Tony Fadell: iPhone, iPod, Nest, Steve Jobs, Design, and Engineering | Lex Fridman Podcast #294

it wasn't just a one-on-one it could be. steve against the team going we need. glass instead of plastic on the front. face of the iphone and we're going to do. this. and we're like god. you know and so we did it. and he pushed us because he didn't know. all the details but he could see in our. minds that we're like. yeah we could probably yeah we could. probably but man it's really putting us. in risk and we we laid out the risks for. him and he's like i'm willing to take. those risks. the following is a conversation with.

tony fidel engineer and designer. co-creator of the ipod the iphone and. the nest thermostat. and he's the author of the new book. build. an unorthodox guide to making things. worth making. more than almost any human ever. he knows what it takes to create. technology ideas designs. products and companies that. revolutionize life for huge numbers of. people in the world. so it truly is an honor and pleasure to.

sit down with tony for a time and look. back at one heck of an amazing life. this is the lex treatment podcast to. support it please check out our sponsors. in the description and now. dear friends. here's tony. fidel. when did you first fall in love with. computers. or let's say computer engineering and. design i first fell in love. with. computers and programming was it a.

summer school class. in fifth grade. in gross point farms michigan. it was a simple basic programming class. but the basic programming class was not. like you might think it was. it was bubble cards so literally it was. you know. uh the cards the stack of cards and you. would. use a number two pencil and you would. put in your program line by line and. you'd have to make sure it was perfectly. stacked and no errors and what have you. and you'd take that set of cards and.

you'd put it on this reader and it was. and it would go off to an ibm. microcomputer somewhere in the. back then the cloud. and then. you would sit on a texas instruments. paper terminal. and it would just. literally i was just i could write. things and it would i could program this. machine to do stuff and it was you know. it was nowhere near sex there was no. graphics right oregon trail was all in. text.

right the cards were so cumbersome that. if you got one thing wrong or out of. order it. or a disaster or you dropped one card it. would all fall apart. so um. just doing that you know print f or was. it i can't even remember what there was. it was uh you know. what the what the basic commands were. but also when you say basic you mean. basic programming programming language. okay basic programming you're you're. writing basic programming language. on paper on paper and you're calling it. programming though it's called.

programming yeah you're programming this. computer and you know in a remote. location and it came back so it was. truly cloud computing in a way so it was. really terminal based computing uh and. the input and the program are separate. so the input to the program or they. could go together like um or is there no. input to the program it just runs and it. gives you output yeah you it goes in and. says it says ready and then you can say. run yeah and then it would run but to. program it it you didn't type it because.

it was a printer terminal you would make. the stack of cards and that would get it. into the the computer's memory okay so. where was the magic. the magic was that you could. create you had a language and you could. create what you wanted to create right. you could create a world or or what have. you and have this interaction and you. could. compute things you could you know do. numbers you could i was playing oregon. trail. right. so you're less like you can play video. games. well video that's right you could play.

text games and then imagine them in your. brain right. oregon trail there's a this meme i saw. recently if you want to feel bad about. yourself as a programmer. realize that one person wrote railroad. tycoon i think that's the name of the. game it's this cool little builder game. one person wrote it in assembly. [Laughter]. so for like from scratch and for people. who don't know it kind of looks like a.

sim city type game it's a city builder. but obviously centered on railroads and. there's a nice graphics the three. dimension all that kind of stuff all the. things. all the rich colorful things you would. imagine for for a three-dimensional. video game all written in assembly. meaning the lowest level code next to. binary yeah which is uh fascinating and. that's the. you had to notice the magic. at that low level at that time you. didn't have all the graphics you didn't. have all the. like apis and all the sample codes no.

stack overflow no internet none of that. you just had you had to know registers. you know had to know the op codes and. you had to imagine the world in your. brain of the memory structures and. everything else there's no visualization. you visualized it all yourself right and. so that was magic but then the next part. of the magic of where i got hooked even. further was like i'm doing these little. things. and then electronic arts came out for. the apple ii so i got an apple ii and. electronic arts came out and i was. programming and doing basic and making.

my own games. but then there were two games that. really blew my mind one was pinball. construction set and the other one was. music construction set and these were. both places where i could create pinball. games and i could create musical scores. because i loved music and i could then. play them right and so when you had that. you were like oh there's something very. different. so i could create myself. but then there was others that create. tools so you could create at a visual.

level and then you would read the back. stories because electronics arts back in. the day it was one programmer who would. program those things you know each of. those things and you could read their. backstories it was literally like like a. musician or someone else like you could. read rick rubin's like here's a thing. they tell you all that stuff and there. was one guy. who wrote music construction set he. wrote it all in assembly and he was 16. years old wow. and i went and i was probably 12 or 13. at the time. and i went oh my.

if he was able to do this and had. published right and this amazing tool. was created i'm like what can i do and. so then it it it just kept building off. of that but really it was those seminal. things first the introduction and then. the you know the power through. programming and turning these things. into what you wanted to turn it into and. you didn't have to be. 40 50 years old and have you know phds. and then i was like okay. this is really cool i wish we did that. with programmers where we treated them.

like artists we would know the backstory. these days today or not just programmers. engineers engineers designers yeah like. all the things about a product that i. think we love are the little details and. there's probably a human being behind. each of those details. that had their little inkling of genius. that they put in and i wish we knew. those stories that's always sad to me. when i because i obviously i love. engineering and i interact with. companies and they you know autonomous.

vehicles something i'm really interested. about and i see. that companies generally and will. probably talk about this but they they. seem to want to hide their engineers. like engineers hold the secrets. like the great secret we did not speak. of the greatest great. but then the result of that is you don't. you don't get to hear their stories. the. the passion that is there behind the. engineers. like and also the genius the little. there's a difference between the stuff.

that's patented like the kernel of the. idea right and and the beautiful sort of. side effects of the idea and i wish. companies revealed the beautiful side. effects a little bit more. but yeah so sorry for the distraction so. what uh you mentioned apple ii what was. the first computer you fell in love with. like the. the product the thing before you that. was a personal computer. it was the apple ii. so the apple ii was something i was just. lusting over you know it was.

i think it was at the time it was the um. you know the person of the year maybe it. was that year i don't remember what but. well apple ii was the person the person. of the year yeah for my time magazine. back and i don't remember when but it. was around that same time i was so young. but i had there was the apple too and i. didn't know what it was but i knew about. tools because my grandfather taught me. all about tools and. creating things right. and i saw this thing and and i had that. you know that that ibm experience that. terminal experience and i'm like oh i. could have that at home right and so i.

need to have that at home and the only. thing that was really talked about in in. our circles was the apple ii and i was. just like that's it. so. i went jumped up and down it was very. expensive i have to have this my parents. like what you know it was twenty five. twenty five hundred dollars back then. yeah in the 1981 was like crazy right. so i was like i'm gonna make as much. money as i can this summer and my. grandfather said because he he helped me. learn all about tools and build things. together. i will match whatever you make so you.

can get this computer so i worked very. very hard as a caddy golf caddy catting. actually for the you know that the. families in you know at the country. clubs in the in the town um where we. lived. and uh did whatever i could and that end. of that summer we got my apple too and. now you couldn't tear it away from me it. was my my friend it was everything from. a product perspective what do you. remember that was brilliant. um. the design choices the ideas behind it.

or is it just that it exists or the very. idea of a personal computer is the. brilliant design choice. yeah it was that i could actually have. this kind of tool in my house and i. could use it anytime i wanted i could. program it anyways there was no you know. there was no internet connection there. was no it was all just you you either. loaded software that you got from. someone right. um or you created yourself and then. there was a whole other thing which was. started happening which we were doing. and this was kind of like mp3s and stuff.

we were sharing software right so you. built this community of sharing stuff. you would you you would go in pirate. that was what called pirate all this. software you'd never use it all but it. was just that fun thing of like i'm. gonna get all this other stuff and then. tear it apart and do disassembly on it. and see behind the scenes so you really. had a sense that this was your world and. you owned it right and you could like. literally go into every register we. didn't have all those security layers. like we do not like you could really. touch bits and you could poke bits and. you can make this light turn on and you. know and the geek assignment just lit up.

now you can there's. it's so abstract you know people don't. even understand like usually you know. some programs don't even understand. memory they just think it's unlimited. right yeah and security it's like now. there's all this security you should. have but it's like the adults all showed. up to. to the party and now you can't have all. the fun right it's like no no you know. this was the thing where if you if if. the power went out yeah you lost your. whole program you might have worked a. whole day on it and if you didn't press. save at every other line and you were.

saved save save and it would like grow. the word the disk drive or the tape. drive. like. every single step was contemplated. because if you didn't you lost maybe a. ton of work. so a lot of the magic was in the. software the fact that you could have. software the fact that you could share. software. the. in the community around the software it. wasn't necessarily the hardware well. that was the first step the second step. around the hardware was i got things. like the mockingboard which the.

mockingboard paired with the music. instruction set you could now generate. all kinds of tones and notes and it was. a synthesizer in the apple ii so you. would plug in this card and go oh my god. look at this and it would you know you. could start generating cool sounds. you're like like it was a moog you know. like a moog in a way early moog. what year are we talking about this is. 82 i think. 81.82 and i bet you can make all the. kind of synthetic sounds that are very. cool in the 80s yeah yeah eight bit you.

know chip tunes right. and then um and then you know when you. wanted to add a joystick you had to pull. a chip out and you had to like plug in a. dip socket to put in a joystick and and. then i was like oh and then i had to get. more memory how do we do that and i. wanted to speed up products so so then. that turned into a company actually. from that but it was in a hardware. software at that um but it was all about. you know modifying this thing in every. way first was software and then you. started gaining confidence and then i.

got a little bit more money and stuff. and then you could get into the hardware. and you know wire things and then the. apple ii came with all the schematics. right so in the back. in the early apple twos you could open. up and all the schematics were there. you purchased the apple ii and the. schematics come with it yeah it came. with it. that's an interesting choice that's an. interesting choice from from a company. perspective right so it's like a real. maker kind of thing right. i wonder what they.

so that was intentional like this is. absolutely intentional this is the work. this is for the cutting edge folks too. or especially if it was only the cutting. edge it was geeks for geeks yeah so we. were like oh how did they make it and. then we got to learn through that apple. one did the same thing right it just. apple ii became more packaged up and had. you know a little bit better software. right came with basic and then you know. so so it was really it was it was what. we might think of as a raspberry pi. today or something like that but not.

with so much software it was literally. and all the chips were out there so you. could inspect the buses and the right. because everything was just broken out. so i guess. that's the idea behind. stable big projects in open source like. on github. that you have the schematics there. and it's it's kind of a product but i. wonder why more companies don't do that. kind of thing like we're going to. release this. to a small set of people. self-selected.

perhaps. that are kind of the makers the cutting. edge folks the builders. the at-home engineers like in some way. what uh tesla is doing with the beta for. the. full self driving it's kind of like that. it's like selecting a group of people. but that has to do more with you. how safe of a driver you are versus how. much of a tank carrier you are because. you don't get to tinker i wonder is that. is that a crazy idea to to do for really.

cutting-edge technologies especially. you're interested in. like hardware stuff is that is that. crazy why don't more companies do that. kind of thing you think. i i think back then it was about a. community and serving that community of. builders and now this is about people. who want to take get the experience and. want it really simple and easy and. they're like and so it is there's the. the audience or they believe the. audience is small who would value those. other things that we're just talking. about but if we look at things like.

raspberry pi and all of these other. little boards right. there's a whole world more than any that. i've seen like it's amazing what you can. do now with these little kits um and and. and the software that's created and and. and so there's a whole nother i think. another batch of makers and builders. that are coming up through the ranks and. if you we look at youtube channels and. stuff right they take these little. boards they hack them then they print. out. you know parts on their 3d printer. assemble them and they create robots and. what have you so i think it's happening.

um it's just not as you know as it's. just not as i guess. raw as it used to be. um but it's there and it's really. expanding around the world and that's. really nice to see because you know it's. a whole new generation uh who can who. are empowered i think there's a. semi-dormant. genius amongst millions so like. raspberry pi is revealing that a little. bit it's probably. i wouldn't be surprised if it's several. million raspberry pies that have been. sold i think it should.

and it's kind of this quiet. storm. of genius brewing of engineers we don't. get to hear it because they're not. organized i mean we get to hear their. inklings here and there like i said. youtube there's little communities that. are local and so on but if they were. organized. [Laughter]. if a leader would emerge no okay so when. did you first start to dream about. building your own things. designing your own products.

designing your own systems. and software and hardware well in high. school. there was a company that. um. a friend of mine founded and i was the. second employee was called quality. computers. and it was a male. mail order mail order because there's no. e-commerce then there was no internet. again yeah you either mailed in your. little coupon and you said this is what. i wanted to order or you wrote in to get. a catalog and deliver to you you know. turn around time and this stuff was like.

from the time you wanted the time you. bought it was maybe eight to twelve. weeks that was just the normal way of. getting things. so quality computers was a mail order. for apple ii and it was software. and and all kinds of accessories so. hardware accessories so hardware plug-in. cards joysticks all this stuff. and what um we noticed was um there were. accelerator cutters or memory cards. and to be able to use those cards.

you had to actually go and change the. software you used to access this new. memory so you literally have to go and. you took the program that you had let's. say was appleworks which was like an. early microsoft office or something like. that. and you had to literally change the code. and you would install all these patches. to then take advantage of the hardware. so what we started creating was software. on top of it to do the automatic. installation of all of these patches. so we made it much easier to take new. hardware and then and and the existing.

software you have and expand it into. this new world so it was creating tools. and that really great customer support. and we we started getting a lot of. orders because we had the software make. it easier to install to give them the. superpower. and at the same time um. uh you know they they would be able to. change their software and and have a new. world that wasn't existing from the. companies that were creating the initial. products. and so it was more of that and then that. happened with uh. hard drives so i wrote a hard drive.

optimizer for the apple ii to like read. because you could get really fragmented. so i wrote that piece of software and we. sold that through the company along with. the hard drives that we sold from third. parties so. that all happened in 12th grade uh. freshman year of college. you're a hard drive optimizer in 12th. grade. you know yeah between 12th and freshman. year what programming language do you. remember is it assemblies it was there.

