Jobs Was A Genius -- Apple Genius Musings (Sent In By A Reader)

Updates

A day or so after posting the original post (see way down below), I received a very nice note expanding on the theme of the "genius of Apple" or the "genius of Steve Jobs." At one time, the two were probably opposite sides of the same coin.

I asked the author of the piece if I could post it for archival purposes; my granddaughters will enjoy it some day. He agreed, but it will be posted anonymously.

[The piece was sent as a word document. There is some risk there will be errors as I bring it over to HTML, but hopefully will catch them.]

Enjoy. 

 

Apple Genius Musings 

April 7, 2013 

I think you might be right about the Genius tags. Saw your Jobs post from last night, like it.

Steve Jobs 

Genius.

Mickey Drexler

Flamboyant, successful merchant with magical touch at The Gap and J. Crew. Although at the end of his tenure at The Gap he had something like 20 - 30 plus consecutive months of declining same store sales. He was the right guy for Jobs to consult for retail guidance.

Andrea Jung

Accomplished, brilliant "Tiger Student" with a "Tiger Mom," though not in New York City. Glamorous, vibrant, great role model for the Avon ladies, and nice besides. Always been a fan -- love her.

Saw a snippet somewhere of a parody on Apple where Jobs and his execs were a bit in awe and in fear of her; I believe it. She asked Jobs, "Why do you have all this cash?" Response: "Cause that's what we do here in the valley."

Execs would brief the board, she would want to get into all the numbers which they wouldn't have, "well, then how about just giving us an overview" -- "ah, ah, I really don't have that put together." Guess they thought they were briefing Al Gore.

Don't pretend to know the issues she had at Avon, but still love her.

Tim Cook

Don't really know much about him other than a few articles I've read over the years. Read Jobs said Cook was the best hire he ever made, and perfect for Apple's needs. His forte is supply chain, so "master" of supply chain might be the best moniker for him.

Some people say Michael Dell is a genius for his "build-to-order" business model where he would need to invest in only 2 -3 days of inventory, which provided him an annualized 120 - 150 inventory turns, an unbelievable metric. This of course meant he was getting free use of cash for the 30 - 60 day terms that his vendors were providing Dell, as well as other benefits.

Eventually he found even this model was too expensive to operate in the US. Dell was also obtaining laptops built, I believe in Taiwan and then configuring them in the US, which resulted in double handling. Too late he moved operations off-shore and added distribution through retail channels as well.

Meanwhile Tim Cook had Foxconn manufacturing tons of Apple products in China, and even shipping some of them directly to end users in the US. He is eating Dell's lunch.

So maybe there is a case for the genius tag, but it is hard to compete with a flamboyant merchant and a creative, charismatic founder -- supply chain just doesn't have the same glitz, glitter or sizzle.

Hau Lee

Don't know whether you are familiar with Hau Lee. He came to the Stanford Business School from Hong Kong some 20 plus years ago, and is the founder and current director of the Stanford Global Supply Chain Management Forum. He is acknowledged as the foremost supply chain guru around, a true genius, and nice as can be.

Besides all the academic type papers he produces, he has studied dozens of companies from the inside out. Early on he took a year's sabbatical and worked with HP resolving some significant issues, and has done engagements for bunches of other companies. I can't follow all the math in his technical papers, but he patents a lot of it, and puts it in applications around which he has co-founded a number of startups. He knows business, and applies common sense throughout everything he develops or proposes.

His demand planning, forecasting and replenishment math and logic, together with that of his multi-echelon inventory management were the basis for a San Francisco enterprise software company he co-founded called Evant, which was subsequently acquired by supply chain firm Manhattan Associates. He co-founded another San Francisco software company, DemandTec that uses his logic to define price points and product mix based on customer buying trends. DemandTec was recently acquired by IBM.

I am not sure why I am getting into all this, other than I guess Tim Cook's supply chain expertise has led me astray. I am intrigued by the supply chain concepts in the Bakken, and beyond; at all levels, in all industries and companies. It is not just getting the resources out of the ground and deciding whether to use rail or pipeline, but which play in the US or anywhere an E & P company commits to if any; gas versus heavy versus light oil versus coal versus....; all the transportation infrastructure decisions; where and whether to build refineries and for what; identifying markets; getting all the materials and supplies needed by the E & P's to them; everything all the companies and individuals need to handle the explosive growth of Williston and the other booming cities; whether to gobble up E & P's; and a great deal of this extends globally -- both in and out (also my favorite burger place, animal style please) -- with all its implications.

At any rate you are so knowledgeable and widely read that I am taking the liberty of attaching a great 2004 Harvard Business Review paper of Hau Lee's and a bio I copied from someplace. Don't feel obligated to read any of this -- I am certain you won't, feel obligated that is.

My final thought, which I could have come to a long time ago, is that if Tim Cook sees Apple through the transition from the genius founder over the next several years, then he may be due some consideration for the genius designation himself.

**********

Note: one can see a bio of Hua Lee here. 

Note: If one googles "the triple a supply chain" pdf the first hit should be of Hau Lee paper published in Harvard Business Review in October, 2004.

Original Post

I don't know if anyone recalls the article in Newsweek or Time magazine years ago featuring Apple and Steve Jobs. It was a several-page article, and there was a photo of Steve Jobs sitting cross-legged with a clam-shell contraption on his lap, and he called it magic. It wasn't connected to anything. No power cord. No internet cable. And he was years ahead of his time and calling it magic. It was hard to believe it was his toy, not "his" toy because he bought it at the store, but it was "his" toy because he made it at his shop (which by then was a technological marvel in its own right).

So, tonight, I'm at a place where I have no television, no internet, and I am desperate to see THE GAME.

I know I won't be able to watch it but I can at least follow the score if I get up to Starbucks.

Here I am. In Starbucks. I turn on the computer, check some mail, make sure the blog is up and running, and then I click on Yahoo!Sports expecting to find a score.

And there it is: NCAA LIVE!

It's incredible. Here I am, listening to the 10-hour video of "What is Love" on YouTube in the background, typing on the blog, and watching THE GAME live.

Jobs was simply a genius. What he invented. What he saw coming.