INSIDE STEVE JOBS´ BRAIN . Leander Kahney News Editor of Wired.com & Author USA In Cupertino, Apple´s headquarters, innovation doesn´t come from coddling employees and collecting whatever froth rises to the surface; it is the product of an intense, hard-fought process, where people´s feelings are irrelevant. There is a lot of concern about being fired. Apple staffers labor tirelessly to please Big Boss Jobs. There is no egalitarianism prevailing at Apple. No cosy ”management by walking around”, for the sake of making the workers feel included and happy. Over the past 100 years, management theory has followed a smooth trajectory, from enslavement to empowerment. At most companies, the red-faced, tyrannical boss is an outdated archetype. Not at Apple. And now observers, academics, and even other companies are taking notes. Because while Apple´s tactics may seem like Industrial Revolution relics, they´ve helped the company position itself ahead of its competitors and at the forefront of the tech industry. Sometimes, evil works. Steve Jobs co-founded Apple in the late 70s. After losing a power struggle with the board of directors in 1985, he resigned from Apple. When Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, the company teetered at the brinck of bankruptcy. With 11 years of Steve Jobs´ unique creative vision, tyrannical autocracy, famous charisma, policy of radical opacity, and obsternate devotion to secrecy and detail, the Apple figures have skyrocketed. Jobs´ employees remain devoted. He can make every task feel like a mission from God. Leander Kahney is the author of the book ´Inside Steve´s Brain´ (Portfolio, 2008) and the news editor of Wired.com. As the site´s news editor he is responsible for the day-to-day running of Wired.com. He heads up a team of six section editors, a dozen reporters and a large pool of freelancers. Together they produce a daily digest of stories about the impact of science and technology. . Next Speaker