One More Thing

The Let’s talk iPhone event began as Apple events typically do, at the stroke of 10 am on Tuesday, October 4, 2011. A nervous energy ran through the crowd of about 250 guests who had squeezed into the Town Hall auditorium on Apple’s Cupertino campus. There were two reasons for this: The event was the first company product debut since Tim Cook had been named CEO, Far more important though, Apple’s rabid followers fully expected a brand new Smartphone, the iPhone 5. But it was not a new phone physically, and it wasn't an iPhone 5. Apple typically redesigns the iPhone every two years and that the iPhone 4 was only a year old. The audience felt deflated, as if Apple had failed to meet the high expectations everyone had for the event.

During the product launch adulation was expected, but no one could have anticipated the personal nature of grief that people around the world felt when Steve Jobs died. Few of the millions who grieved for him knew him personally.

Today Apple is a rare company that enjoys an emotional connection with a wide-ranging array of consumers. As the company takes its first baby steps away from Job’s graveyard, it is instructive to remember that this bond was not always widespread. The author for instance was a longtime skeptic of Apple products, and the way that he was won over speaks volumes about how Jobs seduced the world.

Jobs encouraged Entrepreneurs 

Jobs was very fond of entrepreneurs because he thought they were special. He would seek them out to meet with and give advice, even to those he thought was his competitor. In that light it is shocking that not one member of today’s Apple executive team is an entrepreneur. In the post-Jobs era, Apple is a massive entrepreneurial enterprise, but its people generally are not entrepreneurs and they are not encouraged to be.

Jobs would have made a fine journalist 

One more attribute of Steve Jobs that Apple also will miss is his role as a masterful networker and gatherer of information. He furiously worked the phones, calling up people he’d heard were worthy and requesting a meeting. No one turned down the chance to meet Jobs, and he used the opportunity to soak up information. His uncanny insights into trends in business and technology weren't a fluke. Jobs worked hard for his market intelligence. Jobs played a reporter until the end of his life. It will be interesting to see how Apple will adjust its PR strategy in a post Jobs world.

Job’s message to Tim Cook during his parting days 

Tim cook said at an employee celebration of Jobs, that Job’s parting advice to Cook was “to never ask what Jobs would do; just do what’s right.” If Cook doesn't intend to be the final word on matters of taste or software architecture, then he will have to designate who will be, otherwise Apple may devolve into the fractious company that Steve Jobs never allowed it to be. If Apple can truly continue to behave like a start up then it will need to become less arrogant and bullying and more paranoid and respectful.

Tribute to Steve Jobs 

Apple held multiple tributes for Steve Jobs in the weeks after his death. Apple.com featured the ionic Albert Watson photo of Jobs, originally shot for a 2006 spread in Fortune, as a sole image on his home page. Just four employees attended his funeral at Alta Mesa Memorial Park in Palo Alto on October 7, 2011. He was not a movie star or statesman or athlete, yet one million people signed an online tribute page to him on Apple’s website.

Author’s final thoughts 

The author strongly senses that Apple ultimately can’t cope with the loss of Steve Jobs. Apple very likely will stop being an insanely great company. This will happen gradually perhaps imperceptibly. A product will fail to delight. A member of the senior management team will depart, and then another. It will confront hosts of problems, not the least of which will be a scrutiny of the world that obsessively watches its efforts to continue its string of success.

Apple once was able to distract the public with arresting advertising and well timed product releases, while behind the scenes it worked its magic. Now the curtain has been pulled back a little and now customers can so well anticipate the new Apple offerings that despite Apple’s ability to keep the details of it releases secret the anticipation puts little dents in sales anyway.

An Apple that is merely great, rather than insanely great will be a disappointment, but only to the loyalists who demanded more from Apple all along. For the rest of us, our expectations of Apple were always lower. We’ll keep buying merely great products for a long time.

It has been said of Apple that it is so different in the way it goes about the business of doing business that it’s like a bumble bee, It shouldn't fly, but it does. Going forward, Apple will continue to fly. The explanation of how it does so, however already is becoming just a little less mysterious.

