#299 Steve Jobs (Make Something Wonderful)
Founders
Recruiting for Quality: How to Identify A-Players in the Workplace
Quality starts with people. When evaluating candidates who have been in the workplace for a while, look at their results and their contributions to breakthroughs or successful products. For startups with limited resources, focus on finding undiscovered talent and evaluate their potential based on attributes like intelligence, ability to learn quickly, drive, and passion. In job interviews, deliberately upset candidates to see how they respond to criticism and whether they push back with counterarguments. The CEO's role is to ensure the work is of the highest quality, push people to see things in a bigger way, and demand better performance. When people's best isn't good enough, it's important to communicate this directly and push for improvement.
What I learned from reading Make Something Wonderful: Steve Jobs in his own words.
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(3:48) He gave an extraordinary amount of thought to how best to use our fleeting time.
(4:24) He imagined what reality lacked and set out to remedy it.
(7:27) Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview Video and My Notes.
(10:02) Edwin Land episodes:
Instant: The Story of Polaroid by Christopher Bonanos. (Founders #264)
Land's Polaroid: A Company and the Man Who Invented It by Peter C. Wensberg (Founders #263)
A Triumph of Genius: Edwin Land, Polaroid, and the Kodak Patent War by Ronald Fierstein (Founders #134)
Land's Polaroid: A Company and the Man Who Invented It by Peter C. Wensberg (Founders #133)
The Instant Image: Edwin Land and the Polaroid Experienceby Mark Olshaker (Founders #132)
Insisting On The Impossible: The Life of Edwin Land and Instant: The Story of Polaroid(Founders #40)
(13:23) Think of your life as a rainbow arcing across the horizon of this world. You appear, have a chance to blaze in the sky, then you disappear.
(14:10) One from Many: VISA and the Rise of Chaordic Organization by Dee Hock. (Founders #260)
(15:42) Read Jeff Bezos's shareholder letters in book form: Invent and Wander: The Collected Writings of Jeff Bezos or for free online: Amazon Investor Relations(Founders #282)
(19:45) If you want to understand the entrepreneur, study the juvenile delinquent. — Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman by Yvon Chouinard. (Founders #297)
(30:47) How important product is based on how much time you spend with it: People are going to be spending two, three hours a day interacting with these machines—longer than they spend in the car.
(39:02) Return to the Little Kingdom: Steve Jobs and the Creation of Appleby Michael Moritz. (Founders #76)
(40:32) The real big thing is: if you’re going to make something, it doesn’t take any more energy—and rarely does it take more money—to make it really great. All it takes is a little more time. And a willingness to do so, a willingness to persevere until it’s really great.
(45:07) Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration by Ed Catmull
(45:31) Steve’s enthusiasm kept him writing check after check to Pixar, ultimately investing some $60 million.
(47:47) It is better to have fewer people even if it means doing less. Let's build our company slowly and carefully.
(53:36) I’m not so dominant that I can’t listen to creative ideas coming from other people. Successful people listen. Those who don’t listen, don’t survive long. — Driven From Within by Michael Jordan (Founders #213)
(54:40) You never achieve what you want without falling on your face a few times in the process of getting there.
(1:00:11) There wasn’t a hierarchy of ideas that mapped onto the hierarchy of the organization.
(1:03:33) Don’t be a career. The enemy of most dreams and intuitions, and one of the most dangerous and stifling concepts ever invented by humans, is the “Career.” A career is a concept for how one is supposed to progress through stages during the training for and practicing of your working life. There are some big problems here. First and foremost is the notion that your work is different and separate from the rest of your life. If you are passionate about your life and your work, this can’t be so. They will become more or less one. This is a much better way to live one’s life.
(1:05:11) Make your avocation your vocation. Make what you love your work.
(1:05:58) Think of your life as a rainbow arcing across the horizon of this world. You appear, have a chance to blaze in the sky, then you disappear.
(1:09:27) In the Company of Giants: Candid Conversations With the Visionaries of the Digital World by Rama Dev Jager and Rafael Ortiz. (Founders #208)
(1:10:52) Much of it is also drive and passion—hard work makes up for a lot.
(1:13:28) A risk-taking creative environment on the product side required a fiscally conservative environment on the business side.
(1:13:57) You've got to choose what you put your love into really carefully.
(1:14:38) A remarkably consistent set of values that Steve held dear: Life is short; don’t waste it. Tell the truth. Technology should enhance human creativity. Process matters. Beauty matters. Details matter. The world we know is a human creation—and we can push it forward.
(1:19:24) Steve Jobs speaking to Apple employees (Video)
(1:29:48) Apple is the world’s premier bridge builder between mere mortals and the exploding world of high technology.
(1:30:14) Steve’s favorite quote: We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. – Aristotle
(1:32:29) The Man Behind the Microchip: Robert Noyce and the Invention of Silicon Valley by Leslie Berlin. (Founders #166)
(1:42:27) That’s been the most important lesson I’ve learned in business: that the dynamic range of people dramatically exceeds things you encounter in the rest of our normal lives—and to try to find those really great people who really love what they do.
(1:43:00) Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple's Greatest Productsby Leander Kahney. (Founders #178)
(1:47:27) It’s a circus world, and you never know what’s around the next corner.
(1:53:40) Bourdain: The Definitive Oral Biography by Laurie Woolever. (Founders #219)
(2:01:00) All glory is fleeting.
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“I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth
Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast
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