SiliconEdge
  • Overview
    • Get Started Now
  • Psyche OS
  • Psyche Suite
  • Coaching
  • HR Solutions
    • Workforce Transitions & Outplacement
    • Japan RPO Consulting [For RPO Vendors]
    • Japan Candidate Conversions & Monetization [For Recruiting Agencies]
    • Supercharged Candidate Interviewing
    • Supercharged Candidate Recruiting
    • Supercharged Candidate Hiring
  • Media
    • Content Archives
    • Newsletter Signup
    • Interviews (audio & videos) >
      • Interviews Page 1
    • Podcasts (audio & videos) >
      • Podcasts Page 3
      • Podcasts Page 2
      • Podcasts Page 1
      • How To Easily Attract, Acquire And Stop Overpaying For Truly Top Talent
    • Library & Whitepapers >
      • Secret Silicon Valley: The Vaunted Myth and Meme of First Mover Advantage
      • Why Companies Overpay for Terrible Talent While Blocking and Rejecting Top Talent
      • Combat Stress
    • Glossary & Terms >
      • Glossary 0 - 9
      • Glossary A - F
      • Glossary G - K
      • Glossary L - P
      • Glossary Q - U
      • Glossary V - Z
  • Events
    • Career Coaching @ AfterJET 2015
    • I am 40 Now! Is It Really Game Over For Me In Japan's Job Market? (FCCJ)
    • How To Jump-Start Your Career In Japan Or Anywhere Else
    • Fire Your Recruiter & Take Control of Your Career & Your Life! (FCCJ)
    • After JET Conference 2014
    • Japan HR Society (JHRS) Annual Symposium
    • Pinterest, Box, Splunk, Millennial Media (Mitsubishi Estate's EGG/Tokyo 21C)
    • Tokyo 2.0 - Cloud Computing
    • 2nd Annual Internet Marketing Association Conference (IMA)
    • Internet Marketing Association's Summit (IMA)
    • Successful E-Marketing Initiatives (Southern California BMA)
  • About
    • Get Started
    • Site Search
    • Blog
    • Values
    • Research & Development
    • Leadership
  • 日本語

Steve Jobs: The Man Who Broke Every Myth & Meme In Silicon Valley & Become A Legend

1/24/2014

0 Comments

 
By James Santagata
Principal Consultant, SiliconEdge

It seems like the peddling of the old standby Myths & Memes is on the rise once again in the Valley. As this is often a lagging indicator of both the Valley's, and even the wider Tech Industry's financial state, it tells me that we're in a very frothy if not overheated market since people are now letting their hair down and apparently gleefully throwing themselves onto the politically correct bandwagon.  But they should be careful, lest they find themselves thrown beneath it. 

Still, it's my guess that whatever problems or disasters may rear their ugly heads in the future due to blind belief and adherence to these Myths & Memes, the folks most involved are betting that they'll be able to quickly paper over it with the waves and waves of cash that are flowing so freely now.

But not everyone believed let alone followed these Myths and Memes and amazingly, they didn't fail or turn into a pumpkin or a toad.

What a perfect example of a person who broke every one of these Myths and Memes?

Try Steve Jobs. Yep, Steve Jobs. And Apple Computer under his guidance during his second tour of duty.

The fact is, no one can deny that, under Steve Jobs, Apple was a smashing success. All the metrics are there: market cap, profits, amazing hit product after hit product. iMac, iPod, iTunes, iPhone. You name it.

Wow!

And for the record, I am by no means an Apple fan nor am I a Steve Jobs / Apple Computer apologist.  I'm simply a reality-based thinker and I call it the way it is, not the way I wish it were.

That said, I'm a very serious student of Steve Jobs and I'm not afraid to look at what really made him successful. I can tell you, it wasn't following the Valley Myth and Memes and it wasn't being politically correct.

In fact, Steve Jobs did the exact opposite of what most pundits and social engineers are preaching. And the reason it worked for Steve Jobs is because Steve Jobs and his communication style was perfectly aligned with the way the world and humans work.

