Steve Jobs — 2

One great man is made of many people. The pursuit of perfection is instilled into Steve’s mind from his adoptive father.

Jobs’s father had once taught him that a drive for perfection meant caring about the craftsmanship even of the parts unseen. This passion for perfection led him to indulge his instinct to control.

Jobs’s belief on perfectionism is carried out completely on every desired products. The staff regards him as rude and crazy but follows up his requirements to make perfect products. Only A staff can work with him.

Then is Steve’s another mental father : Mike Markkula.

Markkula would become a father figure to Jobs. Like Jobs’s adoptive father, he would indulge Jobs’s strong will, and like his biological father, he would end up abandoning him.

I forgot who Markkula is when I read the middle parts of the book. Seeing this sentence now, I realize that Markkula hurts Jobs deep while standing against him in 1985. But at the beginning, Markkula has helped Steve much.

“Mike really took me under his wing, “ Jobs recalled, “his values were much aligned with mine. He emphasized that you should never start a company with the goal of getting rich. Your goal should be making something you believe in and making a company that will last.”

The Apple Marketing Philosophy

The first was empathy, an intimate connection with the feelings of the computer: “we will truly understand their needs better than any other company.”

The second was focus: “in order to do a good job of those things that we decide to do, we must eliminate all of the unimportant opportunities”

The third and equally important principle, awkwardly named, was impute. It emphasized that people form an opinion about a company or product based on the signals that it conveys.

“People do judge a book by its cover”, he wrote, “we may have the best product, the highest quality, the most useful software, etc, if we present them in a slipshod manner, they will be perceived as slipshod; if we present them in a creative, professional manner, we will improve the desired qualities.”

Impute:

To lay the responsibility or blame for often falsely or unjustly

Slipshod:

adjective, done without care; doing things without care.

SYN: careless

Empathy, focus, impute.

Why do you choose to do something?

What do you do for this thing?

Who have done it already?

Have you ever tried your best to do it?

Life is short, time is limited, why don’t you take care of your choices?