I can only speak about the german car industry, and over here, every manufacturer is lead by an engineer. Let that sink in for a minute. Ferdinand Piëch said i

I can only speak about the german car industry, and over here, every manufacturer is lead by an engineer. Let that sink in for a minute. Ferdinand Piëch said in his autobiography: "[The leader] must have a technical background, as a development- or production technician. He has to have an integral (not quickly acquired) passion for cars and be able to think ten years ahead. The technical foundation is required in order to develop the necessary phantasy." I think the "develop the necessary phantasy" is the interesting part, as I think this matches Steve Job's approach, too. No engineer could bullshit him, because he knew exactly what was possible. He knew when it was possible to build the iPhone, when the RIM CEOs didn't even believe it when it was revealed to the world.