plus 2, Being Steve Jobs' Boss - Yahoo Finance

Being Steve Jobs' Boss - Yahoo Finance
Setting career gears in motion - Chicago Tribune
Jobs, Marcellus drilling key issues in 25th race - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Posted: 23 Oct 2010 06:27 AM PDT

provided by

Confessions of the last man to manage the singular inventor.

Steve Jobs was 28 years old in 1983 and already recognized as one of the most innovative thinkers in Silicon Valley. The Apple (NasdaqGS: AAPL - News) board, though, was not ready to anoint him chief executive officer and picked PepsiCo (NYSE: PEP, News) President John Sculley, famous for creating the Pepsi Challenge, to lead the company. Sculley helped increase Apple's sales from $800 million to $8 billion annually during his decade as CEO, but he also presided over Jobs' departure, which sent Apple into what Sculley calls its "near-death experience." In his first extensive interview on the subject, Sculley tells Cultofmac.com editor Leander Kahney how his partnership with Jobs came to be, how design ruled — and still rules — everything at Apple, and why he never should have been CEO in the first place.

You talk about the "Steve Jobs methodology." What is Steve's methodology?

Steve, from the moment I met him, always loved beautiful products, especially hardware. He came to my house, and he was fascinated, because I had special hinges and locks designed for doors. I had studied as an industrial designer, and the thing that connected Steve and me was industrial design. It wasn't computing.

Steve had this perspective that always started with the user's experience; and that industrial design was an incredibly important part of that user impression. He recruited me to Apple because he believed the computer was eventually going to become a consumer product. That was an outrageous idea back in the early 1980s. He felt the computer was going to change the world, and it was going to become what he called "the bicycle for the mind."

What makes Steve's methodology different from everyone else's is that he always believed the most important decisions you make are not the things you do, but the things you decide not to do. He's a minimalist. I remember going into Steve's house, and he had almost no furniture in it. He just had a picture of Einstein, whom he admired greatly, and he had a Tiffany lamp and a chair and a bed. He just didn't believe in having lots of things around, but he was incredibly careful in what he selected.

[Video: 5 Smartphones for iPhone Cynics]

Everything at Apple can be best understood through the lens of designing. Whether it's designing the look and feel of the user experience, or the industrial design, or the system design, and even things like how the boards were laid out. The boards had to be beautiful in Steve's eyes when you looked at them, even though when he created the Macintosh he made it impossible for a consumer to get in the box, because he didn't want people tampering with anything.

That went all the way through to the systems when he built the Macintosh factory. It was supposed to be the first automated factory, but it really was a final assembly and test factory with pick-to-pack robotic automation. It is not as novel today as it was 25 years ago, but I can remember when the CEO of General Motors, along with Ross Perot, came out just to look at the Macintosh factory. All we were doing was final assembly and test, but it was done so beautifully. It was as well thought through in design as a factory as the products were.

Now if you leap forward and look at the products that Steve builds today, today the technology is far more capable of doing things; it can be miniaturized; it is commoditized; it is inexpensive. And Apple no longer builds any products. When I was there, people used to call Apple "a vertically integrated advertising agency," which was not a compliment.

Actually today, that's what everybody is. That's what [Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ - News) is, that's what Apple is, and that's what most companies are, because they outsource to EMS — electronics manufacturing services.

Isn't Nike a good analogy?

Yeah, probably, Nike (NYSE: NKE - News) is closer. The one Steve admired was Sony (NYSE: SNE, News). We used to go visit Akio Morita, and he had really the same kind of high-end standards that Steve did and respect for beautiful products. I remember Akio Morita gave Steve and me each one of the first Sony Walkmans. None of us had ever seen anything like that before, because there had never been a product like that. This is 25 years ago, and Steve was fascinated by it. The first thing he did with his was take it apart, and he looked at every single part. How the fit and finish was done, how it was built.

He was fascinated by the Sony factories. We went through them. They would have different people in different colored uniforms. Some would have red uniforms, some green, some blue, depending on what their functions were. It was all carefully thought out, and the factories were spotless. Those things made a huge impression on him.

The Mac factory was exactly like that. They didn't have colored uniforms, but it was every bit as elegant as the early Sony factories we saw. Steve's point of reference was Sony at the time. He really wanted to be Sony. He didn't want to be IBM (NYSE: IBM - News). He didn't want to be Microsoft (NasdaqGS: MSFT - News). He wanted to be Sony.

The Japanese always started with the market share of components first. So one would dominate, let's say, sensors, and someone else would dominate memory, and someone else hard drives and things of that sort. They would then build up their market strengths with components, and then they would work toward the final product. That was fine with analog electronics, where you are trying to focus on cost reduction — and whoever controlled the key component costs was at an advantage. It didn't work at all for digital electronics, because you're starting at the wrong end of the value chain. You are not starting with the components. You are starting with the user experience.

And you can see today the tremendous problem Sony has had for at least the last 15 years as the digital consumer-electronics industry has emerged. They have been totally stovepiped in their organization. Sony should have had the iPod, but they didn't — it was Apple. The iPod is a perfect example of Steve's methodology of starting with the user and looking at the entire end-to-end system.

Page 1 | 2

___

Popular Stories on Yahoo!:

• Six Cars that Really Stretch Fuel Mileage

• Millionaires Before They Turned 25

• Prices Plummet at World's Tallest Building

___

Follow Yahoo! Finance on Twitter; become a fan on Facebook.

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php
Five Filters featured article: Beyond Hiroshima - The Non-Reporting of Falluja's Cancer Catastrophe.

