Don’t think that’s as much a “Jobs” reply as just a general senior management necessity.
With the amount of “important” emails you get in a position with any kind of responsibility, writing thoughtful elaborate responses to each and every one would leave you with no time to do your actual job.
So you communicate the core message clearly and bluntly, and move on to the next fire.
Also, I don't see what other information was needed here. He was the CEO, he was not supposed to get into implementation details. He gave a green light and left them to do their job.
I've grown to really like short responses, assuming they give enough info to answer the question. I think that a lot of us run into a subconcious thing where we feel like we need to say more, but most of the time we won't. I've been practicing recently, and it makes things so much faster and less tedious.
I think I originally picked this up from professors, because I'd write a well thought out response (an unreasonable amount of time spent on it), and the professor would respond with all the info I'd need in two sentences.
I forget which Apple engineer posted this anecdote, but Steve Jobs threatened to fire him and he agonized over a detailed response email.
But he ultimately just sent something like “Steve, you know how I feel. But you’re the boss. Let me know tomorrow if I’m fired or not”. He never heard back and just kept working at Apple.
Now I personally think the engineer’s like-kind response is probably what let him keep his job. But there’s something elegant about straightforwardness like this.
With the amount of “important” emails you get in a position with any kind of responsibility, writing thoughtful elaborate responses to each and every one would leave you with no time to do your actual job.
So you communicate the core message clearly and bluntly, and move on to the next fire.