They all understood that the whole requires many parts.
I thought of this while contemplating all the commentators who seemingly give full credit to Steve Jobs for all of Apple's innovative products, from the original Apple computer to the iPad. Sorry, but he needed the help of thousands of people to bring these products to market.
Let's start over two thousand years ago in Persia.
Many Greek mercenaries were in the service of Cyrus, brother of the Persian Emperor. Cyrus used the Greeks in a battle to overthrow his brother, but Cyrus was killed in battle. The Emperors forces invited the Greek generals to peace conference and slaughtered them all. The Persians thought this would demoralize the Greek mercenaries.
As usual, tyrants never understand democrats. The Greeks, having a democratic tradition, elected new generals and fought their way against much opposition back to Greece.
For more about Xenophon, see Wikipedia - http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenophon
Adam Smith opens "The Wealth of Nations" with
"The annual labour of every nation is the fund which originally supplies it with all the necessaries and conveniencies of life which it annually consumes, and which consist always either in the immediate produce of that labour, or in what is purchased with that produce from other nations."
In other words, the masters, the capitalists, the CEOs, or whatever name you give to those at the top of an economic hierarchy would not be able to do anything without a few dozen or thousands of people doing all the "labour" needed to bring an idea to market.
Many reporters are giving full credit to Steve Jobs for the iPhone and the iPad. Really? Could Steve Jobs conceived of every detail of these products all by himself? Could Steve Jobs have designed all the circuits or all the programs that make these products so useful.
Sure, he may have had a vision for these products. But don't you think that he had lots of discussions with others on how to design, manufacture, and market these products?
Let's go back to 1983 and before when the first Macintosh was being designed. I think about two dozen people were involved, some of them responsible for a single software project, like MacWrite and MacPaint. But these designers weren't cloistered in their cubicles, noses to the coding sheet until they finished. They collaborated with each other and Steve Jobs.
In short, success does not come about by the "hard work" of somebody at the top. It comes about by the hard work of people at all levels. If a worker doesn't set a switch properly at a certain time, the whole enterprise could come tumbling down. If a manager doesn't ensure the proper training, if a director doesn't ensure proper design, if a treasurer doesn't provide adequate funding for that design...
"For want of a nail..."
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_Want_of_a_Nail_(proverb)#section_2
