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Leading Apple with Steve Jobs: Management Lessons from a Controversial Genius

Jay Elliot

3.71 · Rating details · 126 ratings · 16 reviews

A former Senior VP of Apple shares how Steve Jobs motivated people to do the best work of their livesJay Elliot was hired personally by Steve Jobs, just in time to accompany him on the last of his historic visits to Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center, the visits that changed the course of computing. As Senior VP of Apple, Jay served as Steve's right-hand man and ...more

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Hardcover, 192 pages

Published September 25th 2012 by Wiley (first published August 23rd 2012)

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Dec 16, 2017 Softwaredeveloperlife rated it it was amazing

Shelves: human_aspect_in_economy

A more accurate version of Steve Jobs behind the products

"Leading Apple with Steve Jobs" gives us an inside look from a Former VP of Apple within the early stages of the company. At first, this book is not expected to give you the nook and crannies of Steve Jobs autobiography. In addition, some autobiographies written for Steve Jobs may not be the most accurate representation of the events if it was not written under the guidance of Steve Jobs himself. In contrast, the autobiography of Elon Musk A more accurate version of Steve Jobs behind the products

"Leading Apple with Steve Jobs" gives us an inside look from a Former VP of Apple within the early stages of the company. At first, this book is not expected to give you the nook and crannies of Steve Jobs autobiography. In addition, some autobiographies written for Steve Jobs may not be the most accurate representation of the events if it was not written under the guidance of Steve Jobs himself. In contrast, the autobiography of Elon Musk was written by Ashlee Vance under the guidance of Elon Musk. Regardless, the autobiography of Elon Musk was a choke full of details that a young reader version was released after that so even a five-year-old was able to read it. Think this book as providing the main highlights of Apple under Steve Jobs supervision in the most accurate representable way. This book goes side by side with the book I read this year "Becoming Facebook" by Michael Hoefflinger, which gives also a more accurate view how Facebook operates contrary to how the press spins original events around.

In the same year Steve Jobs passed away, my last business class assignment was to write a Strategic Analysis of Apple Inc. I knew already a lot of tidbits of Apple History, the Apple computer I used at my elementary school, as well the Apple devices I tried out later in my life. At this time of writing this book review, after six years Steve Jobs passed away, it seems we are not stuck on the same page and we were able to turn to the next page. There is Elon Musk that innovates in the transportation sector and almost all big companies have captured the sweet spot on bringing the best user interface within their services. Amazon and Google are creating the voice interface of the future with Amazon Alexa and Google Home respectively while Samsung is selling phones that are almost the same price of an iPhone. All companies learned their lessons and missed opportunities from Apple, a company that now holds 200 billion dollars as a cash reserve.

Steve Jobs vision of "It's more fun to be a pirate than to join the navy." never took hold worldwide until the times he passed away. After the 2008 economic crisis showed that there was nothing safe to invest to make money, the startup mentality skyrocketed. We take it for granted today, but nobody realizes still that Apple was one of the most prominent companies at that time that tried to think differently from the rest. In addition, more companies that exist today are more product based as they are run under a subscription model. In the past, the low level of competition made it easy for companies to sell products with high-profit margins (think IBM and Coca-Cola). As the rise of entrepreneurship surged over the years, it was more challenging to thrive in this ecosystem, requiring companies to shift their mindset on being more agile and nimble to new circumstances. Most of the part of this book describes how Steve Jobs was challenged to embrace the culture "Pirates! Not the Navy" under the early days in his Macintosh division and when he came back to Apple as interim CEO twelve years later after he was fired.

