Steve Jobs Gives One Brilliant Advice To All The Creative People | Apple | iPhone | iPod | iOS

1984-074:01English

Transcript

Machine transcript in the original language. It may contain errors. Select a timestamp to play that moment.

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what they did, but were not necessarily those seasoned professionals, but who had
at the tips of their fingers and in their passion the latest understanding of where
technology was and what we could do with that technology, and who wanted to bring
that to lots of people.
So the neatest thing that happens is when you get a core group of, you know, 10 great
people, it becomes self-policing as to who they let into that group.
So I consider the most important job of someone like myself is recruiting.
We agonized over hiring.
We had interviews.
I could go back and look at some of the interviews.
They would start at 9 or 10 in the morning and go through dinner.
A new interviewee would talk to everybody in the building at least once,
maybe a couple times, and then come back for another round of interviews,
and then we'd all get together and talk about it.
And then they'd fill out an application.
No, they never filled out.
The most critical part of the interview, at least to my mind, was when we finally decided we liked them enough to show them the Macintosh prototype.
And then we sat them down in front of it.
And if they just kind of were bored or said, this is a nice computer, we didn't want them.
We wanted their eyes to light up and them to get really excited.
And then we knew they were one of us.
And everybody just wanted to work, not because it was work that had to be done, but it was because of something that we really believed in that was just going to really make a difference.
And that's what kept the whole thing going.
We all wanted exactly the same thing.
Instead of spending our time arguing about what the computer should be, we all knew what the computer should be, and we just went and did it.
We went through that stage in Apple where we went out and we thought, oh, we're going to be a big company.
Let's hire professional management.
We went out and hired a bunch of professional management.
It didn't work at all.
Most of them were bozos.
They knew how to manage, but they didn't know how to do anything.
And so if you're a great person, why do you want to work for somebody you can't learn anything from?
And you know what's interesting?
You know who the best managers are?
They're the great individual contributors
who never ever want to be a manager
but decide they have to be a manager
because no one else is going to be able to do as good a job as them.
After hiring two professional managers from outside the company
and firing them both,
Jobs gambled on Debbie Coleman,
a member of the McIntosh team.
32 years old,
an English literature major with an MBA from Stanford,
Debbie was a financial manager
with no experience in manufacturing.
I mean, there's no way in the world
anybody else would give me this chance
to run this kind of operation.
And I don't kid myself about that.
This is an incredible high risk,
both for myself personally and professionally,
and for Apple as a company,
to put a person like myself in this job.
I mean, they're really betting on a lot of things.
We're betting that my skills
at organizational effectiveness, you know,
override all those, you know,
lack of technology, lack of experience,
It's a lack of time in manufacturing.
So it's a big risk, and I'm just an example,
and every single person on the Mac team,
almost to your entry-level person,
you could say that about,
this is a place where people were afforded
incredibly unique opportunities
to prove that they could write the book again.
Inscribed inside the casing of every Macintosh,
unseen by the consumer,
are the signatures of the whole team.
This is Apple's way of affirming
that their latest innovation is a product of the individuals who created it, not the corporation.

Transcript

Machine transcript in the original language. It may contain errors. Select a timestamp to play that moment.

Press the bell icon so that you don't miss any updates from Workspace.

what they did, but were not necessarily those seasoned professionals, but who had

at the tips of their fingers and in their passion the latest understanding of where

technology was and what we could do with that technology, and who wanted to bring

that to lots of people.

So the neatest thing that happens is when you get a core group of, you know, 10 great

people, it becomes self-policing as to who they let into that group.

So I consider the most important job of someone like myself is recruiting.

We agonized over hiring.

We had interviews.

I could go back and look at some of the interviews.

They would start at 9 or 10 in the morning and go through dinner.

A new interviewee would talk to everybody in the building at least once,

maybe a couple times, and then come back for another round of interviews,

and then we'd all get together and talk about it.

And then they'd fill out an application.

No, they never filled out.

The most critical part of the interview, at least to my mind, was when we finally decided we liked them enough to show them the Macintosh prototype.

And then we sat them down in front of it.

And if they just kind of were bored or said, this is a nice computer, we didn't want them.

We wanted their eyes to light up and them to get really excited.

And then we knew they were one of us.

And everybody just wanted to work, not because it was work that had to be done, but it was because of something that we really believed in that was just going to really make a difference.

And that's what kept the whole thing going.

We all wanted exactly the same thing.

Instead of spending our time arguing about what the computer should be, we all knew what the computer should be, and we just went and did it.

We went through that stage in Apple where we went out and we thought, oh, we're going to be a big company.

Let's hire professional management.

We went out and hired a bunch of professional management.

It didn't work at all.

Most of them were bozos.

They knew how to manage, but they didn't know how to do anything.

And so if you're a great person, why do you want to work for somebody you can't learn anything from?

And you know what's interesting?

You know who the best managers are?

They're the great individual contributors

who never ever want to be a manager

but decide they have to be a manager

because no one else is going to be able to do as good a job as them.

After hiring two professional managers from outside the company

and firing them both,

Jobs gambled on Debbie Coleman,

a member of the McIntosh team.

32 years old,

an English literature major with an MBA from Stanford,

Debbie was a financial manager

with no experience in manufacturing.

I mean, there's no way in the world

anybody else would give me this chance

to run this kind of operation.

And I don't kid myself about that.

This is an incredible high risk,

both for myself personally and professionally,

and for Apple as a company,

to put a person like myself in this job.

I mean, they're really betting on a lot of things.

We're betting that my skills

at organizational effectiveness, you know,

override all those, you know,

lack of technology, lack of experience,

It's a lack of time in manufacturing.

So it's a big risk, and I'm just an example,

and every single person on the Mac team,

almost to your entry-level person,

you could say that about,

this is a place where people were afforded

incredibly unique opportunities

to prove that they could write the book again.

Inscribed inside the casing of every Macintosh,

unseen by the consumer,

are the signatures of the whole team.

This is Apple's way of affirming

that their latest innovation is a product of the individuals who created it, not the corporation.