were certain inner loops were assembly. and other loops actually there were. really early pascal no c um um see. see uh compilers what was the motivation. behind these is it. to make people's lives easier is it to. create a thing experience that is. simpler and simpler and simpler. thereby more accessible to large your. number of people like what or did you. just like like to tinker no no it was. two things really because one we wanted. to sell more hardware and software right. so it was like oh make it easier for the. user and then the other thing was.

because i was also manning the customer. support line. people would call and go this doesn't. work and i'm like oh i gotta go fix the. hardware and software right or i gotta. fix the software to make the hardware. and the installation process better so. my whole world was out of box experience. from when i was in high school. because i had to man the customer. support line pack the boxes and write. some of the code while we were doing. well joe joe gleason who was the founder. of quality computers he was off doing. the mark the ads placing the ads for the.

mail order making sure we were running. the credit cards right yeah. it was two of us and then it turned into. a third and then we hired another person. from high school to like pack boxes so i. could stay on the customer support line. or doing the software right and it was. all in his parents basement yeah right. as you were scaling exponentially. scaling right yeah exactly bootstrapping. so we'll jump around a little bit but. what were the you said you loved music. what were the ideas that gave birth to. the ipod if we jump.

forward uh and how far back do those. ideas stretch. you know if you look at the history of. technology. there's. i mean not just the product but the idea. is is truly revolutionary. maybe. its time has come. but just if you look at the arc. of history. instead of music. is so fundamental to who we are as a. humanity right and to be able to put.

that in your. pocket make it truly portable is. fascinating in in a way. that's truly portable so it's digital. as opposed to sort of uh like a walkman. or something like that so. what were the ideas that gave birth to. the ipod. you know i've i was in love with music. since i was a kid. just loved music from i think second. grade when i got my first albums and. stuff like that what kind of music are. we talking about so this was um.

this was led zeppelin. this was the stones hendricks uh. aerosmith. uh uh. cheap trick sticks ted nugent you know. just the real. you know the real american and so and. british rock and roll right there's a. bunch of people listening right now who. ten who's who who's that zeppelin what. is that. [Laughter]. um it drove my parents crazy yeah yeah.

just blasted loud loud just right and. this was second third grade fourth guy i. just i fell in love and then. uh we um. we moved back to detroit. and i loved listening to the radio. station because there was all kinds of. crazy music because you'd have a. amalgam of rock and then funk and r b. and i loved to listen at night so i had. a clock radio. but if i had the clock radio on everyone. like the parents go go to sleep stop. that turn that stuff off so i hacked the. clock radio and put a headphone jack in.

it. nice. right so i said oh they're wow. okay. and then and then i could listen to it. all night and no one could hear me right. and i could just sit there and you know. just huddling around the radio groove. out just listening to zeppelin. stairway to heaven. what would you say is the greatest uh. rock classic rock song of all time. greatest classic rock song of all time. well it pops into mine well no you know. what i mean this has to be that's just. really hard dude this is nice.

dude this is. a serious journalistic interview. you're not going to back down from these. kinds of questions oh my god no i don't. know challenge yeah it's hard it's hard. to pick but i i to me stairway to heaven. is a safe. fault it's like it's so often considered. to be one of the greatest songs of all. time that you almost don't want to pick. it right exactly but you've returned to. it time and time again and it's like. yeah this is. this is something pretty special. this is a rock opera. of sorts well the rock opera that really.

blew me away and still continues to blow. me away is all of dark side of the moon. like that. i love that yeah i love zeppelin i i. can't say which one's better but dark. side of the moon for me was it was a. you know audio experience right the. whole thing from soup to nuts plus all. the synthesizers all of those things. okay so back back to the ipod so that's. you from the early age you loved music. loved it absolutely loved it and you. know always was just around it and.

always i just it was always playing you. know. um i. played it so loud that i actually hurt. the earring in my right ear. and i still suffer from that today. um and then no regrets no regrets. whatsoever going to concerts in downtown. detroit and all that crazy stuff so. moving forward um. so i in college i was a dj. so i would dj and hang out and play all. the tunes i love and whatever for the.

for the crowd and then i continue to do. that in silicon valley. when when i moved right after school. and so i was be lugging all of these cds. around with me a thousand cds to right. and. and at the same time. um and so those were heavy and at the. same time i was doing the philips nino. and velo those are window ce based. mobile computing products. the nino was the first. device to actually put audible books on.

tape so we i worked with audible we met. in a conference and they were like we. don't want to do hardware we just want. to do content i was like well we have. this device let's get it together and we. got audible on that and this was in. 96 or seven. first audible books and it you know as i. was oh my god that's audio. well what if we put music on it. right and so i i go and the memory was. very small at the time right there was. almost there was almost no flash it was. all dram when you did audible you. started in dram.

right which was okay probably because. uh how much. books do you need is the idea by the way. brilliant i mean just putting books. i know it's probably not the sexiest of. things but putting books. on. on a mobile device is a brilliant step. i i don't know sometimes can't measure. how much human progress occurred because. of an invention like there's the sexy.

big products but you never know like. maybe like wikipedia is one of those. things that doesn't get enough. i think credit for the transformational. effects it has it's not seen as the. sexiest of products but maybe it is when. you look at human history. wikipedia. arguably is one of the big things that. that basically. unlocked human knowledge human knowledge. okay and human editing and human you. know just. the human. human nature of building something. together yeah so it's it's fascinating.

sometimes you can't measure those things. maybe until many many decades later. anyway sorry so that was that was the. nino that was so that was there and then. there was audible you put books why not. put music music and i'm carrying around. the music for the dj gigs and you're. like wait a second uh two and two. together right like get let's get rid of. this and so and then mp3 show up. the the actual like encoder performance. the format mp3 showed up around. 97.98. so mp3 is.

is compressed so you can. have uh like the storage is reduced. significantly right so you could go from. a um you know a large full full uh. losses lossless um you know digital. track into something that can be stored. in. four to eight megabytes something like. that for the audio now you know that's a. reduced quality but you could get it. down there and you're like oh. okay and now if we have enough flash or. dram we can put 10 15 what have you all. in in that same memory and it starts to.

replicate a cd and then ultimately if. you put it on a hard drive you could. start to put you know thousands of songs. yeah that's that's also another. brilliant invention like people don't. realize i think i think people would be. surprised how big in terms of storage. raw audio is. and the fact that you can compress it. like. uh. i don't know what the compression is but. it's like 10x it's very significant. compression and still it sounds almost. lossless much of the chagrin of neil.

young who yeah who does not like that. but even even neil young. even the stuff he talks about is still. tiny files relative to the raw right so. he he wants us to increase it just a. little bit more a little bit more but. it's still that's an invention that's a. thing that unlocks your ability to carry. around a device like nino and listen to. music because without that there's no. way you can carry on a gigantic hard. drive. right exactly and so so then that so it. was mp3s the nino and my you know my my.

hatred of carrying around all this heavy. stuff that then spawned you know um. fused and then ultimately you know. became a lot of that the ideas and. things of that nature were. and and my passions were born into then. the ipod you know it was too. apple needed something and i wanted to. fix something and it it all kind of you. know came together at this right right. place right time plus the right. technology came at this it was just like.

the stars aligned so how did it come to. life. the details of. the stars aligning but the actual design. the actual engineering of getting a. device to be small. the uh. the storage of the you know the. interface how it looks sure. the storage the details of the software. all that kind of stuff what what are. some interesting memories from that. design process what are some wisdoms you. you can.

part okay from that process well. you know how long do you want to go. because i have i can go deep uh so uh. let's go at least 20 hours let's go okay. yeah that's one of those lengthy. documentaries we're gonna turn it into. episodic uh yeah binge. game of thrones so let's just start with. uh you know after i was asked to be a. consultant to put this thing together. so i had already had knowledge of you. know the the space and the technology.

and all that stuff but i had to very. quickly. and and a lot of the suppliers because. of what i was doing at fuse trying to. create that thing so. at. at as a contractor i was like okay what. is the first thing you need to do so. so after i showed a you know. different architectures and what three. different products could be. to steve about options for storage. options battery options form factor. options there was three options. and as i was was i told given very good.

advice give to the the two options you. really do not like but their options and. give the best option last because steve. will shut you know shoot all those down. and give the. the best option last and then you could. talk about that and so that was the one. um. that had a 1.8 inch hard drive. and a small screen. uh like with the screen you you you know. it uh i am not on the original ipod. classic ipod. and uh and then i had enough of the idea. of the three or three or four different.

uh. cpus and processor suppliers and kind of. systems that were out there that i had. gone and found and put together on power. supplies you know uh disk drive. interfaces firewire interface all that. stuff so i put together all of those. those schematics or you know block. diagrams they weren't schematics yet. because it was just me. and coming up with a bill of materials. coming up with what it could look like. what would be the input output how we. could uh. make a better headphone jack.

um that was also on there screen. suppliers. tearing apart calculators so got all. calculators and all kinds of electronics. to get the the right size um. different sizes of small lcds. so i got all kinds of different battery. types i got different types of uh you. know in different battery sizes double. a's. aaa's working through all the different. and there was lithium ion nickel metal. hydride so i took all the battery types. i took all of the um memory types.

processing types lcd types. and. um. and and connectivity and all that stuff. not wireless but wired. and. laid out these things as lego blocks. so literally i had all of these things. as just and so i i made them so i could. like you know put them together and. figure out what the compact fact form. factor would be oh like how do we shove. them together what's the smallest. possible box you can get so the the. questions without the storage so the. hard drive.

batteries double a triple a you're right. screens so screen size and then for that. you're tearing apart calculators. calculators. digital cameras whatever and getting. little things right so so you can make. it physical right if you can make the. intangible tangible like and so i can. say look we can make this and i could i. brought this whole bag of goods and it. was like. right like here's this here's this this. is why double a's won't work and because. it makes it too fat and everything so. just educate everybody through here's.

the parts that we can use you should not. sheet a paper it's physical you're. playing in the physical space well i. would go back and forth so. truth be told because there weren't a. good enough graphical tools on on a. on the mac i was using a pc with vizio. and some 3d tools and i was doing 3d. design at the same time i was taking all. these physical parts and going okay what. feels right because you have to go from. you know the details and then the rough. and you go back and forth and you. iterate right and so it was just a lot. of fun and then i ultimately ended up.

with a styrofoam model and printouts. that came from vizio that i glued. together and put my grandfather's. fishing weights in because i also. modeled the weights. right so i i said oh this is this many. ounces this is this many ounces in grams. and then i went and got all that and. made the weighted these styrofoam models. to then match that so when you picked it. up it felt more or less form factor. right and it also you felt. how much you know was it going to be. dense enough is it going to feel solid.

and rigid in your hand. right why does need to feel rigid. because it has to feel substantial it. has to feel like i have like a like a. bar of gold in my hand right you know. maybe you know this when you open and. close a car door you know that thunk and. you go bam and you go that feels solid. that feels real and then you get this. tinny car that's like ding and you're. like does this feel safe does this feel. like a value and so you when you have a. device like that and you you want to. make sure that there's not too much air.

in it that. you've distributed the density of the. masses in the right way so it feels like. it's the right thing so you have to. model battery life costs. uh you know. mass. sizes of different things and then you. have to also think about what the ui is. going to look like right so you have all. of these constraints your work variables. you're working with and you have to kind. of you know you can't get the perfect of. everything what's the best you know. local maximum of all of these components.

that come together to provide an. experience local max it's always. trade-offs what about buttons. buttons well there was also the buttons. too right oh by the way a lot of these. battles fought inside your mind or is it. with other people is it uh is it with. steve is it lower like what this was all. independent this was me before being. able to present to see because i had to. feel really confident. that. if i was going to put this in front of. him that it could be made right so i had. to convince myself and go work through. all the details through the like the. very very rough mechanical design.

electrical design software things. because i didn't want to present. something that was going to be fictional. right my credibility would be like. trashed. right so you mentioned convince yourself. you're painting this beautiful picture. of of a driven. engineer designer. uh futurist. how much doubt were you played by. through that like this this is even. doable because it's not obvious that. this is even doable. like to do this at scale to do this kind.

of thing to make it sexy. to uh. [Music]. shovel. the screen the batteries the storage. to make the interface the hardware and. the software interface work all of that. i mean i don't know i would be. overwhelmed by the doubt of that because. so many things have to work plus the. supply chain like at that point i wasn't. getting into any of those details or. anything you know there's there's the. basic stuff that you have to put. together and then you have to you know.

through my learnings at general magic. and my learnings at philips and. delivering you know multiple you know. large-scale programs in manufacturing. you kind of get a rule of thumb and you. know what to focus on at the beginning. and what not to worry about over time. like when i was early in my career i. worried about everything on the. engineering details so much so that you. know i would be a nervous wreck sooner. or later you learn how to filter out and. figure out what to prioritize and so 10. years later you know i was able to much. do a much better job of filtering out. the things of like we'll get to that in.

you know in weeks to come but right now. we got to like solve you know the very. important things which is is could this. actually be something real and that you. could deliver you know enough battery. life right enough of an interface um of. the right cost. right in the right right uh right price. point so you already you were sitting on. on a track record of successes and. failures in your own mind where you had. sort of already a confidence a calm a. calmness. uh but still.

was there a doubt that you can get this. done always. always how hard is it to achieve a sort. of a confidence. to a level where you could present it to. steve and actually believe that this is. doable. like what what do you remember one yeah. that moment yeah i think it was after i. triple checked i couldn't i couldn't. bring anyone in. right i couldn't let anyone in on this. so it was just me are they going to. trample on it that kind of thing why no. no because i couldn't bring any what i. mean bring anyone in on this one it was.

a highly confidential program inside of. apple there was like four people who. knew about it right. and so i couldn't bring anyone from. apple because i was a contractor i. couldn't bring anyone else from the. outside world i'm working for apple and. i'm under this. crazy nda right in this contract so it. was just. it was so i'm i'm. i'm doing this oh and at the same time. i'm also buying every competitive. product mp3 player and tearing them all. apart yeah right tore them all apart and. looking at them and trying to learn from. those as well so it was all of this.

stuff in six weeks so i didn't sleep. right yeah yeah but i i was like because. i was trying to make this from i was i. was envisioning this since the nino. right and i was like oh my god right. but there was another doubt that i had. and it wasn't just could you make the. product but could actu apple actually. have. the um. the balls to make it because apple was. not the same company. that you know it today in 2001.

