Richard Rumelt, a professor of strategy at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management, was researching strategic management in the global electronics industry. He interviewed 20 to 30 executives, CEOs, and division managers and asked fairly simple questions. Which company was the leader in their market? How did that company become the leader? What’s their own company’s strategy?

Rumelt saw an interesting pattern. "Most executives easily explained how companies became  market leaders: some sort of window of opportunity opened, and the leader was the company that was the first to successfully jump through that window. Not exactly the first mover but the first to get it right."

But when Rumelt asked these same executives about their own strategies, he heard "a lot about doorknob polishing. They were doing 360-degree feedback, forming alliances, outsourcing, cutting costs, and so on. None of them even mentioned taking a good position quickly when the industry changes."

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Steve Jobs: Waiting for a New Big Thing

In 1998 Rumelt had also the chance to talk with Steve Jobs after he’d come back and turned Apple around. Rumelt asked Jobs, "What are you trying to do? What’s the longer-term strategy?"

Jobs just smiled and said, “I am going to wait for the next big thing."

Jobs wasn't focusing on cutting costs or 360 assessments. He was waiting until the right moment for a predatory leap. That very predatory approach of putting "a ding in the universe", leaping through the window of a big opportunity and staying focused on those big wins – not on routine activities – is what distinguishes a real venturepreneurial strategy.

I’ve always wanted to own and control the primary technology in everything we do.

Steve Jobs

Apple