
Steve Jobs, BMW & eBay - razaz
http://blog.adamnash.com/2011/10/10/steve-jobs-bmw-ebay/
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kapilash
> Apple so easily could have gone the way of SGI, the way of Sun. Instead, it
> literally shapes the future of the industry. All because in 1997 Steve was
> able to offer a simple and compelling reason for Apple to exist. A purpose.
> And it’s a purpose that managed to aggregate some of the most talented
> people in the world to do some of their best work. Again and again.

Isn't it survivorship bias?

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dschobel
Interesting anecdote; I wonder if there is any software which people "lust
after" or if that's something reserved for physical products.

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randomdata
I would say that much of the lust for Apple is because of their software. If
the Mac, iPhone, iPad, etc. ran Linux or Windows or some other commodity
system, I feel the hardware would have much less appeal.

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ryanglasgow
I don't see how eBay is a fair comparison because its competitive advantage is
its strong network effect and established ratings/community. Imagine if
management was satisfied with only 2% market share..

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lancewiggs
I agree there is a network effect to get critical mass, and certainly a
winner-take all game in auctions. But eBay lost its essence a long time ago as
they absorbed too many MBAs and let them rather than the technologists run the
show. The description in the OP of the process eBay went through was enough to
know the reinvention would be a failure. It was.

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ryanglasgow
_"I told them about Steve’s speech to the Rhapsody team, and asked: 'Does eBay
want BMW market share, or Toyota market share?' At the time, eBay was more
than 20% of all e-commerce, and all plans oriented towards growing that market
share."_

Where does MBA's versus engineers ever come up? Jobs' speech is about creating
a competitive advantage by building a premium product and focusing on a
specific user - something eBay doesn't have the freedom to do.

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lancewiggs
It doesn't - but the comparison is about quality of the product versus market
share and money. The MBAs put the 2nd first, the engineers the first.

During the 2000s eBay increasingly focussed their business on the largest
sellers, helping push the site from a many to many business to a more
traditional fixed price eCommerce business. Along the way they forgot about
the awesomeness of their tiny auction customers who liked the fun of both
placing auctions and buying goods, and as a result the site 'lost it' for
many. The right customer for eBay was not the big merchants but the masses.

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ConceitedCode
Having a market share as large as Toyota's doesn't mean that you can't make
great products. Who says they have to be related? It seems to happen in
practice, but I can't figure out any good reasons.

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adamnash
Apple seems to have proved your point, but they seem exceptional in that
respect. Typical reasons are that the broader you make the audience, the more
you have to dial down exceptional features for cost, scale and broad appeal.

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gbhn
One of the key things I feel like I learn from Steve Jobs is that while he may
have been niche-focused at one time, he seems to me to have either intuited,
or rapidly learned, that actually there's a very broad audience that values
high-quality products. It's easy to forget that the "cheaper is better"
pessimistic view of consumers is very strong, and that can become very cynical
in a product company.

Deciding to trust the good judgment of your customers and put faith in your
ability to appeal to their sense of value, rather than simply their cost-
watching ability, is a brave and bold move. I think it is awesome that it
turns out to pay off.

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sethg
His genius move was turning Apple’s engineering talent to making sub-$1000
products _that were not personal computers_ and therefore _had profit margins
comparable to the Mac’s_.

PC manufacturers went with the strategy of “we used to be able to sell a
machine with these features for $1000, and now that components are cheaper, we
can sell it for $800”... and then they got into a price war that destroyed one
another’s margins.

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thewisedude
I dont see why a great product cant have a great market share which seems to
be an implication. Google search was one example. I am sure there have been
other examples.

I am sure there are many lessons to be learnt from Steve Jobs, but I think we
should be careful in not making everything he said or did as a lesson to
learn!

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bignoggins
This is quite different from the "Fuck Michael Dell" story posted by Gruber.
Did Jobs in fact never say that?

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ptmx
They were two separate meetings. From the article:

" ... I actually did attend the meeting that John describes in his blog post.
However, as a full time engineer on WebObjects, I also had the opportunity to
attend a different all hands that Steve Jobs called ... "

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pkamb
Strange that he picked BMW for his example. He seems to be more of a Mercedes
guy.

~~~
tkaemming
Steve actually drove a Mercedes SL55 AMG:
[http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/money_co/2011/10/steve-
jobs-...](http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/money_co/2011/10/steve-jobs-
mercedes-benz-license-plates.html)

~~~
delinka
The article mentions that he drove with no license plate. But I always
wondered if he possessed the plate and never attached it, keeping it inside
the car just in case.

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chaz
New cars in California don't come with plates, so it's not uncommon to see
cars without any plates at all, especially in the Bay Area. You get temporary
plates in the mail and are responsible for affixing them yourself. As long as
your registration is current, your taxes are paid, and you have insurance,
getting caught without the plates is a small fine.

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nirvana
Here it is 14 years later. The thing about that meeting, that strikes me, is
that this is what Apple always was. Steve wasn't bringing a purpose to Apple,
he was reminding Apple employees of Apple's purpose. Apple still has that
purpose.

Every product cycle you see the blogs and the pundits speculating on what
Apple will do, and exclaiming what Apple should do. Just today I saw an
article along the lines of "now that Steve's dead, here's the four things that
Apple MUST DO!" None of these people get it, and that's why they are always
wrong.. and then after the fact, rather than learn from their errors, they
start spinning _why_ the iPhone 5 wasn't announced. Anyone paying attention
knows the tick-tock pattern Apple is following.

People seem to think that apple has become microsoft-- some monolithic entity,
focused on having a monopoly and controlling everything.

I can assure you, controlling everything is the last thing Apple wants. Apple
is not proprietary. Hell, Mac OS X is the most popular open sourced operating
system on the planet. The Safari web browser is just a thin shell around
webkit. Apple could have kept both closed and innovated on them, instead they
innovate on them and give them away (and yet so called "open source" fans
actually complain about this.)

What Apple does care about-- the singular purpose that drives them to make the
decisions they make-- is the best user experience for their customers.

IF you ever wonder why Apple did or didn't do something, that's why.

And that didn't go away with Steve's passing. Even in the years when Steve
wasn't there, and the company suffered from bad management, they still
operated in the Apple way, just not so effectively. Now they have great
management, and though Steve is no longer there, it's a lot easier to keep to
their purpose...

Maybe this is the real reason Apple accumulated so much cash. It will be a
long time, and likely never, in a situation where outside investors and wall
street can dictate the CEO position, and so Apple can operate without fear
that people who don't get it can undermine its mission.

The real question, though, is why do so few people get it? There's nothing
really secret about all this... but I'm unaware of a single other company that
operates in this manner.

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voodoomagicman
"Apple could have kept both closed and innovated on them"

Webkit is based on GPL code from KDE, so Apple had no choice but to release
the source.

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thought_alarm
They didn't have to start <http://webkit.org> and run it as a public open
source project. They did far more than simply comply with the GPL.

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Peaker
After a big PR scandal.

Originally they just threw useless code patches back at KHTML to minimally
comply with the license (LGPL, iirc).

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nirvana
There was no scandal and only GPL "enthusiasts" would be mad at someone for
_complying_ with the license... only not in the _style_ they might want.
Reality is, they're just bigots who hate Apple and are looking for any excuse
to bash them. Really, you're not fooling anyone.

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wtvanhest
If I were at ebay, I would go for Toyota market share, maybe the reason they
have stumbled is because of your thoughts on how a business should be run.

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adamnash
The point was that you can't follow a BMW product strategy and expect Toyota
market share. You can go for either, just not both.

