T.F. Carthick's Blog

The key aspect of this chapter for me was the Innovators' solution idea of integrated architecture versus modular architecture. The writer speaks of every aspect of a product needing to gel together giving an example of Gillette cans that rust because the cans are not manufacture by Gillette and because the brand executives are not users of the product. That has been the much repeated central message of the book - of having executives that make the product be not just users but passionate about ...

 This chapter is about how Steve got back into leading Apple. I would say the main takeaway here are his marketing abilities. And again centered around passion for the product. Steve Job pitches his NeXT computers to develop the operating system for Mac and finds an entry back into Apple. His preparation for the pitch is highlighted.

The chapter talks of his unconventional background and how he was driven by passion, talking of his school education and how a teacher inspired him. And about how he...

 As I read through, I feel this is more of a book around the life and myth of Steve Jobs than hard business lessons. More of self improvement type lessons if any than business theory that that can be replicated. So let me go with the flow.

The Chapter is about surviving lean periods. The 10 years when Steve Jobs was out of Apple. What he did during that period. He took his money out of the Apple Company shares. So he had money. He started Next Computers to realize his Mac vision on his own. He in...

 This chapter is about the right organization structure, right incentive, right channels - aspects that professor Christensen talks about a lot.

This chapter's hypothesis is that a company should be organized by product rather than by function. Rationale being functional organization will try to standardize and not cater to the different needs of different product. This books talks of Mac, Lisa and Apple II. It doesn't really talk of how each one's need is different. But the chapter is more on ho...

 This chapter emphasizes the importance of rewards and how Steve Jobs used rewards to keep his teams motivated. Rewards and celebration are the standard tools of any human resources department. There is nothing ground breaking in the idea as such. What I would think different is the close linkages between the rewards and the products.

For instance the celebrations are mostly related to project phases rather than personal events in the lives of the employees. Some of the rewards were around an eng...

 This chapter did not have real great insights as such. It is mostly the usual stuff - hire smart people who are passionate about your product. You need to charm the best people to work for you. And it is about Steve Jobs driving his people hard and being judgmental. As well as being sharp with his people. The author tries to justify it as being out of passion for his product.

Frankly I could argue against every point. It is not clear if every team has to be full of A players only. There are theo...

Here we talk about the way Steve Jobs thought about teams. The thought was to have small teams of size less than a hundred focused around a product. And have the team members well connected with each other so that everyone knows what the others are working on and can cooperate well bringing the various team members joint thought process to solve the problem.

The idea of a team of pirates refers to the informality of the team and the tyrant like power of the leader. There is the joke in the book, ...

This book is about a charismatic leader while Blue Ocean and Disruptive Innovation were about creating a process that didn't depend on such a leader. So in certain aspects they would be opposed to each other. Especially with someone like Steve Jobs, things can go into the realm of hero worship. This chapter does that to some extent. Some of the things are just blind appreciation of generic leadership traits such as recognizing people which don't really carry differentiatiable insights. But let u...

This book is about a charismatic leader while Blue Ocean and Disruptive Innovation were about creating a process that didn't depend on such a leader. So in certain aspects they would be opposed to each other. Especially with someone like Steve Jobs, things can go into the realm of hero worship. This chapter does that to some extent. Some of the things are just blind appreciation of generic leadership traits such as recognizing people which don't really carry differentiatiable insights. But let u...

After reading two books that tried to drive home the point that leaders don't matter but the right process, we switch to a book about one of the most charismatic and successful leaders - Steve Jobs. As we go over the chapters and try to decode his success, we will see how the insights stack up against the ideas in disruptive innovation and blue ocean.

The first chapter is about leaders and teams having passion about the product. The book talks about how Steve Jobs while being non technical was ve...