INSIDE APPLE reveals the secret systems, tactics and leadership strategies that allowed Steve Jobs and his company to churn out hit after hit and inspire 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 will introduce readers to concepts like the “DRI” (Apple’s practice of assigning a Directly Responsible Individual to every task) and the Top 100 (an annual ritual in which 100 up-and-coming executives are tapped a la Skull & Bones for a secret retreat with company founder Steve Jobs).

Based on numerous interviews, the book offers exclusive new information about how Apple innovates, deals with its suppliers and is handling the transition into the Post Jobs Era. Lashinsky, a Senior Editor at Large 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.

Like a lot of people I bought the autobiography of Steve Jobs after he passed away, but this book intrigued me at Heathrow Airport, it was the first one to feel like it really jumped into Apple’s secretive policies. I was expecting a book that would be bashing Apple nonstop for their tactics, but at least a view into Apple with a bit more perspective. This type of business book is relative only for a very short time and so I thought to read it within that time and just finishing it recently really was interesting. Surprisingly Adam Lashinsky praised Apple for a lot of their business decisions and how Jobs kept the entrepreneurial spirit in Apple going unlike many companies of it size. If you have any inclination towards Apple then you really have to read this book, I’m not their biggest fan but I do respect them and this book gives you more incite into them. An excellent read.

Link: Amazon

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