Steve Jobs observes from his trip to India that intuition is as powerful as rational thought, but that in the Western world we value rational thought more than we value intuition. This is exactly what  Einsten said…

“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.”      Albert Einstein.

This is also the point Malcolm Gladwell makes in his book ‘Blink’. I read it a year ago and I think it’s the first time I really began to value the power of intuition. Our brain can subconsciously make a snap decision that is better than a conclusion we reach after hours and hours of analysis. The snap decision is actually the result of a complex process of subconscious thought that instantly weighs up things we are not even aware of.  That’s intuition.

Steve Jobs observes:

The people in the Indian countryside don’t use their intellect like we do, they use their intuition instead, and the intuition is far more developed than in the rest of the world… Intuition is a very powerful thing, more powerful than intellect, in my opinion. That’s had a big impact on my work.

Western rational thought is not an innate human characteristic, it is learned and it is the great achievement of Western civilisation. In the villages of India, they never learned it. They learned something else, which is in some ways just as valuable but in other ways is not. That’s the power of intuition and experiential wisdom.        Steve Jobs, by Walter Isaacson, p48.

As I read the early chapters of Jobs biography it’s clear that he’s not the smart guy, Wozniac is. Jobs maybe has more of this ‘intuition’ though: the ability to come to a clear vision of what is needed and of how to get there. The ability to instantly perceive the value of an idea.

I started reading Steve Jobs biography last week, it’s a challenge. Steve jobs is selfish to the extreme, bordering on evil. It’s a bit like when I read my Johnny Cash biography: I found myself being repulsed by the destructiveness of a man I thought I admired.  It’s so interesting I thought I might take a few posts to write my thoughts.

In his early days no one can work with Jobs. He’s rude, arrogant, and he stinks (literally – he doesn’t’ shower and refuses to admit he smells). He hangs around cult leaders taking a fair few drugs and has no problems using their tricks to manipulate the people around him, He mistreats his closest friends, his parents even his own daughter. As a student he works at Atari where they put Jobs on his own nightshift because everyone refuses to work with him. This is my point – he can get away with acting completely egotistically because people think they need him.

A classic case of his egotism is after the Apple II is launched. Scotty, whose job was to manage Steve jobs personal issues, assigns Wozniac employee badge # 1 and Jobs # 2. Here’s what happens…

Not surprisingly, jobs demanded to be #1. “I wouldn’t let him have it, because that would stretch his ego even more” said Scotty. Jobs threw a tantrum, even cried. Finally, he proposed a solution. He would have badge #0.

Maybe it’s not that Jobs is actually more selfish than the rest of us, rather Steve lets out what we are on the inside.  Like House, he says what he thinks, without regard to any social conventions or thoughts for others.  And he’s just such a genius that he can just throw a tantrum and get his own way and apparently get away with it.  It almost makes me feel dirty using an Apple computer. He really is not the kind of guy you want as a friend. I’ll keep reading though…