An Insider's Take on Steve Jobs

JANUARY 30, 2006
Newsmaker Q&A
By Peter Burrows

Former Apple board member Edgar Woolard Jr. talks about the man, his vision, and how he'll likely contribute at Disney

How would you say Jobs stands out, as an executive?

I'd say he has five special characteristics, and everyone knows the first two. For starters, he's incredibly creative and has great vision. That's an overused word, but he just kind of senses where people might want to go. Two, he's an absolute perfectionist. For example, I remember he worked for hours with one of his guys on the colors for the first iMac. It had to be just right. Three, he has a great ability to attract outstanding people to work with him. I'm talking about outstanding and extremely loyal people. As soon as he took over Apple, we had lots of great people who had been at the company previously, and people from Sun (SUNW ) and Oracle and lots of other companies wanting to come back. Four, if he respects you, he will interact with you and modify his ideas -- whether it's dealing with people or finance or technology. Five -- and nobody ever seems to think about this one -- the damn guy knows how to make money! He just makes money. I remember how he cut inventory from over $400 million to less than $100 million in one year's time. And he knows how to make decisions. If [an executive] isn't cutting it, he'll make the change. He doesn't do it in an ugly way, but just says "this isn't working" and does something about it. He does the kinds of things that an operating CEO is supposed to do.

Source: BusinessWeek online

Burrows is BusinessWeek's Computers editor in the Silicon Valley bureau