Inspire Imitators

Inside Apple - Chapter 9 "Inspire Imitators"

Fadell joined Apple in 2011 as part of a special products group, ultimately becoming senior vice president of the iPod division. He left Apple, however in 2008, after clashing repeatedly with Jobs as well as with his software counterpart. Jobs valued Fadell so much that he was kept as an Advisor – Advisers often are paid so they won’t advise anyone else, Fadell received an annual salary of $3,00,000 and shares worth more than $8 million not to work for an Apple competitor.

Since ending his relationship with Apple, Fadell began a high stakes experiment testing the hypothesis that Apple executives can translate their skills outside Infinite Loop. Top Apple people have left to join other companies. Fadell is the first member of the modern Apple executive team to start a consumer electronics company from scratch. Given his triumphs at Apple, his success or failure will speak volumes to how well the Apple experience translates.

Fadell’s new company Nest doesn't compete with Apple. It markets a learning thermostat a $249 device that mildly competent do-it-yourselfers can install to replace the dumb thermostat in their homes. The three key facets of the Nest thermostat was It saved energy, it programmed itself, and it was beautiful. “Even if you have constrained resources do not cut corners,” said Fadell, stating his number one rule from Apple.

For many years it was rare to see an ex-Apple executive reappearing in a leadership role at another tech company compared with the number of former Oracle executives. The data set of Apple alumni leaving Cupertino and trying their hands elsewhere in other words is small.

A secret behind success of Apple and Google products.
Jon Rubinstein ran hardware engineering at Apple, including the division that made the first iPod. After leaving Apple, he became CEO of Palm in a turnaround effort. Rubinstein completely revamped Palm’s Smartphone lineup, to critical acclaim. But palm failed to take hold in the market as an independent company – a victim of having too little money to go toe to toe with Apple and Google in the fast growing Smartphone market. A secret of success for Apple’s new products and Google’s Android mobile operating system is that their efforts are funded lavishly by existing cash cow products, the Mac in Apple’s case and search advertising for Google. Palm has no such advantages.

Communication message - A key to creating a want in customers
iPod was a big step forward for Apple because up until then it was trying to build confidence and get people comfortable coming into the store. iPod was different because it held thousand songs in your pocket. Apple came up with easily repeatable marketing line that perfectly captured the iPod’s capability. Blankenship described Telsa’s version an obvious homage to Apple’s marketing, regarding how to sell its $1,50,000 plus Roadster. Zero to sixty in 3.7 seconds. Two hundred forty five miles on a charge. These marketing lines begin developing customers who wants your car. It’s not about price, it’s about wanting the car.

As an unabashed admirer of start-ups, Jobs fought like crazy to have Apple retain some of a start-up’s characteristics. In fact, though medium-sized and large companies will want to study Apple’s ways, its best lesson maybe for start-ups. Because Apple was so sick when Jobs returned, he was able to treat it as a reboot.

The biggest pitfall in trying to be like Apple, however is that Apple’s culture is thirty five years in the making and bears the stamp of one extraordinary entrepreneur who turned into a shrewd chief executive of a sixty thousand person corporation. It won’t be a snap for any company to create its own version of the Apple culture. As well, Apple itself will find out how strong its culture really is- and how much of its success was directly attributable to Steve Jobs.

Plan for After Your Successor

Inside Apple - Chapter 8 "Plan for After Your Successor"

In the days and weeks after Steve Jobs resigned as CEO of Apple on August 24 2011, there was much hand wringing about the future of the company. In his final weeks, Jobs remained as involved in Apple as his strength allowed him to be.

The day before his death, the company unveiled a new iPhone, the iPhone 4S, which included an eight-megapixel camera, a faster processor than the iPhone 4 and Siri, the voice activated personal assistant Jobs had queried at his last board meeting as CEO.

