Steve Jobs, co-founded Apple and was the visionary behind the Mac, I-Phone, I-Pad and other products. Jobs didn’t bring much in the way of tech skills to the table. What he did bring, and what made Apple such a successful company was vision, people and the willingness to take risks to validate them.

Steve Jobs was primarily an idea man. He envisioned the Mac, I-Phone etc. These seem pretty straightforward now. But until Jobs had the idea, “Hey, let’s make a phone that is smart enough to…” we were all happy with our dumb phones. We couldn’t even envision the next step. It’s why Jobs didn’t believe in market studies. Had Apple gone out and asked people what they thought of the idea of an I-Phone people would not have been able to even understand the question. The only way to bring something as revolutionary as the I-Phone to market is to bring it to market.

In order to do this, he had to have good people who could implement his vision. All sorts of people starting with Jonny Ives who designed the look and feel but also the engineers who developed the technology, programmers, manufacturing specialists and so on.

Either the visionary or the team, by themselves, are like one hand clapping. It just doesn’t happen.

The other thing Jobs needed to do was risk. He had a product that he was sure was going to be successful. What if nobody else shared his vision once they saw it? It ain’t cheap to bring a new product to market and the risks of failure are high.

Steve Jobs could have played it safe. He could have waited for someone else to build the first smartphone. Had he done that, the I-Phone would be just another smartphone instead of the iconic symbol it is today.

Got a great idea? Got a great team to help you implement it? You have to take the risk. It’s the only way humankind keeps moving forward. We can’t stand still. Work to manage the risk, but take it.