really it was cautious conservative. careful. it was barely break even it was a four. or five billion dollar company oh so the. guts required there is not necessarily. in the innovation it's like this is. going to cost a lot of money and we're. going to potentially lose all of it. because it'll be. a flop. well there's not just that but there was. only the mac. yeah and the mac wasn't doing very well. yeah. there was less it was about a one. percent only in the us market share for. the mac.

right. the company was in debt. bill gates had to give him a loan. right michael dell at the time was. saying shut down the company and give. the money back to the shareholders. so. this is not the company that you know. that people oh my god the iphone came. out it's a very different level of. confidence and financial. situation that the company was in versus. the ipod so given that what was the. conversation when you finally presented. to steve.

what was that conversation like. the conversation was. well we went we went through it the. presentation and all all that stuff. happened and he he was just like and you. know he never he would flip through it. real quick throw the presentation aside. and said okay let's talk about this. right and so we went through it all. and um. one was a big conversation about sony. and sony was the number one in all audio. categories home portable what.

in the world okay. i had been already gone through 10 years. of failure and i was like wait a second. how are we going to compete with sony. and i was always worried that sony was. going to come out with whatever it was. they were going to come out with their. mp3 player and that was it game over. right. and so i was like. steve. and and this is why it took me. four weeks to finally sign on to join. apple after he greenlighted the ipod.

program in that meeting was because. i had built other things in the past at. philips the nino and velo but they. didn't know how to sell it or market it. they didn't know how to retail it. right so i was like we could build this. and i was like steve i'm pretty sure i. can build this i've done this before. but how are we going to sell it. you have all your marketing dollars on. the mac. and he looked at me and he goes you. build this. with you know a team and our team and. apple open business and me right. and.

i dedicate that we will make sure that. at least two quarters of all marketing. dollars will only go to this product and. nothing else. wow. right that was mac was the lifeblood of. all revenue of the company so steve saw. something special here. exactly. and he said i'm going to commit all the. marketing dollars if you can deliver the. experience that we're all talking about. if we can do that and that was jeff. robin as well because i ipod would have. never happened without itunes you know. people don't understand that was a.

bundle you couldn't do one without the. other and vice versa so jeff and i were. you know if jeff and you can present and. bring that um. bring that experience to life. i will put all the marketing dollars. behind it when did the marriage of ipod. and itunes. sort of. uh. what was that. a birth of ideas that made up itunes. itunes existed before the ipod. okay. and so jeff robin had his company oh man. i can't remember her name but it was.

bought he was making a mp3 player app. for the mac. steve saw it because there was mp3. player apps like winamp and other things. that were on the pc real player and. steve saw that going on and saw that. jeff and his small team had this this i. can't remember sound something. anyways he bought that and that became. the basis of itunes and then jeff ran. all of itunes. and so what happened specifically there. was they were starting to hook up to all. these third-party mp3 players.

because there's a lot of korean. the mp man like walkman but empty man. all these. and they were trying to hook them up and. they were like these are horrible. experiences and through that and they. said. itunes was something that was going to. help grow the mac base because we were. trying to get more and people. on the mac so this program would be a. great new thing you could add to the mac. and there was also internet connectivity. at the time for the imac. and so they did that and then they're. trying to do these these hookups they.

weren't going well and that's when they. said we need to build our own or steve. said we need to build our own since. these are such horrible experiences. people don't want to just burn cds from. itunes we need to get that music on the. go but in an apple fashion that's when i. was called. to come in to do that the ipod thing. after the six weeks then he already. envisioned i'm sure he had envisioned. because they were trying to do this. thing okay now that's it. itunes what you know it wasn't called.

ipod yet you know what would become the. ipod that is going to be the thing that. then propels apple into this new thing. because you bring all these music lovers. in that are going to need their. their. next generation or sony walkman. version 2.0. so when you look at again. apologies to linger on ipod but it's one. of the great inventions. uh in in tech history. what wisdom do you draw from that whole.

process about. spotting an idea this is something you. talk about in your book. build. how do you know that an idea is. brilliant at which stage when did you. know it was a good idea. [Laughter]. and maybe is there like some. phase shifts. first your complete doubt then maybe hmm. and then maybe it becomes more than. and becomes like a little more. confidence that kind of stuff and also.

wisdom about who to talk to. right uh so they don't trample the idea. in the early stages that kind of stuff. and your thoughts about this we could go. on again how long do you want to go. this is a netflix series i told you. multi-season. so a lot of lessons learned over those. years of failure and success but. the first thing it starts with. um there's a whole chapter called great. ideas chase you and so it kind of goes. into in build and you can go and it goes.

through kind of chapter and verse about. all of those how nest became into being. but let's talk about it specifically for. ipod right so for me. i always had pain the pain of carrying. these cds everywhere right and i had the. joy of music. right. if you could say all of a sudden i could. get the music i love all the time. in a portable package and i can have all. the music i love all the time i was. solving a pain which was for me it was.

thousands of these other people might be. 10 or 15 cds right and then i can have. the joy of all this music uninterrupted. that was that was taking the pain. making a painkiller for it and then at. the end was a superpower an emotional. superpower that said oh my. this is something different so when you. can actually focus on a pain not of not. and and get a painkiller for it not a. vitamin so the difference between a. painkiller and a vitamin is very clear. one you need i got to get rid of this.

pain a vitamin maybe it works maybe it. doesn't maybe somebody needs it maybe. not it's all marketing story right. so you start with the pain give them a. painkiller and hopefully if you can do. it in the right way you give them a. superpower an emotional superpower. that is always and that's the way to to. to know that you're hitting on something. that's really powerful the pain and the. joy exactly um are you always aware. of the pain.

so it seems like a lot of great products. it's like we do a lot of painful things. and we just kind of assume. that's the way. it's supposed to be like with much. autonomous vehicles we'll all assume. we're supposed to be driving. right like and it doesn't. you don't think of it as a pain. right. well you've you've habituated it away. yeah you've habituated way for me you. know when i go uh to other places. living in bali or living in paris or.

whatever and i'm not driving. i'm walking or reusing a scooter or what. have you different thing and you go oh. my god when you left that environment. because everyone else is driving all the. time you're like that's what you do and. you find out there's other ways of. living and there's freedom when you get. rid of that you're like oh my god i. didn't know. that this was so much better so there's. there's something in the book that's. called i i deemed it the virus of doubt. and what the virus of doubt is is when. there's pain and it's been habituated.

away. you use the right marketing messages. to. to bring people back to that initial. experience they had or the initial. experience that they had of that pain do. you remember when the first time you did. blah and it felt like this. right and then you reawaken. that habituated pain. and people it becomes visceral and then. they're like oh. yes i hate that.

and then you go now i have the. painkiller and the joy for you yes. that's when it all comes together and it. goes. let me on this on the pain and the joy. that's brilliantly put. you mentioned um. selling and marketing right. marketing dollars. um. i have a love hate relationship with. marketing. like with a lot of things that require. artistic genius.

to me the best marketing i suppose. is the product itself and then word of. mouth. so like create a thing that people love. oh absolutely that's fundamental yeah. but so. any other marketing requires genius to. be any extra thing because every. to me. i don't. it's yeah uh maybe you can uh by way of. question because. i'm just speaking off the top of my head. as a consumer uh.

what is great marketing what does it. take to to to reveal the the pain and. the joy of a thing okay. it all starts at the beginning. and let me give you i'm going to give. you a couple of different ways of. looking at it okay and again we're going. to might go a little long here so. um. just stay tuned in yeah so the first. thing is the beginning let's start at. the beginning in the early part of my. career you know like general magic and. phillips and what have you.

i and especially when i was you know a. teenager when i was like doing making my. own chips and stuff like that i really. worried about just putting cool things. together. i'm like that when i put those two cool. things together as an engineer you go. that's cool. and then i would talk to the other. friends who might be geeks too and they. go yeah that's cool. because we knew the bits. so we put them together and that's a new. way of doing it you're like wow.

that's all what. it's not why. why are you doing this we know what. we're doing but we don't know why we're. doing it because we're not articulating. for ourselves because it's just. something we're like putting it together. like yeah that's cool because. because we think we're solving some. problem we have but we're not really. articulating it so what normally happens. and this happens because we invest in so. many companies around the world you have. these brilliant engineers designers. scientists researchers they put together. these.

these whats. and then. they develop it develop it develop it. and then at the end they call in. marketing and say now tell a story about. this. and let's get it out to the world okay. what happens then is marketing is like. well why do why do people need this tell. us why people need it and so they create. a story around this product. but the product was born out of what's. not wise. and so they start telling marketing. starts telling a story and it turns out.

to be a fictional story usually they say. oh this is going to do these things. the product comes in is delivered and it. falls flat on its face. because the marketing doesn't match the. product because they weren't both. created at the beginning together. right there are what's when you create a. product but there's a lot more y's and. the y's help inform the whats and the. whys also inform the marketing. so at the. that's. what you mean deeply at we should start.

at the beginning so. the designer should be also the marketer. the engineer should be the marketer. exactly stop impressing the geek next to. you what is the super power you're. bringing or the pain you're killing for. the you're you're the end customer. right now let's give let's contrast that. think about a movie. a movie starts with a treatment. it has an audience that says the. audience here's the characters here's. the storyline the plot here's the here's.

the here's the arc of the story right it. pulls that all out. then there's a script that's written. and that script is then produced and. then you add all the flourishes and what. have you music and graphics and what. have you right and then it comes out and. then there's the marketing of the movie. and that story was created at the. beginning. what you need to do if you're going to. do a great product is create that. treatment for your product and i call. that the press release. do the press release. like the treatment who's the audience.

what what features do you have what. pains are you solving for people have. the virus of doubt there to remind them. what pains they have and why you're. solving them the price all of those. things and you use that. as the bar. the measuring stick for what you do. during development because what happens. that along the route you know this. oh we're not going to be able to get. that feature done on time. throw that one overboard we got to hit. the we have to hit the date. oh we're not sure this product's right.

yet add another feature. add another fee feature creep right. if you don't have that story you know. you're going to tell at the beginning. you don't have that bar. right. and then at the end you don't know when. you're done if you don't have that story. so you can actually look at that press. release you know you might mod you know. you you change it over time um that. draft. but then when you're done you know the. whats and the whys you have all the. things of the audience and everything. and then you can give that to marketing. and say. well marketing's been along the way.

let's be clear but then everybody's in. sync and that's when you can tell a. cohesive non-fictional story about and. the product delivers on that story or. hopefully over delivers on that story. so. in the drafting from the beginning to. the end of the press release what does a. successful team look like who is part of. the draft is it engineers designers. what what's the purpose of a marketing. department in a company small let's say. a small company but more than two people.

okay so. from where does the why come from should. it always come from the designer or. should there be a marketing person that. yeah steps in and asks the question so. i'll just keep asking random questions i. know these are great questions okay. so it's because you're just like i'm. like i can't wait to tell you the answer. yeah um so it's in the book as well. but you have to separate out the various. functions of marketing. when. that's what i thought i was like.

marketing's marketing you know when i. was and and it's really not there's so. many disciplines just like in. engineering mechanical electrical. software and even software it's you know. use cloud services firmware applications. marketing has that much diversity as. well. okay and you have to honor that. and so. there is marketing communications like. pr press press there is um. social marketing there is a marketing. creative right there's marketing.

activation. but there's another thing that also. comes out and people. uh. confuse it with marketing which is. called product marketing or product. management. and product management or product. marketing is the voice of the customer. they're the person. who sits there and listens to what's. going on and the competition in the. marketplace. understanding the needs and those pains. of the customer and they're representing.

them in every single meeting so things. don't get off track. right. so that. um and they're creating the messages not. the marketing what happens is there's. messages that product marketing creates. like those are the deep messages like. we need to save 20 of energy let's say. right and then marketing turns that into. something that's with creative and. everything and brings that message. across maybe it doesn't say that but it. comes maybe visually or some other way. so product management does that and.

and and holds that press release. along the route and making sure that. we're tracking and then also marketing. is tracking with that press release to. make sure they're not telling a. fictional story right because they could. also add extra adjectives or something. and then the product can't deliver that. it's like no no no no no keeps. everybody's going to be grounded to the. press release to the raw right to the. customer needs yeah right because. they're always representing the customer. so. you have to have a product manager. typically that's the founder.

right in the beginning. and then over time you hire a product. management team. to then really. you know watch over this the whole way. and they are talking to customer support. they're talking to engineering they're. talking to design they're talking to. sales and marketing and they are always. in the mix and it's the hardest thing to. hire for oh yeah so it's they have this. a very important job of. developing maintaining the why. exactly why is it the hardest to hire.

for because you have to understand you. first nobody reports to you. right you're allowed so you're alone. and you have to build great ties with. all of these different these different. functions yes you have to understand. what they do have be empathetic with. what they do and you have to get have to. project. the customer's empathy or empathy for. the customer to them and tell them why. and why this customer needs us why this. doesn't work and so that they learn more.

they're not just doing but they learn. about the customer's point of view and. sit in there and stand in their shoes to. be able to then make better decisions on. the engineering details or the. operational details customer support. details so they understand. the ev if they're not the customer that. it's intended for they start to live. through and through their eyes and see. through their eyes of that customer so. they make better decisions and there's. probably. fascinating beautiful. tensions between that and sort of the.

the the engineers oh that's cool sort of. the. you know developing the what uh exactly. and which makes it an extra hard job i'm. sure exactly can i ask a sort of a. little bit of a personal question. one subfield of marketing mentioned. comms in pr. how do i ask that i i can hear your. struggle in your in your thigh. why.

or do. the. comms and pr folks sometimes. kill the heart and soul. of of a of the magic that makes a. company or is that is that wrong to say. give me an example. i will say the spirit of the example. which is. uh it feels like often the jobs of of. communications. is to provide caution. it almost it almost works together with.

legal to say. yeah we should probably should not. say this we're probably let's be careful. let's be careful. now that makes sense except. in this modern world. authenticity. uh. is extremely valuable. and revealing. the beauty that is in the engineering. the beauty of the. the ideas the chaos of the ideas i think.

requires. throwing caution to the wind to some. degree. i agree and. i just find that. boy i mean it's a really so to to push. back on myself i think it's an extremely. difficult job because people hold you. responsible if you're doing. communications. when you take risks right um. and especially when they fail so like. the it's a difficult job so i understand. why people become cautious but to me.

