Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making

by Tony Fadell

It’s something I was always telling my team at Apple whenever Steve Jobs went completely off the rails: “Yes, this idea is insane. But sanity will prevail! Even if Steve is wrong today, trust that he’ll get to the right answer sooner or later. We just need to find a better approach and make our case.” Prepare for some wind and some hail, but don’t worry about getting swept away: a mission-driven “asshole” might tear apart your work, but they won’t attack you personally. They won’t call you names or fire you for disagreeing with them. That’s the difference between a mission-driven “asshole” and a controlling one. Controlling assholes won’t listen. They’ll never admit they screwed up. Neither will political assholes. They’ll ignore obvious problems and deflect reasonable feedback, either because it’s not helpful politically or because their ego can’t take it. They don’t protect the product or the customer or the team. They protect themselves. And to be clear, Steve Jobs was not one of those assholes. Of course he crossed the line sometimes—he was human—but I didn’t condone it or excuse it and it wasn’t the norm. Steve was a mission-driven “asshole,” a passionate hurricane.