"a person who came along from my team whose whole job during the meeting was to keep an accurate count of how many times Bill said the F word. The lower the f*-count, the better."
I don't think you get to be the richest guy in the world just by being exceptionally smart.
That story, Joel's reaction to Gates, and the reaction of the other Microsofties has always disturbed me. Gates' behavior wasn't an example of competence; he was a bully on a power trip.
The cognitive load of asking a question or making an objection is generally lighter than giving an honest counter-argument. Especially if the question or objection is a profanity-smeared act of belligerence and the answers have to be polite or else you're fired.
"Examinations are formidable even to the best prepared, for the greatest fool may ask more than the wisest man can answer."
- Charles Caleb Colton
Here's my theory: I think the key is that he, just like Jobs, is a leader who feels strongly about the product. There are lots of stories about how people would dread presenting ideas to Gates because he'd be brutally honest with how he felt about them. Same thing goes for Jobs - they care deeply that the product is good, so middle management is forced to focus on actually making good product. Whereas most CEOs and management care primarily about the process - we need the perfect process to make perfect product! Thus middle management that focuses solely on process. You never really hear much about the processes used at Apple, and I think it's because they don't really matter that much. What matters is the product and the consumer experience, and that is what Jobs cares about.
I've noticed this in a few assistants I've hired. I've had to train them away from CYA thinking and have gone through a few iterations to get them towards goal and value oriented thinking.
Example: When asked to "arrange a meeting" with the web consultant, my assistant left all of the choices up to me and didn't try to get any information exchange out of the way ahead of time by email and using our website. I've had to explain that our meeting had certain goals, and that she should think independently to achieve them. Instead, she just took "Cover My Ass" actions by demonstrating that she was taking actions "trying" to move toward those and left all the decisions up to me. I had to explain that the value they produced for me was in minimizing the communications I was involved in and exercising her intelligence and common sense.
Basically, a company has real success by creating real value. Employees that focus on process are focusing on covering their ass and not on the goal of producing real value.
