Walter Isaacson follows up his biography of Steve Jobs with an “insanely great” piece in the April HBR.   He drills down on the factors that helped to catapult the legendary entrepreneur into an elite league of American business leaders, including Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, and Walt Disney.

The 14 factors listed below continue at Apple as part Jobs’ legacy, which is helping drive the stock on an epic run,  now up 67 percent since November 25th and adding $240 billion to the company’s market capitalization.  That’s a lot wealth creation — equivalent to 1.6 percent of U.S. GDP.  No wonder the animal spirits are running again.

1)    Focus;
2)   Simplify;
3)   Take Responsibility End to End;
4)   When Behind, Leapfrog;
5)   Put Products Before Profits;
6)   Don’t Be a Slave To Focus Groups;
7)   Bend Reality;
8)   Impute;
9)   Push for Perfection;
10) Tolerate Only “A” Players;
11)  Engage Face-to-Face;
12)  Know Both the Big Picture and the Details;
13)  Combine the Humanities with the Sciences;
14)  Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish.

Below are the first few paragraphs of the article with a link to the full article.   This is a must read, folks! (more…)