Guy Kawasaki: At Apple, Steve Jobs divided people into 2 groups

I’ve had a long and exciting journey — full of failures and successes — since I first started working at Apple in 1983. I was part of the original Macintosh team and had two stints at the company (one from 1983 to 1987, and then from 1995 to 1997).

Ask people who worked at Apple when Steve Jobs was around, and they’ll very bluntly tell you it wasn’t easy. There were days where he was impressed by my work, and there were days when I was certain he would fire me. But it was always exciting because we were on a mission to prevent totalitarianism. (You can read more about my adventures in my new book, “Wise Guy: Lessons from a Life. ”)

I wouldn’t trade working for him for any job I’ve ever had — and I don’t know anyone in the Macintosh Division who would, either. My job as a software evangelist in the Macintosh Division defined my career.

Here are the top 11 life-changing lessons that I learned at Apple: 1. Only excellence matters

Jobs elevated women to positions of power long before it was cool or socially responsible to do so. He didn’t care about gender, sexual orientation, race, creed or color. He divided the world into two groups: “Insanely great people” and “crappy people.” It was that simple. 2. Customers can’t tell you what they need

In the early 1980s, Apple was selling Apple IIs. If you asked customers what they wanted, they would say a bigger, faster and cheaper Apple II. No one would have asked for a Mac. 3. Innovation happens on the next curve

Macintosh was the next curve in personal computing. It wasn’t merely an improvement to the Apple II or MS‑DOS curve. Innovation isn’t making a slightly better status quo. It’s about jumping to the next curve. 4. Design counts

It may not count for everyone, but design counts for many people. Jobs was obsessed with great design. He drove us nuts with his attention to detail, but that is what made Apple successful. 5. Less is more

One of the key tenets of Jobs’ obsession with design was the belief that less is more. He was the minimalist’s minimalist. You can even see this in his slides: They had dark blue or black backgrounds with 90 to 190 point text and no more than a handful of words. 6. Big challenges beget big accomplishments

The goal of the Macintosh Division was preventing totalitarianism and worldwide domination by IBM. Merely shipping yet another computer was never the goal. 7. Changing your mind is a sign of intelligence

When Jobs announced the iPhone, it was a closed programming system to ensure that it was safe and reliable. A year later, he opened it up to third-party apps, and iPhone sales skyrocketed. This was a 180 degree reversal and a sign of intelligence and courage.

Jobs treated engineers like artists. They weren’t cogs in a machine whose output was measured in lines of code. Macintosh was an artistic expression by engineers whose palette was software and hardware design. 9. Price and value are not the same thing

No one ever bought a Macintosh based on price. Its true value became evident only when you factored in the lower requirements for support and training. Jobs didn’t fight on price, but he won on value. 10. But value isn’t enough

Many products are valuable, but if your product isn’t also unique or differentiated in some way, you have to compete on price. You can succeed this way — as Dell did, for example. But if you truly want to “dent the universe,” your product needs to be both unique and valuable. 11. Some things need to be believed to be seen

Innovators ignore naysayers to get the job done. The “experts” told Jobs he was wrong many times — for example, Macintosh, iPod, iPhone and Apple retail stores. It’s not that Jobs was always right, but sometimes, you need to believe in something in order to see it.

I hope that everyone has at least one chance to work for someone as brilliant as Steve Jobs. It won’t be easy, but what doesn’t end your career makes it stronger.

Guy Kawasaki is the chief evangelist of Canva. Previously, Kawasaki was chief evangelist of Apple. He has written fifteen books, including ”The Art of the Start, ” ”Selling the Dream ” and his latest, ”Wise Guy: Lessons from a Life. ” Follow him on Twitter .

*This is an adapted excerpt from ”Wise Guy: Lessons from a Life, ” by Guy Kawasaki, and with permission of Portfolio, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.

That’s nice ... but when stated as an absolute, as the author does, it’s sheer nonsense. In many lines of engineering work, the customer knows perfectly well what he’s trying to do ... the trick sometimes is to get him to state it clearly.

In general, you are correct when one is selling to specific, to order engineering. It does not apply when one is creating newly conceptualized products the public is not currently using or buying. If the customer has no idea he or she or it (a company) could benefit from some new product, it is usually impossible for them to specify what that non-existent product will do for them or even what it should provide.

One prime example of this is the personal computer itself. It is indeed remarkable that no science fiction writer of the past, people who are skilled at looking toward future technology and prognosticating future gadgets, ever predicted the ubiquitous promulgation of personal computing. Not one. Some came close to an Internet like central computer that provides accurate, moderated information from a central mainframe, but nothing at all like the universal tool the internet has actually developed into. People had no idea they would need the internet until they needed it. They could not have described it as a need or even a want.

I’m a graphic designer that works mostly with editors and sometimes clients. I’ll admit that maybe I’m not the best guy for sussing out requirements. But it surprises me how many want to have [Nike’s] success and think it’s all in cool logos and slick marketing. They point to the success of others and say, “I want what they have. Make that for me.”

A lot of people are long on feeling and desire and that’s what they express when they “want” or “need” something. It’s easy to to please someone who really does know what they need/require and they recognize that you are the person who can get them where they want to go if “you do/supply these things.”

