Underdogs

A New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller goes behind the scenes of the tech giant that inspired a cult-like following for its products.

If Apple is Silicon Valley's answer to Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory, then author Adam Lashinsky provides readers with a golden ticket to step inside. In this primer on leadership and innovation, the author introduces readers to concepts like the “DRI” (Apple's practice of assigning a Directly Responsible Individual to every task) and the Top one hundred (an annual ritual in which one hundred up-and-coming executives are tapped a la Skull & Bones for a secret retreat with company founder Steve Jobs).

Based on numerous interviews, Inside Apple offers exclusive information about how the company innovates, deals with its suppliers and handled the transition into the Post Jobs Era. Lashinsky, a former executive editor for Fortune, knows the subject cold: In a 2008 cover story for the magazine entitled “The Genius Behind Steve: Could Operations Whiz Tim Cook Run the Company Someday”, he predicted that Tim Cook, then an unknown, would eventually succeed Steve Jobs as CEO.

While Inside Apple is ostensibly a deep dive into one, unique company (and its ecosystem of suppliers, investors, employees and competitors), the lessons about Jobs, leadership, product design and marketing are universal. They should appeal to anyone hoping to bring some of that Apple magic to their own company, career, or creative endeavor.

“A revealing guided tour of [Jobs's] greatest creation.” —San Francisco Chronicle

With an Afterword on the Tim Cook era