One thing I will say about personalities who actually make a big mark on their industries is that they are often very difficult to work for or with.
Steve Jobs was on a different level of being literally impossible to work with by all accounts.
People tolerated him because they knew his vision and determination was going in a direction that hadn’t been done before, and they wanted to be around for the ride, so they suffered through his mercurial and unpredictable persona. He rarely gave compliments and even upon seeing a great idea, he would maybe say, “Well, at least it isn’t total trash.”
Even before Jobs was in business, he went into his College Dean’s office one day, sat in his chair, propped his stank-ridden bare feet up on the guy’s desk (he had a no-deodorant policy, rarely showered) as he waited for the dean to arrive for their meeting about his academic performance, then explained to the dean that it wasn’t moral or ethical for him to be wasting his parents’ hard-earned money on classes he just wasn’t interested in, and that he was going to therefore drop out of those courses, and drop into the ones he was genuinely intrigued by.
The dean just kinda looked at this kid and said, “Uh....OK?"
Had Jobs not done that, you wouldn’t have dozens of different fonts to choose from when you type a Word document, because one of the classes Jobs dropped-in to was calligraphy.
Years later when he contracted a little weasel named Bill Gates to develop his software suite for the Macintosh, he wanted the word processing program to have those beautiful calligraphy styles he had seen in the class, in a drop-down menu that you accessed with the mouse.
There are similar stories about how he acquired the rights to graphical user interface and the high-strength glass for iPhones and Apple store windows.
These types of men are few and far between.
Someone whose name will never be known outside of their small circle can look at them and cherry-pick through their faults, but I always am interested in what makes them tic, where did they come from, and how did they overcome the barriers to entry and success that so many fail to achieve?
You all should hear the story of JP Enterprises some time. It blew me away when I sat down and talked with JP about it at his Blue Steel Ranch where Steel Safari is held. Absolutely movie-worthy story with Fudd origins in his little MN FFL, double-murder of his employees by a judge’s son after he sold the FFL to them, touring the Nation to attend the only shoot schools in existence, his muzzle brake work, single-stage trigger, adjustable gas blocks, then complete rifles finally. He has hilarious stories about Gunsite when Jeff Cooper was still there and the instructors would grade your 1911.
It would be very illustrating to be able to sit down with Mark LaRue or Bill Geissele and hear their origin stories, failures, sacrifices, and achievements. They’re generally too busy making product flow though, so it’s very difficult to get these opportunities.
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