Building a team of lieutenants
During his final days he said he had confidence that Tim Cook and the rest of the executive management team will do a terrific job, executing the exciting plans they had in place in 2011. The keyword he used was “executing” - the implication being that Job’s loyal lieutenants were capably following through on a game plan Jobs already had crafted and approved.

Concentrating at one big thing at a time
Employees liked to say there were two kinds of projects at Apple: the ones Steve Jobs was obsessed over and all the others. Apple tends to be a one big thing at a time company, reflecting the legendary CEO’s willingness to concentrate only on one big thing at a time.

When the first iPhone was under development, for example, the scheduled update of the operating system for the Macintosh was delayed by months because of the resource pulled to focus on the first mobile operating system.

Bridging the gap between Aesthetics and Functionality
Technology wonks like to gripe that Apple’s products look more beautiful than they are. In other words, Apple is accused of sacrificing mechanical design for industrial design. It’s a debatable point, as these same critics typically will say that Apple’s less than perfect products are still better than anyone else’s. Apple’s emphasis on aesthetics over functionality is directly attributable to the leadership of Steve Jobs.

Managing Wealth
Jobs treated Cash as if he had lived through the Great Depression. Jobs was notoriously stingy when it came to giving away money. He argued that the most Philanthropic action Apple could take was to increase the value of the company so shareholders could give away their wealth to causes of their choice, not Apple’s.

Math oriented Google v/s Design oriented Apple
If Google wants to determine the correct colour for a new web page, it would analyse the click through rates. Google takes a democratic approach. At Google, crowd sourcing works.

In the Apple way, Steve picked up the colour he liked and that’s the colour - User democracy is the antithesis of how Apple operates. Steve would listen to counterarguments, but if someone was arguing taste or opinion it was a losing battle

Stagnation causes Corporate Death
Steve Jobs started thinking about causes of corporate death at an unusually young age. He understood that one of the biggest challenges facing established companies and people for that matter was stagnation. He said in an interview “I’ve always felt death is the greatest invention of life. I’m sure that life evolved without death at first and found that without death, life didn’t work very well because it didn’t make room for the young.

The bigger you get, the harder it is to nimble. How do you grow big and stay small? That still is a fundamental question.

Tim Cook undoubtedly is mindful of his own weakness and the hole that Steve Jobs left. There’s no way he’ll aim to remake Apple in his own image. The trick will be finding the right leaders who can guide Apple in a way that Steve Jobs would have. In this regard, Tim Cook maybe a caretaker CEO of Apple, even if his regency lasts ten years.

Overwhelm Friends/Dominate Foes

"Inside Apple" - Chapter 7 Overwhelm Friends/Dominate Foes

From the time Apple first lost its momentum, in the early 1990’s until it started to branch out beyond computers in the early 2000’s, the company operated in an odd world of isolation. Its hardware was different its software worked differently.

It Is one thing to maintain an alternative culture within its own walls – An absolute monarch can usually control what happens in his own kingdom, but what happens when that value system, that way of doing business comes into contact with other entities?

Redefining Business Rule
Apple has redefined the rules wherever it pleased. Its iTunes Store told music publishers what they could and couldn't charge for songs. In exchange of two years of exclusivity on the iPhone, Apple told AT&T that Apple, and not the phone carrier, would control the user experience and even the branding on the phone. – A reversal for the cellular business

Dissatisfied with the job Best Buy salespeople were doing selling Apple’s wares, Apple put its own employees into Best Buy stores.

Frenemies
Frenemies is one of the annoying Silicon Valley buzzwords that has the virtue of accurately describing life in the technology industry.

There’s no escaping that Apple violates or chooses to ignore the Golden Rule; Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Is it right for Apple to value its own time more highly than a partner’s company’s?

Apple Suppliers and Partner Relation
Application developers whine about the opaque approval process for getting an app onto Apple’s App Store. But they continue submitting applications -By late 2011 App Store had five hundred applications and Apple had paid its developers $3 billion in sales revenue in three years – despite dictating another rigid set of terms, that Apple would always take a 30 percent cut and maintain total control over what went into store.

