Exposing the hidden secrets behind Steve Jobs success can be compared to exposing the secrets behind a great magician’s tricks. What most of you don’t know is that the former decorated Apple CEO had a reputation for running the company like a ruthless totalitarian, and on a level of secrecy that could match that of the CIA. In this article, I will reveal to you the 7 hidden secrets behind Steve Jobs success by using evidence from people who have had firsthand interactions with him in the work environment and also at a personal level.

Being a tech enthusiast I have always perceived Steve Jobs’s life and career as an illustration of successful entrepreneurship that is driven by the illusive ‘X-factor’ that that only a few people in the world process let alone master. If you do a quick search, on the internet, you will see a lengthy list of pundits with claims that they have the true understanding of what made Steve Jobs so different, inspiring and successful.

Am not disputing that these claims are true, however, they mainly entail principles that you and I or anyone else with the desire to become an innovative Guru can adopt and learn from them. Thus, these principles are mainly presented in general terms, and thus barely scratch the surface on revealing the true nature of Steve jobs that made him such a successful entrepreneur.

Now that you have gotten everything into perspective, here are 7 hidden secrets behind, Steve Jobs Success.

1. Advised someone to find a job as a busboy first until he found out he was passionate about.

Besides being the founder of Apple Company Steve Jobs held numerous roles in the company including being one of the most successful marketers of all time. He not only successfully introduced Apple products to the market but also made the public yearn to own the gadgets. An aspect that made him so successful at this is the fact that he loved his job. Loving your job might look like a soft trick but according to Steve Jobs, following your passion can lead to great success.

When Steve Jobs was asked what advice he would offer to young individual who was yearning to become a new entrepreneur; his response was,

“he should first go out and find a job as a busboy or something else until he find’s what he is really passionate about”.

He further mentioned that entrepreneurship is not easy as many people think it is; it needs determination and passion to keep going when things get tough. “You won’t get that excitement to jump over the hurdles unless you find something you’re obsessed with”. So, the best advice is for you to find something that fills your heart with excitement.

2. He was a Ruthless Administrator

From a psychological perspective, Steve Job character or rather personality can be termed as a Jerk. A jerk means a person with an assertive and arrogant nature. To be more precise, Steve possessed a strong assertive personality; he was notably arrogant and had a ‘disagreeable behavior’ which retrospectively brought him success he did not expect. He was not afraid to demand the best out of the people surrounding him, thus the company employees on all levels had to step up their game else, they would be replaced with someone who could do the job better.

3. Perfectionist: Had Little Tolerance for Imperfection

To properly illustrate this, let’s take a look at an incidence that occurred back in 2008, during the launch of Apple’s MobileMe web service which was riddled with a myriad of bugs that led to hacking of customer emails. The launch was such a failure that critics branded it as “MobileMess.”

(Photo credit: Bill David Brooks via Foter.com / CC BY-SA)

Just as you can imagine, Steve did not take it well; he asked a simple question, “Can anyone explain to me like a two year old what MobileMe is supposed to do?” when he got the response, he went ahead and asked, “So why the hell does it not do that, and worst of all you went ahead to launch an incomplete the product?”

And the bashing did not stop there; he reportedly told the team responsible that each and every member of that team should be ashamed of themselves because they had not only let each other down but also had tarnished the reputation of the company.

To cut the story short, Jobs immediately selected a new team to run MobileMe, while most of the team members were sacked with immediate effect.

From the above scenario, it is clear that he did not tolerate negligence even from himself. It is reported that, in almost every product Jobs ever created, he always got to a certain point where he had to hit the pause button, and go back to the drawing board because he felt it wasn’t perfect enough.

4. Operated on High Levels of Secrecy that could match that of CIA

Secrecy has been a critical to the success of the Steve jobs and the Apple company. As a matter of fact, secrecy is a critical ingredient to the success of any individual or business. Just like a military general, Jobs viewed the business environment as a war zone, which required him to not only gather intelligence on what the rest of the competitors within the industry were doing, but also the ability to maintain the organization secrets; in order to have a competitive advantage.

