Being Right Isn’t As Important As Winning

Renegades weren’t such a problem to Steve Jobs. In fact, he respected those who stood up to him if they knew what they were talking about on the Macintosh team. Often if they disagreed with Jobs, they realized that they could ignore Jobs’ commandments, and in so doing effectively spare Jobs the embarrassment of making a mistake or a bad judgement. One such incident involved the disk drive called Twiggy which was defective in the Lisa. The alternative would be a 3½ disk drive which was designed by Sony. The dirty Tokyo disk drive factory in Sony did not impress Jobs and he wanted to go with Alps disk drive which had made a clone of the Sony product. So Jobs decided to do a deal with Alps (a competing manufacturer), but Bob Belleville (behind Jobs’ back) decided to hire Sony in secret without Jobs’s approval.

Belleville hired Komoto who was tasked with building a disk drive for the MacIntosh from 1982-83, but Belleville did not want Jobs to know about this backup plan for the disk drive collaboration taking place at Alps, the Japanese company. Whenever Jobs came through the Macintosh office, Komoto was quickly escorted into a closet, or under a desk where he would have to hide for a few minutes at a time. In May 1983, the Alps team in Japan failed to deliver their disk drive, and asked for an additional 18 more months to work out the problems. It was a disaster as Mark Markkula grilled Jobs about what he was going to do about the lack of a disk drive with the MacIntosh launch potentially being pushed back to 1985? Bob Belleville saved Jobs by interjecting that Bob had a disk drive ready thanks to his secret work without Jobs’ approval. Jobs appreciated this renegade behaviour, and swallowed his pride. So we can infer that winning is more important than being right in management.

This is an analysis based on Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson and other sources of research. Enjoy.

More from Steve Job’s Life	by Walter Isaacson
Location Really Does Matter for Entrepeurship	Childhood Shapes Your Thinking
Go Get What You Want, If You Have the Courage	Education Is For Conformists
Assume That You Will Die Young	Go To India
Pranking People Requires Creative Thinking	Starting A Company Is Very Difficult
Meet a Brilliant & Nobel Engineer	Meetups Bring Insanely Great Ideas Together
Knowing What You Wanted to Do	Exclude Relevant Information Where Necessary
Have Discipline Over Body and Mind	Picking A Name is as Simple As Picking Apples
Crime Does Pay!!??	Sharing Ideas Is Fine Up To A Point
Most Good Ideas Have to Be Force Down Peoples Throats	Xerox Parc
Run Your Company Our Of Your Parents House	Mike Markkula’s Marketing Theory Is Built Around Three Areas
MacKenna’s Advertising Style Worked	Don’t Worry About A Business Plan Until You Need Investment in a Serious Venture
Create A Simple Product For Households	Your Product Needs to be a Full Simple Package
Jobs’ Management Style Was “Shit” from ’77 to ’85	A Startup Will Become Impersonal With Success
Apple III was a bastard child	Being Abandoned = Ignoring Reality
Good Artists Borrow, Great Artists Steal	Surround Yourself With “A Players”
Reality Distortion Field	Be At The Nexus of Humanities and Technology
Believe In A Closed System & Product Control	Market Research Is For Idiots
Motivate With The Big Picture	Unhealthy Competition Within A Company Can be Corrosive
The Best & Most Innovative Products Don’t Always Win	Eras Are Defined by Partnerships & Rivalry – Gates Versus Jobs Round 1
Genius Versus Shit-Head	The Boardroom Showdown & Emotionality
Advertising Does Matter	A Messy Company Can Still Work
A Clean Factory Is Insanely Great But The Product Has To Sell	Being Right Isn’t As Important As Winning
Imperfection Is A Moral Wrong	Bringing In An Outside Expert Can Be Costly
The Original Macintosh Had Bad Sales	Fall From Grace Through Management Incompetence
Finding Similarities Between Yourself & Your Business Partner May Not Be Good	Eras Are Defined By Partnerships & Rivalry – Gates Versus Jobs Round 2
Force An Ultimatum To Get Control of a Company	Never Tell The Allies of Your Opposition That You’re Planning a Coup
Brilliant Failures Help You Grow	Design Should Not Trump Processing
Do Not Disrespect Your Potential Business Partners	Get Real On Your Lean Startup
Get A VC Who Missed Out On A Previous Winning Opportunity	Avoid The Problem of Focusing on the Small
Gain Financial Control Against Your Business Partners	Rivalry of the Ants & Breaking With Disney
Build A Board That Cannot Operate Independently of the CEO	Do Not Chase Profits, Chase Value
Do Not Force Other Businesses Into Your Closed System	How To Save A Dying Tech Company – Fire the Board Or Resign
Merge Your Venture With A Giant That You Can Take Over	Targeting the Education Market Is Not Lucrative
How to Save Dying Tech Company – Return To Your Successful Roots	How to Save a Dying Tech Company – Make Products Not Profit, Fundamentally
Skate Where the Puck’s Going, Not Where It’s Been	The Loser Now Will Be Soon To Win
The Internet Is Made For Music	Brand Yourself Differently
Don’t Be Afraid to Cannibalize	Create Complimentary Product Offerings Without a Lead Loss Generator
Focus On What People Really Want…1,000 Songs	Google’s “Don’t Be Evil Mantra” is Bullshit
Get Yourself Into the Cloud & A Castle	Don’t Fear Change In Industry, Anticipate It
Create An Inventory Management System & Build a Store That Works	Converge Old Devices Into 1 New Device
Do Not Ignore Medical Diagnoses	Make Peace With Your Old Enemies