STEVE JOBS HYSTERIA
The pandemonium around Steve Jobs is a challenge for me. The media hype seems to simultaneously celebrate not just his genius, but his rebellious attitude, his relentless pursuit of perfection, his refusal to compromise, his resolute drive…. In the first week of its sale, Walter Isaacson’s biography of Apple co-founded Steve Jobs sold a whopping 379,000 copies in the US in a single week, making it by far the top selling book of the country – apparently, we should (and do) all want to be a little more like him.
The thing is, Steve Jobs didn’t give a rat’s ass for any of the core values most of us seek in the workplace: teamwork, mutual respect, interpersonal skills etc. If he worked at most companies, he’d probably tell us all how stupid we all are, he’d probably have a point, and we’d probably ask him to leave before the middle of the week.
It’s not so easy to resolve. We all want to surround ourselves with strong minded visionaries, but if everyone in the company aspired to be like Steve Jobs, it would probably explode in a dramatic pyrotechnic display of competing personalities. At 23 Degrees North we pride ourselves on hiring top talent but we don’t prize big egos. While we encourage independent and innovative thinking, we insist on mutual respect, teamwork and reasonable compromise – try to build long lasting success without it.
23 Degrees North strives to be a company full of innovative thinkers and future leaders who have respect for one another, will work together to take risks as a team, share values, and can compromise if necessary. Idolise Steve Jobs all you want, just know that we consider him to be the exception, not the rule. If you want to work for us, we would love to have you – just take a look at our job postings or give us a call (as long as you’re not some kind of egocentric maniac, of course!)
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