TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION
THE
STORY
Deconstructing Steve Jobs through the triple
F model: function, functionality and form
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Anand Kurian is a marketing
communications theorist and
practitioner; he has been
featured among thirty
marketers from around the
globe. Extracts from this
article have been part of
lectures at the Indian
Institutes of Management
and the National Institute
of Design.
158 I N D I A N M A N A G E M E N T — M AY 2 0 1 2
APPLE
BY ANAND KURIAN
S
teve Jobs is remembered as the iconic founder
of a company, where ingenious bursts of cre-
ativity catalysed extraordinary feats of en-
gineering. He is considered to have trans-
formed half a dozen industries — personal com-
puters, animated movies, music, phones, tablet
computing, and digital publishing. He was a con-
duit for both — the creative arts as well as cut-
ting-edge technology; Apple’s singular achieve-
ments were made possible because he possessed
a unique meld of many abilities.
As he himself put it,“Tech companies don’t un-
derstand creativity.They don’t appreciate intuitive
thinking, I’m one of the few people who under-
stands how producing technology requires intu-
ition and creativity, and how producing something
artistic takes real discipline.”
In order to review products, I have created the
REUTERS
Triple F model, deconstructing a product into three
different aspects — function,functionality and form.
For the purposes of this piece, I am going to apply
this model to Apple, under Steve Jobs. It would be
illuminative and instructive to measure Steve’s con-
tribution in each area.That would teach us just how
Apple became the most valuable company in the world
(by the Forbes ranking of 2011).
For the purpose of clarity, particularly with
reference to computers, I have defined ‘function’
as being what a product, such as a computer, can
do, the tasks it can perform and how well it can
perform them.
‘Functionality’, I define, as how the user gets it
to perform those functions — or to put it differently,
how quick, simple and easy it is for the user to get
the computer to perform those functions.
‘Form’ is, of course, the aesthetic design of the
 TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION

product.This has a larger context, that will become

evident in the following pages.
Let’s study and analyse some of Apple’s prod-
ucts, and Steve’s contribution to them, under these
heads. Jobs is a difficult subject to research —
there is a multitude of sources (including the com-
prehensive, authorised biography by the brilliant
Walter Issacson), but there is also a multitude of
contradictory opinions. For the limited purpose of
this essay, if a certain piece of information has not
been challenged or disputed, I am assuming it can
be relied upon.
The assessment is based on this material that
is available; the standards of the assessment, and
the conclusions that I draw from it, are my own. I
have tried to show that a clearly discernible pattern
emerges from the facts; the recognition and study
of that pattern could be very educative.

Function and Functionality

Apple II
Apple II was the primary launcher of the personal
computer industry. It was to continue to sell for
well over 16 years, and a total of six million pieces
would be sold. But it is Job’s partner, Steve Woz-
niak, who deserves acclaim for its jaw-drop-
ping circuit board and operating software;
this should be, and has been hailed, as one
of the greatest contributions by a single in-
dividual in the computer industry.
But it is equally true that it was Jobs
who put together Wozniak’s boards into a
user-friendly package, from seemingly in-
significant details like the power supply to the
smooth and glossy case. He also created the com-
pany that grew around Wozniak’s machine; Woznaik,
himself, would have been the first to admit that he
would not have been able to create Apple alone.
Regis McKenna, a trusted Apple advisor for
▼

many years, put it rather bluntly,“Woz de-

XEROX MOUSE signed a great machine,but it would be
■ Had three buttons, and sitting in hobby shops today were it
was complicated not for Steve Jobs.”
VIS-A-VIS

■ Movement was not

smooth
▼

■ Could not drag window The Macintosh

around the screen APPLE’s MOUSE The Xerox Corporation
PRICE: $300 PER PIECE ■ Single button press, and was easy
agreed to show Apple its
■ Movement was smooth new technology and in
■ Could drag window around the screen and return got to buy
even drop these into folders 100,000 shares at about
PRICE: $15 PER PIECE
160 I N D I A N M A N A G E M E N T — M AY 2 0 1 2
 TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION

▼
STEVE WOZNIAK DESERVES ACCLAIM
REUTERS

FOR HIS JAW-DROPPING CIRCUIT

BOARD AND OPERATING SOFTWARE
This has been hailed as one of the greatest contributions by a single individual
in the computer industry

