Steve Jobs: The Diamond Cutter

Steve Jobs was more of a diamond cutter than all-out revolutionary innovator.

Why's that, you ask?

He didn't really come up with much first. He saw things in the wild, perfected them and sold them to the mass market. The mp3 player was out long before the iPod. The tablet computer was with us some ten years before the iPad. The cell phone came before the iPhone.

He saw diamonds in the rough, cut them into rare beauties, and sold them. He read the words that weren't on the page. He (and his team) had the foresight to see what was coming and create it. That's why they never relied on market research.

He said, "It's not the consumer's job to know what they want."

So true.