Steve Jobs: The difference between good people and great people in software is 50-to-1

“I’ve always considered part of my job was to keep the quality level of people in the organizations I work with very high. I mean that’s what I consider one of the few things I can contribute individually myself — versus the team that work with — is to really try to instill in the organization the goal of having only A players.”

Steve argues this is especially important in technology where there’s a huge range between the best person and the worst person:

“In a lot of fields, the difference between, say, the worst taxicab driver and the best taxicab driver to get you across town in Manhattan might be 2-to-1. The best one will get you there in 15 minutes, the worst one will get you there in half an hour… Or the best cook and the worst cook, maybe it’s 3-to-1… But in the field that I’m in. In software in particular. The difference between the best person and the worst person is about 100-to-1 or more.”

He continues:

“The difference between a good software person and a great software person is probably 50-to-1 or 25-to-1. Huge dynamic range. And therefore, I have found — and not just in software but in almost everything I’ve done — it really pays to go after the best people in the world.”

But as Steve points out, this isn’t always easy:

“It’s very painful when you have some people that are not the best people in the world, and you have to get rid of them. But I’ve found that my job has sometimes been exactly that, to get rid of some of the people that didn’t measure up. And I’ve always tried to do it in a humane way, but nonetheless it has to be done and it’s not ever fun.”

Full video: Arjun Agarwal “The Steve Jobs 95 Interview unabridged“ (Apr 1995)

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