Quotes About Leadership

Won't Work." Apple's former chief financial officer

Steve Jobs, Al Alcorn

They all knew they were expected to be deferential to Jobs while also pushing back on his ideas and being willing to argue—a tricky balance to maintain, but each did it well. "I realized very early that if you didn't voice your opinion, he would mow you down," said Cook. "He takes contrary positions to create more discussion, because it may lead to a better result. So if you don't feel comfortable disagreeing, then you'll never survive.

The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.

The Macintosh experience taught me that A players like to work only with other A players, which means you can't indulge B players.

La innovación se produce por fases. En el caso del transistor, primero fue la invención, liderada por Shockley, Bardeen y Brattain; después la producción, encabezada por ingenieros como Teal, y por último, e igualmente importante, fueron los emprendedores quienes encontraron la forma de crear nuevos mercados. Pat Haggerty, el intrépido jefe de Teal, constituía un llamativo caso práctico de este tercer paso en el proceso de la innovación.

NeXT, 1988: Freed from the constraints at Apple, he indulged his own best and worst instincts.

Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water, or do you want a chance to change the world?

his thirties or forties able to really contribute something amazing," Jobs declared as he was about to turn thirty. That held true for Jobs in his thirties, during the decade that began with his ouster from Apple in 1985. But after turning forty in 1995, he flourished.

ought to go ahead and do it," he said. He argued that if he joined Apple full-time, he would not have to go into management or give up being an engineer. "That was exactly what I needed to hear," Wozniak later said. "I could stay at the bottom of the organization chart

to itself." Jobs went home early that day to mull over the problem, then called Ive

ROBERT IGER. Succeeded Eisner as Disney CEO in 2005.

Okay, tell me what's wrong with this place," he said. There were some murmurings, but Jobs cut them off. "It's the products!" he answered. "So what's wrong with the products?" Again there were a few attempts at an answer, until Jobs broke in to hand down the correct answer. "The products suck!" he shouted. "There's no sex in them anymore!

In fact, neither explanation does Jobs and Apple justice. As the case of the forgotten Iowa inventor John Atanasoff shows, conception is just the first step. What really matters is execution. Jobs and his team took Xerox's ideas, improved them, implemented them, and marketed them.

Steve created the only lifestyle brand in the tech industry," Larry Ellison said.

Tim Cook When Steve Jobs returned to Apple and produced the "Think Different" ads and the iMac in his first year, it confirmed what most people already knew: that he could be creative and a visionary. He had shown that during his first round at Apple. What was less clear was whether he could run a company. He had definitely not shown that during his first round.

He was not a model boss or human being, tidily packaged for emulation. Driven by demons, he could drive those around him to fury and despair. But his personality and passions and products were all interrelated, just as Apple's hardware and software tended to be, as if part of an integrated system. His tale is thus both instructive and cautionary, filled with lessons about innovation, character, leadership, and values.

Jobs's pep talk could have been

never could, and he was able to avoid having too many bozos working

In his excitement, Jobs began to take over the daily management of the Lisa project, which was being run by John Couch, the former HP engineer.

the world are the ones who do. —Apple's "Think Different" commercial

But then he paused to recognize the role Jobs in fact played. "In so many other companies, ideas and great design get lost in the process," he said. "The ideas that come from me and my team would have been completely irrelevant, nowhere, if Steve hadn't been here to push us, work with us, and drive through all the resistance to turn

All he did was blow a lousy few million and they took his company away from him." Now, Sculley reflected, he was taking Jobs's company away from him.

a leader is either very inclusive or a passionate visionary. But the best leaders could be both.