He began addressing the issue immediately when he arrived through simple math: addition and subtraction—retaining and adding talented personnel who were ready and willing to get on board with his program, “subtracting” (i.e., firing) those who were negative. But here was the tough part: Some of his most talented players were among the dissenters; o

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The less-famous history of an ultra-famous icon captures one person’s evolution toward this balance. During Steve Jobs’s first stint at Apple, he called his loonshot group working on the Mac “pirates” or “artists” (he saw himself, of course, as the ultimate pirate-artist). Jobs dismissed the group working on the Apple II franchise as “regular Navy.

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