Failure: Jobs and Microsoft’s Secret to Success

Steve Jobs and Microsoft have a bit in common (and are very different too). One of those things they share in common is being able to turn failure or near failure into success.

Steve Jobs
You have five seconds. Name Steve Job’s greatest successes. Here’s a few I can think of off the top of my head.

1) Mac
As the must read This Day in Apple History told us on 24th January, “Apple is defined by a secondary project, one that Steve Jobs wanted to kill and later demanded to control.”

2) iPod
SJ himself admits this was almost an accident and they nearly missed the boat totally.

3) OS X
Born out of the ashes of NeXT, a struggling company run by Steve.

4) Pixar
As Chris Seibold wrote in January of this year, SJ wanted to shutdown the animation division of Pixar.

Throw in being a college dropout and booted out of his own company and we find someone who has learned much about handling failure and mistakes. It is worth noting though, if you analyze each of those near failures, often you’ll find it was the influence of another great visionary that turned Steve, whether it be Jef Raskin or John Lasseter.

Steve has become a master of failure, turning potential disasters and mistakes into unprecedented successes. It’s his ability to back a winner - no matter how late in the race - that accounts for his success and why Apple still exists today.

However, it is Microsoft that is more interesting when it comes to turning failure to success.

Microsoft
Apple has a habit of releasing under-featured first-up versions but ones that are solid and decent products. For example, the first Mac, the first iPod, plus any first-up software.

Microsoft tends to the opposite approach and appears willing to fail with its first-up products. Take Windows 1, WinCE1, Internet Explorer 1 & 2, and so on. And now add to that the Zune. It almost makes you wonder if Microsoft deliberately sets out to fail with its first releases. Maybe it’s become enculturated, that is, first-up failure happened so often, it has become part of the culture, and thus an instinctive habit.

Many folks are laughing at Microsoft’s attempt to compete in the MP3 player market, but history says beware. Microsoft may still yet fail miserably, and maybe it’s become so conditioned to that first-up failure it can’t actually help itself.

We’ll probably all be laughing at the next Zune too but Microsoft never seems to hit their stride until version 3 (although the second Xbox is showing promise).

As James Stoup asked in his article yesterday, how long can Microsoft afford to fail with its attempts to enter the MP3 player market? Possibly longer than we expect. After all, Microsoft knows with perseverance it can turn failure to outstanding success.