Steve Jobs: Perfectionism - An Art

 Walter Isaacson, the author of Steve Jobs received a call in 2004, Walter was a journalist and throughout the years Apple had made use of his influence for advertisements or when they were launching new products. Steve Jobs told him he wanted to walk so that they could talk. The "walk" here refers to a Jobs idea of a serious conversation. This walk has become a legend in the semiconductor sector - a fabled start.

Jobs told him he wanted Walter to write a biography on him. Walter had written about Einstein, Leonardo Da Vinci and Benjamin Franklin. Jobs unexpectedly declared that he was next (get it ?) in the line of theses legends. With utmost confidence he declared himself worthy of this prize.  Only after 5 years did Walter understand that cancer had pushed Steve Jobs to make inconceivable decisions that pushed him to greater heights. That was the confidence that made Steve Jobs this great heroic figure. He was not an engineer. No. That was Steve Wozniak. Steve Jobs was a business giant- when he looked at an idea he saw its potential and with his calculated decisions and his uncanny ability to know a person's weak point he, a college dropout who dabbled in drugs, changed the tide of the semiconductor industry. A business that was started in Paul Jobs garage in the year 1976 was at the end of the fiscal year 2020 $65.34 billion and its market capitalization as of March 2021 is $2.08 trillion.

Steve Jobs was not a role model. In many ways, he was not someone you would like your child to emulate. He was open with his feelings, had tantrums, extremist thoughts on various ideas but his passion for perfection erased all of his loathed qualities. 

Wozniak - Jobs unknown partner was a genius. His ideas first started the company. He was the one who built the interface for Apple I. However, Wozniak has said multiple times that Jobs was the one who converted an idea into a company - into a rising tide that inevitably shook the Silicon Valley as Wozniak was willing to sell his idea for free to a club they were part of.

Steve Jobs was abandoned by his parents. His biological mother wanted him to be adopted by college graduates but at the last second when a boy was born the couple who had decided to adopt Jobs felt that they wanted a girl. Paul and Clara, none of whom were college graduates, later adopted him after promising his biological mother that Steve would go to college.

Job's foster parents still clinging to a promise that they made 17 years ago decided that Jobs had to go to college. Jobs in his ruthless manner made a bargain -  he would go to a college that he chose. Jobs kept up his end of the bargain, draining all of his parents savings into a college that was almost as costly as Stanford but wasn't really that good. 

Jobs then dabbled in LSD, Buddhism and Hinduism which he claims to have changed his life. He and Elon Musk are one of the few who believe that drugs gave them "enlightenment". He was extremely proud to represent the counterculture of the late 60's which now represents a major part of the 19th century entrepreneurs. 

As the tale goes,  Jobs had 2 categories for his employees- genius and shithead. When he was subjected to an idea he expressed his opinion very strongly and thereafter would only change his judgement when his employee went against the authority. For him his products were an extension of himself- he had never belonged and thus he wanted all of the parts in a device to be perfect- even the ones the users couldn't see. Jobs paid Paul Rand (IBM's graphic designer) a whooping $100,100 just to make a visual identity of the NeXT cube because god forbid the angle be 90.1 degrees instead of 90 degrees!

In his Macintosh launch the computer failed at the enth hour and he went to unbelievable amount of trouble just to make the computer say "Hello". He never did market research because he knew that the customers wouldn't know what they wanted until they saw the product. That was what made him a genius - his thoughts and ideas not his understanding of the computer interface.

Jobs had a reality distortion field -  he believed he could convince his employees and his employers of various decisions. He had an aura around of him: an aura of confidence that radiated around him. His reality distortion field was so strong that employers from Pixar had to make gestures among themselves so that they would not get lost in that field. He used to stare at the eyes while speaking almost chiding the rival of his ignorance -  he made the opponent feel small so that he could have complete control.

He wanted complete control since the most important moment of his life was not in his control he made his machined incompatible - starting an era of his arbitrary choices carefully inspired from his past and giving him full control of everything that he worked. 

He believed this to be an art - an art of perfectionism. His past shaped his future - he was courageous; not because he was arrogant, over-confident and was never afraid of his choices. It was just because he followed his heart and respected his decisions instead of questioning them. In a famous Stanford speech he said, "You can never connect the dots looking forwards, you can only connect them looking backwards".