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I don't think I can agree with this take. > He assembled the top talent to produce the best products that pushed our experience with technology forward. Assem

I don't think I can agree with this take. > He assembled the top talent to produce the best products that pushed our experience with technology forward. Assembling top talent is something a lot of people could do, what made Jobs special is that he did that while still actually giving a shit about the quality of the product his company produced. "Oh, he just" is less a way of dismissing jobs than it is a way of saying "hey assholes, you could be more like Jobs if you just actually gave a fuck".

detourdog 3y ago
It was never about the technology it was always about what the technology can do for us. This point of view is often hard for engineers or the actual people developing the technology.
petilon 3y ago
> Assembling top talent is something a lot of people could do Absolutely not. First you need the ability to recognize top talent. That's already super hard. Then you have to convince them to come work for you. Top talent is not always just motivated by money alone, so how do you attract them? Then after you hire them you have to retain them, which is also hard, because you have to understand what they are building, and inspire them.
- adventured 3y ago
  It's one of the hardest things any leader will ever have to do. Jobs said as much repeatedly. Older Jobs lavished credit onto his teams because he knew very well how hard it is to put them together and keep them together. And if you can manage to acquire them, and if you can manage to retain them, you have to then manage them as an individual and in function with a lot of other people that will inevitably clash at times (egos, conflicting ideas/visions/paths, whatever it may be). Assembling top talent is something very few can do. Assembling it and then keeping that talent together and getting it to work in some manner of harmony, almost nobody can do that, it's an extraordinarily rare skill.
  - esafak 3y ago
    > Older Jobs lavished credit onto his teams because he knew very well how hard it is to put them together and keep them together. He sure knew how to keep people together! https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jul/08/steve-wozniakr-steve-jobs-apple https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jul/08/steve-woz...
- DoneWithAllThat 3y ago
  That’s really another facet of this that shows what a uniquely talented leader he was: top talent wants to work both with and for top talent. It says loads about Jobs’ strengths that he got so many absolute geniuses to work for him for years.
- sublinear 3y ago
  > First you need the ability to recognize top talent. That's already super hard. Yeah that's exactly why Jobs never did that. Nobody has to "recognize top talent" to assemble it. He knew that talent likes a good challenge without being micromanaged. The talent becomes top talent when they overcome the challenges and accomplish something new and exciting. You retain them by maximizing their autonomy. That's all.
  - petilon 3y ago
    Steve Jobs did that. He hired A+ players. See here: https://talentrust.com/blog/how-steve-jobs-got-the-a-players-and-kept-them https://talentrust.com/blog/how-steve-jobs-got-the-a-players... You need to have a vision that top talent believes in, in order to retain them.
    - sublinear 3y ago
      https://youtube.com/watch?v=fj0hpsJvrko https://youtube.com/watch?v=fj0hpsJvrko You can either listen to what he's literally saying, or just be impressed by his rhetoric. He says pretty bluntly they: "... were not necessarily those seasoned professionals, but who had at the tips of their fingers and in their passion the latest understanding of where the technology was and what we could do with that technology" So, basically find young people with tons of enthusiasm for their career, put them all together on a team, and let them sort themselves out. It's naturally much easier to find motivation than "top talent". There's nothing special about that strategy and he's not the first to think of it. Like he says, "the vision" is all the managing he does, but let's be honest there are plenty of great engineers who don't really have an opinion on their work beyond how free they are to do it and experiment. They don't have to give a rat's ass about what their boss wants to deliver it anyway.
      - petilon 3y ago
        You are hearing portions that you want to hear. Yes, he did not necessarily want seasoned professionals, but you missed the bit before that: "we wanted people that were insanely great at what they did...." Steve Jobs did not build insanely great products by hiring morons. Also: "Leadership is having a vision, being able to articulate that so that people around you can understand it, and getting a consensus on a common vision".

detourdog 3y ago

It was never about the technology it was always about what the technology can do for us. This point of view is often hard for engineers or the actual people developing the technology.

petilon 3y ago

> Assembling top talent is something a lot of people could do Absolutely not. First you need the ability to recognize top talent. That's already super hard. Then you have to convince them to come work for you. Top talent is not always just motivated by money alone, so how do you attract them? Then after you hire them you have to retain them, which is also hard, because you have to understand what they are building, and inspire them.

adventured 3y ago
It's one of the hardest things any leader will ever have to do. Jobs said as much repeatedly. Older Jobs lavished credit onto his teams because he knew very well how hard it is to put them together and keep them together. And if you can manage to acquire them, and if you can manage to retain them, you have to then manage them as an individual and in function with a lot of other people that will inevitably clash at times (egos, conflicting ideas/visions/paths, whatever it may be). Assembling top talent is something very few can do. Assembling it and then keeping that talent together and getting it to work in some manner of harmony, almost nobody can do that, it's an extraordinarily rare skill.
- esafak 3y ago
  > Older Jobs lavished credit onto his teams because he knew very well how hard it is to put them together and keep them together. He sure knew how to keep people together! https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jul/08/steve-wozniakr-steve-jobs-apple https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jul/08/steve-woz...
DoneWithAllThat 3y ago
That’s really another facet of this that shows what a uniquely talented leader he was: top talent wants to work both with and for top talent. It says loads about Jobs’ strengths that he got so many absolute geniuses to work for him for years.
sublinear 3y ago
> First you need the ability to recognize top talent. That's already super hard. Yeah that's exactly why Jobs never did that. Nobody has to "recognize top talent" to assemble it. He knew that talent likes a good challenge without being micromanaged. The talent becomes top talent when they overcome the challenges and accomplish something new and exciting. You retain them by maximizing their autonomy. That's all.
- petilon 3y ago
  Steve Jobs did that. He hired A+ players. See here: https://talentrust.com/blog/how-steve-jobs-got-the-a-players-and-kept-them https://talentrust.com/blog/how-steve-jobs-got-the-a-players... You need to have a vision that top talent believes in, in order to retain them.
  - sublinear 3y ago
    https://youtube.com/watch?v=fj0hpsJvrko https://youtube.com/watch?v=fj0hpsJvrko You can either listen to what he's literally saying, or just be impressed by his rhetoric. He says pretty bluntly they: "... were not necessarily those seasoned professionals, but who had at the tips of their fingers and in their passion the latest understanding of where the technology was and what we could do with that technology" So, basically find young people with tons of enthusiasm for their career, put them all together on a team, and let them sort themselves out. It's naturally much easier to find motivation than "top talent". There's nothing special about that strategy and he's not the first to think of it. Like he says, "the vision" is all the managing he does, but let's be honest there are plenty of great engineers who don't really have an opinion on their work beyond how free they are to do it and experiment. They don't have to give a rat's ass about what their boss wants to deliver it anyway.
    - petilon 3y ago
      You are hearing portions that you want to hear. Yes, he did not necessarily want seasoned professionals, but you missed the bit before that: "we wanted people that were insanely great at what they did...." Steve Jobs did not build insanely great products by hiring morons. Also: "Leadership is having a vision, being able to articulate that so that people around you can understand it, and getting a consensus on a common vision".