William Shockley: The Steve Jobs Counter-Example
We all subconsciously emulate our heroes, even if we can’t draw any logical connection between their behaviors and their outcomes. After reading Steve Jobs’s biography, I think a lot of us are wondering whether his maniacal management style had anything to do with his success. Some might even experiment with developing our own reality distortion fields.
I think in these situations what is most useful is a good counter-example. William Shockley fits the bill perfectly. He was a scientific genius, and a masterful recruiter. He won the Nobel prize for inventing the transistor, then came to Palo Alto to start a startup to commercialize the transistor. He was sitting on top of a goldmine, the very birth of the nacent computer industry. But it wasn’t his company that ended up taking advantage of the opportunity. Not for lack of ideas - no he employed the very people that would go on to start Intel. Why did Shockley Semiconductor fail while Intel succeeded?
Because Shockley was a horrible manager, and all his employees quit and decided to start their own companies. Watch this 15 minute documentary to learn the details:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLNh4UY5ohw
So there you have it, folks. Your counter example to the Steve Jobs school of management.
