Start With Why

company and indeed their respective founders. Jobs has always been about challenge and Gates has always been about getting to the most people.
    Apple would continue to challenge with other products that followed the same pattern. Recent examples include the iPod and, more significantly, iTunes. With these technologies, Apple challenged the status-quo business model of the music industry—an industry so distracted trying to protect its intellectual property and their outdated business model that it was busy suing thirteen-year-old music pirates while Apple redefined the online music market. The pattern repeated again when Apple introduced the iPhone. The status quo dictated that the cellular providers and not the phone manufacturer decide the features and capabilities of the actual phones. T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless, and Sprint, for example, tell Motorola, LG, and Nokia what to do. Apple changed all that when they announced that, with the iPhone, they would be telling the provider what the phone would do. Ironically the company that Apple challenged with their Blue Box decades before, this time around exhibited classic early-adopter behavior. AT&T was the only one to agree to this new model, and so another revolution was ignited.
    Apple’s keen aptitude for innovation is born out of its WHY and, save for the years Jobs was missing, it has never changed since the company was founded. Industries holding on to legacy business models should be forewarned; you could be next. If Apple stays true to their WHY, the television and movie industries will likely be next.
    Apple’s ability to do what they do has nothing to do with industry expertise. All computer and technology companies have open access to talent and resources and are just as qualified to produce all the products Apple does. It has to do with a purpose, cause or belief that started many years ago with a couple of idealists in Cupertino, California. “I want to put a ding in the universe,” as Steve Jobs put it. And that’s exactly what Apple does in the industries in which it competes. Apple is born out of its founders’ WHY. There is no difference between one or the other. Apple is just one of the WHATs to Jobs’s and Woz’s WHY. The personalities of Jobs and Apple are exactly the same. In fact, the personalities of all those who are viscerally drawn to Apple are similar. There is no difference between an Apple customer and an Apple employee. One believes in Apple’s WHY and chooses to work for the company, and the other believes in Apple’s WHY and chooses to buy its products. It is just a behavioral difference. Loyal shareholders are no different either. WHAT they buy is different, but the reason they buy and remain loyal is the same. The products of the company become symbols of their own identities. The die-hards outside the company are said to be a part of the cult of Apple. The die-hards inside the company are said to be a part of the “cult of Steve.” Their symbols are different, but their devotion to the cause is the same. That we use the word “cult” implies that we can recognize that there is a deep faith, something irrational, that all those who believe share. And we’d be right. Jobs, his company, his loyal employees and his loyal customers all exist to push the boundaries. They all fancy a good revolution.
    Just because Apple’s WHY is so clear does not mean everyone is drawn to it. Some people like them and some don’t. Some people embrace them and some are repelled by them. But it cannot be denied: they stand for something. The Law of Diffusion says that only 2.5 percent of the population has an innovator mentality—they are a group of people willing to trust their intuition and take greater risks than others. Perhaps it is no coincidence that Microsoft Windows sits on 96 percent of the world’s computers whereas Apple maintains about 2.5 percent. Most people don’t want to challenge the status quo.
    Though Apple employees will tell you the company’s success lies in its products, the fact is that a lot of companies make quality products. And though Apple’s employees may still insist that their products are better, it depends on the standard by which you are judging them. Apple’s products are indeed best for those who relate to Apple’s WHY. It is Apple’s belief that comes through in all they think, say and do that makes them who they are. They are so effective at it, they are able to clearly identify their own