Founders
Episode 19 #19 Becoming Steve Jobs
Founders

Episode 19: #19 Becoming Steve Jobs

Founders

Episode 19

#19 Becoming Steve Jobs

David Senra is the host of Founders, where he studies history's greatest entrepreneurs. This is what he learned from reading Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader by Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli.

What I learned from reading Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader by Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli.

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Learning from great company-builders (0:30)

Steve Jobs verbal mastery (5:00)

The failed negotiations between NeXT and IBM (10:00) 

"But how can he be a turnaround expert when he eats his lunch alone in his office, with food served to him on china that looks like it came from Versailles?" (18:00)

"You can't go to the library and find a book titled The Business Model for Animation. The reason you can't is because there's only one company [Disney] that's ever done it well, and they were not interested in telling the world how lucrative it was." (22:00) 

Bill Gates on Steve's simplicity (29:00)

Steve Jobs on being an artist (33:00)

Apple pays half billion dollars to rehire Steve Jobs (34:00)

"The company is one of the most amazing inventions of humans, this abstract construct that is incredibly powerful." (38:00)

Unlocking secrets (42:00)

Who gives a fuck about the channel? (45:00)

"It's not about how fast you do something, it's about doing your level best." (52:00)

Deep Restlessness (55:00)

"Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle." (59:00)

Bill Gates on the negotiations between Pixar and Disney (1:08:00)

A list of all the books featured on Founders Podcast

#19 Becoming Steve Jobs

Introduction

"In part because of the way Steve quarreled with Markkula and Scott, in part because he so brazenly asserted his opinions as fact, and in part because, over the length of his career, he neglected to share credit for Apple's successes in the press, Steve developed a reputation as an egomaniac who wasn't willing to learn from others. It's a fundamental misunderstanding of the man, even during his youngest, brashest, and most overbearing years."

"While Steve looked to his elders at Apple for guidance, he also sought it out elsewhere. He didn't yet have the skills to build a great company, but he admired those who had pulled it off, and he would go to great lengths to meet them and learn from them. 'None of these people were really in it for the money,' he told me."

"Dave Packard, for example, left all his money to his foundation. He may have died the richest guy in the cemetery, but he wasn't in it for the money. Bob Noyce, cofounder of Intel, is another. I'm old enough to have been able to get to know these guys. I met Andy Grove, CEO of Intel, when I was 21. I called him up and told him I had heard he was really good at operations and asked if I could take him out to lunch. I did that with Jerry Sanders, founder of Advanced Micro Devices, and with Charlie Sporck, founder of National Semiconductor and others. Basically I got to know these guys who were all company-builders, and the particular scent of Silicon Valley at that time made a very big impression on me."

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