> Yet how can you lead the developments of those technologies if you don't understand them. Why it didn't go the same way, of let say, Symbian.
I think you may be framing the issue in the wrong way. Here's a little anecdote from my own experience: When I first studied math, I could solve isolated problems but I still had no feeling for what I was doing. One day, I stumbled upon a more theoretical book: Rudin's Principles of mathematical analysis (or Baby Rudin). The rigor, the very thought process was completely foreign to me. Sometimes I spent an entire day on retracing a few lines of proof. On the side, I read a delightful little book by Polya on How to solve problems. While the former gave me stuff to chew on, the latter gave me words to understand what I was doing when I was chewing. After much huffing and puffing, one day I "got" it. I really did. And to paraphrase SJ here, "I did it in a big way."
If I had stopped right there, I might not know about measure theoretic probability, the theory of point processes, copulas, or any other more or less specialized subjects. But once I crossed that point I always felt confident I _could_ learn whatever subject I chose to and do it quickly if called for.
Even for completely foreign topics, I may not know the details yet, the definitions, the important theorems or the lesser ones that help in establishing them or that shorten their proofs. But I now know how to read mathematical books, the difference between an important and a not so important theorem, what to look for.
Without knowing SJ personally, and only half-way through his biography, I think the above is a valid analogy for the kind of understanding SJ must have had for technology. He somehow "got" it, and that allowed him to intuit special areas quickly, select among alternatives, and perhaps be a better editor of more narrowly focused, deeper minds than any single one of them could have been on its own.
I'm not saying he was singular in this, or that his "getting" it was _the_ reason for his later success. For that, you need more, starting with certain type of self-awareness, social aptitude, luck, etc. etc. But as for his technical compass, I'm pretty sure this is all he needed. If you have this type of confidence and understanding, you can always dig into something and specialize when the problem in front of you calls for it. Or you can learn on whom to rely, whom to poll, etc.
That's the difference between a Ballmer, Lazaridis, any of the other management types with business school backgrounds, say, on one side and Jobs, Page or Zuckerberg, say, on the other.