This is an interesting subject and does have a certain bearing on military leadership. Steve Jobs was an extraordinarily innovative one of a kind creative genius not unlike Leonardo da Vinci. And all attempts by business schools, writers, and executives to understand and replicate that genius will invariably fail. Like da Vinci, Jobs genius was one of a kind and energized by a unique set of circumstances not within the powers of man to either fully understand or clone.

A lifetime of study of Van Gogh, Mozart or Jobs will not endow one the ability to create a ‘Still Life: Vase with Twelve Sunflowers”, or the Piano Concerto No. 22 (K-482) or the iMAC/Phone/Pod/Pad sensations. What invariably happens is that the outward affectations of personalities’ of genius are mimicked rather than the more difficult to discern foundations of their unique intellectual gifts. Notice Apples new CEO Tim Cook wearing Jobs-like jeans and solid color shirt to the new iPhone presentation as if that was part of Jobs inner secret.

While never much of a Patton fan I do recognize that he had certain flair and distinctive personality that was incorrectly confused by his peers as the font of his underlying soldierly qualities. So what we find is a generation of wannabe’s in the U.S. Army affecting the superficial mannerisms and oddities of Patton character without really understanding the nature of his true talent.

Omar Bradley is a good example of this phenomenon in that if one takes a look at his appearance early in the war he could have passed for an elderly NCO. However, by the time of Normandy he is wearing the lacquered helmet liner, pistol and belt, Ike jacket and bloused trousers of the object of his acute jealousy namely George Patton.

Had a company commander that, lets just say he was he taught you what not to do.

Left there and went to BN S3 shop, the S3 Major always DEMANDED 120%,

Someone asked mean how I could work for such a son-of-a-bitch.

I told the guy I had worked for a dumb SOB and I worked for this smart SOB
It was much better to work for smart SOBs

The great thing about him was if you didn't have a list of different ways you had tryed to get something done then you had a problem,
But, if you showed how much you had tryed he ALWAYS back you that same 120%

from the list of things he did do. OK, there are a lot of things missing, but the one that stands out is Steve Jobs learned from his mistakes. At one point, he realized he was expending a lot of effort and money recruiting these insanely great and talented people and running them off within a short period of time. He learned how to control his worst impulses. Not all of them I'm sure, but enough to keep these people around. As a fellow perfectionist ass, I can sympathize with his situation.

That ability to recognize a mistake and change was incredibly valuable to his success.

You know, steps 1-3 read exactly like how Lockheed's Skunk Works operated and who can argue with the U-2, A-12 and SR-71?

I think if we sent at least half of all MBAs and coprorate lawyers off to work in the fields, most corporations would be so much better for it and I suspect there would be a lot more innovation at all levels; just a thought.

Quite a lot of what Jobs did at Apple is hard to defend. His own board of directors threw him out in 1985 and when he returned to the company he abandoned excellent Apple technology developed in his absence -- a remarkable display of company-hampering vanity. The Newton technology he orphaned was an outstanding example of this, and, in the mid-1990s a signpost to what turned out to be the iPad fifteen years later -- perhaps overdue.

In his absence, Jobs had started a company, NeXT, which he thought to be the next big thing in computing. it wasn't, and one of his conditions on accepting the invitation to return to Apple was that the board would buy out his NeXT shareholding. Certainly good for him; questionable for other Apple shareholders.

Like Bill Gates of Microsoft and sundry other famed names of the rather shady computer industry, Jobs progressed by lavish applications of bullshit. After his return to the company, he sought sales by disseminating falsehoods about Windows-environment capabilities. At one point, the official line to the faithful and user conferences (though not the more sceptical newsmedia) was that the cutting-edge 80386 processors in Windows machines were a technological dead end. This was bizarre nonsense, since the 80386es were at that point already succeeded by the more advanced i486 family.

While much of the gush of the past week was simple nonsense -- he wasn't the Michelangelo of our times, as some now claim -- he certainly had a sense of what the market wanted, and was an excellent salesperson. The technical brain of Apple in the early days was his first partner Steve Wozniak, who this week seems to have been relegated by the news media to the position of amiable old geezer, and Wozniak was evidently eager to be rid of his association with Jobs as soon as his Apple shareholding started to pay off big. There are reports that one reason for this was Wozniak's discovery that in their early hardscrabble days, Jobs the salesman was bringing in software contracts for Wozniak the tech guy to discharge; and Jobs was understating greatly the size of the contract fees clients were paying, and Jobs was passing on to himself.

Rascality is a major thread of the past two decades of PC history and there is little reason to believe Jobs was the biggest rascal. He was of course a very gifted man. It will be interesting to see how he arranged for his wealth to be distributed after his death.

In the 60s, I worked for Major General Andrew R. Lolli when he was head of 8th NORAD Region. I watched him arrive at a Nike Hercules site, call a drill, and fire the colonel in charge when the site couldn't come up to active status in the required time. All this happened in less than two hours. He was the first Army general to head a NORAD region and the 8th went from the worst in the nation to the best under his command.

And let's not forget -- let's not forget, folks -- that Jobs also experimented, with psychedelics, hallucinogens, for uh, mental, you know, within the -- and by his own admission was a Buddhist fellow-traveller-- he had that going on, too...

Interesting Quora about Jobs and his cancer treatment in that his management style may have led to his premature death -- "Of all the people who suffered on the dark side of his headstrong, iconoclastic decision making, it was Jobs himself who appears to have paid the biggest price.[Gawker.com]"

http://www.quora.com/Steve-Jobs/Why-did-Steve-Jobs-choose-not-to-effectively-treat-his-cancer

A newsmagazine cover this week shows young Steve Jobs sitting in a modified lotus position -- impossible to most adult Americans -- with a desktop computer in his lap. From an early age, Mr Jobs attended to his diet, did his exercises, kept his slender figure, learned the value of a good barber for people in public life, bathed repeatedly in public adulation. He had more than enough money to take the best medical advice on offer anywhere.

Then died at 56 after a few years of intense physical stress. Live fast, die young, etc etc.

we all are missing you Steve, you are the most honor people in technology behind the Apple.

Or we can proudly say that the success behind the apple is you Steve. Rest in peace Steve.

With Love

Keshab

The technical brain of Apple in the early days was his first partner Steve Wozniak, who this week seems to have been relegated by the news diy tips media to the position of amiable old geezer, and Wozniak was evidently eager to be rid of his association with Jobs as soon as his Apple shareholding started to pay off big.