How Steve Jobs borrowed a 2,000-year-old org chart to fuel growth
The Vatican’s ancient blueprint for Apple’s trillion-dollar rise
Time: 3.40 Minutes
An American pope now leads the Vatican.
But Europe’s 2,000-year-old institution holds a secret that propelled Apple to a trillion-dollar empire.
Here’s the wild story…
The Church operates on just four layers:
the pope at the helm
the cardinals overseeing regions
the priests running parishes
the laity as the base
This simple, scalable structure has outlasted empires, delivering clarity and consistency from Rome to remote villages.
Enter Steve Jobs…
Steve were looking for how to reorg Apple’s structure to get Apple back on track. So he came over the catholic church org chart and he restructered Apple accordingly:
Steve the helm
the exec team (cardinals) overseeing business areas
the product leads (priests) running different products
while engineers (laity) executed
This lean setup slashed bureaucracy, birthing the iPhone, iPod, and MacBook at lightning speed.
Apple’s secret? Fewer layers for agility, clear accountability for focus, and a centralised vision with Jobs as the north star.
Sound familiar?
It’s the Church’s playbook, tech-style.
Unlike bloated tech giants drowning in middle management, Apple stayed nimble, ensuring global products carried the same vibe, from Lisbon to London.
The Church gives priests autonomy within boundaries; Apple gave teams freedom to innovate, tied to Jobs’ vision.
This controlled chaos fueled resilience, helping Apple dominate through market shifts.
European startups like Spotify (🇸🇪) follow suit, using small, autonomous teams to drive growth from Stockholm to Silicon Valley.
Takeaways for Founders:
Keep your hierarchy flat to stay agile.
Define roles clearly to avoid chaos.
Obsess over a vision that aligns every move.
Simple scales; complex fails.
A 2,000-year-old institution and a tech titan prove it.
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