Job was furious with Google after it began supplying its Android mobile operating system to cell phone makers. Near the end of his life he praised Microsoft’s latest mobile software offerings for being original.

Adobe a long time partner with Apple was also refused to allow its Flash media player to run on iPads and then saying publicly that Flash was an inferior product. We’ll never know if Apple truly found flash technology lacking or if Jobs considered the move payback for Adobe’s decision a decade earlier not to produce Macintosh versions of its key products.

In 2011 Apple waged a multinational patent battle against Samsung over technology in the Korean company’s mobile devices. Samsung supplies Apple with some of its critical semiconductors for iPhones and iPads seemed to be beside the point.

It’s worth considering whether Apple gets away with its behavior because of the rarefied position it enjoys right now, or if there is some universal lesson for other businesses.

Own your Message

Inside Apple - Chapter 6 "Own Your Message"

Messaging is another area where Apple goes its own way. The company breaks the mold when it comes to how it tells stories to consumers and how its treats information.

Apple’s marketing and communication team has got their wall painted with a prominent message in large whitish silver letters. It reads: SIMPLIFY, SIMPLIFY, SIMPLIFY. A broad line is drawn through the first two SIMPLIFYS.

Addressing Journalists
With journalists, information becomes a commodity that Apple doles out only after weighing the risk versus the potential return on investment. As a part of its plan to debut, market and sell each product, Apple decides who will speak about it and to whom, what the talking points will be and which members of the press will be blessed with coveted interviews.

The precise words Apple uses to communicate its message is repeated so many times that everyone internally and externally, can recite them by heart. A famously used messaging at the launch of iPod was “1,000 songs in your pocket”

Messaging on the Launch of First iPhone
When the first iPhone was launched in 2007, the messaging of its features were kept very simple which said “It was a revolutionary Phone, it was the Internet in your pocket, and it was the best iPod we have ever created” The key in the messaging was highlighting exactly what made the iPhone stand out but giving consumers only as much as they need to get excited.

When Apple launched the iPhone in 2007, precisely five people were authorized to speak to the press about it. Even the two most senior product executives who built the iPhone hardware were not in that list. The challenges with these guys were that they were super smart and they know a lot of details, but they haven’t spent a lot of time in front of the press, and they are likely to get asked questions that they know the answers to but that they haven’t learned how to gracefully avoid answering.

Consistency in Messaging
Consistency of message helps build customer loyalty, using the same words over and over again, will turn into the same words that the consumers hears, which ultimately will turn into the same words that they then use to define the product to their friends. Apple story telling initially is high concept, telling customers not what they want to buy but what kind of people they want to be. Apple has excelled at selling a lifestyle.

Spend whatever it takes
Apple employees describe their teams as being resource-constrained. But when it comes to making or marketing products, Apple pulls out all the stops. Sure it’s easy for a company with nearly $100 billion in cash. But Apple has been behaving this way since it was tiny. No expense can be spared in delighting customers. The return is obvious.

Store Messaging
While each store is distinctive, Apple’s architects work with a limited vocabulary of design elements only three materials, for instance – wood, glass, and steel – are used for store interiors. That’s how you know you’re in an Apple store regardless of location.”

Hire Disciples

Inside Apple - Chapter 5 "Hire Disciples"

On January 21, 2009, exactly a week after Steve Jobs announced a six-month medical leave of absence. Tim Cook presided over a conference call with Wall Street analyst and investors following the release of Apple’s quarterly earnings. The analyst asked the awkward question on everyone’s mind: Would Cook succeed Jobs if the CEO didn’t return?

Work Culture @ Apple

Jobs was smart in surrounding himself with a crew who could function as extensions of himself yet had their own superpowers. He let people’s talent define their jobs, not the jobs define the people.

Apple is a company where there is obsessive focus on detail and paranoid guarding of secrets, and where employees are asked to work in a state of permanent start-up where they are willing to mesh their personal ambitions with those of the corporation.

