No one but Steve Jobs could have done what he did. At least 4 industries that have been revolutionized because of him: personal computers, music and music storage, smart phones, and tablets. He didn't invent these industries, but he took them in their infancy and molded them into mature fields of technology. But it wasn't solely his vision that allowed him to change the world like he did. It takes a unique combination of creative vision and tyrannical leadership to do so.
Those who worked closely with Jobs agreed that they hated him, but admired him and wanted his approval at the same time. This is where his magic came from. Walter Isaacson's biography of Jobs frequently mentioned his "reality distortion field." This is the term attributed to Jobs's ability to convince others of what he wanted. For example, during the development of the original Macintosh, Jobs thought it booted up too slowly. His developers didn't think it was possible to make it go faster. He told them that they were going to sell at least 5 million Macintoshes. Each of these computers will probably boot up once a day. If the team could shave off only 10 seconds from the boot up time, that would be 50 million seconds saved every single day. After a year, this would be a couple dozen lives. So by shaving off 10 seconds, the Macintosh team could save lives. This is his reality distortion field.
There are many things I admire about Steve Jobs, but he definitely had his priorities out of order. He completely sacrificed his family for his work. This is completely different from how I want to interact with my family. They are the most important and will always come before work.
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