
Steve Jobs Understands Team Building - sant0sk1
http://taosecurity.blogspot.com/2010/12/steve-jobs-understands-team-building.html
======
matwood
It's amazing how many successful business types like SJ or PG recognize that
people are the most important thing, and still the majority of high level
managers view people as completely interchangeable cogs.

~~~
rhizome
_still the majority of high level managers view people as completely
interchangeable cogs._

I'd say it's more common to make people _feel_ like cogs.

~~~
geidden
I always cringe when I hear the word "resource" instead of "team member."

------
Bud
This is what made interviewing at Apple so exciting recently. I didn't get
this particular job (and plan to apply again), but the adrenaline rush from
realizing that all the folks interviewing me were extremely bright, talented,
motivated, and into their jobs was instantly addictive. It's very easy to
understand why Apple works and how it keeps its people motivated.

~~~
dtby
Nothing personal, but you are highly confused about the real world. You will
not be employee #10 at Apple and they will not value contributions as wanting
to make a difference.

It's nice to think they will, but I so long as I have direct line to someone
who thinks it's "different," I feel the need to tell you it's not.

~~~
Bud
I've held about 10 jobs in Silicon Valley. I can tell you, the environment at
Apple was rather different, and my friends who work there paint a picture of
their employment there that is indeed quite different from many other stories
I've heard, and jobs I've held.

~~~
trotsky
Is it the fear, the secrecy or the interrogations that stand out the most?

[http://www.geek.com/articles/apple/steve-wozniak-spills-
the-...](http://www.geek.com/articles/apple/steve-wozniak-spills-the-beans-on-
apples-fear-culture-20100426/)

~~~
Bud
Your comments are extremely unimpressive.

Comparing Apple to the Gestapo because they have a legit business need to keep
new products secret until they are released?

Do you even know what the Gestapo was?

Are you even serious, posting this? Ludicrous.

~~~
trotsky
Gestapo? I take it you think I authored the Gizmodo features that I linked to?

------
premake
Related John Sculley interview on Jobs from October. It's a lengthy read but
incredibly insightful for fans of Apple and great minds in general:

[http://www.cultofmac.com/john-sculley-on-steve-jobs-the-
full...](http://www.cultofmac.com/john-sculley-on-steve-jobs-the-full-
interview-transcript/63295)

------
hop
Really wish Steve could expand beyond the soundbyte and go deeper into how
they hire, manage, do product dev, etc. Very much looking forward to the
biography he is supposedly working with Walter Isaacson on.

~~~
alabut
The obstacle is that it'd probably reveal too much about Apple's secret sauce,
or at least there's a perception that it would.

People usually cite all kinds of general reasons why Apple is thriving -
product design, emotional marketing, vertical integration - while ignoring the
unsexy foundation that makes all of that possible: hiring the best people and
setting them up in highly interdisciplinary teams. And any edge there is going
to be kept under wraps, especially since competitors like Google are doing it
wrong - I've heard of how siloed the designers are there, just like at Yahoo
or Microsoft. That's the real reason Google's products look flat and
overengineered - their designers hop from team to team like little bees,
they're not a core part of the culture.

------
panacea
Most people who read this article will self-identify as an 'A+ player'.

~~~
erikpukinskis
I definitely consider myself somewhere in the B range, but with the potential
to be an A player. Today I'm A only in some respects.

~~~
kenjackson
Most A+ players probably self-identify as B rangers. :-)

------
jfb
It is largely true that the quality of the people (from HR to security to
engineering to the trainers at the gym) that I dealt with at Apple were
excellent, but one seldom noted problem is that in an intensely competitive
environment, there is little more demotivating than running into a jobsworth,
particularly one that you have to work around to get things done. It can
really derail the train.

~~~
alexqgb
I had to look up 'jobsworth'. Glad I did. It's an excellent word.

------
hubb
reading this quote:

"When you're in a startup, the first ten people will determine whether the
company succeeds or not. "

gave me some immediate deja vu. pg quoted jobs jobs in 'how to make wealth',
one of the better essays that made it into his book.

"Steve Jobs once said that the success or failure of a startup depends on the
first ten employees. I agree. If anything, it's more like the first five"

~~~
chrisaycock
Jim Collins (a "management guru" if you're up for that kind of thing) says in
_Good to Great_ :

> Leaders of companies that go from good to great start not with “where” but
> with “who.” They start by getting the right people on the bus, the wrong
> people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats. And they stick
> with that discipline---first the people, then the direction---no matter how
> dire the circumstances.

He repeats the "first who, then what" numerous times as the only way to turn-
around a struggling company.

------
far33d
Ed Catmull always says that his approach to hiring was to find someone smarter
than himself and that meant he was the dumbest person left @ Pixar.

------
Stormbringer
I talked at one stage about starting a business with another IT guy. He had
many fine attributes, such as being fiercely adamant that if any manager ever
described a person as an asset or a resource, that they would get sacked.

People deserve respect, not to be objectified by describing them using the
same language as things that are bought and sold and casually discarded.