communications is about taking big risks. and throwing caution into the wind at. its best because your job. is to communicate. in the long term. communicate the genius the the joy. the the the genius of the products right. and that sometimes is a tension with. caution sorry so i i. uh because i've gotten a chance to meet. a lot of very interesting people and. interesting engineering teams and so on.

i look at what they're doing. and i look at what's being communicated. and it's just there's a mismatch because. the communication is a lot more boring. it's like there's something very. like. just straight up boring about the way. they're communicating because of caution. okay. and you have just teed me up for another. diatribe okay i'm gonna get on my i'm. gonna get on my podium here yes please. uh.

it all comes out of the leader. if the leader doesn't know how to. storytell or the leader doesn't know how. to do bold storytelling. then. you get even more con conservatism from. the pr and communications folks. because they're always so if you have a. not a bowl leader. they they're always going to be a filter. right they're always going to try to. smooth things out and take off the rough. edges and try so they're going to be. even more if you have a conservative.

messaging leader you're going to have. even a more conservative communications. department why because they want to keep. their jobs. okay it's really simple yes they got to. keep their jobs if they say one wrong. thing. it could be the end of it so if you have. very conservative leader they're going. to be even more conservative if you have. a bold leader there will be oh they'll. always take a a little more conservative. bent but you're still going to have bold. communications yeah that's brilliant. okay so it starts with the leader now.

that said. when you. you. you think about the messages and the joy. and revealing things right. many of these leaders don't tell great. stories. so what we do at future shape our. investment firm. is we take those scientists all and the. great minds and everything and what do. we surround them with. marketing and communication people and.

storytellers to give them the confidence. to tell a much broader story. about the impacts of what they're. creating and how big the global change. can be with those technologies because. usually they don't those leaders who. created those technologies they don't. really know how to communicate really. well and they don't feel very. comfortable in how they speak yeah so. it's interesting because stories and i'm. a huge fan of stories. have you ever read the book story no by. robert mckee.

you should read this and this is what i. read when it's 26. story by robert mckee and it's a book. all about the. waste due script writing. the prototypical. types of scripts drama comedy and how. it's been shown over you know millennia. how these stories are done it's it's a. fascinating thing and it gives you an. insight. to and it's it's written for you know. obviously hollywood and and and movies. and things like that but it's incredibly.

useful for what we do um as designers. and engineers and and technology piano. leaders there's some aspect in this. modern day where you know this podcast. and so on. um. what i love is the humans behind the. story too so some part of the story is. the human beings. so humor. drama. heartbreak hope emotions emotions. that's not just about us a painting a.

beautiful story that's flawless. it's uh vulnerability yep it's uh you. know being a dreamer. like over promising and then. uh. failing. real life so changing your mind. realizing sort of just the whole of it. and then also being like uh depending of. course where your personality is. um embracing the full richness and the. complexity of the personality of the. leader or the different people involved.

i mean that that's all part of it like. you can't just present this. beautiful always pleasantville. view of a product there has to be. this um this humanity that's part of it. the the full roller coaster of the. humanity which i i think is uh been very. difficult for companies to embrace right. not sure why. i'm not maybe it's just an old school. way of doing things like people think. you know that we present a facade. and uh you know we generate the story.

and we tell the story as opposed to sort. of um well we learn in especially in the. technical world we present the story as. it's faster it's smaller it's longer. battery life it's it's bits and numbers. and. you know and. metrics. that that resonates. sure with other geeks. what resonates with the the the you know. the planet. it's all emotions right and if you can. bring a great emotional story but with a.

great rational story at the same time. why you should do this and it's like oh. my god you bring that superpower that. joy. then it all hangs and there's personal. drama too like. the human right the here's the pain i. had remember that thing. and like i mean just i mean just you. know uh you're. you're obviously. this extremely. well-known human being that's behind a. lot of these.

uh great inventions of the technology. world but you're also just a human being. you have a clearly. uh. like a distinct personality that comes. through the like your eyes light up just. the way you communicate is just you. um. some people are more stoic some people. are sure like uh elon is. you know all over the place the chaos. uh. steve jobs. you know there's a very i mean it's hard. to put into words i can be poetic and so. on but there's a very distinct it comes.

on stage you know that personality right. there that's not just the product that's. something else too correct and like you. have to reveal that a little bit and. allow people to reveal that a little bit. and just let them be. themselves well. look. why why do i think your podcast is so. amazing because you are yourself. you talk about yourself you bring your. emotions into it and you don't modulate. it. you you're you. right.

it comes through it's it's true it feels. right you are you you that you you dress. the way you want to dress you say this. is me and this is all of me and you and. you become vulnerable right it's much. easier to do a podcast like that than. run a very large company correct where a. lot of people would feel the pain if you. make if you say something stupid right. if you so um there's a it's much more. easy to be afraid right and be careful. so. but nevertheless the same applies.

um authenticity and risk taking is is is. the only way unfortunately. to be successful in the long term uh let. me just because we're jumping all over. the place uh. i just linger on the ipod sure one of. the great designs. um. broadly speaking in the word design of. all time what what does it take to. design a great product. if you look. who can jump around we could look at. nests we can look at ipod we can look at. iphone. and many of the great things uh you.

design but. just. looking at that one transformational. thing. what can you say about what it takes. to do a great design. or maybe what makes a great design. well we talked about you know a. painkiller and we talked about the. we talked about that you know joy that. comes from it. but then there's the behind the scenes.

there's the team. there's everyone who brings it to life. brings that story to life. if you have a great story. and you know the why then you can. communicate it to those people who are. working on it. and then they bring their own thing into. it. right it becomes emotional for them too. it's not just a job it's a mission. and so many of the details that are born. out of these.

early prototypes these things that you. still haven't given full form to there. may be eighty percent done or maybe even. sixty percent done but you can see. enough in there. then you take those great ideas and you. give the why's to the team. and so that they feel it. they can understand it then they bring. their best and their ideas. to the table and then you can select. from those and you can then start to. um you know. it could be just a pixel change it could.

be a slight change on how you do the. audio for the feedback or maybe a curve. on the mechanics or something like that. of how it feels because everybody brings. themselves trying to you know feel this. thing they're not just doing something. that someone told them to do. if you can instill that mission and that. why into that team it doesn't have to be. big you get. i feel a 10x everyone comes together in. a special way. and. um. and. the magic is created you put the love. into it.

the customer feels the love on the other. side so the. making the team. like taking him in onto the vision onto. the why. now they feel the all the little details. we think of. the original. ipod. and all the. many generations after all those little. details. are. in them is the emotion of the engineers. and the designers that. it's their baby it's like a knight's.

struggling this isn't right like you. said changing little pixels here and. there. changing changing the shape of things. changing the feel of things. like uh the materials. the. i don't know just everything on the. software part of the packaging the words. on the packaging. just everything the words on the website. and always jumping from the very. specific detail problem. to the big picture how the thing feels. the overall always jumping back and.

forth what does it look like to the. customer how are we going to implement. it in the most. um you know. efficient way. because you know a lot of stuff you. don't know is some of that stuff is. hacked in. maybe hacked in at the end it might it. it may not be the most beautiful. architecture that a geek would look at. and go oh my god that's so beautiful. because we can look at and visualize. this incredible software stack or. hardware stack some of it could just be. hacked in. you make it better over time but it was. that brilliant thing and we got to get. that in because that's the way you do it.

now and we'll make it more efficient. later. maybe this is a good moment to draw a. distinction between design and. engineering and does such a distinction. even exist. are these distinct disciplines or no i. don't think they're just distinct i. think they're different types of design. i think there's you know there's always. this you know this. idea of this oh on the mount designer. and it all comes down and it all flows. down like some magic.

it's not there are electrical designs. there's ai designers there is data. scientist designers everybody has design. and there's a chapter in the book all. about that actually that it's not just. you go to the mount and it comes down. and you're enlightened it's each person. brings their their form of design and. their craft because what if they're. really good they're artists in their own. right they're not just engineers they're. not just design they're artists they're. empathetic they really want to bring.

their best a lot of the best engineers i. have are not the technical or that i've. worked with are not the technical. gotta get it exactly right they're the. artists they came from music or they. came from other things and they they see. that right when you work with very rigid. engineers. this is the way the only way. those are not the engineers i want to. work with. they're all like a bit artists at heart. right they they understand the practical. practicalness. they don't have to have the rigidity of.

this is the way it's done like. where if you're building something new. all new and revolutionary none of us are. experts at it. and if you come with that expert mindset. just tell me and i can give you a story. i should probably give you that story um. about that if you come with the expert. and i'm the expert when you're doing. something no one's ever done before. i don't want you on the team. because we all are learning about. something that has never been. in existence before and we have to bring.

that level of vulnerability and openness. to new ideas and new ways of doing. things. throughout the team. so you want people that are able to have. like beginner's mind or whatever like. don't don't come in as an expert what's. the story okay you're not a story okay. all right no i i can tell it's just all. right. so. so. you know you asked what were these risks. you know like on the early ipod and. there's there was there's a few big. risks like one and this this doesn't go.

in the story but like putting rotating. media in your pocket and it could drop. at any time what happens there and like. you can damage because the heads and the. hard drive media are so close it smacks. it's dead right so that was one big one. like is holy right so that was. something we and we had to design. special tests and everything and special. software on that but then there was. another one which was at the early days. the way the first generations of ipods i. had to hack. the i had to hack the ide interface to.

the hard drives. so i was like okay what we're going to. use is we're going to use this chip for. hard drive um hard drive to make a hard. drive you had to have a chip that did. firewire to a hard drive okay and then. that would become a portable hard drive. well then we had up. we had the mp3 player and and the user. interface and everything so there was. times when it was just this hard drive. and there was times when it was a mp3. player and i had to hot switch between.

what the hard drive thinks it was. talking to yeah right so designed this. thing tore it apart done all this stuff. and i was like. you know maybe i'm going to screw up ide. and there's something there's some holes. i'm going to see. so i go who's the expert at apple who. understands ide and everything. so. this person comes over. the mass storage specialist comes over. and i put on the whiteboard and said. here's how we're going to do this thing. and here's the commands and this is how. it hot switches and everything he's like. that's never going to work yeah.

i was like what it was never going to. work i said well let me go over here and. show you this right here i haven't. prototyped and it's been working for. days i just wanted to see if you're. going to have it find any holes in the. thing right didn't even get and he just. stormed out of the room and never never. even yeah right that's hilarious i've. had a lot of experience like this with. experts like for example this ridiculous. room. um i had uh. i had a person and. many people like this that.

i showed them here's the situation. you know it's acoustics acoustics yeah. they're like no no no no this is. horrible. this. does not this is not gonna work. the reflection. the the curtains are not gonna stop uh. the reflex there's a bunch of. terminology they're telling me um it's a. similar kind of situation as the idea. which i was like no i. listen. i just need to see is there major issues. and they're like a low-hanging fruit. that are fixable and major holes i.

should be aware of not like that's 100. 000 to upgrade to upgrade for what exact. purpose. what not why yeah exactly exactly the. why the focusing on the on the story and. the content on the the why the why do i. and that that actually i've experienced. that unfortunately in the artistic. realms too which is like. photography and videography. cinematography uh. it's interesting i talked to. photographers that are quote-unquote. experts.

and it's always about the so much of the. focus is on. the equipment. the equipment behind. the sensors and the lighting. and it's like all right. all right. but um. what about. what about the feeling. of the story you create visually. the difference between a. a movie that's really well told.

and it doesn't have all the effects and. everything versus maybe some of the. superhero movies we see all the time. which is good luck if there's a story. but man there's a lot of action and and. cgi. well that's that's right and that. and there's also value to the to to. those right cgi. superhero can tell a better story but. you have to have a good story to begin. with. sure exactly but it it's if you're. focused on the story i guess you need to. start with a story you need to start the. story and if you bring in experts.

they can often be. uh detrimental. i guess to the why they're they're too. good at doing the what well you can. bring in experts for why there's lots of. experts for why. too many times we get experts for what. yes and then they only focus on the what. and so you so they come with the specs. and feeds and the the numbers and all. the other stuff but what you're really. asking for is i need somebody about the. why in understanding what we're trying. to get done here and fitting the what's.

into that why. right that's why i i do think that. i i. one of the qualities that i really enjoy. for people to work with is like humility. for a particular problem when you. approach it. basically i don't know how to solve this. but we're going to figure it out as. opposed to oh i've solved this thing. many many times before i know exactly. what to do uh humility before the chaos. sort of having having an open mind that. this is going to require a totally new. way of doing uh things it's a really.

nice quality to see um. you know you're one of the fascinating. humans in the history of silicon valley. steve is another one of those so those. two humans came together for a time to. work together. what was it like working with steve jobs. what uh aspect of his behavior and. personality. let's say brought out the best in you. pushing you. really pushing you relentless on the. details.

challenging you for the right reasons. it wasn't bullying it wasn't demeaning. he would critique the work not judge the. person at least not in front of them. or inside of a you know in front of a. group or anything like that i know it. was really that attention to detail and. he when he would make a decision you. know there are when you make the first. version of anything something. revolutionary there are a lot of. opinion-based decisions. and there's only one or two people three. people who hold those opinion-based.

decisions and what they should be. and. when you have those opinions. and you're trying to work with the team. to. implement those. decisions. you have to really tell the why of those. decisions just don't go do it but why. it's there so you can feel part of that. um decision you can understand. what were the trade-offs of the. different other. answers to that opinion right.

and say this is the reason why we picked. the what we picked because it's this for. the customer or this for the overall. story what have you so that you felt. really good. because a lot of times most people want. a data driven decision. but with v1s you don't get data. right maybe in a b2b you could a little. bit because you can talk to customers. but you can't do that with a consumer. property one version one b2b business. the business versus what's the. alternative. uh business to consumer v.

okay. which is defining centers. yes yes so and when you say data driven. decisions versus what. opinion-based decisions so like gut you. have to use you don't have any. um. you can't fall back on any data or any. previous history to kind of inform you. of what's going on right and so if you. look at most. companies who are paralyzed and cannot. make new innovations and new products.

it's because they're trying to turn and. this is what i saw at philips they're. trying to turn opinion-based decisions. into data-driven decisions so they don't. lose their jobs. so if you look at management consulting. management consulting is all about. taking those opinion-based decisions. giving them to someone else to turn into. data that comes back to them and says. they can blame the management. consultants yeah when something goes. wrong as opposed to it wasn't me. yeah right.

