Steve Jobs Once Spent Two Weeks Choosing A Washing Machine For His Palo Alto Home And He Got More 'Thrill' Out Of It Than Any Piece Of High Tech In Ages

‘Throughout his career,’ says Walter Isaacson, ‘Jobs liked to see himself as an enlightened rebel, a Jedi warrior or Buddhist samurai fighting the forces of darkness’ – such as IBM.16 It was for this reason that he craved perfection in his products; he would not settle for less. This also explains his very unusual policy of insisting Apple controll

His management mantra was “Focus.” He eliminated excess product lines and cut extraneous features in the new operating system software that Apple was developing. He let go of his control-freak desire to manufacture products in his own factories and instead outsourced the making of everything from the circuit boards to the finished computers. And he

Kessel went on a fact-finding mission to Silicon Valley, meeting with hardware experts from Apple and Palm and with executives from the famed industrial design firm Ideo.

JEREMY KUEMPEL, now founder of Blossom Coffee, an $11,000 coffeemaker designed to brew each cup at the perfect temperature