The two entrepreneurs I admire the most are Steve Jobs and Richard Branson. Whilst they have a lot in common, they also have very different leadership styles. When it comes to personal or business goals, neither of them would take no for an answer. They create an audacious vision and do not let facts or "realists" get in the way of achieving it. This is summed up well by the phenomena known as Steve's "reality distortion field". He had a way of convincing people with his charisma and force of personality that anything was possible, even if it did not make much sense at the time. It was common for people on the outside to be confused at why those that were indoctrinated were doing what they were doing. More often than not these visions would lead to disruptive innovation and products.
Neither one of these entrepreneurs made a product for the sake of it, or because a new technology became available. At the very heart of their drive was the customer experience, such as making airline travel better, or making computers that everyone can use. I like that they were not afraid of getting into industries which they knew very little about such as the wide ranging Virgin empire including airlines, music, retail stores, mobile phones, space travel, or in Steve's case movies, music, and books. Entrepreneurs are not limited to channels or markets they are currently delivering into, they will seek out new opportunities across the board, often leveraging existing experience into adjacent fields.
I am impressed by how much they achieved in their early years. In many cases I think to be a successful entrepreneur you need to start young. If you end up in permanent employment in a medium to large company then it is too easy to get comfortable. As you gain experience you become aware of all the risks of what can go wrong in a business and this makes it even harder to leave and start something new. There is freedom in naivety!
In reading Richard Branson's book "Losing my Virginity", I was struck by how Richard had gone from school dropout, to creating a magazine, to creating a record store (to be more accurate, creating a place where people can hang out and enjoy music, a destination rather than a focus on retail sales - sounds a bit like an Apple store) to setting up an international airline. And he did this all before he was 30!
Likewise, Steve had created the Apple II and Macintosh and grown a company from a few people in his garage to several thousand all before he was 30.
Where they differed was in their leadership styles. Steve was an autocratic leader with a product vision that he absolutely believed in and delivered through force of personality. Steve had marvellous design taste - as Bill Gates once said, "I wish I had Steve's taste. In people and product. It's magical." -- from the AllThingsD interview. He was a difficult person to work for, that expected complete commitment, but when he delivered it was magic. Very few people could get away with calling their product "magical and revolutionary" - but when Steve introduced the iPad, he was bang on.
Richard Branson is more of a delegator, surrounding himself with highly competent people. This enabled him to scale and develop many businesses, and focus on the vision and promotion. Richard compares his and Steve's leadership style in this post here.
Interestingly, Steve also admired Richard's style too. Here is a clip from "Here's to the crazy ones" advert from the 80s.
One of Steve's most outstanding contributions is not a product, but a speech that he gave at Stanford. This is short, but well worth watching - Steve at his most articulate, honest, and charismatic. And it makes perfect sense - do what you love.
My first exposure to Apple products was when I was 7 and it was with an Apple IIe. A friend used to have one, and I used to have a Commodore 64 and we used to have endless conversations about which was better. I liked the Apple IIe, with its slots promising expandability, and its fast floppy drives, but ultimately it was too expensive and its star was fading. My friend eventually went on to an IBM and I onto an Amiga. I was not a fan of the original Mac's, as they had too small screens that were monochrome, and a limited range of software whereas the Amiga had much promise with its pre-emptive multitasking and wide range of coprocessors that provided excellent graphics and sound. Years later I worked at Symbian, with Nokia on the first smartphones to enter western markets - the Nokia 9210 and 7650. Even after leaving Symbian, I stayed loyal to Nokia through to 2007. However I could no longer ignore the iPhone with its outstanding ease of use and growing ecosystem of apps. It wasn't the first to market, most of these technologies Symbian and Nokia had 7 years earlier, but the iPhone integrated the user experience and ecosystem in a way that even my mum could use - the technology transcended geeks to be the phone for the rest of us. Since then the halo effect has worked a treat, and I am a happy owner of an iPad and MacBook Pro too.
I was sad to see Steve pass away. We need more leaders like him and Richard Branson that can stand up against the status quo and try new things. There is no doubt that there will be many new fantastic and revolutionary products produced by other talented people, but there is a little less magic in the world now that Steve is gone.
Here are a few of my favourite quotes from Steve Jobs -
“Design is a funny word. Some people think design means how it looks. But of course, if you dig deeper, it’s really how it works. … To design something really well, you have to get it. ... It takes a passionate commitment to really thoroughly understand something, chew it up, not just quickly swallow it.”
"Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren't used to an environment where excellence is expected."
"You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they'll want something new."
"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."
"Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn't matter to me ... Going to bed at night saying we've done something wonderful... that's what matters to me."
"Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new."
“We’re here to put a dent in the universe. Otherwise why else even be here?”
"Stay hungry. Stay foolish."
- Steve Jobs 1955 - 2011