$10 each. The Xerox Corporation’s Palo Alto Re- into an office, there are papers on the desk.The one
search Center (PARC) had pioneered the concept of on the top is the most important.The reason we model
bitmapping at that time; the bitmapped screen made our computers on the desktop is that we can lever-
a graphical interface possible. age the experience people already have.”
The Apple ‘theft’ of the Xerox PARC bitmapping He motivated his team to make the Macintosh
concept is oftentimes described as one of the biggest boot up 28 seconds faster.When they started to ex-
raids in the chronicles of industry. Jobs occasion- plain that it couldn’t be done, Jobs cut them off. “If
ally accepted this, and not without some degree of it could save a person’s life, would you find a way
pride.As he once said,“Picasso had a saying — ‘good to shave off the boot time?”he asked.“If five million
artists copy, great artists steal’ — and we have al- use the Mac, and it takes 10 seconds extra to boot
ways been shameless about stealing great ideas.” up, that adds up to some three hundred million or
Steve Jobs could never claim credit for the so hours in a year,which is the equivalent of at least
bitmapped screen (nor did he). one hundred lifetimes…”
But, Jobs, and the team of engi-
neers he led, greatly improved iTunes and the iPod
on the graphical interface they Jobs’ limited contributions in the domain of the es-
saw at Xerox PARC, in terms of sential functions of a product
functionality,and they were able and his very significant contri-
to execute them in ways that Xe- The creation of the butions in the area of function-
rox, perhaps, never could ac- iPod converted Apple ality seem to be replicated in al-
complish. For example, the Xe- most every product category.
rox mouse had three buttons,
from a computer Other companies were already
was far too complicated, didn’t manufacturer into, in making music-management ap-
move around smoothly and, at the words of Forbes, plications,but they were unwieldy
$300 a piece, was outrageously and far too intricate to use. One
expensive. Jobs got a local firm
‘the world’s most of Jobs’ unique abilities was to
to make a simple, single-button valuable company’ identify product categories where
model that moved effortlessly the existing players were less
and cost just $15. than first-rate.When he examined
The improvements were more than just in the the music apps available — including real jukebox
details. The mouse at Xerox PARC could not be and windows media player — he concluded that
used to drag a window around the screen. Apple’s they were so complicated that only a prodigy could
engineers devised an interface so you could not only wade through and figure out most of their features.
drag windows and files around,you could even drop They scored extremely poorly on functionality.
them into folders. Apple allowed the windows on After he had set up iTunes, Jobs realised that
a screen to overlap so that the “top” one clipped Apple had the opportunity to design a portable
into the ones “below” it. In terms of its pure func- music player device to sync with the iTunes soft-
tion, the product was clearly Xerox’s; in terms of ware, allowing it to be far simpler. He would sac-
its functionality, however, Apple had taken it to a rifice function for functionality — easy functions
totally new and different level. would be executed on the device, more difficult
Jobs loved the notion of a ‘desktop’.“People know ones on the computer. This led to the creation of
how to deal with a desktop ‘intuitively’. If you walk the iPod; and it was truly this device that con-

162 I N D I A N M A N A G E M E N T — M AY 2 0 1 2
 TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION

AFTER STEVE JOBS SET UP iTUNES, HE

REALISED OF DESIGNING A SIMPLE
PORTABLE MUSIC PLAYER. THIS LED TO
THE CREATION OF iPOD
The iPhone offered the user a numerical pad when he wanted to make a phone
call, turned it into a keyboard when he wanted to type

PHOTOS: REUTERS

lay unused, and switch on, almost magically, with

a gentle touch.

