Just one month before the first iPhone shipped, Jobs summoned his team and : The screen would be glass. He just didn't like the plastic screen.

No committee was formed. No study was done. At any other company, a decision like that would take months to change.

But Jobs was Jobs, so the team, the glass maker, the Chinese factory -- everybody -- scrambled to unite behind his hunch. The phone shipped on time with a glass screen.

A large number of people within Apple deserve credit for great work in design, engineering, marketing and so on. But Jobs gave the company an extraordinary edge by using his unique authority to prevent the company from making big mistakes or missing big opportunities.

That authority extended outside the company. Jobs' influence, in fact, brought into readiness the very glass needed to replace the plastic screen he overruled.