Three reasons:
Technology – Where did the flexibility and adaptability of Apple’s teams come from? From the technology itself. As we’ve already noted, the pace of technological change is so fast that if you can latch onto it and hang on it will accelerate you past all traditional competition. Unfortunately, as many companies have learned to their dismay, that’s a lot harder than it looks. But Apple did keep up with Moore’s Law: because it incorporated the Law (via microprocessors and the latest memory media) into its products, it built rapid change into its culture, and it unleashed its teams to pursue the quickest possible paths to their goals.
People – Like Google, Facebook and Twitter today, Apple in its first two decades (and its most recent decade) enjoyed an almost unmatched star quality – and it shrewdly used that charisma to attract the best and brightest young talent to join its ranks. But that’s the easiest half of the story. Hot companies can always draw talent; the real challenge is keeping it when the excitement ends, the stock options have been exercised and the cultural cachet fades. Apple managed to create such a powerful culture in its early years – the ‘Kool-Aid’ – that it still managed to retain a surprising number of those top employees when the excitement faded and Apple slogged through the dreary early Nineties. They were still there to lead the company when Jobs returned.