Short Read: Mike Moritz on Steve Job's Frugality in "Imitators Take Note: Steve Jobs Was More Than a Showman" | Episode #173
Outliers with Daniel Scrivner: Explore the Greatest Innovators, Founders, and InvestorsShow Notes
"It is easy to forget that, when he was a student, the man who brought us the Macintosh, iPhone and iPad (and, with his little finger, Pixar) collected bottle caps to make ends meet. The need to stretch every nickel informed the way Apple was run during the early days." — Mike Moritz In 2015, Mike Moritz wrote an opinion piece for The Financial Times called "Imitators take note — Steve Jobs was more than a showman." It's a great reminder that the best businesses — including Apple — are the most capital efficient businesses. That what matters isn't how much you raise, but the business you build with what you raise. And that even Apple, started out life being incredibly cheap and capital efficient. Being frugal and stretching every nickel ensures that your business is as durable as possible. While revenue will always ebb and flow, expenses are typically subject to inertia. Expenses tend to build up invisibly, almost imperceptibly, and can require heroic acts to shrink. While is why it's so important to build a culture of frugality from Day One — ensuring that as many dollars spent as possible go toward strategic expenses that sustain and grow your business.
Explore the episode notes. Search and down a transcript and find links to related books, interviews, lectures, and more: outlieracademy.com/173.
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For more, explore my full profile of Steve Jobs. Who is Steve Jobs? Wisdom From The Man Who Built Apple, NeXT, and Pixar
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More from Outliers with Daniel Scrivner: Explore the Greatest Innovators, Founders, and Investors
Steve Jobs made an incredible impact on the world by creating two of today's most important companies in Apple and Pixar. Both companies created world-changing products while Steve Jobs was alive in the Macintosh, iPod, iPhone, and Oscar winning animated films such as Toy Story. More importantly, both companies developed the right team, vision, and culture to continue producing world-shaping products decades later — long after Steve's departure. As we learn in this book, Steve's values and ethos live on in both of these incredible companies.
Steve Jobs made an incredible impact on the world by creating two of today's most important companies in Apple and Pixar. Both companies created world-changing products while Steve Jobs was alive in the Macintosh, iPod, iPhone, and Oscar winning animated films such as Toy Story. More importantly, both companies developed the right team, vision, and culture to continue producing world-shaping products decades later — long after Steve's departure. As we learn in this book, Steve's values and ethos live on in both of these incredible companies.
My favorite lessons from "To Pixar and Beyond" by Lawrence Levy. Who joined Pixar in 1995, helped Steve Jobs take Pixar public, and built it into the $7.4 billion company Disney eventually acquired. Get Friday 5 delivered to your inbox every Friday at 8 AM Pacific
My favorite lessons from "To Pixar and Beyond" by Lawrence Levy. Who joined Pixar in 1995, helped Steve Jobs take Pixar public, and built it into the $7.4 billion company Disney eventually acquired. Get Friday 5 delivered to your inbox every Friday at 8 AM Pacific
After he was dismissed from Apple in the early 1990s, Steve Jobs turned his attention to a little-known graphics company he owned called Pixar. One day, out of the blue, Jobs called Lawrence Levy, a Harvard-trained lawyer and executive to whom he had never spoken before. He hoped to persuade Levy to help him pull Pixar back from the brink of failure. This is the extraordinary story of what happened next: how Jobs and Levy concocted and pulled off a highly improbable plan that transformed Pixar into the Hollywood powerhouse it is today.