[EarthLaunch]

I take it as a sign of typical increasing corporate dysfunction. Obvious problems, some even easy and uncontroversial, don't get fixed. Why?

The people who can fix them are not in control. The org must be very top-down. But Steve Jobs had a top down style, so what's the difference? Its: Using and caring about the product.

It's top down direction with the people at the top not using/caring about the product. Presumably they're concerned with other things like efficiency, stocks, clout.

[jedberg]

Also if you had a majorly obvious bug, you could email [e-mail], which he would forward to a VP, who would be fired if it wasn't fixed ASAP. Knew a guy who lost his job that way, so it's not just a myth. Steve really was like that.

The wrath of Steve was a real thing that people feared.

[AlexandrB]

On the one hand, this kind of thing seems like a mercurial, dictatorial management style. On the other hand, you do need a way to cut through the levels of hierarchy in a large company so that fixes like this don't always get bogged down in process and stakeholder meetings.

It seemed to work for Apple/Steve Jobs, but I'm not convinced it would work for everyone.