when you need to have to tell that story. you have to understand that especially. v1 you need to be able to. um. articulate those those. opinion-based decisions and you need to. own them. and if you fail with some of them you. didn't get it right you you then own. them and fix them and move on right. version one of the ipod wasn't perfect. version one of the iphone wasn't perfect. we got a lot of opinion-based decisions. wrong. but as you go through it because you got.

more data because v2 you had data on. those original opinions and then you. were able to then modulate off of that. right and you still have new opinions. because those are differentiators that. you that we call differentiators that. the things that you know move the move. the product forward. in its evolution but at the revolution. stage opinions opinions opinions no data. and so you have this discussion you and. steve. and the whole in the stage and the whole. team. with.

opinions and there you have to be harsh. i i wouldn't say harsh but you have to. be very determined right you know there. there are two real opinion-based. decisions that happen on the iphone. one was. the keyboard. should we have a key hardboard keyboard. or should we have a virtual keyboard. the blackberry was the number one. productivity messaging device of its. time. it was called a crackberry for a reason. because people loved it because it had.

it was easy to type and you know they. could get their work done. but when you're saying we're going to. move from that everyone's talking about. that in the market and you say we're. going to move to a virtual keyboard and. it's not going to work as well as the. hardware keyboard. that's an opinion-based decision right. because the data is telling you. yeah all the best sales are over here. god that takes cuts. it takes guts but you have to look at it. from a different point of view and this. is how. i learned to come to understand this. because i had been building you know.

virtual keyboards before and i knew. you know the goodness and the badness in. them right but he was like look those. are productivity devices we're making it. where ours is born out of an. entertainment device and productivity. right. we need to show full screen videos we. are going to have apps here not apps but. our apps the apple apps because there. were no app store yet are going to take. over the whole screen you want a full. screen web browser you don't want one. that's like half of the device is just a. keyboard maybe you don't need that. keyboard in every instance so we want.

that part of the screen to change based. on the tool you may need at the time and. maybe it's just full view right so you. have to go and understand it's a. different type of device just because. that's that and it's successful for that. reason the crackberry for the keyboard. that's not the only thing you're going. to do with this device because people. only did messaging and maybe a few phone. calls right this was going to be so much. more it was going to be an entertainment. web browsing device so you wanted those. tools to go away but it wouldn't be as. good. as the hardware keyboard so that's an. opinion but let me give you another.

opinion based decision that got turned. around before it shipped. steve said no sim plot. i don't want any slots we're going to. make it very pure. johnny was like of course no slots. johnny. and. we all looked around and go that doesn't. work. you can't do that well why does variety. and then he would always and this was. the magic of steve like when you said no. that doesn't work you go well why does. verizon not have any sim slots right. they showed that you can do a mobile. phone with those limits you're like.

okay here we go and so. a few days later we come back with you. know and and so uh product marketing. voice of the customer engineering we all. come back with all the data showing how. many. how many data networks and. mobile networks required sim cards. versus did not. and what the trends were and we showed. the data. and that killed the or excuse me brought. back the sim slot on the original iphone. because we're like.

because he was just like we're going to. tell a t to not use a sim yeah right. we're going to just tell them to do it. differently. right but we were like if we want this. thing to go anywhere around the world. you want to put that friction in people. are going to move from place to place. you know they have different sims. because of the prices and all that stuff. we had to show all of that data and then. that opinion-based decision got turned. into a data-driven decision and it and. the sim slot obviously showed up so. those are two ver at the very same time. yeah right. opinion can hold and so can data over.

rule opinion when data does exist for a. v1 but the at the end of the day you. don't know what the right answer is. so. doing no. sim card slot. may have been the right decision. we won't know. because maybe if that was. the decision. then like many times throughout apple's. history you basically changed the tide. of how technology is done.

yeah absolutely you know you never know. apple started wi-fi people don't. understand wi-fi came out of there there. was no wi-fi in 2001 apple started wi-fi. and then everyone else you know got onto. on board if you look at now where we're. going we're going to phones without sim. slots. because we have e sims right and now the. sim slot is becoming legacy legacy as a. legacy port. that legacy port will probably be gone. by. six maybe ten years he'll be gone i'm. pretty sure of that.

um because it's so much easier for. carries they don't have to have physical. things to go out and right. so right now it's just the early days. but it will happen and it will go its. way it'll fall away but it will take. time you just couldn't do it back then. so timing is essential here but at the. end of the day it's opinions and that's. where the genius is sometimes the data. tells you one thing but the data at the. end of the day does represent the past. exactly and the future may be different. than the past right. uh sometimes there's wisdom in the in.

the past and sometimes. it's actually representative of. something that should be. uh overcome and uh progress looks like. leaving that stuff behind like um right. the headphone jack right. i mean that when uh when different folks. were getting rid of. the headphone jack. boy that i would love to be a a fly in. the wall of those. oh discussions we had that oh. that was that was a discussion that.

happened almost every year. yeah that was an every year should we. get rid of headphone jacks on the ipod. yeah right when are wireless headsets. going to happen what it right and it. took years to build all the right. protocols the chips all those things to. make the experience that is the i. airpods today. right. to say have the confidence because. bluetooth was good but it wasn't apple. like so nat it's like we got to make our. own chips we got to make our own. software stacks now we have the. confidence to remove the headphone jack.

and actually make you pay 200 more for. your iphone that you were just paying. because it's a headphone jack now we've. grown our revenue we've given a new. experience to the user right and. ta-da you know it's just it's magic and. now if the world's transformed to. everyone you know moving to that right. but it took years to understand the. problem develop the technology to and. not just rush it to market to get a half. experience but to get it right and. refine it then ship it and only then.

after. it was probably four or five years in. development just like the m1 processor. right. that was a work from 2008. right. grinding away grinding away grinding. away then saying okay now we have the. confidence we're doing our own silicon. for all the iphones and ipods. ipads and such. now we're going to turn to the mac and. make sure we have the best processor. right not just that we have the best. integrated design team.

and then. saying we're gonna you know and then. besting everyone making sure the. software's. and the hardware is designed at the same. time making sure the kernels all those. things are. are gonna use the best efficiency. and then popping it out. and then it feels seamless it's magic. there were no. as far as i could tell unless you were. in real esoteric drivers or something. like that it just worked it was magic. like the transit it was not even a speed. bump it was not even a crack in the road.

so um perhaps famously steve had a bit. of a temper. steve jobs. would would you say his. particular personality in this aspect. was constructive or destructive. in the process of. shaping these opinion-based. ideas. so in. build i write a chapter called.

yes. and you lay out beautifully. the types of. and uh maybe you could speak to. the constructive and the destructive. types of okay. so there's really two delineations that. i. that i've found of you know real. fundamental ones and that is. again the why. why do i feel this person is an. okay they might not be.

i feel this is a person who's an. are they motivated by their ego. or are they motivated by their mission. something they're trying to do that's. and doing in service of something else. right. sometimes those lines can be blurry but. it's usually pretty clear. when it's when it's ego motivated. you're it's clear they're just trying to. get up in the ranks push people down. shove people aside i think we saw a.

president do that on a stage once. um. you know i'm me and i'm the you know i'm. the. the the guy right and i'm gonna prove it. by pushing everyone away and being. nefarious or what have you either. passively aggressive or aggressively. aggressive. but they're doing about themselves. there's another one which is someone. who's so attentive to detail and. unrelenting. that they're trying to get the right. things for the customer or the in.

service of their mission and they want. to make sure we fulfill those things. right. and they really care they don't. micromanage all the details but they. micromanage the details where the. customer it touches the customer in some. way. people who work with those types of. people who are unrelenting and push you. and might make you upset a lot of times. it's a knee-jerk reaction to go they are. an.

get off my back you're. right and you're protecting your ego. because what's happening is that person. is usually pushing you beyond your. boundaries. they see something. that we can do or you can do that you're. just either. not wanting to do for whatever reason. you're not confident in that. you you're like i don't want to take the. extra time and say no we need to get. that done and pushing you. okay.

and so. when. we came to those areas it wasn't just a. one-on-one it could be steve against the. team going we need glass instead of. plastic on the front face of the iphone. and we're going to do this. and we're like god. you know and so we did it. and he pushed us because he didn't know. all the details but he could see in our. minds that we're like. yeah we could probably yeah we could. probably but man it's really putting us. in risk and we we laid out the risks for.

him and he's like i'm willing to take. those risks. we'll do that we're like we might be. three months late he's like this is so. important we need to stay on time. you know but it would be all the time. push push push i re it reminds me of. like kids growing up and me as growing. up you know when your parents push you. to make you grow beyond your boundaries. your personal boundaries and you're like. god damn it i'm sad. you know but they do it for the right. reasons now let's see it's not bullying.

it's not about bullying it's not about. demeaning. it's about either pushing you to another. part of the mission that needs to get. done or it's about critiquing your work. but not judging you yes well there's a. lot to say there so one. uh it's fascinating it's it's really is. fascinating and you laid out a very nice. picture but it's. it does feel like there's sometimes gray. areas which is why it makes all this. very complicated so one question i have. for you in terms of glass on the iphone.

um. how important is it that. like steven that case. is right. because. i could argue. each side it seems like in one sense. just having a strong vision and opinion. is already going to make everybody grow. even if it turns out to be the wrong as. long as you are sort of standing your. ground. um. you know napoleon invading russia or.

something in the winter. like it's just not gonna be it's not. that good right this is not a good idea. but i'm gonna hold do that and then once. you decide you go all in. and then from that even if the whole. team knows it's the wrong decision just. sticking by it powering through you will. learn through the pain of it like. everybody will learn so that's one side. the other is. maybe. um the the vision driven. uh gets to be.

more and more of an if they have. a track record. of. through that process having built people. up having made the correct decisions. they can't they're not allowed to be an. they're in rare air and no one. can challenge them right right. steve was never that that's the great. thing he was he was never. unchallengeable you could challenge him. now let's. now this the the plastic to glass story. is a perfect example of this.

so at the beginning of the project well. before we were going we had always had. these things about you know plastic. front ipods these kinds of things these. scratches and all that stuff. so we said are we going to have a glass. or a plastic display. a cover for the display because the. display was glass underneath it. we argued back and forth about glass. versus plastic and then we all landed. together on plastic.

okay the original decision was plastic. and the reasons were okay we don't want. to make a mistake glass can break. you know. people drop them all the time. so we don't want to have a fragile. device. because. you're going to be using even more than. a music player right. and you're going to be holding your head. and putting in your pocket and misses. and all that stuff. so we went down the road with plastic.

when it was shown when the product was. shown at mac world. in 2007 the first time that was plastic. we had just enough of them in the field. at the time we started to start seeing. light scratches on the. plastic. reviewers who didn't have the device yet. because it was behind glass if you if if. you remember 2007 the jesus phone comes. up and no one could even touch them you. could just look at it in this beautiful.

museum quality box like it came from the. future or whatever the past it was like. oh and you just looked and that was all. you got but then people said well what. screen is what covers on that you know. reviewers who knew better you know and. they're like oh it's plastic and they. were like really. and so there was enough of a doubt there. and then when we started to do it and. then steve changed the frame of. reference of the question or of the. result of what the customer would think. and he was like.

if we designed it with plastic. and it's in their pocket all the time. and it gets scratched by coins lightly. scratched or by keys or something like. that. that is a design problem. we need to fix the that was our bad. if they go off and drop it. or even slightly drop it. and it cracks. it's the customer's fault and they have. much lower. they have less likelihood to complain. yes they'll complain but they're part of.

that. of that failure. yes oh that's fascinating and then. there's truth to that right. because then they were part of why it. failed whereas the design they didn't do. anything wrong it was just sitting in. their pocket and it's you know it's. scratching. and that's normal use. abnormal use has been dropped and we're. like. oh now we get it and so we all moved to. that mindset when you framed the problem. and the solution in that way versus the.

original framing where we all landed on. plastic so. and then he was unrelenting on that but. we all had moved. and we have moved mindset and we. understood the why and we marshaled. together. and then by the end of june and it was. crazy the mechanical product design. teams. sourcing all of us all the the partner. corning pulled together to make that. happen because it was the right reason. right so this.

you know you look at these stories and. you hear just the top line. rumors of the takeaways but that's not. usually how it all happened of like one. leader was. that's not how steve was now i've seen. leaders who were just. pounding you know and just had no. real empathy for the team and. understanding the why and it's just it. is the way i want it right i am the. supreme leader. that wasn't like that. when he just had a very strong opinion a. very strong opinion but it was. challengeable.

it was challengeable and if you came. with the right thing you know it was you. could you could modulate that but you. had to come with a team it couldn't just. be you and you had to become a team and. data and to overcome because it was a. very strong opinion and there's personal. quirks of character like you said. days and good days bad days and good so. there's also the three options you said. you you notice that the third option is. always going to be the one that's picked. uh sure those kinds of idiosyncrasies. idiosyncrasies and that so that brings.

up another thing okay. uh. you said challenge the idea not the. person. you know. i'm somebody who has a you know i have a. temper i've i use colorful language and. so on when i'm on teams i work in my. private life i'm much calmer and so on. but i get when i get really passionate. with engineering teams. and i've been called an. i mean i am distinctly aware that you. cross lines uh often.

um. there's like levels right sure. you know you could it has to do with. language and how language is heard so. for example you could say a lot of stuff. to me you could swear you could say. stuff that sounds pers like. like i don't know. lex. sometimes i think you're the dumbest. human on the face of the earth or. something i don't know. this sounds very personal right but i'm. not going to take that personally i. understand what's being said and then.

i'm also noticed that there's other. people that take stuff more personally. this has to do with teams and figuring. out like okay who's going to take. certain words personally or not and you. have to know that's what takes makes a. great coach a great leader a mentor you. have to you have to like. factor all that in but it just there's. something about just being an. and um. being passionate and really driven. that sometimes you do cross lines. and that's. i don't know what to do with that.

because it feels like it comes with the. territory like you have. it seems like. you can't just have a perfectly. optimized. no. no absolutely not that we're humans yeah. we're humans we don't have a program. everyone's programmed the same way to. react the same way to given stimulus. right yeah so. you know you said i don't know if this. was a real example but you said oh. you're the dumbest human on earth or. whatever i would never say that. absolutely never and if someone said.

