrectly. Charisma is generally thought of as the ability to make people like you and follow you because they like you. Though this is generally what it entails, it is technically incorrect, charisma is only the ability to make people follow you, regardless of their opinion of you. It is in this sense that I use the word in reference to Steve Jobs.
Quirks of his personality and my inability to see how they work aside, the result of his personality is something to marvel at. The teams formed and managed by Steve Jobs are all made up of the cream of the crop employees. These are creative, skilled, passionate, and hard-working people who are confident in their abilities and can stand up for themselves. To work with Steve Jobs they had to be, anyone who was not all of these things wound up quitting or being fired from Apple. His practice of abusing his employees weeded out all of the B-list workers, leaving him with a team of A grade employees who were just as passionate about their work as he was. It's amazing that it worked, and the result is incredible as well. To top it all off, there is practically nobody else who can pull this feat off in their companies, making Steve Jobs and his teams unique. What I wonder about this is what will happen to Apple now that Steve Jobs isn't there to help it along. Historically when Steve Jobs was not in control of the company they performed poorly, so poorly in fact that they practically begged him to come back after being the ones to kick him out of the company in the first place.
Unfortunately I have run out of things to talk about now, I had hoped to make my last blog post the greatest of them all, but the well of ideas ran dry early and I have nothing left to say. So now I am going to end things here while I'm on a high note. For the final time, farewell, and be sure to read frequently, it's better for you than watching TV.
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