
Ask HN: What was Steve Job's core competency? - FahadUddin92
When we find co-founders, we look for what they can bring to the table. What was Steve Job&#x27;s core competency?
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jppope
Sales. Steve Jobs was a sales guy. Apple's first order was from The Byte Shop
for 50 units, he convinced The Byte Shop to buy, before even having the funds
to build 50 units. So he went and convinced Cramer Electronics to allow him to
purchase on credit everything that they would need to fulfill the order.

Per your question. You NEED two core competencies to build a company: sales
and the ability to fulfill what it is you're selling (product/services). Being
strong in selling and building products (or providing services) tend to be
separate skill sets, so often two-person teams form due to this concept (like
the 2 Steve's). It is important to note that having a sales skill set does not
negate the need for technical competency anymore than engineers can ignore
building products that align with the business- it's about efficiency.

I will end by saying... you don't need co-founders. Solo Founders are
responsible for more than half of the exits.
([https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/26/co-founders-
optional/](https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/26/co-founders-optional/)) There are
advantages to having a cofounder(s) and the same can be said of going it
alone.

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blihp
To expand on your point: he also fulfilled the second core competency
(building the thing to sell) via sales. His ability to sell those around him
on a vision / mission / whatever was amazing. This was demonstrated in the
early years with Woz and blue boxes, the contract with Atari for Breakout, his
first stint at Apple, the NeXT/Pixar years, and his return to Apple. He was
able to get some otherwise very smart people around him to do a lot of amazing
work (often to the detriment of their own economic/mental/physical health) Not
saying I'm a fan of him for this, just that it happened and it was a
significant factor in his success.

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johnchristopher
The reality distortion field, of course.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality_distortion_field](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality_distortion_field)

> Reality distortion field is a term first used by Bud Tribble at Apple
> Computer in 1981, to describe company co-founder Steve Jobs's charisma and
> its effects on the developers working on the Macintosh project.[1] Tribble
> said that the term came from Star Trek,[1] where in the Menagerie episode,
> it was used to describe how the aliens created their own new world through
> mental force. In chapter three of Steve Jobs, biographer Walter Isaacson
> states that around 1972, while Jobs was attending Reed College, Robert
> Friedland "taught Steve the reality distortion field."

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DoreenMichele
What could be called _a visionary._

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newscracker
I don’t think there was just one, because what anyone contributes is a
combination of a few abilities and efforts.

Steve Jobs has himself repeated several times during his career that it’s the
intersection (or marriage) of technology and liberal arts and humanities that
makes Apple’s products great.

The first core competency was this vision — _combining liberal arts and
humanities with technology_ — explains the what, why and how of Apple’s most
liked products.

The second core competency he had was a _deep attention to detail_ , though it
can be argued that there were several bad products/issues and releases despite
that.

The third core competency was _communication and presentation_. Here too, one
can read about the effort and attention to detail that goes into preparing for
keynotes and product announcement events.

To sum it all up, these enabled him to make technology seem like magic but yet
relatable and useful in enriching people’s lives — whoever they were and
whatever their profession. One example of how broad this has been treated is
the emphasis on accessibility in Apple’s devices and software (compared to
competitors). It wasn’t about the size of the market or market share alone.

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Havoc
Not sure I'd call it a competency, but I'd say a significant edge was a
willingness build something & essentially create the demand. Bit like the Ford
quote:

>“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”

On competency - probably some mix between UX & industrial design?

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quietbritishjim
I'm not disagreeing with your overall point, but ironically Apple mostly did
build faster horses (at least in the iStuff generation). They didn't really
build anything revolutionary, but the things they did build were significanly
slicker and more useful than the (similar) products that existed at the time.

~~~
davnicwil
Apple saw that the horse was useful and then built the saddle. Not faster
horses.

Once people had ridden a horse with a saddle, they didn't want to go back, and
were willing to pay a lot more for having that saddle there regardless of if
the horse underneath was the same, or even faster.

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southerndrift
Timing. Compare General Magic [1] to the iPhone. Half the company came from
Apple, they were almost there but they didn't have the patience to wait until
technology was ready for prime time.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Magic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Magic)

~~~
rasz
No, their vision for a product was just bad, it was clippy on a phone.

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niksmac
I'd say Vision. Steve is the great visionary of the future. He was able to see
the future in his mind to build amazing products that the future wants, not
something world needed today to run.

I'm always excited by the stories about the detail and time he spend on
designing impeccable user experience.

~~~
maxxxxx
I don't think he was that much of a visionary but he was very good at seeing
potential in others' work and then being able to sell it.

~~~
niksmac
Lol, I'd call stat statement a perspective as I have mine.

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smt88
I'd call it luck. The answer would be pretty controversial.

I strongly recommend you find a better rolemodel for cofounders, though.
What's the point of starting a company if your partner makes you miserable by
being an asshole all the time?

~~~
FahadUddin92
Steve is not my role model. I am more of Woz fan.

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mindgam3
Jobs was a true tech visionary, the kind they don’t make anymore. Not to
undercut the arguments about sales, but his ability to sell came not from
charisma alone but from a crystal clear and compelling vision of how
technology could work for humans.

Think of his line from circa 1980, “the computer is the bicycle of the mind.”
This is a profound and easy to grasp vision for computing. Everything came
from that vision. The products, the sales, the most valuable company in the
world. It’s all about how technology can empower people.

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uvcutman
Vision. He has just done what should be done in the future.

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mcphage
\- He knew what should be, and how it should work and look

\- He knew how to find people who could create what he wanted

\- He knew how to get them to create it according to his vision

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oktavist
He was an extraordinary editor. With a creative and talented technical team
bubbling up myriad product/software concepts and features, he was able to
dictate a highly focused direction based on great instinct, and then sell the
hell out of it that focused vision both inside and outside. It's remarkable
how few products Apple makes to this day.

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mel_llaguno
His ability to find the people who shared his vision (regardless of their
educational backgrounds) and motivate them to do the best work of their lives.
This was his superpower and the basis of his reality distortion field.

Got this from reading Isaacson's biography (which BTW showed what an asshole
he could be).

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sebringj
Create a tech movement around a personality and brand and continually amaze by
delivering breakthrough products by any means necessary.

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sasidharm
Product Management and Marketing

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zubairq
Everyone seems to think of Steve as a martketing only guy, but he was actually
an amazing techie too

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utopcell
I very much doubt that

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maxxxxx
He certainly understood tech enough to have good judgement. What I have seen
in companies I worked that was that a lot of executives can be bullshitted a
lot because they don't bother understanding the tech. Jobs was at least
technical enough to not fall into this trap.

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zubairq
Yes, he understood very well, I agree. I got downvoted alot on this thread as
many people don't seem to want to believe that Steve Jobs was also a techie.
They should check out Walter Isaacsons biography if they doubt it. Just
because he is the best at marketing didn't mean that he couldn't be a good
techie. But it is ok, techies always think in binary terms

~~~
maxxxxx
From what I have read he never was a big contributor though but his main
strength was to look at other people's work and recognize good things.

~~~
FahadUddin92
I dont think he was a very good techie. I don't believe the biography because
it was written by choice of Steve Jobs.

