Steve Jobs and the Eureka Myth
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Steve Jobs and the Eureka Myth
1–10 of 24 posts
Re: Steve Jobs and the Eureka Myth
#2You can't blame the audience for believing the eureka myth when new designs and new features are revealed in an instant, on stage, often punctuated with a brief utterance of boom.
Steve makes it look easy.
Arguably, it's not dissimilar to the techniques of showmanship that a magician uses. Months and years are spent perfecting their stage performances so that when you finally show an audience, they don't see the ropes and pulleys -- they see the trick.
Perhaps it's part of Steve Jobs' strategy to make everything seem so effortless and inspired, as a way to frustrate and flummox his competitors when inspiration inevitably fails to strike them on cue.
Re: Steve Jobs and the Eureka Myth
#3Does anyone have a good ref for the details of "internal competition"? The organizational architecture would be fascinating.
Re: Steve Jobs and the Eureka Myth
#4Does anyone have a good ref for the details of "internal competition"? The organizational architecture would be fascinating.
Yeah, this article is mostly bluster. There's no special "internal competition" where 10 teams line up at tribal council and Jobs snuffs out their torches one by one. Organizational structure is very mundane, honestly. There's the kernel team, the CoreOS team, Frameworks, iApps, Pro Apps, the Image and Media Group (affectionately known as IMG), Safari, Developer Tools, Server (now merged with Dev Tools), and maybe one or two others I'm forgetting.
Look, the Eureka myth is a myth as this article rightly points out. But the "just work harder and you'll succeed" myth that it embraces is, likewise, a myth. The key to Apple's success is as old as humankind itself. Jobs is just continuing the same tradition that started when the first monkey looked at his seed-eating chump friends, then down at the rock in his hands, and then decided "screw the nuts and berries, I'm going to go kill me a wildebeest!"
That first monkey probably died. Jobs's first company called Apple effectively died. His second company, originally called NeXT, nearly died. It's a wild stroke of luck that he was able to merge the two corpses and finally succeed.
Having worked at Apple, and now at a more "normal" company, I've seen both sides of the same story. It goes like this...
CEO: We need a hit!
MARKETING MANAGER #1: I have an idea!
CEO: Do you think it can make money?
MARKETING MANAGER #1: Yes.
MARKETING MANAGER #2: Wait, I also have an idea!
ENGINEER #3: I have an idea.
CEO: Wait, there's a professional speaking. Mr. Marketing Manager, can your idea make money?
MARKETING MANAGER #2: Sure.
MARKETING MANAGERS #3-9 (in unison): We ALSO have ideas!
CEO: Great! Will they all make money?
SYSADMIN: Um...we could be running our servers more efficiently if...
CEO: Quiet! There's work going on here.
MARKETING MANAGERS #3-9: YES!
CEO: Excellent! Let's do all the ideas!!!
ENGINEERING MANAGER: Um...excuse me, we don't have very many engineering resources...
(CEO has already walked out the door)
ENGINEERING MANAGER (frowning, dejected): ...oh
--- vs ---
STEVE: Who's got a good idea?
(in the audience 100 hands are raised simultaneously)
STEVE: No. No. Nope. Nu-uh. As if. Yeah right. Nope. Not gonna happen. No. No...
(this goes on)
STEVE: Ok. So we're doing a tablet!
MARKETING MANAGER (obviously new on the job): Um. But, excuse me Mr. Jobs. The tablet market has been stagnating for over a decade and dozens of our competitors who have attempted to enter the market with a myriad of different technologies have all foundered or given up outright.
STEVE (glaring): We're. doing. a. tablet.
Re: Steve Jobs and the Eureka Myth
#5Very true! Apple is the foremost example of great design from the inside.
Re: Steve Jobs and the Eureka Myth
#6You can't blame the audience for believing the eureka myth when new designs and new features are revealed in an instant, on stage, often punctuated with a brief utterance of boom. Steve makes it look easy. Arguably, it's not dissimilar to the techniques of showmanship that a magician uses. Months and years are spent perfecting their stage performances so that when you finally show an audience, they don't see the rope…
People like the Eureka myth it's sexy, and people like the idea of being able to achieve great things effortlessly because if someone else can do it so can I.
It's the entire reason get rich quick scheme exist. Then again if it was that easy we wouldn't be in a recession.
Re: Steve Jobs and the Eureka Myth
#7Does anyone have a good ref for the details of "internal competition"? The organizational architecture would be fascinating.
Yeah, this article is mostly bluster. There's no special "internal competition" where 10 teams line up at tribal council and Jobs snuffs out their torches one by one. Organizational structure is very mundane, honestly. There's the kernel team, the CoreOS team, Frameworks, iApps, Pro Apps, the Image and Media Group (affectionately known as IMG), Safari, Developer Tools, Server (now merged with Dev Tools), and maybe on…
It's a wild stroke of luck that he was able to merge the two corpses and finally succeed.
So two turkeys can make an Eagle.
Re: Steve Jobs and the Eureka Myth
#8Does anyone have a good ref for the details of "internal competition"? The organizational architecture would be fascinating.
Yeah, this article is mostly bluster. There's no special "internal competition" where 10 teams line up at tribal council and Jobs snuffs out their torches one by one. Organizational structure is very mundane, honestly. There's the kernel team, the CoreOS team, Frameworks, iApps, Pro Apps, the Image and Media Group (affectionately known as IMG), Safari, Developer Tools, Server (now merged with Dev Tools), and maybe on…
Regarding your tablet story, which is obviously fictional, but I think raises a good point. Apple was originally working on a tablet, before the iPhone. Someone (maybe Jobs) decided that a phone would be better use of the technology today.
Imagine a world where they release the iPad in 2007 w/ no app store. That tablet gets slaughtered in the market. It may well prevent the iPhone from ever getting made, much less given special privileges from ATT.
The simple act of saying, "Not a tablet... not yet" may have been the difference between the greatest turnaround in corporate history and who knows what.
Re: Steve Jobs and the Eureka Myth
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, this article is mostly bluster. There's no special "internal competition" where 10 teams line up at tribal council and Jobs snuffs out their torches one by one. Organizational structure is very mundane, honestly. There's the kernel team, the CoreOS team, Frameworks, iApps, Pro Apps, the Image and Media Group (affectionately known as IMG), Safari, Developer Tools, Server (now merged with Dev Tools), and maybe on…
Regarding your tablet story, which is obviously fictional, but I think raises a good point. Apple was originally working on a tablet, before the iPhone. Someone (maybe Jobs) decided that a phone would be better use of the technology today. Imagine a world where they release the iPad in 2007 w/ no app store. That tablet gets slaughtered in the market. It may well prevent the iPhone from ever getting made, much less gi…
The turn around began before '07, and it wasn't the iPhone that started it. But that is a good point, Ill bet the story would have been quite different if the iPad came first.
Re: Steve Jobs and the Eureka Myth
#10Under Jobs' leadership, Apple has done 10 times the amount of relevant homework of most companies — internal competitions, supply chain training, endless deal-making, endless recruiting, training, and generating and sustaining employee excitement that you just can't fake.
If others emulated that, all of that, their results would be a lot more like Apple's.
Apple has fairly high profit margins on their products, and this allows them to spend more on development and marketing. I think a lot of companies wouldn't be able to support such a model.