Work In Progress

Rating: Excellent read.  It shouldn’t take more than ~1 day to get through.  

This book and the Steve Jobs biography have convinced me to get an Apple laptop (despite the shortcomings of Excel & Numbers).  I’m blown away by Apple’s dedication to product.  Here are some excerpts from the book:

Finally, invoking Yoda from Star Wars, Jobs would tell the VP: “Do or do not. There is no try.

Steve Jobs—who was famously uninterested in discussing money—took a nuanced view of the subject of happiness and enjoyment at Apple. “I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t say it’s the most fulfilling experience in their lives,” he said. “People love it, which is different than saying they have fun. Fun comes and goes.

Apple is a prizefight every day you go to work,” said Steve Doil, a onetime executive in Apple’s supply-chain organization. “If you’re distracted even a little bit then you slow down the team.”

The notion of responsibility is enshrined at Apple in a company acronym, the DRI. It stands for “Directly Responsible Individual,” and it is the person on any given assignment who will be called on the carpet if something isn’t done right.

A players hire A players, and B players hire C players. We want only A players here.

Focusing is powerful,” he said. “A start-up’s focus is very clear. Focus is not saying yes. It is saying no to really great ideas.

Jobs was called Apple’s editor and also a curator. He picked and chose from among the ideas his employees rigorously vetted before presenting to him.