Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary has shared how he feels about the former Apple CEO Steve Jobs as he revealed a brutal conversation they once had.
Steve Jobs built a trillion dollar company
The former Apple CEO established one of the world’s biggest tech companies back in 1976 as he fostered a culture of success among his employees that made Apple the trillion dollar company it is today.
Jobs died in 2011 after a battle with pancreatic cancer.
He had unconventional methods
Jobs was known for the unconventional methods he used with his employees, like asking them everyday: “How many times did you say no today?” because he believed saying no would ‘create focus’.
Now, one of his former employees has spoken about an interaction with the boss.
Kevin O’Leary said he was ‘not a nice guy’
Shark Tank businessman and multi-millionaire Kevin O’Leary opened up about his experience working with Jobs in the ‘90s.
He told the Diary of the CEO podcast, “I used to work for Steve Jobs in the early ‘90s making all of his educational software. By the way, not a nice guy, not a nice guy.”
RELATED STORIES
He recalled a brutal conversation
Recalling one conversation, O’Leary said of Jobs, “He would say to a room full of people, ‘Kevin, I don’t give a s*** what the students want or the parents think or anybody thinks.”
“It’s what I want. They don’t know what they want till I tell them what they want.’”
He would try to counter the CEO
O’Leary went on, “And I said, ‘Steve, you sound like such an a**hole. You have no idea what that sounds like.”
“He says, ‘no, no, that’s how it is Kevin. Now, are you making money with me? Am I your fastest growing OEM [original equipment manufacturer]? Have we not been wildly successful and continue to be?’”
It was a tense conversation
O’Leary continued, “I said: ‘Yes, Steve, that’s true.’ He said: ‘Then f***ing shut up and do what I say.’”
Despite the tense conversations, O’Leary also had some praise for Jobs’ work ethic, explaining the concept of signal to noise ratio. Signal is what you want to get done, and noise is what gets in the way of doing it.
O’Leary liked how Jobs handled signal and noise
Giving some praise to the Apple CEO, O’Leary said, “What was so brilliant about Jobs, his vision of signal was the top three to five things you have to get done in the next 18 hours you’re awake.”
“You’re going to get those three things or those five things done that you have deemed critical for your mission. They must get done today.”
Jobs had a successful ratio
O’Leary went on, “Anything that stops you from doing that is the noise. So this signal to noise ratio to be successful for Steve Jobs, was 80/20. 80 signal, 20 noise.”
“I knew that to be true for him because he would email me at 2.30 in the morning, expect me to get back to him because back then we didn’t have texts. It was all email.”
