Saved by Mo Shafieeha and
The Curse of Culture
People worry about culture because they know it sets the agenda for the future.
And who wouldn’t want to be in charge of that?
Wall Street and the City held the crown through economic dominance, regulatory capture, and cultural philanthropy. They faltered in 2008 and never regained their pre-crisis legitimacy. The presumptive heir to the throne, th
... See moreThat mirror in which Steve Jobs metaphorically looks at himself is not a magic gizmo that delivers soothsayings: it is the mirror of an executive’s personal culture. It reflects his own vision about why people do things, about how values, norms, beliefs, and aspirations could evolve, and also about how they should evolve.
Roberto Verganti • Design Driven Innovation: Changing the Rules of Competition by Radically Innovating What Things Mean
For Apple’s and Pixar’s innovators, the value of self-awareness trumped any need for customer focus. By designing for themselves, they transformed their most demanding customers.
Michael Schrage • Who Do You Want Your Customers to Become?
Cook is the common variable across all of these analogies:
- Cook has led the company as it has continually closed down iOS, controlling developers through the stick of market size instead of the carrot of platform opportunity.
- Cook has similarly been at the forefront of Apple absolutist approach to privacy, which has only increased in intensity and im
Apple and the Ghosts of Companies Past
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
... See moreAdam Lashinsky • Inside Apple: The Secrets Behind the Past and Future Success of Steve Jobs's Iconic Brand
above, good management was the most powerful reason they failed to stay atop their industries. Precisely became these firms listened to their customers, invested aggressively in new technologies that would provide their customers more and better products of the sort they wanted, and because they carefully studied market trends and systematically al
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