IAF Celebrity: Steve Jobs

Please note that these are unofficial profiles only and have not been verified. Description is only based upon public information and may represent either primary or secondary MDNA profiles. This profile is intended for educational purposes only to demonstrate the possibilities of MDNA for those that have been personally assessed.

Steve Jobs

IAF (Intuitive Alignment & Fulfillment)

Unless you have been living under a rock or remote desert island, the late Steve Jobs needs no introduction. Jobs was an American entrepreneur, marketer, and inventor, who was the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple Inc. which is considered one of the most iconic brands in the world valued at over $98 billion. Another one of his equally successful, if not equally as known, ventures was Pixar which sold to Disney for $7.4 billion.

There is often much debate for those familiar with the MDNA Strategy on whether Steve Jobs is a UCD (Unyielding Conviction & Design) or an IAF (Intuitive Alignment & Fulfillment). We are convinced, based upon biographical accounts and the success of Apple¸ that Jobs is indeed an IAF.

First and foremost, Jobs was intuitive like no other. He was renowned for his ability to envision the future and then fulfill it. Jobs was a demanding perfectionist who always aspired to excellence by foreseeing and setting trends of innovation and style. He was infamous for being a stickler for every minute detail when it came to the design experience. These are quintessential traits for the IAF.

Even while terminally ill in the hospital, Jobs sketched new devices that would hold the iPad in a hospital bed. Some accounts say he despised and refused to wear the oxygen monitor on his finger and suggested ways to revise the design for simplicity.

Jobs summed up the heart of the IAF at the end of his keynote speech at the 2007 Macworld Conference by quoting ice hockey player Wayne Gretzky:

“There’s an old Wayne Gretzky quote that I love, ‘I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.’ And we’ve always tried to do that at Apple. Since the very, very beginning. And we always will.”

Where the UCD is known for innovating new paradigms, the IAF is all about innovation through intimate ecosystems. Our argument is that Jobs never really invented anything new, rather he was a master at taking something—anything really—and making it fit, intimately, into the ecosystems of our lives for a better experience. Take for example MP3 players and tablet computers. The technology for these had existed for years before Apple applied its magic. What Steve Jobs did, was take that technology and create a highly intuitive and aligned (not to mention massively popular) ecosystem. Nobody can deny that using an iPhone, iPod, iPad and iTunes together is a gratifying human experience.

On a personal side, Steve Jobs was all about fulfillment. The IAF needs fulfillment, and has the ability to help others achieve the same fulfillment more than any other. This quote pretty much sums it up:

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”