Apple’s Vertical Strategy is key to Their Success

One of the things I learned very early on in my limited relationship with Steve Jobs was that he was a control freak. That was both good and bad. Bad in the sense that this was a factor in him getting fired in 1985 when he tried to take control of everything related to the Mac and the way he tried to manage Apple. It was also a good trait when channeled correctly. That started when he came back to Apple in 1997 and had learned a great deal about sharing responsibility with others under him while at NeXT and not being so anal that he had to be in control of everything.