What is most interesting, though perhaps very disconcerting to the social engineers among us, is how Steve Jobs did it.
We're told that if a person studies hard at the "right" schools, gets a "good" education and makes the "right" connections they'll be well positioned for success.

Beyond that we are told, especially in the Valley, that an organization will perform best when it is openly transparent (both internally and externally), when there is diversity, when there are women in senior leadership positions and when we have an open environment of respect and perhaps kumbayahism in the office.

Going even further, we are told that we should be investing and building all kinds of new tech that people have never seen. And by "new tech" I mean core tech, not making sexy cases, new form factors or tinkering with some incremental derivative product like the iPod.

And yet, if we look at Steve Jobs and his management style during his absolutely, amazing and record smashing second run we find something that is completely at odds with what the pundits say is necessary for success:

1. No diversity at Apple (as defined by the politically correct sense of skin pigmentation / reproductive organs).
2. No women in senior leadership positions (see also: Apple Vows To Find Women & Minorities For Board Directors).
3. No Indians in senior leadership positions (see: Why Indian presence in Apple's senior management level is next to nil).
4. Few minorities (see: Apple Facing Criticism About Diversity Changes Bylaws).
5. Steve Jobs didn't go to a "top" university.
6. Steve Jobs didn't even graduate from a four-year college.
7. Steve Jobs was not transparent. At best, he could be characterized as a benevolent dictator, at worst a tyrant.
8. Jobs/Apple was not open -- you leak new Apple products, you'd be hunted down & sued (see: Apple Sues To Stop Product Leaks).
9 Jobs/Apple could be downright nasty, even engaging in potentially illegal activity, if the "no poach" collusion allegations are borne out.
10. Steve Jobs even used his money to find a loophole in California vehicle code so that he wouldn't have to get license plates and had an apparent penchant for parking in the handicap spaces.

And yet again, while Steve Jobs just turned a blind eye to all of these supposed business and organizational "requirements" his results were phenomenal. Can we in any way argue with Steve Jobs' success? It seems that few prominent members of the Valley tech community question his success so I guess not.

Next time, we'll dig a bit deeper and explore why Steve Jobs was so successful, time and time again. The results may surprise you.

Lastly, as quick exercise, we should ask ourselves is Apple really lacking diversity? Or is and has Apple always been diverse but in a more mature manner, such as defining "diversity" with regard to value, thought patterns and productivity rather than with regard to skin pigments and reproductive organs?.

It can easily be argued that a man and women studying the same subject matter from Princeton (not to pick on any school) will be more alike than two men, one of which studied electrical engineering and the other who studied marketing at two different schools in two different states or countries.

Think about it. 
Think. Different.
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    About

     SiliconEdge™ helps catalyze and drive the Productivity, Performance, Profitability, and Peace of Mind (4P's) of organizations, talent, and teams through our innovative, results-driven Talent Acceleration, Optimization, and Transformation programs.

    Picture

    Archives (by date)

    May 2022
    September 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    June 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    June 2017
    December 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    June 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    November 2015
    August 2015
    February 2015
    December 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    January 2013

