Chapter 26 Section 3 Cultural Reconstruction

NeXT can be regarded as Jobs' second venture.Compared with the first time to start a business at Apple, Joe has more resources, better engineers and a better reputation.Most importantly, because he has learned from Apple's lessons, Jobs has an indisputable right to speak in NeXT, and there will be no more foreign CEOs fighting openly and secretly with him. At NeXT, Jobs deliberately tried to create a corporate culture that was different from Apple's.Jobs has long been impatient with Apple's various malpractices such as division of departments, chaotic product lines, scattered resources, and overstaffing.Now, since Jobs alone has the final say on NeXT, then a complete system reconstruction will be carried out so that those malpractices will not be able to breed.

Jobs, who thought he was familiar with management skills and had enough capital to carry out management innovations, began to conduct Utopia-style experiments in various aspects such as environment, logistics, salary, and benefits. NeXT became almost a guinea pig for him to practice and prove his management skills. For example, from a fundamental institutional perspective, Jobs wanted to completely change the model of traditional companies and establish a structure similar to associations or associations.Employees are more like club members than corporate employees.In order to achieve community-style management, Jobs tried to use a simple two-tier salary system in the salary system.There are only two starting salaries for employees. The starting salary for veterans who joined before 1986 is US$75,000 a year, while the starting salary for others is US$50,000 a year.All employees are appraised every 6 months, and salary increases are decided based on individual performance.At the same time, for maximum transparency, employees can see everyone else's payslips.Anyone with a discerning eye knows that this utopian salary system is unreliable. If many managers are paid lower salaries than their own employees, how can they ensure work enthusiasm?Within a few years, Jobs gave up this set of so-called institutional experiments on his own.

In the office environment, in order to stimulate the inspiration and creativity of employees, Jobs took great pains.Initially, Jobs chose NeXT's offices on Deer Creek Road in Palo Alto.It was a small two-story building.Jobs installed mahogany floors on the upper and lower floors.Except for Jobs' own office and a few conference rooms that need soundproofing, all office areas are open plan.Later, the company's employees continued to increase, and Jobs moved the office to Redwood City (Redwood City), but also continued the luxurious decoration and open layout. The walls of the NeXT office are perennially decorated with the works of landscape photographer Ansel Adams (Ansel Adams).Occasionally, there are temporary artworks on display.There are solar panels on the roof of the office and a splash pool for the little ones.

Whether in Palo Alto or Redwood City, NeXT offices have one thing in common: The stairs in the offices are all specially designed.In the office on Deer Creek Road, there is a beautiful circular escalator between the upper and lower floors, while the staircase in Redwood City is a translucent "suspended" staircase without extra supports.It is said that these two staircases were written by the Chinese architectural design master IM Pei. Obviously, Jobs had more or less "staircase complex" when choosing an office.This complex has continued into the design style of the Apple Store.Today, whether it is on Fifth Avenue, Lujiazui, or Sanlitun, almost every Apple store has a translucent staircase, which may be the most beautiful legacy left by NeXT.

As for internal management, Jobs still continued his demanding details, perfection, simple and rough style when he was at Apple.As before, he would suddenly appear in front of busy employees, and then use harsh words to pick out the faults in the work of the other party, giving people a blow to the head.He will also change from day to day like before, which makes people feel at a loss. He often calls his employees stupid, but most of them are used to it.One employee recalled: "When Steve says you're an idiot, don't take it seriously. That doesn't mean he really thinks you're an idiot. It just means he doesn't agree with you."

At NeXT, Jobs's obsession with detail and perfection bordered on a frenzy.When deciding what kind of black paint to use on the outside of the NeXT case, he went to the trouble of comparing dozens of different black paint samples and was dissatisfied with almost all of them.This tossed the employees responsible for the chassis manufacturing. He also asked engineers to make the circuit boards inside the NeXT case attractive and attractive.The engineer asked puzzledly: "As long as the circuit board is clear and easy to maintain, why should it attract people? Who will look at the circuit board in the case?"

"I will," Jobs said. Rather than saying that Jobs is carefully creating a distinctive management culture, it is better to say that Jobs, who is far from mature in management, is experimenting and exploring on the NeXT platform.For an arrogant but inexperienced manager like Jobs, perhaps, only more failures can make him sober and mature faster.