My Desultory Blog

Better late than not sharing some great insight. Thanks +Guy KawasakinGuy Kawasaki n(Sat01) What I Learned From Steve JobsnnManyn people have explained what one can learn from Steve Jobs. But few, if nany, of these people have been inside the tent and experienced first nhand what it was like to work with him. I donu2019t want any lessons to be nlost or forgotten, so here is my list of the top twelve lessons that I nlearned from Steve Jobs.nnExperts are clueless.nnExpertsu2014journalists, analysts, consultants…Expand this post u00bbn(Sat01) What I Learned From Steve JobsManyn people have explained what one can learn from Steve Jobs. But few, if nany, of these people have been inside the tent and experienced first nhand what it was like to work with him. I donu2019t want any lessons to be nlost or forgotten, so here is my list of the top twelve lessons that I nlearned from Steve Jobs.Experts are clueless.Expertsu2014journalists,n analysts, consultants, bankers, and gurus canu2019t u201cdou201d so they u201cadvise.u201d nThey can tell you what is wrong with your product, but they cannot make an great one. They can tell you how to sell something, but they cannot nsell it themselves. They can tell you how to create great teams, but nthey only manage a secretary. For example, the experts told us that the ntwo biggest shortcomings of Macintosh in the mid 1980s was the lack of an daisy-wheel printer driver and Lotus 1-2-3; another advice gem from then experts was to buy Compaq. Hear what experts say, but donu2019t always nlisten to them.Customers cannot tell you what they need.u201cApplen market researchu201d is an oxymoron. The Apple focus group was the right nhemisphere of Steveu2019s brain talking to the left one. If you ask ncustomers what they want, they will tell you, u201cBetter, faster, and ncheaperu201du2014that is, better sameness, not revolutionary change. They can nonly describe their desires in terms of what they are already nusingu2014around the time of the introduction of Macintosh, all people said nthey wanted was better, faster, and cheaper MS-DOS machines. The richestn vein for tech startups is creating the product that you want to nuseu2014thatu2019s what Steve and Woz did.Jump to the next curve.Bign wins happen when you go beyond better sameness. The best daisy-wheel nprinter companies were introducing new fonts in more sizes. Apple nintroduced the next curve: laser printing. Think of ice harvesters, ice nfactories, and refrigerator companies. Ice 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0. Are you nstill harvesting ice during the winter from a frozen pond?The biggest challenges beget best work.In lived in fear that Steve would tell me that I, or my work, was crap. Inn public. This fear was a big challenge. Competing with IBM and then nMicrosoft was a big challenge. Changing the world was a big challenge. nI, and Apple employees before me and after me, did their best work nbecause we had to do our best work to meet the big challenges.Design counts.Steven drove people nuts with his design demandsu2014some shades of black werenu2019t nblack enough. Mere mortals think that black is black, and that a trash ncan is a trash can. Steve was such a perfectionistu2014a perfectionist nBeyond: Thunderdomeu2014and lo and behold he was right: some people care nabout design and many people at least sense it. Maybe not everyone, but nthe important ones.You canu2019t go wrong with big graphics and big fonts.Taken a look at Steveu2019s slides. The font is sixty points. Thereu2019s usually onen big screenshot or graphic. Look at other tech speakeru2019s slidesu2014even then ones who have seen Steve in action. The font is eight points, and theren are no graphics. So many people say that Steve was the worldu2019s greatestn product introduction guy..donu2019t you wonder why more people donu2019t copy nhis style?Changing your mind is a sign of intelligence.Whenn Apple first shipped the iPhone there was no such thing as apps. Apps, nSteve decreed, were a bad thing because you never know what they could nbe doing to your phone. Safari web apps were the way to go until six nmonths later when Steve decided, or someone convinced Steve, that apps nwere the way to gou2014but of course. Duh! Apple came a long way in a short ntime from Safari web apps to u201cthereu2019s an app for that.u201du201cValueu201d is different from u201cprice.u201dWoen unto you if you decide everything based on price. Even more woe unto nyou if you compete solely on price. Price is not all that mattersu2014what nis important, at least to some people, is value. And value takes into naccount training, support, and the intrinsic joy of using the best tool nthatu2019s made. Itu2019s pretty safe to say that no one buys Apple products nbecause of their low price.A players hire A+ players.Actually,n Steve believed that A players hire A playersu2014that is people who are as ngood as they are. I refined this slightlyu2014my theory is that A players nhire people even better than themselves. Itu2019s clear, though, that B nplayers hire C players so they can feel superior to them, and C players nhire D players. If you start hiring B players, expect what Steve called nu201cthe bozo explosionu201d to happen in your organization.Real CEOs demo.Steven Jobs could demo a pod, pad, phone, and Mac two to three times a year nwith millions of people watching, why is it that many CEOs call upon ntheir vice-president of engineering to do a product demo? Maybe itu2019s to nshow that thereu2019s a team effort in play. Maybe. Itu2019s more likely that nthe CEO doesnu2019t understand what his/her company is making well enough ton explain it. How pathetic is that?Real CEOs ship.Forn all his perfectionism, Steve could ship. Maybe the product wasnu2019t nperfect every time, but it was almost always great enough to go. The nlesson is that Steve wasnu2019t tinkering for the sake of tinkeringu2014he had an goal: shipping and achieving worldwide domination of existing markets nor creation of new markets. Apple is an engineering-centric company, notn a research-centric one. Which would you rather be: Apple or Xerox PARC?Marketing boils down to providing unique value.Thinkn of a 2 x 2 matrix. The vertical axis measures how your product differs nfrom the competition. The horizontal axis measures the value of your nproduct. Bottom right: valuable but not uniqueu2014youu2019ll have to compete onn price. Top left: unique but not valuableu2014youu2019ll own a market that ndoesnu2019t exist. Bottom left: not unique and not valueu2014youu2019re a bozo. Top nright: unique and valuableu2014this is where you make margin, money, and nhistory. For example, the iPod was unique and valuable because it was nthe only way to legally, inexpensively, and easily download music from nthe six biggest record labels. Bonus: Some things need to be believed to be seen.n When you are jumping curves, defying/ignoring the experts, facing off nagainst big challenges, obsessing about design, and focusing on unique nvalue, you will need to convince people to believe in what you are doingn in order to see your efforts come to fruition. People needed to believen in Macintosh to see it become real. Ditto for iPod, iPhone, and iPad. nNot everyone will believeu2014thatu2019s okay. But the starting point of nchanging the world is changing a few minds. This is the greatest lesson nof all that I learned from Steve.n