Postcards

Jung on Jobs: Avon CEO's take on Steve

Steve Jobs is Fortune's "CEO of the Decade." As my colleague Adam Lashinsky says in the current issue's cover story, Jobs has created more than $150 billion in shareholder wealth--meanwhile, "transforming movies, telecom, music, and computing, and profoundly influencing the worlds of retail and design."

I've met Jobs just once, three years ago, when he came to Fortune's offices here in New York. I remember, he walked into our conference room MORE

Power Point: Steve Jobs, message master

"A key Jobs business tool is his mastery of the message. He rehearses over and over every line he and others utter in public about Apple, which authorizes only a small number of executives to speak publicly on a given topic. Key to the Jobs approach is careful consideration of what he and Apple say -- and don't say. "

--Fortune's Adam Lashinsky on Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs. Lashinsky's cover MORE

Power Point: What drives Steve Jobs

"There hasn't been a day in Steve's life that he doesn't get up, think about the company he works for, or what he's going to do next. These are things that drive him."

--Bill Campbell, Intuit (INTU) chairman and former CEO, about Steve Jobs--Apple's (AAPL) CEO and Fortune's "CEO of the Decade," on the cover of the current issue. Once Apple's VP of marketing and now on the board, Campbell  claims MORE

Power Point: Get involved in the details

"He's involved in details you wouldn't think a CEO would be involved in."

--Ken Segall, a former Chiat/Day creative director who has worked with Apple (AAPL) on and off for years, talking about Steve Jobs, Fortune's "CEO of the Decade." Jobs commissioned the 1997 "Think different" campaign, says Segall, long before any of Apple's new products were introduced -- or even described to the ad team. "He'd say, 'The third word MORE

Power Point: What would Steve Jobs do?

"The threshold for the release of the first product should be, 'What would Steve Jobs do?'"

-- Marc Andreessen, venture capitalist and Netscape co-founder, who often evokes Apple (AAPL)'s maestro CEO in his advice to entrepreneurs. Andreessen is quoted in the Fortune cover package, "Steve Jobs: CEO of the decade," hitting newsstands Friday. Fortune's retrospective of "all things Steve" includes timelines, online photo galleries, and testimonials from Jobs' friends and colleagues. MORE

Are you situationally aware?

Situational awareness: being aware of what's happening around you to understand how information, events, and your own actions will impact your goals and objectives.

This is how Wikipedia defines this concept that's been bandied about a lot lately, since those Northwest (DAL) pilots got distracted on their laptops and flew wayyyy beyond Minneapolis, their destination. Whatever the rogue navigators were viewing or doing on their mini computer screens, they were oblivious MORE

Most valuable companies: Top 10

by Jessica Shambora

Yesterday we told you that Google (GOOG) tops the list of heavyweight stocks in terms of "market capitalization per employee." There's $8.6 million in stock-market value riding on every Googler who works for the company.

It's an odd metric, yes. The post generated some amusing comments. David Emery in Reston, Virginia wrote, "This seems to be a good justification for Google's well-known investment in/pampering of their employees. Happy MORE

Apple vs. Google, by any other measure

By Jessica Shambora

When Apple (AAPL) passed the giants--General Electric (GE), Johnson & Johnson (GE), Procter & Gamble (PG), and even Google (GOOG)--in terms of stock-market value this week, we started wondering: What company in the universe has the highest stock-market capitalization per employee?

We ran the number and it turns out to be...Google!

Even as Apple has surged on the heels of Monday's blowout quarterly earnings report--and news of upcoming products like MORE

Apple's Steve Jobs: Choose what you do with your life and make it count

"We don't get a chance to do that many things, and every one should be really excellent. Because this is our life. Life is brief, and then you die, you know? So this is what we've chosen to do with our life. We could be sitting in a monastery somewhere in Japan. We could be out sailing. Some of the [executive team] could be playing golf. They could be running MORE

What is Microsoft? CEO Ballmer seeks an answer

Google (GOOG) is barging into the business of computer operating systems—via Chrome, due next year. Microsoft (MSFT) is vigorously defending its turf--via Windows 7, its new operating system due in October. Simultaneously, Microsoft is striking at the heart of Google, via Bing. "We should have been earlier in search," said CEO Steve Ballmer two weeks ago in France when asked to name his greatest regrets over the years.

We may be MORE