Sidekick Relationship

Steve Jobs was a narcissist who could develop a close relationship with one person, a sidekick is someone who acts as an anchor, keeping the narcissistic partner grounded. However, given that narcissistic leader trust only their own insights and view of reality, the sidekick has to understand the narcissistic leader and what he is trying to achieve. The narcissist must feel that this person, or in some cases persons is practically an extension of himself. The sidekick must also be sensitive enough to manage the relationship. Cook grabbed responsibility after responsibility so gradually that almost until he became CEO no one seemed to notice.

Accept no excuses

Like Jobs, Cook accepted no excuses. Early in his tenure, Cook remarked at a meeting with his team that a certain situation in Asia was a real problem and that one of his executives ought to be in China dealing with it. The meeting continued for another half an hour and Cook stopped abruptly. Looked up at one of his executives, and asked in all seriousness. “Why are you still here?” The executive stood up, drove to the airport without a change of clothes, and flew to China.

Think Early, Act Fast

When Apple knew it would move away from disk drives in its iPods and MacBook Air notebooks, it invested in billion-dollar forward purchases of Flash memory. Cook’s supply chain organization executed this masterstroke, which accomplished the trifecta of securing Apple’s supply. Locking in the lowest price and hobbling the competitions access to components. This is referred as ambidexterity - a dynamic capability. The two ways Apple made money was by growing revenues and cutting costs.

As CEO, Steve Jobs developed a loyal and able corps of lieutenants, a group he continued to direct up until nearly the last days of his life, despite having given up the chief executive’s post. Job’s similarly dominated Apple’s board of directors, even though he was its chairman only after stepping down as CEO.

Stay Start up Hungry

“Inside Apple” Chapter 4 - Stay Start up Hungry

When Steve Jobs rejoined Apple in 1997, it looked like big companies everywhere. “Like other companies” is precisely what Jobs did not want Apple to be. After Jobs returned, the corporate culture changed, employees would focus on whatever they did best and nothing else.

Jobs would tell the story of confronting sixteen divisions at Apple, each with a divisional advertising budget. He put an end to it quickly and he made sure that only the hottest product would command the most advertising dollars, which has always been a success model for apple by promoting fewer rather than more products.

DRI
The notion of responsibility is enshrined in Apple with an acronym DRI - Directly Responsible Individual. It is the person on any given assignment who will be called in the carpet if something isn’t done right. There’s no confusion of who’s going to do what, it’s very detailed oriented.

For example graphic designer just needs to think about the biggest graphics thought he can focus on being world class in his area. Being a well rounded employee is neither required nor frankly wanted. Be the best at your thing was what Apple wanted.
At Apple, small team works on really important projects. That is one of the advantages of being in a start-up. For example: just two engineers wrote the code for converting Apple’s safari browser for the iPad

Values at Apple
Putting together corporate attributes – clear direction, individual accountability, sense of urgency, constant feedback, and clarity of mission comprises of Apple’s values. Values may be a soft topic in the corporate world, a term that’s interchangeable with culture or core beliefs. In case of Apple – It is being able to assess how deeply ingrained its values are and informs the question of how the company will fare without Steve Jobs.

Hiring Talent
Steve Jobs long considered the issue of spotting and grooming talent to be one of the most important aspects of being an entrepreneur and CEO.

Once hired, people stay at Apple for years, assuming they have learned to accept the literal and unspoken terms of employment. At the time Steve Jobs resigned as CEO, every member of the executive team except for general counsel and CFO had been in their jobs since at least 2000

Apple is not for everyone. “Apple runs so fast and so lean it requires people to really work hard and take on a lot of tasks and do them in a short period of time,” said a recruiter who is close to Apple employees. They want to be a part of something cool, but then they get in there and they’re like “Oh this really isn’t the hip company that I thought it was”.

If more companies did these things, it might work, and it might not. It might not even work so well at Apple after Steve Jobs hasn’t been CEO for a few years. But if more companies thought about such things, they’d most certainly be more like Apple.