The Entrepreneur Of The Decade

INC.: Can you be more specific?

JOBS: Sure. When we started the Macintosh factory, I made a few mistakes before I finally put Debbie Coleman in to run it, and she turned out to be a good choice. I remember that I'd go out to the factory, and I'd put on a white glove to check for dust. I'd find it everywhere -- on machines, on the tops of the racks, on the floor. And I'd ask Debbie to get it cleaned. I told her I thought we should be able to eat off the floor of the factory. Well, this drove Debbie up the wall. She didn't understand why you should be able to eat off the floor of the factory. And I couldn't articulate it back then.

See, I'd been very influenced by what I'd seen in Japan. Part of what I greatly admired there -- and part of what we were lacking in our factory -- was a sense of teamwork and discipline. We lacked discipline about little details, but they were important. This was an automated factory. It wasn't going to be the big things that would stop us. It was going to be the little details, because one little detail could shut down the whole line. If we didn't have the discipline to keep that place spotless, then we weren't going to have the discipline to keep all these machines running.

INC.: What happened?

JOBS: We went along for a while, and the factory became clean, but Debbie and I continued to have conflicts over various things. Then one day I came into the factory, and I saw that she had rearranged some of the machines. Before, they had been randomly placed around the floor. Debbie had moved them for some functional reasons and also for some nonfunctional reasons. She'd put them in a straight line and cleaned the place up visually. And I hadn't mentioned anything to her. Well, that told me a light bulb had come on for her, and I didn't need to say a thing about it ever again -- and I never did. From then on, she just took off like a rocket, because she understood the underlying principle. And the factory worked great.

INC.: It sounds as if she had to figure it out on her own.

JOBS: Yeah, but this stuff takes time. Let me give you an example from NeXT. We have probably the most automated factory in the world. Our circuit board comes out untouched by human hands. We have a series of sophisticated robots, some of which we built, some of which we bought. Now these robots come in different colors, and I wanted them all painted the same color. We went through a lot of trouble over that because the robot companies weren't used to painting things in any color but their own. People in our factory asked me, "Why is it so important to paint these machines the same color? We don't understand it." So we had to sit down with everybody and explain. Even after hearing the reasons, it took people six months or so before they began to understand.

INC.: What are the reasons?

JOBS: For one thing, we want the place to look nice because we bring customers through. They're going to make a decision on using NeXT products, and they ought to know that we have a very high-quality manufacturing operation. But the real reason is that we don't want people to think of the factory as separate islands of automation. We want people thinking of the whole. Suppose we have a bottleneck at one robot. In reality, you can probably rebalance the line and solve the problem -- provided you think of it as a whole. It took people six months to understand this, but now it's in their bones. We spend a lot of time going over these concepts and why they are important -- not just in the abstract, but right down to the everyday tangible point of view. That's what building a company culture is all about.

INC.: Do you have more influence over things like that now than at Apple? There's a perception that the launch of Apple was a team effort, and NeXT is very much your show.

JOBS: Is that really the perception?

INC.: To some extent, it is. Of course, there weren't any celebrities at Apple back then. Now, you're a celebrity.

JOBS: Well, we all tend to reduce reality to symbols, but Superman went out a long time ago. The way you accomplish anything significant is with a team.

INC.: Is it a problem or an asset to be a celebrity?

JOBS: Is this Inc. or People?

INC.: Hold on. We're asking a legitimate business question. Maybe celebrity is the wrong word, but you must certainly be a magnet for bright, young talent, which is probably what helps make this an exciting place to work. Don't you ever worry that the very thing that attracts people to your company might also inhibit them from challenging you when they should?

JOBS: Again, it all depends on the culture. The culture at NeXT definitely rewards independent thought, and we often have constructive disagreements -- at all levels. It doesn't take a new person long to see that people feel fine about openly disagreeing with me. That doesn't mean I can't disagree with them, but it does mean that the best ideas win. Our attitude is that we want the best. Don't get hung up on who owns the idea. Pick the best one, and let's go.

INC.: What about the expectations people have of you?

JOBS: I think people outside NeXT have fairly high expectations of us, because we have a lot of people here with impressive track records. Before we introduced the machine, many people felt we had little chance of living up to those expectations. The feedback I've gotten is that we've exceeded their expectations -- which is a double-edged sword. Now, we have to be pretty much world class with our products and services, but that's also an opportunity.

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