    Categories

    All
    Akio Morita
    Apple
    Asia Business
    Asia-pacific Coaching Alliance
    Bootstrap
    Bootstrapped Startups
    Bootstrapped Startups
    Business Acumen
    Business Acumen
    Business Myths
    Business Myths
    China Business
    Cloud Computing
    Coaching 2.0
    Coaching 2.0
    Company Culture
    Competition
    Compliance
    Conferences
    Consultants
    Creativity
    Diversity
    Divine Right
    Economics
    Elon Musk
    Employee Engagement
    Events
    Executive Coaching
    Executive Coaching
    Failures
    Genius
    Growth Hacking
    Hica
    High Impact Coaching
    High-impact Coaching
    High-impact Coaching Alliance
    High-impact Training
    High-impact-training
    High-impact-training
    Hiring
    Humor
    Incumbents
    Influence
    Innovation
    Instructors
    Interviews
    Iptv
    Japan Business
    Japanese Creativity
    Japanese Innovation
    Japanese Leadership
    Korean Creativity
    Korean Innovation
    Korean Startups
    Leadership
    Lean-in
    Marketing
    Marketing Myopia
    Marketing Myopia
    Mpeg-21
    Mpeg 4
    Mpeg-4
    Mpeg-7
    Myths Memes
    Myths & Memes
    Netflix
    No Box Thinking
    No Box Thinking
    Office Politics
    Ondemand Media
    Organizational Power
    Persuasion
    Ping And Paint
    Political Correctness
    Psychological Jujutsu
    Public Speaking
    Recruiting
    Regulatory Capture
    Regulatory Capture
    Rent Seeking
    Rent-seeking
    Roukan
    Siliconedge
    Siliconedge Announcements
    Siliconedge Hiring
    Siliconedge In The News
    Siliconedge Press Interviews
    Siliconedge Press Mentions
    Siliconedge Website
    Silicon Valley
    Silicon Valley
    Situational Awareness
    Social Engineering
    Sonar And Radar
    Startups
    Stealth
    Stealth Startups
    Steve Jobs
    Steve Jobs
    Strategy
    Streaming Media
    Supercharged Hiring
    Talent Management
    Talent Management
    Technology
    Technology Adoption Lifecycle
    Tech Startups
    Tokyo
    Validation
    Venturecapital
    Venture-capital
    War For Talent
    War On Talent
    Women Leaders
    Women Leadership
    Work Culture
    Work Environment

    RSS Feed

ActiveEQ (tm)

​© Copyright 2007-2023 SiliconEdge™ Co. Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
PSI Script (tm)
  • Overview
    • Get Started Now
  • Psyche OS
  • Psyche Suite
  • Coaching
  • HR Solutions
    • Workforce Transitions & Outplacement
    • Japan RPO Consulting [For RPO Vendors]
    • Japan Candidate Conversions & Monetization [For Recruiting Agencies]
    • Supercharged Candidate Interviewing
    • Supercharged Candidate Recruiting
    • Supercharged Candidate Hiring
  • Media
    • Content Archives
    • Newsletter Signup
    • Interviews (audio & videos) >
      • Interviews Page 1
    • Podcasts (audio & videos) >
      • Podcasts Page 3
      • Podcasts Page 2
      • Podcasts Page 1
      • How To Easily Attract, Acquire And Stop Overpaying For Truly Top Talent
    • Library & Whitepapers >
      • Secret Silicon Valley: The Vaunted Myth and Meme of First Mover Advantage
      • Why Companies Overpay for Terrible Talent While Blocking and Rejecting Top Talent
      • Combat Stress
    • Glossary & Terms >
      • Glossary 0 - 9
      • Glossary A - F
      • Glossary G - K
      • Glossary L - P
      • Glossary Q - U
      • Glossary V - Z
  • Events
    • Career Coaching @ AfterJET 2015
    • I am 40 Now! Is It Really Game Over For Me In Japan's Job Market? (FCCJ)
    • How To Jump-Start Your Career In Japan Or Anywhere Else
    • Fire Your Recruiter & Take Control of Your Career & Your Life! (FCCJ)
    • After JET Conference 2014
    • Japan HR Society (JHRS) Annual Symposium
    • Pinterest, Box, Splunk, Millennial Media (Mitsubishi Estate's EGG/Tokyo 21C)
    • Tokyo 2.0 - Cloud Computing
    • 2nd Annual Internet Marketing Association Conference (IMA)
    • Internet Marketing Association's Summit (IMA)
    • Successful E-Marketing Initiatives (Southern California BMA)
  • About
    • Get Started
    • Site Search
    • Blog
    • Values
    • Research & Development
    • Leadership
  • 日本語