I am getting tired of the seemingly widespread disdain for leadership and its critical influence. Our prior president claimed that we at Apogee did not “build that” … i.e. the company. Give me a break. Do you want to see the scars? Do you want a list of impediments to us “building that” that the government itself set up including interviewing us about how to build a residential calculator and then funding LBL to build a competitor to ours!
Our company would not exist … plain and simple … without the leadership of myself and my lovely wife Susan. No ethereal forces made our employees do what needed to be done. They had to be led! And, without leadership, the teams settle in on mediocrity … oops … Joel, now your “medlin’ where you shouldn’t.
My LinkedIn account attempts to offered proof that Jobs and others were not responsible for today’s great products. You can read it for yourself and judge. Click here.
Jobs was a fanatic about the user experience … probably THE biggest fanatic the electronics industry has ever had. That influence at Apple is now clearly gone. Now it is once again the business of incremental value engineering at work that tries to squeeze a bit of that into or out of a given product. They are no longer creating products.
The iPhone changed our lives … it was not a better mousetrap. Rest in peace Steve. Your reputation and life’s work are still good with me.
Great post, Joel. I especially like the statement and loathe the prospect of government’s infinitely deep pockets (money printing) competing with the private sector [your LBL reference].
I would also like to reply to the “you didn’t build that” naive comment. Supposedly, we are products of a benevolent government including all its services – schools, roads, infrastructure. Well, who do you suppose pays for those things? The people built “that” and all the wealth that “that” generated and taxes payed in the process. !!!!!!! I could go on and on, but I’ll control myself. 🙂