The other half part of the book discusses how Steve Jobs was able to bring the right people that could innovate by their own two feet while being committed to the vision of the company. If you look at Steve interviews or Steve presentations of rolling up a new product, it is hard to not give credit of his passion of the products he invented and genuinely loves by doing whatever it takes to convince others that it will make their life easier. The book describes in detail the different ways he was able to persuade different people to join his company by sharing his vision. I have to say, vision is so important, many companies forget it so much these days, it is one of the main reasons people feel lost in direction of what they are doing, leaving the company having a high turn over rate. The book describes also the different tactics Steve tried to find whether employees were committed to the company. If people did not take blame for their mistakes or were not excited after a brief discussion about the vision or did not show their commitment to the company with their actions (i.e. Bringing a Dell computer in an interview), they were immediately disqualified as potential candidates that could contribute to the innovative efforts of the company. Even after being aboard as a member of the team, Steve was very picky and strict on how the end product should be delivered to his staff. He would insult anybody and just by the looks from today's standards, he would have been placed in the hall of shame (In the book Feedback Revolution by Peter McLaughlin, it places steve jobs as the "bad" role model on providing feedback to others). Yes, it is true, that Steve Jobs gave feedback in a way that could felt abusive if taken in the wrong context. The truth about Steve is that he really cared about the product so much that it almost looked like his survival depended on it, almost like being an obsession. As Jay Eliot mentions in the book, although he looked strong outside, deep inside he could sob privately from the most of his frustrations. Instead of being Van Gogh where he felt his ideas were ones that would be rejected by the world, Steve wanted them to embrace them to the world while he lived as if his last day was tomorrow. That is the thing about being a Controversial figure: You become a lunatic if what you are obsessed does not add value to our world, but a genius if it adds value to our world. He was controversial for throwing people jumping from a naval ship to a pirate ship, but little did they know at that time that the navy was sinking already and the pirates already found new treasures to explore.

Other than the content of the book, it is very well organized and easy to read. It also tries extensively to compare Apple with other companies at that time, such as IBM and Sony.

In today's world, we have different problems than the ones that we have from the past and they may not all be solved in a Steve Jobs way. If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. However, it definitely gives us a template of how to embrace our passion so we can address by our own context the problems that we are facing today. ...more

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Aug 27, 2017 Justsuzi rated it really liked it

Very easy read. Some good management lessons to pick up.

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Jun 03, 2017 Heather rated it it was ok

While there are some good insights into the Apple culture and history, the narrative came across a defense of Steve Jobs. Elliot's loyalty and admiration of his late boss is clear and the focus and tone of this book is more of a counterpoint to Isaacson's biography in his attempt to "set the record straight". Not a bad read, but not the leadership text expected.

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Oct 09, 2014 Igpond.comdes Stephens rated it it was amazing

Margaret Mead once said "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has". Apple and its group of pirates led by Steve Jobs did change the world.
Jay Elliot was Senior Vice President of Apple. He believes it was the most successful company in the history of business. Even if you don't believe this there is much to be learned from this book.
Starting with vision Elliot details the strength and depth of Job's vision ...more

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Mar 16, 2013 Matt Heavner rated it liked it

This is a good look at leadership and "philosophy of life" through a lens of a close co-worker/friend of Steve Jobs. In some ways it is a "rebuttal" to Walter Isaacson's biography. ("Steve wasn't that mean.. Well, he could be abrasive.. That's not quite how the meeting went.. etc") In some ways I found it an interesting study in "perspective/memory" -- I wonder how much of Isaacson's point of view was "straight from Steve, filtered by time/memory" (or how much of Elliot's was). An interesting ...more

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Jul 18, 2013 Deepak Doddamani rated it liked it

every startup entrepreneurs should read this book by Jay as it gives a good insight of PRODUCT LEADERSHIP of Steve Jobs and his passion to create user friendly products. Concept of pirate organization based on true spirits of entrepreneurship and innovation has been explained in great detail by Jay. He has also outlined how Apple was different in its approach towards the business than the other Navy type traditional organization.

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Jun 25, 2016 Brielle rated it liked it

This is a different type of book than I normally read but I still enjoyed it. Its core message was motivation and inspiration. It had some great lessons for entrepreneurs but some of it was flat and unengaging. I also learned more about the Apple story and their history as a company. I also learned more about who Steve Jobs was as a person and leader. I took away some lessons and great quotes but I won't read it again.

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May 11, 2015 Dave Castillo rated it liked it

Great story about a true partnership. Jay Elliot does a good job walking the reader through the collaborative relationship he and Steve had. The book is a quick and easy read. Jay gives great examples of true applications to Steve's values and leadership principals that allows the reader to relate.

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Jan 13, 2017 Kirke Narusk rated it liked it

Song of praise to Steve Jobs and apple, basically not a single negative word about Steve or Apple. Practical and useful tips and suggestions how to be Steve-like leader or start-up entrepreneur. In my opinion a bit superficial and written with rush. I did not like that the author glorified Steve and himself at every step, it was narcissist.

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