that to me or i saw someone else say. that to another person on the team. absolutely not that is not allowed. because that's judging someone you may. be heated and you can get heated and you. can say it in your intonation but to. then. try to put a label on it and put a label. on a person that is not allowed so if. you let that kind of culture happen. and it becomes somewhat. you know sometimes it's in jest. you know it has to be very much ingested. and those two people have to have a. really good working relationship so.

but other than that i'm sorry it's going. to be a lot more. you could say a septic in that way that. you're not going to add that stuff in. but you can do it with all other types. of ways without saying that because then. people who do react to that kind of. language. and don't have those shields because. they don't might not might not have that. stream confidence level that you do and. you can just brush it off you can that. can be very. cancerous in a team because people then. meme that and then they see oh that's.

the right way to be you got to snuff. that out and you got to be that. you got to be that change or that model. that you want to show the team. yes it's too even if it doesn't affect. me it's going to affect a a significant. enough fraction of. brilliant people where that shouldn't be. part of the culture exactly and and. other people see that happen and then oh. i guess that's acceptable right just. like politics in the workplace is that's. acceptable or not i call it out exactly. when i see it in front of everyone right. because.

it's just another ego driven thing you. have to set the tone. as a leader for what you want your. organization to be and how to it gets. reflected in the world and you have to. uphold that and you can sure you can. have an excursion outside of that but. you have to go back and say i'm sorry. yeah. yeah you have to apologize heal and said. i was not the person i wanted to be that. day i'm really sorry. yeah this is and even in front of the. team and have that humility and say. we're all human here and just because.

i'm the leader doesn't mean i don't make. mistakes so have the self-awareness. apologize exactly. and that that's that's also part of the. culture. um oh yeah how are you different from. steve as a leader and designer so you. you've spoken about sort of what made. you stronger which is he was able to. challenge he was able to push you to. bring out the best well i come from the. technical angle right. deep technology software hardware.

systems thinking you know implementation. all that stuff so i so i have a. different ben he. wanted to be an engineer started but. really he was much better at all the. other things the storytelling the. interfacing and and being the voice of. the customer and being that product. marketer in a way right that we talked. about i grew into being the product. marketing and marketing he came really. out the other way right and never got. really deep technically so that's two. different mindsets no one's not better. or worse it's just that's how it is and.

it takes all kinds to to. and and all kinds can do great designs. did it manifest itself differently just. the fact that you came from those diff. uh different places absolutely like what. uh. so like the discussion about glass on. the iphone was probably had a different. flavor to it sure when you started. getting into the technical details. enough so you're getting the third order. technical details and he can't argue. with that anymore. he's like okay. you know at some point he's like i can't. win this war like the and he learned.

that very early on because he didn't. like the way. the look of the macintosh um board the. pcb was laid out. he wanted to be beautiful on the outside. and on the inside he's like why are all. these wires running this way why doesn't. it have all this symmetry and we have to. make it beautiful on the inside and and. the even the traces on the boards have. to look a certain way so the teams made. the board they knew that would work and. then they made the board that the way. steve wanted it and that didn't work and.

then steve instantly figured out like at. some point don't micromanage every. single detail there's some things he. doesn't know enough about so he would. get out of that but that was one of. those instances where he pushed really. hard and that's his opinion so they said. okay we're going to make it a. data-driven decision we're going to make. both i'm going to show you the results. right and then from there he didn't get. into those details so from that you. could have a great challenge right. because then you could get those data. and say we can't do that and let me show. you why or we can do that and then steve.

would go you can't do that you're like. oh we can do that let me show you right. so there's certain times when you were. like bringing something to reality that. he didn't think could exist. right so. it was that it was always that creative. tension that interaction that was so. successful right i think but there was. one other fundamental thing that was. different. and that it graded on the team. and that i made sure and i learned from. to not do. and and i over maybe overdue now in the. opposite direction which is.

when there's a great idea that comes. from the team. acknowledge that person and go that is a. great idea as the leader you know the. opinion driven that's a great idea let's. build on that let's see if that can do. that or it's a great idea but not for. now put it aside but call out when. people have great ideas because it's. infectious and that means not ideas that. come bubble up to the customer level but. inside the organization people like they. get rewarded for their ideas and say. that's a great one. steve was always like.

you give an idea. and he would go hmm okay. i don't know. the next day 24 hours later it would. come back with slight modifications i've. had this genius idea. right and it's sooner or later we'd we'd. look around the table and we'd like roll. our eyes and go here we go again so it. demotivates you from generating ideas a. little bit yeah well you know we got. used to it but you know later on in the. team yeah you know it was just not. it it just it doesn't want to bring the.

best right because if you're always like. er the reaction is never that's a genius. idea. it was always like it was either. negative or. neutral. right yeah then it doesn't it doesn't. have that same emotional effect that you. want you to bring your best yeah. sometimes it's fun when people get. excited about it just yeah yeah yeah you. kind of build on top excitement it could. be but coupled with sort of harshness. when the idea is bad and you call out. the bad ideas too so it's the good and. the bad.

oh you could say. you don't you don't have to say bad. ideas like maybe not now let's table. that for later let's discuss it or say. that's a decent idea but did you think. about that idea this way not just no or. yes but let's talk about why that might. not be applicable in this case so that. they can learn so the next time they. bring the next idea they can modulate. and understand and start seeing through. the opinion based decision makers or the. databases to bring it and bring better. formatted arguments or ideas so that you. have better chance of success the next.

time yeah right you gotta train through. those moments you to teach those are. teaching moments. yeah. moments i aspire to be that kind of. person i'll usually say that that that. idea is. that is the like the like and then you. that i remember that that this brilliant. person just gave that really shitty idea. so i remember to make sure the next time. they give a good idea really compliment. that good idea but i personally.

i mean it's emotion but i i call out the. really shitty ideas but you should call. it the really great ones yeah if you let. the pendulum swing both ways then. everybody goes he's balanced yeah it's. always one way. why bring any idea i'm all about the. pendulum right. you gotta have both the joy and the pain. don't just give me pain all the time. uh so you mentioned the glass and the. iphone so you're one of the not just the. ipod not just nest you you were one of. the key figures in the creation of the.

iphone what's the interesting aspects. what what's the good the bad and the. ugly of the origin story of the iphone. um again this is a netflix series that. spans multiple seasons. but what changed my flight please yeah. what wisdom what's. interesting memories you have from the. final so. uh the the the pain and the joy. that that was foundational to the uh. ipod. uh the all the cds you had to lug around.

um what was. the pain and the joy and the vision of. the iphone in your mind in the mind of. the team. and steve's mind and so on. well. you know there's multiple pains you have. to also look there's not just customer. pain but there's business pain. okay and it's about the so apple now. is getting out of that place where it. was in 2001. now people are starting to. pay attention apple's starting to get in. the culture again it's becoming relevant.

cash is starting to flow ipod is 60 of. that. of the. of the revenue total revenue of apple. doing on 85 market share you're starting. to get a win at your back you got. confidence like apple had been beaten. down since probably the first time the. mac was since the mac. it was a beaten company ever since the. mac so we're talking. 15 years at that point. right this is the first time you're. seeing likes and steve wood proudly came. in front of us and said.

today i can tell you all the employees. we are now out of debt we paid off our. debt. it was a joyous moment. for him. right and then ultimately for our team. because no more debt. it's wonderful right. so now what you have is you have this. successful thing changing the face of. apple. and you hear these. heavy stomping footsteps. of the mobile phone industry. boom.

and it's the feature phones at that time. they're adding cameras they're adding. color displays they're seeing the. success of the ipod going. that's just music we have some storage. we can load music on our phones and we. can do what the ipod does plus more. boom. boom. yeah right and you're like and how many. mil hundreds of millions of them are. being sold at that point it wasn't. billions yet but it was still you know. 100 million 200 million a year.

ipod hadn't gotten there it was. 4 20 40 50 million something like that. so now you're like okay what are we. gonna do about this you know goliath. who wants to take our lunch right. the schoolyard bully. and so. well there was one let's partner with. them. so. itunes music store was there. all of these phones are going to need. music. so. they can come to the itunes music store.

and get that music for those phones. because it wasn't just about the. hardware player at that point it was. about the software that you need on the. desktop and the content that you needed. to download so now apple had multiple. legs of the stool as steve would always. refer to it. so now the mobile phone industry okay. we're going to work with them. they are going to make a red an ipod. shuffle basically. inside of a phone can i have 99 songs. total and they're going to come to our. store and you're going to i was like.

okay great it's all gonna be well and. good and that became the motorola rocker. project. it was. apple motorola getting together there's. gonna be software on the on this. smartphone or not smartphone but feature. phone to cook to itunes to get your. music it wasn't even downloadable over a. cloud or anything because that wasn't. available yet there wasn't. data networks yet. um. it was a disaster from the beginning. two different cultures. two different types of leadership styles.

uh not necessarily the most competent. engineers on on on on the other side. and it turned out to be an absolute. horrible disaster. i watched the pains because i luckily i. didn't have to be part of it i watched. the pains on jeff robin's face each time. we would meet and he would be like. these guys are just you know like. really do we have to do this steve and. he's like we're contractually obligated. and when it came out on stage and steve. showed it it was maybe a one minute you. know steve loves those extended you know.

like drawn up it might have been a one. minute two minute kind of thing and he. literally threw that phone out of his. hand as fast as he could yeah right. because it was horrible so that so there. was the pain of we're not gonna partner. so if we can't partner with these guys. we have to become one of them. to actually compete yeah to save the. thing that is bringing apple from you. know that 15 years of malaise. right. so then from that. we were. made. a prototype of an ipod plus phone a.

classic with um well it was an ipod but. had a phone inside with all the music. and all the other stuff and you use your. headset. wired headset to do the audio right. there was another project. at the same time because we were doing. videos in the uh the itunes music store. itunes video store. for music videos and movies. and it would be a full screen ipod so. instead of the the classic the way you. know it um it would be full screen and.

it would have a virtual click wheel. you'd have a virtual like single touch. touch screen that you could scroll right. think of maybe an i an iphone like you. knew it right and then there was a third. project going on not in those two were. going on in my team but the third. project going on. was the multi-touch screen. technology to drive a. uh mac tablet. and so that mac tablet that that touch.

screen technology. um there was just way too much you had. to change on the software and everything. to be able to use a tablet right we see. this all the time like people like. there's not enough tablet apps today. that are modified for tablet they're. just phone apps that are grown up right. so then they would just be mac. touch stuff so you'd have to have a. whole developer community that probably. wasn't the best place to take that. technology first so you take that. technology marry it with the full screen. ipod and the phone stuff we were working. because the ipod phone with a rotary.

dial was just like a rotary phone we. couldn't make that interface work well. for data input. um you put those three together and now. is where those those three things that. then created the form. or the technology and the form inside. what would become the iphone. married with a bunch of low-level. software from the ipod and manufacturing. software and drivers and communication. stuff. combined with. a very reduced.

frankenstein mac os. and i mean that in the the mess the best. way it means it wasn't mac os just. changed a little it was totally things. were hacked out and changed and think. new code was inserted and it really was. a. a whole set of things from all different. places. to make that first iphone os and then. there was another team working on the. apps. and then another team working on the. design of how it looked overall between. all that stuff so all of those things. came together to create what we know as.

the first generation iphone and those. are all probably fascinating engineering. challenges correct and great teams like. the creating frankenstein os. that's fascinating because you're. simplifying simplifying but then you're. just pulling different stuff from and. you're basically inventing i mean. they're probably not thinking of it that. way but. a new era of computing a new kind of. computer it really is frankenstein right. and you didn't have to run mac software. if you look at some of the other.

smartphones of the time like. windows and stuff they were like we need. to make sure it runs excel and it runs. word or something like that in some. reduced thing this was like no no no no. this was born out of entertainment so we. didn't have to go and take all the same. application you know uh all those other. ones was about compatibility this was. about a whole new way of being. what did you think about. um. the steve jobs presentation of the the. iphone. the the sort of. the first iphone.

you know phone uh internet communicator. and the ipod in your pocket they're. going to sort of present. announcing three new products. kind of thing and then saying that it's. all in one just this is a good example. one of the sort of. historic. presentations of a product. clearly there's like some showmanship. that works some reason it works right it. doesn't always work it often doesn't. work but it did in in this case it often.

did for steve what like how did that. feel. um. what part of the actually. uh. the design process. was that presentation. you know what i mean like from the early. because you said for sure so consider. the why the press release at the very. exactly. steve was doing that the entire time he. was working on that story from day one. yeah he was pitching us this this this. and then this and and then he would look. at our faces because you wouldn't most.

people wouldn't at least if you're. working for him wouldn't tell him what. you really thought of what he was saying. but he would look at your faces yeah and. then he would talk to a few real trusted. confidence outside of the. uh outside of the organization and see. what they thought right and they could. give him feedback on it and they could. really challenge him but they could he. would also look at their faces and go. and so when you see that. then he would modulate it and change it. slightly and change so he was working. during all of that time on the story and. the storytelling.

right and the whys. while we're working on that and helping. us refine it just like the switch from. plastic to glass right. all the time working on that so when he. comes out on stage he does something. that every marketer is told not to do. say these three things are now combined. in one. that is like the. that they say that that is the laziest. form of storytelling possible for. marketing. right yeah right but it was the best one. because it was all those pains it was.

like i want my ipod but i want my. communications and i want my internet. browsing because i want it on the go so. i can look up things because it was. information. and when you were on the road you had a. laptop you had an ipod and you had a. phone that and you had to carry all of. these things with you at once. now we're going to solve that pain. for you and put it all together so he. was just showing you the pain and. viewing that virus of doubt and going. it's now in this one magical thing. and he could come up and masterfully. tell that story because he told it.

almost every day. to all of these people inside very. quietly and then it was just. right it was like a you know a tony. award-winning play that had been worked. on for 10 years but also the human came. through the timing it was all that it. was a little bit and of course he was. dramatic at certain points and he would. raise his voice and a wry smile or. whatever it was. all those touches he was an actor as. well as a storyteller yeah and that but.

but it was the truth. right. the truth came through it was a. non-fiction story and then he added. those personal flourishes on top of it. for dramatic effect. it's amazing. so there's a designer you mentioned. johnny ave. you both are brilliant designers great. human beings there were some battles. fought. in you in the distant past between the. two of you.

