"... I think Steve Jobs is more than merely lucky. ..."

    "... A reality distortion field. In his presence, 
     reality is malleable. He can convince anyone 
     of practically anything. It wears off when he's 
     not around, but it makes it hard to have realistic 
     schedules. And there's a couple of other things 
     you should know about working with Steve. ...

     Well, just because he tells you that something is 
     awful or great, it doesn't necessarily mean he'll 
     feel that way tomorrow. You have to low-pass 
     filter his input. And then, he's really funny about 
     ideas. If you tell him a new idea, he'll usually tell 
     you that he thinks it's stupid. But then, if he actually 
     likes it, exactly one week later, he'll come back to 
     you and propose your idea to you, as if he thought 
     of it. ..." [0]

Reality distortion effect at work?

Andy Hertzfeld has probably the best description of how Jobs does what he does best. http://folklore.org has the best articles describing the inner workings of Apple from the blokes who worked there.

[0] http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story... and here http://folklore.org/ProjectView.py?name=Macintosh&topic=...