Founders
Episode 36 #36 Finding The Next Steve Jobs: How to Find, Keep, and Nurture Talent
Founders

Episode 36: #36 Finding The Next Steve Jobs: How to Find, Keep, and Nurture Talent

Founders

Episode 36

#36 Finding The Next Steve Jobs: How to Find, Keep, and Nurture Talent

David Senra is the host of Founders, where he studies history's greatest entrepreneurs. This is what he learned from reading Finding The Next Steve Jobs: How to Find, Keep, and Nurture Talent by Nolan Bushnell.

What I learned from reading Finding The Next Steve Jobs: How to Find, Keep, and Nurture Talent by Nolan Bushnell. 

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A pong is a piece of advice designed to help enhance creativity. It applies to only where the advice is helpful. Unlike a rule which thinks itself applicable to every situation. (4:36)

Cherish the pink-haired. (16:53)

Hire the obnoxious: Steve Jobs believed he was always right and was willing to push harder and longer than other people who might have had equally good ideas but caved under pressure. (19:07)

Expect to be criticized. Everyone said Atari was nuts. When I explained Chuck E Cheese they laughed. "The horse is here to stay, but the automobile is only a novelty - a fad." President of Michigan Savings Bank, advising Henry Ford’s lawyer not to invest in Ford Motor Company, 1903 (20:23)

One of the best ways to find creative people is to ask a simple question: What books do you like? (24:15)

When your company establishes that anyone can and should contribute, you will end up hearing some very good suggestions coming from unlikely places. (26:03)

I strongly believe that everyone who wants to be creative must find a place where their mind can be alone and untouched any the insanity of complexity. (30:20)

Champion bad ideas: WD-40 is called that because the first 39 versions of the product failed. WD-40 stands for “Water Displacement, 40th formula.” (32:11)

Any idiot can say no. There’s no mental process there. If you don’t like something, the trick is to think of something better. (37:04)

 Invent haphazard holidays. Unplanned days off for the entire company (38:00)

Everyone who has ever taken a shower has had a good idea. The thing that matters is what you do with the idea once you get out of the shower. So if there’s only one thing you take from this book, it’s this: You must act! Do something! (41:29)

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#36 Finding The Next Steve Jobs: How to Find, Keep, and Nurture Talent

Introduction

"In 1980, business at my company, Chuck E. Cheese, was thriving, and I was feeling flush. So I bought a very large house in Paris. At six stories, it spanned 15,000 square feet and featured marble staircases and a swimming pool in the basement. At the time, my wife and I didn't have any furniture so we thought, why not fill it up with people instead?

We threw a huge party inviting everyone I knew at Chuck E. Cheese and my other company, Atari, and all my old friends as well. At around 9:00 p.m., I looked up and noticed that my former Atari employee, Steve Jobs, was at the door. I smiled, and Steve rolled his eyes. I think he was a little taken aback at the size of the place. While I was going through a grandiose period, Steve was the same as ever, not really a grand kind of guy. I asked how long he'd be in town, and he said a few days. 'Let's have breakfast tomorrow then,' I offered, and he agreed. At this time, his new company, Apple, was already quite successful, probably doing a little less than $100 million in sales, but nothing close to what Atari or Chuck E. Cheese was earning.

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