This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Setting career gears in motion - Chicago Tribune

Posted: 23 Oct 2010 12:00 AM PDT

During the summer, as other teenagers struggled to find a job, Arenique Green landed a paid internship at an engineering and construction company where she dismantled computers, cleaned the dusty parts and put them back together.

It was a rather exciting job, said Green, a 17-year-old senior at Austin Polytechnical Academy.

"I looove computers," she said, her eyes widening as her pitch elevated to accentuate the word "love."

Green said her love for them is so strong that after graduating in June, she wants to pursue a computer engineering degree at a local university. "I want to be the first person to create the virtual, touch-screen remote (control)," Green said.

Green's six-week internship at Milhouse Engineering & Construction was made possible by the Center for Labor & Community Research, which runs the West Side school's career program. The center is one of the Chicago-area organizations supported by Chicago Tribune Holiday Giving, a campaign of Chicago Tribune Charities, a McCormick Foundation Fund.

Green, who said she will be the first person in her family to go to college, hopes the internship now under her belt would help her get a part-time job in college. "I am now overqualified for some positions," she said.

Erica Swinney, director of career and community programs, said the center works with Chicago Public Schools and local manufacturing companies to prepare students for college and careers in all aspects of the manufacturing industry, from marketing to engineering.

Among its various tasks, the center plans field trips; coordinates after-school programs, such as a new patent-law class where students participate in mock trials; and pushes to integrate the center's career program into the classroom. Last school year, the center helped fund a Manufacturing and Technology Center to teach students how to operate manual and digital milling machines.

After high school, certified students could get jobs as machine operators and make between $13 and $15 an hour, teacher Pablo Varela said. Those who go on to college and get more experience could make between $18 and $20 an hour, he added.

"Our partners are looking for talent," Swinney said.

During a recent tour of the center, Torres Hughes, a junior at the academy, looked intensely as Varela programmed the digital milling machine to type his name on a palm-size acrylic block. Hughes stood by quietly, as the machine quickly typed the letters with precision.

It's an unorthodox use of the machine, which can cut blocks of steel to make auto parts, Varela said, but it's a good example of what the machine can do. This semester, Hughes, who is in Varela's fifth-period class, is learning about the programs used to run the machine.

"It's a lot of math," Hughes said.

But Hughes is not afraid of the challenge, he said. A teacher recently told him that because of his broad imagination, he could be the CEO of a company. That meant a lot to him, he said, explaining that family life is difficult, at best.

After Hughes heard the comment from his teacher, he decided he wants to be the owner of a technology center. To start building his resume, Hughes hopes to land an internship this summer at a local manufacturing company where he can shadow the owner.

"I can see myself doing that," he said.

mcancino@tribune.com

This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Jobs, Marcellus drilling key issues in 25th race - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Posted: 23 Oct 2010 06:34 AM PDT

A Plum insurance manager interested in bringing jobs to Pennsylvania will try Nov. 2 to unseat a 28-year veteran politician from Monroeville who has never missed a voting session.

Plum Council President Mike Doyle, a Republican, will face off against incumbent Rep. Joe Markosek, a Democrat in the race for the 25th Legislative District seat. The 25th represents residents in Monroeville, Murrysville, North Versailles, Pitcairn, Plum, Trafford and Wall.

Markosek was elected to the state House of Representatives in 1982 after spending nearly a decade working for Westinghouse. His longevity motivated Doyle to run against Markosek.

"It shouldn't be a career; it should be about public service," Doyle said. "I just believe it's time for a new pair of eyes in Harrisburg looking out for this district."

Markosek said he has the contacts and experience to continue to serve the district.

"If somebody were looking to hire somebody to do a job, they would go with someone who is most qualified, and I think that is me with my record of being productive and effective," Markosek said. "I get things done here in the district."

As chairman of the transportation committee, Markosek said his biggest accomplishment was the widening of Route 22, a project that was worked on for nearly 20 years before it came to fruition. He was one of the advocates for tolling Interstate 80 as a means to fund transportation statewide. Markosek regularly supports measures to curb distracted driving because of the distractions that new technology has proliferated, he said.

Doyle doesn't want to make I-80 a toll road. Instead, he wants to see a complete audit of the state budget to "squeeze" all wasted money out.

Both agree that Marcellus shale drilling is one of the most pressing issues in the state. Markosek wants to see the drilling, which many residents and officials worry will contaminate their water, handled in a safe and careful manner.

"It's going to be here, and we have to develop the industry in a safe manner," Markosek said. "Safety of the public is our first concern, with costs to municipalities our second concern."

Doyle wants to see the state move forward with drilling, and hopes new drilling sites hire only Pennsylvania workers.

"This could be as big for Pennsylvania as oil was for Saudi Arabia," Doyle said. "No one wants to see drinking water damaged. If water is damaged, make the developers take out an insurance policy to fix it. If they damage roads, make them fix it."

Markosek said he wants to be re-elected because he likes his job. He believes his voting attendance proves that to voters.

"While that, by itself, doesn't necessarily make a good legislator, it does indicate to people how much I look forward to getting up every morning and serving people and how proud I am to be their representative in Harrisburg," Markosek said. "As long as I still like what I do, have my health and can still do the job well, I have no visions of retiring any time soon."

Doyle said he can be the impetus for change that Harrisburg needs. He promises more job growth and a tighter rein on spending if elected.

"I am very concerned — Harrisburg is broken," Doyle said. "Not only can we do better, but we have to do better. The spending is out of control. Before we say we're going to raise taxes, we need to take every wasted dime we can from the budget."