Perfectionist or just an Elitist?

KG wrote a good post some days back on the rise of social gaming, even though hardcore gamers and game developers scoff(ed?) at them. And then I read this article, lambasting Chetan Bhagat for his literary style. From these analyses, it seems that by seeing something as being below them, better game developers than Zynga and better authors than Bhagat are losing their chance to do what they started out to do – influence more people and make more money.

Yet, how can some of the very same people eulogize Steve Jobs? Why would we look up to a person who obsessed so much on one single button? Who cared so much about his product’s experience that he had the gumption not to support the most prevalent of platforms on the web – Flash? If EA and high brow authors are being elitist, why was Steve Jobs a perfectionist? Part of this attribution has obviously got to do with success. Search for articles on Jobs in late nineties, one will read enough not so flattering adjectives. So yes, people did think Jobs was an elitist especially in his dark years and his later success did have a part in the change of adjectives.

But is there something else? I think so.

An elitist, in my view, has an opinion. The best ones make that opinion a very well informed one. But they do not go beyond that. Their opinions remain just that. Perfectionists, on the other hand, strive to put a body of work around their opinions. Hemingway and Faulkner put stories on paper. Bergman and Kurosawa put films on screen. Rinus Michels and Arrigo Sacchi put football teams on field. Steve Jobs put his idea of computing in our hand. In other words, an elitist might postulate a view of the world around him. A perfectionist will allow the world to feel and share his views.

This act of embodying their ideas into objects that others can hold, see and feel makes perfectionists great communicators. They understand that their view of the world is not for everyone. They know very clearly who it is for and that the person might have to go against the grain to show his support. And they strive to convince that audience, and only that audience, that listening to them, buying their wares, and talking about them is worth the trouble. If this sounds too much like “listen to your customers” it is not – because their audience might not exist beyond their own imaginations. Which is why it is so hard to be a perfectionist. The only person keeping you honest is within yourself.

Last but not the least, perfectionism implies prizing process over the end. I can’t imagine Jobs not being happy with one of his products, regardless of how well they did in the market, because for him it was the right thing to do. And because they prize the road and not necessarily the goal, they are hard bosses. Working for them, I believe would be like taking the steep climb when a four lane highway is running next to the trail. They listen but only to their audience – again very tough if the audience is just inside your head.

In other words, a perfectionist is a performer working day and night to perfect his art while the elitist is a critic. As Anton Ego says in Ratatouille,

In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so.

But then he goes on to say, therein proving to be a great (and not just good) critic,

But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the new. The world is often unkind to new talent, new creations, the new needs friends.

And that is the single most important distinction – a perfectionist risks his neck for what he believes. And because his neck is on line, he will do everything to get it right. Steve Jobs did that, and which is why somebody makes a “Think Different” ad he will be on it.