The iPhone and the iPad

verted Apple from a computer manu-
facturer into, in the words of Forbes,‘the
world’s most valuable company’.
But, like most of Apple’s products, the iPod
originated elsewhere — in this case, at Toshiba.The
engineers there mentioned to Apple that they had a
new product — a small, 1.8-inch drive that would
hold five gigabytes of storage (potentially, about a
thousand songs).Jobs immediately negotiated with
Toshiba for exclusive rights to every one of the disks.
Jobs then became obsessed,as always,about its func-
tionality. His standard was rigid but clear — if he
wanted a song or a function, he should be able to
access and operate it in just three clicks.And he needed
to be able to do it ‘intuitively’, without being told or
having to read a manual on how to do it.
Those two standards — being able to access
the function in three clicks and being able to do
it intuitively — summed up, in essence, the func-
tionality that we find, not just in the iPod but in
all of Apple’s products.
Of course, the most stunning of all the func-
tionalities on the iPod,(and,again,most Apple prod-
ucts) was that it did not have an on-off switch. Most
Apple devices would go off, on their own, when they
With the iPhone, functionality seemed to attain an
almost lyrical level. The iPhone offered the user a
numerical pad when he wanted to make a phone
call, turned it into a keyboard when he wanted to
type, and all of these simply vanished when he was
watching a video clip, offering him the maximum
display possible.
Where the iPad was concerned,Alan Kay,the Xe-
rox PARC pioneer,had envisaged a “Dynabook”tablet
computer 40 years before. But with his version of
the tablet computer, the iPad, Steve Jobs seemed to
have taken functionality to its final intuitive level.
A poor six-year-old stable boy in Columbia, with no
experience of computers or gadgets at all,was found
using the iPad; he was playing games on it without
having had any instructions on how to use it. Steve
Jobs could look on that as the final tribute to per-
fecting a product’s functionality.
At home
Jobs extended his questioning of functions and
functionality to products in his home.“We spoke about
furniture in theory for eight years,” his wife, Lau-
rene Powell, reminisces.“We spent a lot of time ask-
ing ourselves, ‘What is the purpose of a sofa?’
Appliances,such as a washing machine,were also
subject to long analysis before purchase.“We spent
hours talking about the trade-off we wanted to

164 I N D I A N M A N A G E M E N T — M AY 2 0 1 2
 TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION

make. Did we care about getting our wash done in Steve was slowly adopting the Bauhaus aesthetic;
an hour versus an hour-and-a-half? Or, did we care he liked the notion of simple and clean modernism,
about our clothes feeling soft and lasting longer? produced for the masses. And he believed that
Did we care about using a quarter of the water…?” there should be no distinction between fine art and
applied industrial design.
Form As a matter of fact, the Power Mac G4 Cube, re-
We now enter the area and domain where Steve Jobs leased in the beginning of the 21st century, was so
left his most important and most indelible legacy. alluring that it was exhibited in New York’s Museum
Mike Markkula, the first chairman and one of of Modern Art.An eight-inch perfect cube,it was the
the first major investors in Apple, had put down pure expression of the Apple aesthetic philosophy.
the company’s philosophy, emphasising three prin-
ciples. Heading the list was empathy. “We will Minimal, yet playful
truly understand their needs better than any As Jobs’ design sensibilities were evolving,his early
other company.” tryst with Buddhism spilled over onto his sense of
Next came focus: “In order to do a good job of design (his black turtleneck was a creation of the
those things that we decide to do, we must elimi- Japanese designer Issey Miyake — he had more than
nate all of the unimportant opportunities.” a hundred of them). ‘Simplicity is the ultimate so-
The last was impute.“People phistication’,‘real artists simplify’,were quickly be-
DO judge a book by its cover,” he coming his design mottos. In Jony Ive, Jobs met his
wrote. “We may have the best soul mate in the quest for true rather than surface
product, the highest quality, the simplicity. Ive believed that,“To be truly simple, you
most useful software etc.; if we have to go really deep. Deep
present them in a slipshod man- enough to understand the essence
ner, they will be perceived as Jobs’ limited of a product…”
slipshod; if we present them in contributions in the But Steve and Ive were care-
a creative, professional manner, ful that their sleek designs would
we will impute the desired qual- domain of the not become slick, over-powering
ities.” And it was this last that essential functions of or unapproachable; they kept it,
Steve seemed to take most to a product seem to be on the other hand, warm, pas-
heart and was to prove to be his sionate and playful. Steve’s own
unique strength. replicated in almost leaning towards Zen tilted him to-
every product category wards minimalism but it was
The brand name and never clinical.
the logo Jobs would constantly stress
The name Apple Computer had been suggested by that his products should look friendly. One of the
Steve Jobs.There were long periods,in his twenties, fascinating changes that one can observe as a di-
when he would eat nothing but fruit. The name rect consequence is that, as the design evolved, the
sounded fun, spirited and not intimidating. Apple Macintosh began to resemble a human face. Taller
took the edge off the word ‘computer’.Plus,it would and narrower than most computers, it suggested a
get us ahead of Atari in the phone book!” ‘head’. The base reminded one of a ‘chin’, and Jobs
His instincts would prove to be right. During a reduced the plastic at the top to make the ‘forehead’
period when computers were still seen to be intim- more appealing.The designers were later to confess,
idating, meant to be used by people who were “in- “Even though Steve didn’t draw any of the lines, his
telligent” and “skilled at that kind of thing”, Apple ideas and inspiration made the design what it is.
disarmed the average person. It was as American as We didn’t know what it meant for a computer to be
you could get. The logo linked Apple to the tree of ‘friendly’ until Steve told us.”
knowledge, which most Americans would know That was the basic philosophy that both Jobs
about, and had a whiff of the rebel about it. and Ive believed in. In an interview with Fortune,
he said,“In most people’s vocabularies,design means
The mass production of art veneer. But to me, nothing could be further from the
He once took his Apple team to see an exhibition meaning of design. Design is the fundamental soul
of Tiffany glass at the museum; he wished them of a man-made creation that ends up expressing it-
to learn that great art could be mass-produced. self in successive outer layers.”

