Steve Jobs’ 10-80-10 Rule Is Even More Useful in the AI Era

AI was a distant dream when the charismatic founder was using the 10-80-10 rule at Apple, but the principle is just as useful today. 

EXPERT OPINION BY JESSICA STILLMAN, CONTRIBUTOR, INC.COM @ENTRYLEVELREBEL

This column is about how a principle known as the 10-80-10 rule can help you manage teams in the age of AI. But to really get a sense of how this rule works, it’s helpful to take an unlikely detour into the evolution of Steve Jobs’ management style, and how the legendary Apple boss went from micromanager to big believer in the 10-80-10 approach. 

Young Steve Jobs was a micromanager 

Steve Jobs may be a leadership legend now, but when he was young he was a micromanager. At least according to Andy Hertzfeld, a member of the original Macintosh development team during the 1980s. Hertzfeld shared a story of working with Jobs to create the Mac’s calculator function. After creating an initial demo, his team brought it to the boss for comment.  

“‘Well, it’s a start,” Hertzfeld reports Jobs saying, “but basically, it stinks. The background color is too dark, some lines are the wrong thickness, and the buttons are too big.” 

The team went back to the drawing board, fiddling with various details before returning again several times for Jobs’ input. He was never satisfied. Finally, another engineer on the team came up with an out-of-the-box solution.  

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“The next afternoon, instead of a new iteration of the calculator, Chris unveiled his new approach, which he called ‘the Steve Jobs Roll Your Own Calculator Construction Set.’ Every decision regarding graphical attributes of the calculator were parameterized by pull-down menus. You could select line thicknesses, button sizes, background patterns, etc.” Hertzfeld says. 

Jobs played with the menus for several minutes before settling on a design he liked. “When I implemented the calculator UI… for real a few months later, I used Steve’s design, and it remained the standard calculator on the Macintosh for many years,” Hertlfeld concludes. 

The management style that made Apple great 

Compare this anecdote of Steve Jobs personally dictating every design detail of the calculator app interface with how he described his management style in 2010. 

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