uh looking back what is the positive. characteristics of johnny that made you. a better person and designer. having worked with him. watching the process that the design. team. that johnny led. i don't know where because that was over. years i didn't see all of those things. but watching the design process of. really because it was really a team that. was about materials it was about form it.

was about colors it was about these. physical characteristics. it it when we talked about this earlier. was design what is design designs. everywhere okay so what they were really. focused on was form. how the feel was how it looked the. aesthetics the physical aesthetics. and watching going through that process. i learned so much in that process. about how to do colors. how to do materials how to.

think. deeply about. curves. right and shadows. and how it would look not just in your. hand but how it would look in the. photograph you were going to take from. marketing. right so how it would look how it would. feel. all of it it was it was all of those. physical things. around that and watching the process to. get there. that was enlightening for me right it.

opened my mind to go oh okay. just like there's a process for all. these other things it wasn't just. magic and you say. ah there it is it was really a process. of refinement you know of opening the. funnel at the beginning and refining. down over time to get to that final. final and selecting and doing the. selection and certain types you could. certain times they were opinion-based. design. details but a lot of data a lot of.

data-driven designs of what can we what. can we deliver in volume what can we do. different things so you always had these. constraints that you had to work with. under and sometimes. they uh and the team not just i would. say we need this we're like we can't. deliver that but maybe we were able to. work together to find different design. characteristics and different. implementation characteristics that. could. get to that point without what they were. describing and instead of. yes yes yes no no no let's find some.

other way to solve the problem together. yeah is. and i've seen this um. and several companies have more closely. interacted with like tesla as an example. sometimes. you know talking about curves. sometimes it's very painful on the. engineering side. to deliver a very specific kind of. absolute thing and. one question that comes up in my mind is. like well how far should we go to try to.

deliver. a tiny adjustment in a curve. in the curvature or in um. like the whatever the form factor is in. the color of the material. when the cost is like 10x to deliver. not financially but just like you know. yeah there are companies to do it how. many problems still have to solve. um. i don't know i don't know if you can say. any wisdom to that because it because. when you're thinking about curves you're. designing in the space of ideas you're.

like platonic forms kind of thing uh not. always grounded to like how much this is. uh how much pain is going to be involved. in delivering this but that's. as you should perhaps because then. uh if you're always thinking about the. pain required to deliver. this thing you you'll be too. conservative you wouldn't do the wild. ideas. right exactly but you have to understand. again the why behind it and at. nest when we had limited resources.

you know putting a screwdriver in the. box a custom. designed screwdriver in the box was born. out of those experiences i had at apple. and seeing how you can create something. that's emotional it's part of marketing. and it's part of the product experience. overall even though it it seems. extraneous. i went back and made the design team. uh and the mechanical team changed some. curves on the nest protect the smoke and. co detector we did at nest.

after they had already tooled it and i. said they're saying this cost more i. said it doesn't look right there is a. but they're like oh well we had i said. no you're going to go back and you're. going to make that change i told you you. want we needed to do it we had a better. looking model that is going to get done. i know it's going to be a terrible cost. to you but we already had this. discussion and that's the way it's gonna. have to be and i'm sorry but it is what. it is. um and you know because it's better for. the customer and it looks better and the. pictures and all the other stuff and.

then we did it and it was great and. everyone agreed it was great at the end. but it was pain to get there. um. those are where those little details are. where the magic comes out right and. you know. if you don't do. if you don't take those pains and put in. the love the customer customer's going. to feel. it's going to they're either going to. feel the pain or they're going to feel. the love. if you put it in right so it depends on. you know. how much time and effort you want to put. into something and what really matters. to you and so how you communicate what.

you do. we're human beings after all is there. something you've learned from sort of. the. the tensions that are natural. or that happen in teams when they're. passionate and they're trying to solve. these problems is that the way of life. and there's the human drama. is that just. is that always going is that it is what. it is. is that make you better actually the the. drama of the tension between. personalities and all that kind of stuff.

look a roller coaster ride without ups. and downs is no fun. it's the journey yeah it's the journey. that brings it brings out the best in. everyone we're we're. we're forged we're tempered by those. experiences not all the ups but also the. downs and that's when you get the. humanity in the connection and we can. tell these stories till we're blue in. the face and smile every time because we. did something together that we each of. us couldn't do a part but it when your.

comes together that's where all the. emotions happen yeah and that's where if. it's born out of the right reasons and. the right story in the right way that's. where the magic happens not just for the. customer but for how it transforms each. person who is working on it and they. will never forget those experiences in. their life. positively and negatively that happened. at the time but they look back and it's. only positive. because they did something that mattered. yet another brilliant idea that you. brought to life is nest.

nest thermostat and the big umbrella of. nest. again as part of this uh netflix series. season three. [Laughter]. what was the most memorable the most. painful. the most. um. insight-leading challenge you had to. overcome to bring nest to life. well. the first thing for me.

was making someone care about their. thermostat. right no one considers it they never had. any customer choice. they didn't install it they usually. don't even use it because it's so. complicated or what have you they just. like they just they at it they. hide it in the corner. and then they just pay the bill right of. whatever it is right it's totally. unloved unconsidered right so how do you. wake up like i said the virus of doubt.

how do you wake that up and get people. going. you know remember every day when you go. in and it's like you're just frustrated. and then you get the bill and you pay. the bill so you have to do that so that. was one thing i think the other big one. was not delivering you know it was all. of it was hard right it was constrained. we had only so much stuff we were. bootstrapped we didn't have massive. funding we didn't get hundreds of. millions of dollars it was but we did it. for the right reasons but i think the. other big part of it was. not just building a disruptive product. because a lot of the people on the team. had done that we knew what we were doing.

and and that was. if we got the design right we could. deliver it. with the. enough time. it was getting the disruptive go to. market in other words how to take that. product from the end of the production. line and get it into the customer's. hands. because there was no. retail or customer choice in thermostats. no one even it was never considered. purchase. they never thought they had choice.

some guy usually in suspenders and a. butt crack. told them looked around looked at their. house and said um this looks like. somebody who's got is well to do. this thermostat is now going to cost you. 350 thank you very much. and you're like i'll take whatever you. give me right and then and it goes into. another house it's worth a hundred. dollars was the same damn thing yeah. right so there's no price transparency. there was no choice you just got what. you were given. so how do you go. and and and this was an entrenched.

industry that's why there was no in it. there was no innovation in it because it. was doing just fine because every house. needed them. the. all the installers were programmed by. the the product deliverers by you know. bonuses. and and and bonuses to say you're going. to only carry out product and if you. sell this many you're going to get a. free trip to hawaii. right yeah and for these guys who. install i get a free trip to hawaii. that's dream for them right so. this whole channel was fully controlled.

by the product guys and it was almost. monopolistic in a way. so how do you go around that. so. creating a disruptive go to market. channel. one was direct to consumer right and all. the marketing that was necessary to get. that message across. another one was getting the installation. right. no one was self-installing thermostats. so how do we get enough people who are. early adopters to be able to. self-install them confidently.

so they didn't still have to call the. guy to come and install it because then. he would say this is a crap product no i. got the must better product right so you. had to get rid of that friction. and then ultimately how do you get the. people who were not just early adopters. but people who needed to see it and. touch it before they bought it how do. you get that into retail when. the large brands of the time of. thermostats and home depot and lowe's. had contracts that they couldn't bring. in any other brands. they were owning the channel all the way.

to where there was an any sort of slight. customer choice and it was really. contractor choice more than it was and. consumer choice so all of that had to be. innovated along with the product and so. to me that was a huge challenge and. something i had never done most of us. had never done and we had to. to create that was as much as a project. as actually delivering the the product. itself. so it turned out to be a giant hit. [Laughter].

and it was acquired by google for 3.2. billion dollars. as a founder and leader just out of. curiosity in these cases of acquisition. um. is it always a good thing. is there any part of. you and the team that considers saying. no oh we considered saying no all the. way along the process. right we had all been in big companies. before. um we knew what it was like. and the politics and all the other stuff.

and what i came to learn. especially. from phillips because phillips was a. very it was 375 000 people was a big it. was massive company right and tons of. politics and i was like do we want to go. back into the world because i had so. many negative experiences from that. but then going to apple which was no not. big but it was big enough that it could. have all these dynamics but then when. you saw a leader rise up and get rid of. those dynamics or not allow many of them. to to flourish.

then you're like oh with the right. leadership this can be a beautiful. marriage right and so for four months we. were working together with them with. google. to make sure that we had the right. leadership and we were going to be in. the right environment that it felt right. so that happened it absolutely happened. we worked on all the details we didn't. even talk about price. we were talking about. how's the brand going to work who's the. team going to work with how are we going. to get ip how are we going to do. exchanges how are we going to get.

budgets and all that stuff done so we. worked through all of that before we. actually sealed any kind of deal because. they were already an investor in the. company so we already knew you know they. knew relatively where their you know the. end point was for the price. so working through all those. prerequisites. i knew that. as a individual product company that was. trying to create a platform. no investors were going to invest in a. platform that could take three four. years and many many hundreds of millions. of dollars to build without all kinds of.

new products at the same time. and products that we were having which. were successes but they weren't even. break even yet right we were still. developing them so how are we going to. get more people to fund all of these. things and this platform that i really. want to create. because my worry and i had seen this. many times in silicon valley is these. small startups have bravado and they. said i'm going to take on the big guys. right. with a platform. but when those platform guys show up and. apple says they're going to get in the.

house at the time nobody cared. they were they were curiously. curious what's nest yeah yeah but apple. wasn't in the market google wasn't in. the market yet amazon wasn't there. microsoft samsung they were not they. were all just that's curious. right. yeah and i had watched if you said i'm. going to go challenge them. and i'm going to build a platform and. then they all of a sudden one by one go. oh well we're building a platform now. we're building a player they flooded you. to death fear uncertainty doubt and the.

developers run away and you can't make. that platform so i'm like before the. landscape gets changed on us because. we've attracted so much attention they. announced something we need to change. the landscape. on them. [Music]. let's go to the best place where we can. build out the platform have the right. leadership behind us. to help us grow this thing into what the. vision it should be and that's what we. believe we were doing with the the. google acquisition. is it. possible to take on the platforms so you.

said there's a lot of startups with. bravado and all that kind of stuff right. doesn't mean you know james joyce when. he was 20 said i'm going to be the. greatest writer of the 20th century. uh before he wrote anything of value um. you know one of them might be actually. right. [Laughter]. um yeah in this modern world when you so. first of all people should definitely. uh get your book billed as just just uh. this. giant number of advice on this exact.

question of how to build. cool things how to build a startup how. to all the different stages of that team. and hiring and it's mostly human nature. it's not technical it's mostly human. nature behind it and it turns out it's. you know turtles all the way down that's. human at the bottom uh. yes so. is it possible. to build startups that take on the big. guys. uh whatever that is of of the modern era.

so for now it's these platforms of uh. apple google twitter i don't even know. meta i guess called now sure um is it. possible to take them on absolutely. but you don't take them on on their same. turf. you take them on on the turf they're. gonna want to have in the future. right. spotify is a platform it started as an. application is now a platform yeah right. think of wechat. think of all the super apps out there.

that are now wallets and delivery. services and travel services and and. transportation services all within an. app yeah they've innovated in a. different level in a different space. that the the platform companies weren't. right or they you know google was an app. it was an app company it was solving. search. and then it became a platform company. apple was solving personal computing and. then it became our iphone was doing you. know uh. um. solving internet browsing all that stuff.

and then became a platform company when. the app store was added if you look it. up. there's no such thing as building a. platform company you build a great app. first and then you can expand it and. have the right to become a platform. your whole book is just. uh a bunch of advice for young people. but let me ask you i know other people. and old well everyone is young at heart. if you're not you should be so what uh. in terms of picking a career you have. advice and this point. what advice would you give to a person.

on how to pick a career. what is it you want to learn. and who is it you want to learn from. just like you pick a university. you're like i want to go here for this. expertise i've heard about these. programs especially graduate. graduate studies you go for a certain. program with a certain set of people why. don't you do that when it comes to a. you know. a job you just don't go or in a career. you just don't go and say i just want to. go work at google or i just want to work.

at apple you want to go to a certain. team with a certain set of people and. work with them on something that you're. really curious about and you want to. learn about that's such i just wanted to. comment that it's such a. it's a subtle but a brilliant framing of. just ask the question. what do i want to learn and then see. what career path is going to maximize. that. that's so interesting it's the first.

question i ask anyone who interviews. with me. when i say i'm going to bring somebody. on the team first question is what do. you want to learn. i don't want the expert like we talked. about earlier says i'm the expert in. this you're going to hire me as the. expert. we're doing something new. you're not an expert because we're not. an expert either what is it you want to. learn. and uh. on the topic of learning. what is the best way to learn.

what. um starting you you go into this new. place into this new world. into maybe v1 you said you're building. v1 i mean. the whole world is late. it's full of v1s or v0s waiting for the. v1 to come along zero to one zero to one. what uh what's the process of that look. like what's the process of learning. um how do you learn. well let me put a framing and then we'll.

talk about that last piece. i have now looking back especially. writing this book. i have a version one of myself a version. two a version three a version four. i had a lot of opinions. about myself and what i wanted to do. sometimes those opinions for certain. people those opinions are formed. and they get the data from their parents. and they go do what their parents told. them to do or their surroundings. my opinions was like i want to go and. learn this i'm curious about that i made.

the zero to one move and then over time. by doing. i was refining those things and learning. what i was really curious about and what. i was really good about because i was. getting data. and then i was like then i had another. set of opinions to create version two of. me. and then i would go and do it it's. always learning by doing. starting with the opinion you're not. gonna get any facts you know most people. like um where do i make the most money. from my position. they're trying to start with data.

start with the why. what's your curiosity what do you want. to learn. and then follow that. i took the lowest job at the on the. totem pole at you know at uh at general. magic because i wanted to get in there. to work with the right team i didn't. even know what they were doing. right but i thought that it felt right. right. i i was barely living above the poverty. line working there working you know 80. hours a week because it was so amazing. to learn just like a college student. right that's what i was doing.

and then that set and then i learned. more from that and then changed those. opinions into data and then i found. other opinions and so it's the same. thing. but it was by doing. right the way you find out what you want. to do in life is by figuring out what. you don't want to do. and the only way you find that out is by. doing a bunch of doing a bunch of stuff. and refining it that's hilarious yeah. that's brilliant um so in terms of the. career path of leaping into the startup. world and launching a startup.