166 I N D I A N M A N A G E M E N T — M AY 2 0 1 2
 TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION

ABOUT THE BRAND

■ The name ‘Apple Computer’ had been
suggested by Steve Jobs
■ The name Apple sounded fun,
spirited and not intimidating
ABOUT THE LOGO
■ The logo linked Apple to the tree of knowledge,
which most Americans would know about, and had a
whiff of the rebel about it
REUTERS

ABOUT THE STORES On one occasion,Jobs and Ive
once wandered into the sunflower
■ The architectural firm had been hired
to design the stores garden that Job’s wife had planted.
■ The floors of most major Apple stores, Ive asked,“What if the screen was
would be made of sandstone that separated from the base like a
came from the ll Casone quarry near sunflower?” He grew excited and
the Tuscan town of Firenzuola
■ By opening their own stores,
started sketching what he had in
Steve jobs could have complete mind. Ive thought all design
control of how it was designed and should have a story behind it; he
made to how it was sold
hoped that the sunflower shape
would suggest that it was alive
and that it could reach up towards the sky.
Almost as a playful afterthought, the iMac had
a handle that rested on top of it. Its use was doubt-
ful,it was unlikely that the desktop computer would
ever be carried around but when Ive suggested it,
Steve immediately warmed to the idea — both of
them understood that it would make the computer
less intimidating to its target audience.
Reverse engineering
In most corporations, form follows function. The
engineers created the innards of the machine and
then it was put into an aesthetic shell by the de-
signers.The Apple philosophy was almost iconoclastic,
in this regard.Jobs had already finalised the design
of the original Macintosh, when it was handed over
to the engineers — they had to fit the insides of the
computer into it.
At NeXT,his very own company,he could indulge

168 I N D I A N M A N A G E M E N T -- M A Y 2 0 1 2
 TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION

REUTERS

himself even further; he had

The design of the The others at Apple could never
set his heart on a cube design iPhone was re-done at understand his passion for it.“His
and the circuit boards had to the last moment; that knowledge of fonts was remarkable,
be reconstituted to snuggle tight and he kept insisting on having
into the cube.
meant re-working the great ones,”Markkula remembered.
The Apple design philoso- circuit boards, antenna “I kept saying, ‘Fonts? Don’t we
phy was, perhaps, best ex- and processor have more important things to do?’”
pressed by Hartmut Esslinger, But, as a matter of fact, the array
a German designer,selected by
placement inside of Macintosh fonts, along with
Jobs. His guiding principle, he laser-writer printing and the strides
said, was “Form follows emotion,” a clever play on in graphics, kick-started the desktop publishing in-
the familiar principle that form follows function. dustry (and,of course,added significantly to Apple’s
profitability).
On the screen When the Apple engineers came up with a bril-
Jobs’ obsession with aesthetics extended to all that liant algorithm to draw circles and ovals onscreen
would appear on the screen. When he had dropped quickly,Jobs responded by asking for rectangles with
out of college at Reed,he had opted to attend classes rounded corners.When they seemed to think it was
in calligraphy. Jobs had studied a great deal about inconsequential,he pointed out to car windows and
typefaces — knowledge that most of his ‘tech’ con- billboards and street signs.“Within three blocks,we
temporaries lacked. “When we were designing the found 17 examples of rectangles with rounded cor-
first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me,” ners,” said Jobs. Subsequently, dialogue boxes and
he later said of that class.Thanks to Xerox, the Mac windows on nearly every Apple computer, were cre-
was bitmapped, and it was now practical for Steve ated with rounded corners.
to design an almost unlimited range of fonts, from Apple worked on the icons too, such as the trash
the formal to the wild. can for deleting files. Jobs lavished similar atten-

