Fundamentally, I view Steve Jobs as an artist. He's kind of like one of those great renaissance artists who had studios where they turned out their work, often with the help of various assistants.
One main difference, of course, is that Steve Jobs employs 40,000 people to help him turn out his works of art. And they are works of art—works of art in metal, glass, circuitry, software.
Yes, I'm ignoring or slighting the many brilliant and hard-working people whose efforts contribute mightily to the final product or service—but in a way, that's the point. Steve has the ability to recognize real talent, to attract that talent, hold on to it, and facilitate that talented person in offering their best and most relevant work to the common cause. Just by itself, that's a world-class form of genius on Steve's part.
But it goes further than that. I've heard about meetings at Apple and elsewhere chaired by Steve where all sorts of ideas and brainstorms go back and forth, get debated and so on. But in the end, you've got somebody with an exquisitely-refined aesthetic sense who can say, "Let's go with this," or "Let's develop that further," or "Let's kill that for now so we can focus energy on this other thing."
But it goes further than that. On top of everything else, Steve has a killer business and marketing instinct. I'm sure he's picked up lots of helpful hints and business how-to along the way, but let's face it: he's also got that instinct. At some deep level, he just knows. I don't mean that he can't make mistakes, but that he knows, by and large, that he can really trust his instincts, even if he can't immediately justify them.
Put all that together and you've got someone who is pretty much one-of-a-kind, or at least one-of-a-kind to that degree. And the final element is that, by all accounts, he works really hard at bringing his visions into reality. Naturally, because he really loves what he does, which is another way of saying that he brings tremendous passion and commitment to what he's doing.
I'm sure that history will be analyzing Steve Jobs and his impact on our world for a long, long time—and deservedly so.
—jim sloman, 9.9.10
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