In early 2006, Steve Jobs was trying to solve a big problem for Apple’s next secret product. Jobs had decided that the iPhone screen would be a lot more elegant if Apple used real glass instead of the commonly used plastic. But the glass available at the time was prone to scratches and shattered easily. So Jobs had to find someone willing to create a new type of glass.
Job’s friend John Seeley Brown, who was on the board of Corning Glass in Upstate New York, told him that he should talk to that company’s young and dynamic CEO, Wendell Weeks. So he dialed the main Corning switchboard number and asked to be put through to Weeks. He got an assistant, who offered to pass along the message. “No, I am Steve Jobs,” he replied. “Put me through.” The assistant refused. Jobs called Brown and complained that he had been subjected to “typical East Coast bullshit.” When Weeks heard that, he called the main Apple switchboard and asked to speak to Jobs. He was told to put his request in writing and send it in by fax. When Jobs was told what happened, he took a liking to Weeks and invited him to Cupertino.1
In next six months, Corning produced the famed Gorilla glass for Jobs. But the point of this story is how standards work. We all employ double standards subconsciously all the time. When a driver cuts me off in traffic, I judge their upbringing. But when I cut off someone in traffic, I have good reasons to do it. When a colleague misses a deadline, I judge their work ethic but when I miss a deadline, I enumerate all the reasons why it was missed. When my favorite candidate spreads false information, it is a genuine mistake. When your candidate spreads false information, there is a lot of lying going on there.
I have realized that unless you are a monk living in the Himalayas, it is impossible to get rid of our internal double standards. But what self-aware people do it recover fast. They recognize their own double standards quickly, and they are always course correcting.
- “Steve Jobs” – Biography by Walter Isaacson ↩︎