According to fortune magazine, “… This approach has been critical to its success, allowing the company to attack new product categories and grab market share before competitors wake up. It took Apple nearly three years to develop the iPhone in secret; that was a three-year head start on rivals.”

Talking of secrecy, you will be surprised to note that, the company has an elite group called ‘the Top 100’ which was made up of exceptional individuals who meet up in utter secrecy and in undisclosed locations to plan and strategize on critical aspects of the business that signal the company’s future. The meetings are so secretive that the members were neither allowed to drive to the meeting location nor mark the meeting dates on their calendars.

5. A Modern Day Gladiator

Besides the theatrics to the Top 100 events, Jobs met his top executives on frequent basis to discuss important aspects of the projects. Just like military men going for war, there was no excuse for any confusion or room for error after a meeting. A meeting comprised of an action list (of what is to be done) accompanied by a directly responsible individual (DRI) who ensured that the task is completed accordingly.

True to the saying, with much power bestowed, much responsibility is expected; the bar was set higher for the top level employees such as senior managers and vice presidents. It is reportedly that job gave a similar speech to all the incoming top officials that went like this:

“When you’re the janitor, reasons matter, but somewhere between the janitor and the CEO, reasons stop to matter.”

Basically he was telling them that they had no excuses for failure.

6. He Preferred simplicity

This aspect reminds me of an incidence as a first year student in university during a programming lesson. The lecturer had presented us with a somewhat, hard question that none of us could crack. Interesting enough, the lecturer presented us with a simple solution that all of us had ignored.

One of the students complained that the solution was too simple, and the lecturer asked, ‘what’s wrong with the solution being simple?’ The point is, the entire class could not get the answer because, we all imagined that a complex problem needs a complex answer which is not true.

True to the above statement, Steve Jobs loved, simple small, and uncluttered which is a perfect recipe for success. Most organizations prefer to run large companies, rather than profitable companies – large companies give the illusion of profitability which is not necessarily true.

According to Jobs, it is better to run a small profitable company than large organizations that are overstaffed and are chocked with bureaucracy that reduces profitability, productivity and slows down decision making and creativity. Simplicity is not just reflected in the running of the organization, but also in the apple products themselves, their websites and packaging which are built in simple and uncluttered design.

7. Do you want to sell sugar water the rest of your life or to come with me and change the world?

An aspect that made Steve Jobs stand out from the rest of the entrepreneurs it that he was a master negotiator, with killer convincing power. Back, in the 80’s, John Sculley who is an experienced entrepreneur, investor and marketer was the vice-president at PepsiCo. He had successfully made the Pepsi company the top brand in the Cola Wars.

Jobs saw the great potential in John Sculley and he desperately needed him to join Apple inc, to boost the company’s marketing capacity. However, its was not going to be a simple task to lure Sculley out of PepsiCo because, he was at the peak of his career, with an extremely good pay, and was celebrated for transforming the company to an industry leader. Besides that, he would be leaving an established company to settle for a less established one.

Despite these unfavorable odds, Steve Jobs successfully lured Sculley away from Pepsi to Apple Company through his legendary pitch; he asked Sculley:

Do you want to sell sugared water for the rest of your life? Or do you want to come with me and change the world?.

This pitch successfully sealed the deal; Sculley left Pepsi Company and became the chief executive officer of Apple Inc.

Wrap up of the 7 hidden secrets behind Steve Jobs success

From the above 7 hidden secrets behind Steve Jobs success, it is clear that Jobs had the illusive ‘X-factor’ that only a few people in the world process. The journey to exposing these hidden secrets behind Steve Jobs success feels like exposing the secrets behind a great magician’s tricks.

The former decorated Apple CEO had a reputation for running the company like a ruthless totalitarian, with little tolerance for imperfection, and on a level of secrecy that could match that of the CIA. Moreover, he demanded perfection not only from other people but also himself, preferred simplicity and most of all, he loved his job. A lethal combination of qualities that enabled to achieve such success.