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Steve Jobs had a jeweler’s eye for detail – in a literal sense. Tony remembers watching Jobs whipping out a jeweler’s loupe and using it to inspect individual pixels on a screen to identify errors in the user interface graphics. For Jobs, every pixel, every piece of the product, every word on the packaging had to be perfect. 

Some people might apply the term “micromanaging” to this kind of behavior. Not Tony. In fact, he feels that what Jobs did is exactly what managers should be doing: Setting an example for the level of care and detail you expect from your team. Not letting anyone slide into mediocrity. 

In 2007, Steve Jobs gave his famous speech about the iPhone. He introduced the three different categories that each phone would combine: a widescreen iPod, a mobile phone, and an internet communications device. This is the part of the speech everyone remembers.

But what he said after that was essential too: “The most advanced phones are called smartphones, so they say. And the problem is that they’re not so smart and they’re not so easy to use.” He spoke about the problems many users had found with these “smart” phones as well as typical mobile phones. And then he contrasted these complaints with the iPhone’s features. 

Isabel Guenette began working at Nest when she was just 22 years old. Fresh out of college, she was one of the first employees to join Tony and his cofounder. They hired her to do important research on thermostats and find answers to the hundreds of questions to which they didn’t yet have answers. There was a ton that Tony didn’t know about thermostats. And neither did Isabel. But she was young, curious, and capable – so she approached the problem head-on, learned fast, and soon became a project manager and key player in the product’s development. 

One of Isabel’s strengths was that she was young. While an older person may have been daunted by the amount of work required, Isabel was unphased –⁠ she just got on with things. 

So, you’ve made it. You’ve climbed to the top of the corporate mountain. You’re a CEO. You’re tasked with managing your entire company, liaising with your board, navigating a long list of professional relationships, and ensuring that your team continues to build great things. And at this point, you may be asking yourself, How the hell do I do this? 

The bad news is that there’s no way to truly prepare yourself to be CEO other than to actually be one. Even if you’ve been in the C-suite before, sitting at the top is a completely different ball game. As CEO, the things you care about are the things that your company cares about. Your job is, quite simply, to care. About everything.