/biz/ - Business & Finance

Leading with Steve Jobs, Jay Elliot
>Be "intreprenurial"
>Pirate vs. the Navy. Macintosh was a Pirate vessel against the Navy of Apple. Apple was a pirate vessel against the established navy of IBM (see how this relates back to Max Weber!?)
>Jobs liked to ask questions like "have you ever been fired?" to gauge their reaction - are they embarrassed or proud? More importantly, did they stand up for something when the were.
>Another question he would as was "What did you think of IBM", NOT "what was it like working there"
>Challenge people! Use a velvet glove: "I heard you're good, we only hire the best. Are you good enough to work for Apple?"
>People freak out over free t-shirts, no one is too rich for a free t-shirt
>When headhunting people Jobs would show the person he was interviewing his watch, and ask "what do you think". If they said they liked it, Jobs would pull out a brand new watch, exactly the same and give it to them. This does two things: 1. It's a litmus test for if they have the same 'a e s t h e t i c s' as him, and 2. it's a psychologically manipulative tactic to make them feel like they have to accept the job.
>Jobs wanted to prove to the engineers that an iPod could be made more compact, so he threw one in a aquarium and said "see the air bubbles coming out? You can make it more compact"

Full Disclosure: IMO Jobs, while an excellent persuader and manipulator of people was a terrible manager