170 I N D I A N M A N A G E M E N T -- M A Y 2 0 1 2
 TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION
THE APPLE PHILOSOPHY
IMPLIES THAT THE OUTER BOX
AND THE WRAPPING IN WHICH THE
PRODUCT CAME IN SENT OUT POWERFUL
MESSAGES ABOUT THE QUALITY OF
PRODUCTS INSIDE
tion on the title bars atop windows and documents.
He had them done over and over again.“Can you imag-
ine looking at that every day?” he explained to his
tired team.“It’s not just a little thing, it’s something
we have to do right.”
What you don’t see is as important
Jobs inherited his love of pure craftsmanship from
his father; Jobs Senior had been obsessed with the
idea that quality should carry over to every part of
a creation, even if it would never be seen. A good
carpenter wouldn’t settle for poor quality wood for
the back of a cabinet, merely because it would be
hidden. The quality of the aesthetic had to be per-
fectly consistent.
Jobs found nothing unusual in criticising the
printed circuit board inside the Macintosh — on
grounds of pure aesthetics.
That no consumer would ever see it was irrele-
vant to him.“That part’s really pretty,”he would say.
“But look at the memory chips.That’s ugly.The lines
172 I N D I A N M A N A G E M E N T -- M A Y 2 0 1 2
REUTERS
are too close together.I want it to be
as beautiful as possible, even if it’s inside the box.”
In his factory to manufacture the Macintosh,
Jobs’ aesthetic passion almost ran the factory
aground. When Jobs was inspecting the factory,
he ordered that the machines be repainted in the
colours he wanted. His engineers objected; the re-
painting would impair the precise running of the
machines.They were right -one machine, painted
a bright blue, never did function at its best and
was christened “Steve’s folly.”
But while his obsession with form was mis-
placed at the factory, it worked miracles for him in
the marketplace.
The packaging
In the very early years of Apple, Mike Markkula
had stressed that they needed to “impute”— to com-
prehend and accept that yes, people do judge a book
by its cover. So the Apple philosophy, quite apart
from Job’s own, meant that the outer box and
wrapping that their products came in sent out
 TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION

powerful messages about the quality of the prod- and Ive insisted on a solid piece of brushed aluminum
ucts inside.This is fairly common for products such for the edge of the iPhone 4 though the engineers were
as jewellery but less common for more utilitarian nervous that it would affect the antenna.
products — Jobs’ unique ability lay in taking a prac- To function as an antenna, the rim had to have a
tical piece of machinery into a plane where none of tiny gap. But if the gap was covered, for instance, with
his competitors existed. a finger, there could be signal loss.The engineers rec-
“When you open the box of an iPhone or iPad, we ommended a clear coating over the metal as a solu-
want that tactile experience to set the tone for how you tion but Ive vetoed this. When the engineers com-
perceive the product,” he said. “Mike taught me that.” plained to Jobs, he brushed aside their objections,
“Steve and I spend a lot of time on the packaging,” saying, as always, that they could solve it.
said Ive. “I love the process of unpacking something. The engineers did get it to work — almost all the
You design a ritual of unpacking to make the product time.When the iPhone 4 was released, it looked splen-
feel special. Packaging can be theatre, it can create a did, but the signal problem did surface, though it oc-
story.”All Apple customers were to learn to be part of curred,perhaps,only once every long while.Consumer
and to love that ritual. reports did tests of its own and refused to recommend
the iPhone 4, citing the antenna problem; it became
Reset and start over known as “Antenna gate”.
Quite often,even as he neared the end of a project,Jobs
would call a halt and then ask for The stores
changes that would turn the clock “The store will become the most powerful physical ex-
right back.This happened with his pression of the brand,”it had been predicted.That fore-
first Pixar film, Toy Story, with the cast never did come true — but that the Apple stores
Apple stores and with the iPhone became one of a kind retail outlets
as well. One morning, when the is certainly a fact.
iPhone project was almost nearing Jobs’ unique ability Jobs had been advised to build
completion, Jobs went over to see a mock-up of a store near the Ap-
was in taking a
Ive. “I didn’t sleep last night,” he ple campus, furnish it completely,
said, “because I realised that I just practical piece of and then to spend time there, tin-
don’t love it.” Ive was upset and machinery into kering with it till he was completely
then,to his own consternation,found happy with it. He did do just that
a plane where
Jobs was correct. — he rented a vacant warehouse
The design was re-done; it meant none of his in Cupertino and then,every Tues-
that they had to re-work the circuit competitors existed day for six months,they held meet-
boards, antenna, and processor ings there,talking about their ideas
placement inside,but Jobs was fine for retailing and building the store
with that. “Other companies may have shipped,” said around their concepts. “I loved to wander over there
an old Apple hand, “but we pressed the reset button on my own, just checking it out,” Jobs would remem-
and started over.” ber later.
Jobs’ unique signature style is very much in evi-
Backfire: design versus engineering dence in Apple’s Manhattan Fifth Avenue store: it was
Conflict between designers,who want to make a prod- almost the visual embodiment of his design philos-
uct look aesthetic, and engineers, who need to make ophy — a cube, a signature staircase, glass, making
sure it fulfills its function, is fairly common in many a “maximum statement through minimalism”.It is open
companies. At Apple, Steve always weighed in with 24/7, it justified Jobs’ policy of creating unique sig-
the design team, ignoring the objections of the man- nature high-traffic stores by drawing 50,000 visitors
ufacturing engineers, who raised practical consider- a week during its first year. “This store grosses more
ations when confronted with Ive’s artistic creations. per square foot than any store in the world,”Jobs said
There were, sometimes, minor hiccups. The iPod in 2010. “It also grosses more in total-absolute dol-
Nano, for example, was liable to getting scratched be- lars, not just per square foot-than any store in New
cause Ive thought a clear coating would mar the ele- York. That includes Saks and Bloomingdale’s.”
gance of his design. But that was not a disaster. As the number of stores grew and they thrived,
On occasions, there were more serious conse- Jobs stayed immersed in every minute detail. In one
quences,however.Antenna gate was one of them.Jobs meeting just before a store opening, Steve agonised

