Inside Apple: The Secrets Behind the Past and Future Success of Steve Jobs's Iconic Brand

Who would argue for not focusing, or for not holding employees accountable? What maker of products or deliverer of services wouldn’t benefit from asking the question: Are we basing that decision on what’s best for the product, and therefore for the customer? Is there a company that couldn’t benefit from a critical examination of its messaging, to a

“Focusing is powerful,” he said. “A start-up’s focus is very clear. Focus is not saying yes. It is saying no to really great ideas.”

talent: “A players hire A players, and B players hire C players. We want only A players here.”

Put these corporate attributes together—clear direction, individual accountability, a sense of urgency, constant feedback, clarity of mission—and you begin to have a sense of Apple’s values.

“When you’re the janitor,” Jobs would continue, now speaking directly to the executive, not theatrically to a fictional janitor, “reasons matter. Somewhere between the janitor and the CEO reasons stop mattering, and that Rubicon is crossed when you become a VP.”

Inventory, Cook would later explain, “is fundamentally evil. You want to manage it like you’re in the dairy business: If it gets past its freshness date, you have a problem.”

large companies do not usually have efficient communication paths from the people closest to some of these changes at the bottom of the company to the top of the company which are the people making the big decisions … Even in the case where part of the company does the right thing at the lower levels, usually the upper levels screw it up somehow.