We idolize founders with brilliant ideas, but triumph often results from business savvy combined with imagination.
It’s practically an insult in Silicon Valley to say that an executive is extremely capable at running a company. Inventors, not great managers, are often the ones celebrated in technology. We imagine mad scientists bringing to life their visions of the first personal computers, software that organizes all the websites in the world and cool electric cars. Turning an idea into a viable and lasting business is dull by comparison. That companies will give more power to business operatives over inventors is a constant fear among technologists. The concern is understandable. Innovation is essential and tough to sustain now that technology is a mammoth industry. But the fixation on an individual’s ingenuity above all other abilities is a selective memory of tech history. Triumph is often the result of imagination combined with obsessive business savvy. Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos are respected for their technical imagination but also their supremacy in business strategy, marketing or ability to unite people behind a shared mission. Great ideas are almost never enough on their own. Strong leaders also need pragmatism and other skills beyond dreaming. And the way that technology is infusing everything now means that the myth of the genius tech inventor is standing in the way of progress. I’ve been thinking of this because I started reading my colleague Tripp Mickle’s new book, which explores the tensions between Apple’s head and its heart in the decade since Jobs died. Apple’s chief executive, Tim Cook, is the head — the whiz at manufacturing details.
