by Maisie Allison
Virginia Postrel returns to 1980s culture to show how Steve Jobs transformed business into something more like sports or fashion, a "realm of passion and personality":
[Jobs's] inspiring philosophy offers the promise of greatness and self-fulfillment, but also perpetual dissatisfaction. If business isn’t just about making money, if it is about finding a version of true love and leaving a cultural mark, the stakes are much higher. Your work becomes your identity.
Alan Deutschman's profile of Jobs looks at his management style:
[Jobs] found that by delivering brutal putdowns of his co-workers he could test the strength of their conviction in their own ideas. If he said “this sucks” or “this is shit” and they fought back fiercely, he would trust their passion, especially since he often lacked the necessary technical acumen or aesthetic confidence. (Even though he instinctively grasped the importance of design from early on—he had wanted to enclose the Apple I in a case of beautiful blond koa wood—he remained uncertain about his taste for many years before he settled on the safety of austere minimalism). He found that many of the most brilliant engineers and creative types actually responded well to cruel criticism, since it reinforced their own secret belief that they weren’t living up to their vaunted potential.
The Dish 