They see their goal, know what they lack in achieving it, and know that you’re the person to meet the need by doing x, y, and z. Get that done and everybody walks away a winner. They’re not as common as they should be.

Very cogent, fact filled argument you have there to counter my REAL facts which I posted to counter your lie. Just posting "BS" without posting any proof shows you have ZERO facts to post and really are at a loss for evidence to support your position. I CAN back my claims with evidence and links for everything I posted. You can’t.

Here are some of your so-called "slaves" queuing in the rain just to
apply for Apple iPhone assembly line jobs at Foxconn. Most already
have assembly line jobs at Foxconn but are seeking the better pay and
working conditions Apple assembly jobs offer.

When openings four 200 more jobs became available, over 8000 job applicants lined up to get hired. That is not the sign of a slave labor market.

Incidentally, my degree is in Economics. I know what I’m talking about. You obviously don’t have a clue.

I don’t need a cogent argument to counter your celebration of an evil company. One which gleefully spies on you and seditiously betrays the Republic. I’ll let you glow in your wondrous ‘intellect’ and embrace the prodigious fantasy of Apple and all its grandeur. Just be smug with that—which I’m sure you are. . .

. . . And no, I never bothered to read your first ‘thesis’.

My MBA trumps your economics. And why should I be impressed with that? Even Always On Crack (AOC)claims this.

Absolutely amazing. You gloat about your know nothing attitude and then demonstrate yet again how factually challenged you are. Apparently actual facts don’t mean a damn thing to your hermetically SEALED, CLOSED, and deliberately IGNORANT MIND. Just like a Social Justice Warrior, you believe everything propagandists have poured into your head. He who refuses to learn facts isn’t just ignorant; he is stupid.

You are the AOC on this thread, that makes you AOCHilltopper. Are you certain you don’t belong in the DU website instead of FR?

Let me try once again using a pick axe on this brick wall of ignorance you’ve swallowed once again.

"One which gleefully spies on you and seditiously betrays the Republic."

WOW! Exactly what is your evidence that Apple spies on its customers. Be specific.

Your absolutely astounding, abysmal IGNORANCE and, frankly, lack of any factual evidence for any of that sentence is blinding to, and quite ironic, considering your invocation of Xandy Occasional-Cortex in a misdirected ad hominem attack on me.

Are you sure you are not mistaking Apple for Google/Alphabet in the gleeful spying department since Apple does not treat their customers like product as Google does? As for "betraying the Republic", If you’re still stuck on the San Bernardino Terrorist iPhone case, then YOU don’t know the facts or the law involved. . . such as:

(1) Apple complied with every legal search warrant for data in their control presented to them including every iota of data in Syed Farouk’s iCloud account;

(2) As soon as Apple learned that an iPhone had been recovered as evidence in the terrorist attack, Apple, even without a search warrant, volunteered its assistance in unlocking the iPhone 5C issued by the San Bernardino County Department of Heath to Syed Farouk. That assistance was roundly rejected by the FBI authorities and local police authorities who preferred to let the IT department at San Bernardino Department of Health, along with FBI agents, attempt to unlock it instead. Those "experts" succeeded in changing the AppleID associated with Syed Farouk’s account and that iPhone which made Apple’s ability to directly unlock that specific iPhone 5C impossible;

(3)The FBI then went to a Federal Magistrate Judge to get an All Writs Court Order (completely different from a search warrant the ignorant press characterized it as) to require Apple to actually write a version of iOS, which some referred to as FBiOS, that would bypass all security lockouts and encryption on iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches and hand it over to the FBI. This was, as the US Supreme Court has ruled in prior cases, an impermissible use of the All Writs Order in that the courts cannot order anyone to provide a service which is not something they do not provide in their ordinary course of business, nor can the courts order a business to do something, benefiting the court or public, that would damage the business or its reputation. The All Writs Order as issued by the Federal Magistrate required Apple to provide to the FBI a custom designed operating system, something Apple does not provide to anyone in the ordinary course of its business of selling computer and cellular phone hardware, and writing and promulgating an insecure OS designed to break Apple’s signature and advertised garrantee of customer security;

(4) In addition, the courts and the Department of Justice were precluded by the CALEA Federal Law, passed in 1995, from demanding from a telecommunications manufacturer the modification of any communication equipment or software which is designed to protect encryption or user security. Apple is just such a telecommunication manufacturer which falls under the CALEA Law;

(5) Ergo, the All Writs Court Order to force Apple to hand over to the FBI a universal iPhone unlocking key, was on its face an illegal order, violating existing Federal Law, and the Constitution. . . which was validated by no less than two appellate circuits.

Inventors/mangers/investors start with a vision of what the customer WOULD WANT or WOULD NEED. I-Pod for instance was based on a want. Who would not want their entire music collection in the palm of their hands? An inventor who does not create based on a want or need will become poor very quickly.

How many world wide industry changing consumer products have YOU invented much less brought to market, Rollo? What makes you an expert on such products that the consuming public had not yet perceived they even had a want for, much less such a great desire for that would cause the public to spend billions of hard earned dollars to buy? My guess is exactly ZERO.

You’re right that Steve Jobs has some failures, but how about you actually naming Jobs’ "failures" which he actually brought to market. . . you can’t even properly spell the name of one of his most successful products lines, but deign to criticize one of his statements that made him a success.

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