yego.me
💡 Stop wasting time. Read Youtube instead of watch. Download Chrome Extension

Steve Jobs Didn’t Care What You Thought!


2m read
·Nov 7, 2024

The ones of you that will be successful in here will develop the ability to distinguish signal from noise. The distractions are called noise, and the signal is what your mandate is, whatever that is. I worked for Steve Jobs years ago, developing all his educational software, and we would meet every quarter to determine development budgets.

Steve was not a very nice guy. I remember one specific day in Cupertino, in the old office, and I was there with my team. He used to berate everybody. He was brutal. One of my marketing teams said, "You know, Steve, before we do the next version of Oregon Trail, which is going to cost 12 million to put out next quarter, of which you're going to have to pay at least eight of it, we want to do some market research about the feature sets with teachers in 110,000 schools in America."

He went out of his mind. He said, "They don't know what they want until I tell them what they want. I will decide what they want, and only I will decide." I mean, I couldn't take it anymore. I said, "Steve, when you say that, you don't respect anybody in this room."

He said, "Are we making money? Are we growing share? Am I dominating in schools? Yes or no?"

That's true, Steve. He said, "Well, shut up and let's just stay focused." That's 85% signal right there. He doesn't care what you think, doesn't give a damn, and is so focused on delivering results.

And how wildly successful he was! The modern-day example of him, and the only man on earth that is 100% signal, is Elon Musk. He will walk away from a conversation if he doesn't feel he's gaining any useful information. He is 100% focused on signal, and look at what he has achieved—and he's not even finished yet.

More Articles

View All
How to catch a Dwarf Planet -- Triton MM#3
The 14 moons of Neptune are a strange bunch. Most of them are small, potato-shaped pieces of ice and rock. Some are so far away from Neptune that they need 29 years to circle Neptune once. Almost all of them are asteroids trapped by Neptune’s gravity. 99…
Saving and investing | Investments and retirement | Financial Literacy | Khan Academy
Let’s talk a little bit about saving and investing. One thing that you’ll hear me talk a lot about is how important it is to save. One, it’s a sign that you’re living sustainably; that you’re spending less money than you’re bringing in. It also allows yo…
ZOMBIE Bugs!!!: Mind Blow 12
Nes breathalyzer and what’s so great about these balls? Ah, Vsauce! Kevin here. This is mind blow. In Sonic CD, don’t make the blue blur wait too long or eventually he’ll say, “I’m a game,” and he’s dead. What Yoshi’s Island contains the zombie glitch? Wa…
Fleeting Grace of the Habitable Zone | Cosmos: Possible Worlds
We’ve got the biggest dreams of putting our eyes on other worlds, traveling to them, making them our home. But how do we get there? The stars are so far apart. We would need sailing ships that could sustain human crews over the longest haul of all time. T…
Everything You Need to Know About Planet Earth
Planet Earth is the home of every lifeform known to us in the universe. Its age is about 1⁄3 of the age of the universe, and admitted, it is a thing of beauty. A slightly squashed sphere with a heavy metal core and a lighter surface crust, wrapped in a th…
How to Get Everything Done in a Day
Do you have something you need to be doing right now but are avoiding like the Plague? Maybe you have a lot of stuff you need to do but you just keep putting it off, and you distract yourself from the discomfort of even thinking about it? Have you ever th…