what does it take to successfully found. a startup. to have a chance to succeed. and maybe. how. do you decide. uh to take that leap. is there sort of. having founded having been. part of many v1s many of some of the. most successful v1s ever. uh what's what's it take to take that. leap maybe leave your.

job. at a cushy job at a company right and do. the startup what does it take. it takes belief in yourself. that's the first thing. belief that you can do it not but. hopefully with mirrors or mentors around. your coaches around you to make sure you. know you're not crazy. it's a crazy smart idea but you're not. crazy and you're just. working on something as a like a a lone. mad man or woman you know.

you have a great idea and i like i said. great ideas chase you. you can. in this world. there are so many people who have more. ideas than they have time to implement. i used to be like that i would like oh. my god have this idea this idea and you. do you try to do all of them. but the best ideas are the ones that you. can really focus on and you you shut out. all those other things and you bring. them other ideas into the thing you're. trying to do so i try to run away from a. great idea. and then it stalks me yeah it hunts you.

down because you're like ah that's gonna. have this problem i'm gonna put it aside. and then all of a sudden. uh you know a few days later oh i think. i know how to solve that problem or i. talk to somebody and you're just always. kind of. niggling around the edges of it and then. at some point it's like it just becomes. it becomes like this black hole that. just sucks you and you're like i can't. think about anything else but this it's. almost like a relationship in in the. world right. you know when you have it with a per you. find your partner. you know you're like hmm.

wait um something and then you're trying. to like and then all of a sudden it just. it comes together right it's kind of. like that ultimately achieve folk see. i'm different i just dive right in i. used to do that too i used to dive right. in yeah but i learned that you need more. time to run away from it run away from. it and so it chases you because it makes. you think harder about that the story. this is not dating advice we're talking. about. but ultimately so you have achieved uh a.

focus on it. uh but you also said so believe in. yourself so it's not necessarily even. the idea it's the human. that. um believe in the human being you have. to believe in you yourself and the idea. that you have because if you don't have. that belief. then you can't project that to other. people to say join the team. [Music]. uh let me. let me ask you on because you mentioned. mentors and you've talked about having. had incredible mentors in your life.

you're also a mentor to a very large. number of people what does it take to. find a mentor how do you how do you find. a great mentor usually they also find. you. is it like with the ideas. [Laughter]. no what happens is you're in the right. you have a community around you okay and. because you've been building a network. because you can't do it alone so you. have to create this network around you. and of relationships that don't it's not. transactions but relationships over time.

that you really cherish and people you. talk to okay and you share. vulnerable or. nascent ideas with or crazy opinions. with and then you argue them through. but. you start to see resonate and it's not. about age it's just about this. connection right i have mentors. obviously when i was young all my. mentors were older and as i get older i. have mentors who are younger than me or. the same age right they're not all just. older right and so it's about that.

connection it's about being on that same. wavelength. but they also they can. counterbalance you. they complement you in some way like my. best mentors had nothing to do with. technology they didn't know anything. about technology. right the way we know it they were all. about human nature and they could. reflect that and help me get more human. focused and more empathetic because i. was so. detailed in the technology i needed to. see from other perspectives but then. they wanted to learn more about the.

technology right or they thought that. this idea was so great that it should. exist now let's work together on that. so it's really they have to find you and. you have to find them and that's by. sharing you just don't go and look it up. on. you know on the internet and say who are. the best mentors in the world it just. doesn't work that way. so form a network of people and see. where i mean it's like finding. relationships finding love all that kind. of human nature. uh. venture capitalists money. do vcs help or hurt a business.

in general so like in those early stages. in the chase of developing a v1 just. what's the. constructive and destructive. power of money. in the development of a berlin idea. and the deployment of brilliant idea. i have seen brilliant venture. capitalists i have seen horrible ones. ones that care about their lps more than. they care about the entrepreneurs. of course everyone's in it you know at.

the end of the day especially venture. capital they have to give a return to. their their limited partners the people. who invest in money that they you know. that they have to shepherd that money. and make sure it's watched over properly. but when there's not a balance a push. back in a venture capitals between what. the lp needs and what the entrepreneur. needs. and that the entrepreneur might be. trying really hard but if they don't see. the vc doesn't see the exit's going to. happen in two years and then just leave. them hanging when it's there's no the.

value exchange is only money and not. mentorship or ideas or other things. when there's not a relationship but. really a transaction. that's when money is toxic. because you can get money everywhere. maybe it's a little harder today you. know over the last month. but you can still find people with money. who are on that who want to. enable your mission and can be mentors. not always not all of them but some of. them can be mentors but they they're on.

your side. then it's incredibly powerful because. not just one plus one equals two right. it's something bigger than that because. then they can bring their networks of. people and their networks of companies. and other people they worked with that. might want to join your your your. mission right. that's the kind of venture capitalist. and and smart money that's out there. right but you have to build a. relationship people go oh look at that. valuation oh it's the brand name of the. vc that uh that's investing me no.

it boils down to who's that partner and. how experienced are they don't just give. me the brand give me the person because. that's the person i'm going to be. interacting with i i have to there's a. million questions i want to ask you bro. well season season we're on season five. already okay but let me let me ask you. it's it seems like. uh out of all the brilliant things you. write about it seems like not an. important question but it's a. fascinating one to me as lawyers. you're right about this so uh does the. company need lawyers. uh and why.

and what kind so you write about sort of. the value of this game i guess right. it's a game the legal game. it's it's. why do we need lawyers sound exasperated. i don't have a good question i guess i. um. well because why of lawyers. the why of lawyers yes exactly okay the. y of lawyers. thank you. you even do the question. we just have to put y in front of.

everything you ask and then we'll be. there lawyers why why even mafiosos had. lawyers. okay. you know tony soprano uh you know uh. scarface all of them had lawyers right. why. because there are things in this world. that you don't always consider. in the government in laws. in. uh competitors. because you're so focused on what you're. doing they have to watch out for you.

right. now the best kind of lawyers are the. ones who try to work with you to enable. what you're doing. um and. see gray areas. law is not black or white it's how it's. interpreted right and so they can help. interpret things a certain way or help. push on things a certain way. to get change happen or allow change to. happen because if you have lawyers who. are always just like you were talking. about pr people. if you have lawyers who are always. saying no to everything because their. job is to really say no or maybe they'll.

never say yes. and you also say their job was to say no. and bill you by the hour exactly exactly. it's depressing right. yeah if you don't want to know don't ask. them because you're going to get a no. maybe a man you'll get charged for it. and you'll get charged for it anyways. right. so so to have a partner to have them on. your team to help you see maybe some of. things you don't see some consequences. they help to rein that in or change your. their language like are you going to get.

sued for this ad yeah just change this. one word and it helps yeah right. so you need to have a partner most of. the times especially engineers or. designers they see lawyers as only. stifling. lawyers can actually if you do it right. and you have the right type they can. actually open up a whole new world for. you because of the interpretation and. how we go about doing things. so and they help you not get bogged down. in the pain of stupid little mistakes. that didn't mean anything exactly you. shot yourself in the foot and you didn't.

even know it you didn't even know you. were carrying the gun. uh just to jump around. charles bukowski once wrote find what. you love and let it kill you. so the question is about work-life. balance. that's like finding an idea let it chase. you. yes but a little more aggressive. uh so. what is uh what does work-life balance. look like that maximizes success and and. or happiness. is there such a thing as work-life.

balance is um can you speak. went to this your work is your life and. i mean that in the positive sense. when you're on a mission that really. matters. and you know that you can. really affect not just yourself but. other people's lives and then that is. very rewarding. right. that's not j that's not work that's like. i said a mission right you you adopt. that. but that said you still need to have. boundaries yourself at general magic.

wonderful documentary if no one's seen. it you got to see that it's amazing i. was physically and mentally unhealthy. socially and healthy as well because i. put every waking minute into this thing. every ounce of me into it. and when it was a spectacular disaster. we were making the iphone 15 years too. early. the bottom fell out i had nothing left i. had to get. healthy socially emotionally physically. after that.

that that trauma. i let everything go i learned from that. that you have to even though you might. put everything into your work you need. to find balance outside of it now that. doesn't mean you're always you know. it's three days a week working and four. days a week or whatever it was you're. still working as hard as ever but what. you're doing is you're making sure when. your thinking time is during work. that you're not ruminating at three in. the morning you use the tools that you. have to put those ideas into databases.

or on pages or somewhere else so you can. go back and look at them. so you're not always having to remember. because what happens is most people. don't write the stuff down so they just. sit here and got to remember this i got. to remember this i got to remember this. if you just put it into the tools and. you can come back to it you can come. back fresh yeah a lot of the time is. about ruminating about what i need to. get done and remembering everything. instead of doing the work. that's fascinating see if you just put. it down on paper you can you can. actually escape it right escape it for a.

time to have peace for time you. mentioned um. uh general magic. let me ask you. the russian question. uh. what's the uh what's been the uh. the darkest moments of your. of your life what are some of the. darkest places you've gone in your mind. you've talked about you know if you're. doing these kinds of things with. startups you're gonna have to face a. crisis right absolutely if you're doing. it right you're gonna face it so for you.

personally. where were some of the tough. tougher moments in your life. growing up. i went to 12 schools in 15 years. i was always the new kid. put yourself in those shoes right. were you picked on well absolutely but. even more so i was the geek with the. computer. remember the nerds in the 80s you you. probably don't know this but believe me. we were made fun of.

what were these computers what were. these things you're off in a cold. they're all off partying or going. whatever it was and i'm sitting there. like. they're like this guy is just this alien. right who's this new guy who just showed. up and. and then you know you would ask the. smart questions and you couldn't be the. smartest in the. because then you get picked on too so. and you're the new kid so you're in this. environment that's ever-changing you. don't fit in. and you are just asking questions. because you think they're the right egg.

questions to answer but then they like. you're making us look bad don't ask. these smart questions because you make. us do more work. so right there. it's pretty tough and i'm moving cities. right and i didn't have the internet to. stay connected to people there was no. internet. phone calls were two dollars a minute so. it was lonely too it was lonely right. right i was a latchkey kid. right i had my brother but he was a. skateboarder and he had he had a. different social. way of working he he loved to do that.

stuff and be outside i loved the. computer so even in the computer you. were alone in the family. with the computer yeah i was in my. family i was absolutely alone that was. just me but then. um then you could find the other geeks. right but there were just a few of us. and we made this little thing but then. when you moved away you know then then i. had to use a bbs. and a bulletin board system and a dial. up modem and then then i started hacking. the phone system to get free codes of. mci and sprint.

back in the day to get long distance to. get free coats to call my friends the. geeks on the other side right or to dial. into a bbs cheaply that was in another. part of the world. so. this was this subculture and that was. not accepted in any way and not the. heroes that you see today that are on. the you know on you know the richest. people in the world and everything. so so that was the first set of trauma. and then the next one really was general. magic you know the end of that like i. described before and pulling yourself.

out and going just because i got so. insular in that world of geeking out and. and building stuff that i just tore all. the social ties right. because it was just it was a drug i was. hooked on that i was a junkie. i had to get i had to get clean. yeah. and uh. that made. that made you who you are. tempered. um. so. steve jobs is no longer with us.

one day you also will no longer be with. us. that's the the. the thing about this life it ends yeah. um. so no matter how many incredible things. you brought to this world no matter how. many inventions you built. you too shall perish do you think about. this. are you afraid of your death. i am not afraid of my death.

i am an atheist. and i think about the soul. because i do even though i'm an atheist. i think about the soul and the soul is. the thing that you. instill in others when you go that lives. on. it's not this thing that's magically in. space. it's the thing that you've imparted onto. people that you worked with and those. relationships you've had. and that soul lives on in the stories. that they tell.

right. and through build i'm hopeful that those. stories stay relevant because they're. human nature they're not about who knows. what the next iphone thing is or the. next ipod thing is the stuff that i. have been able the privilege to make and. work with people those are all ephemeral. the ipod's gone now right this week it. was announced ipod's dead and after. it is that. those human connections. it's that growth that you've helped.

someone just like they helped me. just like bill campbell or steve jobs is. gone but they made me be better that's. the soul that i believe in. that's fascinating that you say that. yeah so. all many of these products i mean to. push back a little bit so even though. the ipod is an end of an era. using it every day. you see i i think that i mean the number. of people that impacted. is it's just. uh so i i suppose the soul is carried by.

the people exactly sometimes the. products you create as the sort of the. transport mechanism. it's the vessel. and they felt the love and they felt. that love and it transformed it even if. they don't have the vessel anymore yeah. and that way the soul lives just like. the body is the vessel that's. beautifully put. why do you think we're here. what's the meaning of life tony. jesus. we're going all around me of life why.

why because you said it's important to. have a press release. okay humanity if life on earth if if. this thing the consciousness the. falling in love and building bridges and. ipods. and rockets and trying to extend out. into the cosmos why. why do you think we're doing it. is there anything. we are naturally curious.

where we are naturally curious. individuals. and. we are always looking for. meaning. we're always trying to ascribe meaning. to something or or understanding of. something. right and through that it's just just. like evolution right and darwinism it's. just that thing that's baked into our. being at the most fundamental level. driven by curiosity driven by curiosity. and creating some pretty cool things.

along the way tony you you and speaking. of cool things you've created some of. the coolest things. ever. and on top of that you're just an. amazing human being it's a huge honor. that you'll sit and talk to me today. this is a fun. lex this is this is great i did i didn't. know where it was going and i'm. let's talk i've been looking for seats i. would love seven eight nine six seven. yes let's go hang out and and have. dinner and just rap about all kinds of. crates i'd love to continue this i would. too thank you so much thank you. thanks for listening to this.

conversation with tony fidel to support. this podcast please check out our. sponsors in the description. and now let me leave you with some words. from tony fidel himself. the most wonderful part of building. something together with a team. is that you're walking side by side with. other people. you're all looking at your feet and. scanning the horizon at the same time. some people will see things you can't. and you will see things that are. invisible to everyone else. so don't think doing the work just means.

locking yourself into a room a huge part. of it is walking with your team. the work is reaching your destination. together. or finding a new destination and. bringing the team with you. thank you for listening and hope to see. you next time. you.