The Pirates of New York City
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I just finished reading a post on the Fast Company Design website titled, 'If You Want Change Agents Hire Pirates', which is an excerpt from Peter Sander's book, What Would Steve Jobs Do?: How the Steve Jobs Way Can Inspire Anyone to Think Differently and Win. It is a fantastic synopsis on Jobs' vision when it came to hiring employees or "Pirates (who) had to have the passion, the drive, and the shared vision to want to delight the customer with a perfect, game-changing product". Apples phenomenal quarterly numbers released yesterday have earned them the title as the planets #1 valued company, the belt is theirs! They reached this pinnacle due in large part to Jobs' diligent selection of his band of amazing pirates.
Why Pirates?
"A pirate can function without a bureaucracy. Pirates support one another and support their leader in the accomplishment of a goal. A pirate can stay creative and on task in a difficult or hostile environment. A pirate can act independently and take intelligent risks, but always within the scope of the greater vision and the needs of the greater team."
When I was reading this I couldn't help but think of the crew at our studio, which in introduction would read like the start an old school NY joke; "SO, An Italian, a Turk, a Parisian, a couple of Russians, a Haitian and Irish American walk into a bar (the rabbi and priest walked out when they met us)....
There lies the start of a great story that is the team at Film Annex and Models WebTV. Jobs strategy in building a crew of pirates, heavily relied on diversity of personality and interests, the desire to embrace change and challenge convention, and flourish in an entrepreneurial environment. We have molded this concept organically by who we are as a team and for what we want to achieve as entrepreneurs in our selected endeavours, be it project development, advertising, and all aspects of pre and post production.
Film Annex(MWTV) is a diverse crew of individuals with varied life experiences, upbringings, educations, talents, and passions. We are positioned to move swiftly and concisely in an ever changing digital environment to achieve results. Bureaucracy, the bain of Jobs' existence, does not exist in our vocabulary. We are free to make decisions and implement them immediately to the result of success and sometimes failure, a word in every entrepreneurs vocabulary. Though, being nimble and free from multiple layers of decision makers (investors) we are afforded the opportunity to try new ideas and collaborate with exceptional people who as well desire to reach the pinnacle in their respected and varied fields.
As Jobs states, “It’s more fun to be a pirate than to join the navy.” I agree.
Fast Company Design Article:
http://www.fastcodesign.com/1665840/an-hr--from-steve-jobs-if-you-want-change-agents-hire-pirates