Do You Think Like Steve Jobs?
Do You Think Like Steve Jobs?
See if you can make the same calls that Apple co-founder Steve Jobs did during key stops on his road to becoming a business icon.
See if you can make the same calls that Apple co-founder Steve Jobs did during key stops on his road to becoming a business icon.
If you’re the soul of Apple, Steve Wozniak is the brain: the genius engineer behind the circuit boards and code. Yet your partnership is tested early on when Wozniak’s father accuses you of contributing nothing tangible to the development of Apple II — he insists it’s Wozniak who should receive the bulk of company profits. You’re upset. What’s your response?
It’s 1979, the year before Apple goes public. To improve upon the Apple II, the company needs access to the bitmapping and graphical user interface technology that Xerox has pioneered. How do you get your hands on it?
In the early 1980s, the design of the Macintosh is at an impasse. You know that the way it looks — its essential form and style — is crucial to its success. Where do you find your inspiration?
When Jobs announced his retirement as Apple CEO, many reminisced, including Vic Gundotra, head of mobile apps at Google. He recalled a time Jobs called him on a Sunday morning in 2008 with what Jobs said was an “urgent” issue. What was it?
You’re famous for keeping your enemies close and your staff even closer. In order to motivate your employees to work endless hours and keep pushing themselves, which of the following catchphrases do you employ?
The Apple board has brought you back on as a special adviser under CEO Gil Amelio’s leadership. How do you make sure your ideas get implemented with someone else in charge?
It’s your first year back on the job (for a second time) as CEO. Macintosh hardware and software products are expanding quickly, offering not just more options for laptops and desktops but cameras, printers and PDAs. While some of these new additions aren’t making a profit, others are — or at least show potential. What do you do?
Under Apple’s previous CEO, Gil Amelio, leaks to the press — especially around new product launches — were so commonplace that they were practically expected. Employees used the press as a way to check the power of the CEO, who could be publicly pressured to change policies. Now that you’re at the helm again, how do you keep product secrets safe?
In the fall of 1986, when Bill Gates came to NeXT for a meeting with Steve Jobs, how long did Jobs make Gates wait in the lobby before meeting him?
Macs vs. PCs: The rivalry between Apple and PC manufacturers IBM and Microsoft was legendary. Yet by the mid-1990s, in the wake of declining Macintosh market share, it’s clear that Microsoft had triumphed in the battle for user loyalty. As you negotiate from the losing side, what kind of deal do you strike with Microsoft?
In Jobs’ famous commencement speech to Stanford graduates in 2005, which of these did he say was “the best thing that could have ever happened to me.”
And now, a final question for every would-be start-up CEO dreaming of IPO riches. ... Less than four years after you co-found Apple, you decide to go public. As the IPO approaches, it becomes clear that salaried Apple employees with stock options will become overnight millionaires, while some staffers without options will get nothing of the company’s instant $1.79 billion value, even though they'd been with the company since Day One. How do you decide to manage the impending haves and have-nots situation?