174 I N D I A N M A N A G E M E N T -- M A Y 2 0 1 2
 TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION

STEVE JOBS’ PERMANENT

REUTERS AND GREATEST CONTRIBUTIONS WERE
CONSISTENTLY IN THE
FUNCTIONALITY AND IN
THE FORM OF THE
PRODUCTS HE PRODUCED
HE WAS RATED THE
GREATEST ENTREPRENEUR
OF OUR TIME AS PER
FORTUNE MAGAZINE

Steve Jobs was the first to recognise the

importance of the technology space

for half an hour about the precise shade of gray
of the restroom sign.An architectural firm had been
hired to design the stores, but Jobs made every
major decision. The floors of most major Apple
stores, for instance, would be made of sandstone
that came from the ll Casone quarry near the Tus-
can town of Firenzuola. Jobs had seen this in Flo-
rence, twenty years earlier.
He was also able to create great hoopla and ex-
citement over the store openings,the same way that
he did with the product launches. Men, women and
children would travel to store openings, spending
the night outside so they could be among the first
in. The stores became part of the entire experience
of Apple products and by opening their own stores,
Steve could have complete control, from how it was
designed and made to how it was sold.
Summing up Steve
It is said that you will never need an Apple, but you
will always want one. “Steve understands desire,”
said Alan Kay, who had conceived the tablet com-
puter nearly 40 years before the iPad was launched.
Fortune magazine has rated Steve Jobs as the
greatest entrepreneur of our time. There will be
those who would argue with that rating — but it is
unlikely that anyone will quarrel with the thought
that he has had a great influence on several indus-
tries during his lifetime.
By applying my Triple F model to Steve Jobs,
I have demonstrated that there is a clear pattern
that emerges when we study his work and his
achievements. Steve Jobs had an extremely tu-
multuous career — it might, therefore, come as a
surprise that the pattern that emergesis a fairly
consistent one.Throughout his life, his major con-
tributions came, not in the functions of the gad-
gets he produced; his permanent and greatest con-
tributions were consistently in the functionality
and in the form of the products he produced. And
in the technology space, he was undoubtedly, the
first to recognise the importance of these areas.
He was playing to his strengths, of course, in do-
ing this — there were few others in the intersec-
tion of the arts and the sciences where he stood.
He was almost alone where he was and he knew
best how to leverage that position.
The passage of time will,perhaps,show us more
clearly where Steve Jobs stands in the history of in-
dustry — particularly and more specifically, in-
dustry in the technology space, but in the two ar-
eas of functionality and form, it is unlikely that his
bequest will be challenged. That, in the end, could
be his enduring legacy. IM

176 I N D I A N M A N A G E M E N T -- M A Y 2 0 1 2