Tony Fadell: iPhone, iPod, Nest, Steve Jobs, Design, and Engineering

00:00:00.000 | It wasn't just a one-on-one,

00:00:01.440 | but could be Steve against the team going,

00:00:03.480 | we need glass instead of plastic

00:00:05.800 | on the front face of the iPhone,

00:00:07.600 | and we're going to do this.

00:00:10.000 | And we're like, God, you know?

00:00:12.480 | And so we did it.

00:00:14.000 | And he pushed us because he didn't know all the details,

00:00:17.000 | but he could see in our minds that we're like,

00:00:19.480 | yeah, we could probably, yeah, we could probably,

00:00:22.040 | but man, it's really putting us in risk.

00:00:24.080 | And we laid out the risks for him.

00:00:26.040 | And he's like, I'm willing to take those risks.

00:00:29.860 | - The following is a conversation with Tony Fadell,

00:00:32.160 | engineer and designer, co-creator of the iPod,

00:00:36.000 | the iPhone, and the Nest thermostat.

00:00:39.440 | And he's the author of the new book,

00:00:41.200 | "Build, An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making."

00:00:46.200 | More than almost any human ever,

00:00:49.080 | he knows what it takes to create technology ideas,

00:00:51.940 | designs, products, and companies that revolutionize life

00:00:56.280 | for huge numbers of people in the world.

00:00:59.080 | So it truly is an honor and pleasure

00:01:01.860 | to sit down with Tony for a time

00:01:03.680 | and look back at one heck of an amazing life.

00:01:06.480 | This is the Lex Friedman Podcast.

00:01:09.460 | To support it,

00:01:10.420 | please check out our sponsors in the description.

00:01:12.940 | And now, dear friends, here's Tony Fadell.

00:01:17.000 | When did you first fall in love with computers,

00:01:21.220 | or let's say computer engineering and design?

00:01:23.540 | - I first fell in love with computers and programming.

00:01:29.540 | Was it a summer school class?

00:01:32.780 | In fifth grade in Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan.

00:01:36.540 | It was a simple basic programming class,

00:01:40.580 | but the basic programming class

00:01:42.140 | was not like you might think it was.

00:01:44.700 | It was bubble cards.

00:01:46.100 | So literally it was, you know,

00:01:47.940 | the cards, the stack of cards,

00:01:50.860 | and you would use a number two pencil,

00:01:53.080 | and you would put in your program line by line,

00:01:55.940 | and you'd have to make sure it was perfectly stacked

00:01:57.940 | with no errors and what have you.

00:01:59.380 | And you'd take that set of cards

00:02:00.960 | and you'd put it on this reader,

00:02:02.180 | and it was (imitates buzzing)

00:02:03.780 | and it would go off to an IBM microcomputer

00:02:06.700 | somewhere in the, back then, the cloud.

00:02:09.700 | (laughing)

00:02:12.180 | And then you would sit on a Texas Instruments

00:02:15.540 | paper terminal, and it would just,

00:02:18.700 | literally, I was just, I could write things,

00:02:21.020 | and I could program this machine to do stuff.

00:02:23.680 | And it was, you know, it was nowhere near sexy.

00:02:25.900 | There was no graphics, right?

00:02:27.580 | Oregon Trail was all in text, right?

00:02:31.140 | The cards were so cumbersome

00:02:32.940 | that if you got one thing wrong or out of order,

00:02:35.860 | or a disaster, or you dropped one card,

00:02:37.860 | it would all fall apart.

00:02:39.500 | So just doing that, you know, printf,

00:02:43.180 | or what was it?

00:02:44.060 | I can't even remember what it was.

00:02:45.460 | It was, you know, what the basic commands were, but--

00:02:48.900 | - Oh, so when you say basic, you mean basic programming?

00:02:50.780 | - Programming language.

00:02:51.700 | - Okay. - Basic programming.

00:02:53.420 | - You're writing basic programming language on paper.

00:02:57.460 | - On paper.

00:02:58.580 | - And you're calling it programming, though.

00:03:00.100 | It's called programming.

00:03:01.220 | - Yeah, you're programming this computer

00:03:02.980 | in a remote location, and it came back.

00:03:06.260 | So it was truly cloud computing, in a way.

00:03:08.660 | It was really terminal-based computing.

00:03:11.340 | - And the input and the program are separate?

00:03:14.100 | So the input to the program, or they go together?

00:03:17.040 | Or there's no input to the program?

00:03:20.340 | It just runs, and it gives you output?

00:03:22.300 | - Yeah, it goes in, and it says ready,

00:03:24.980 | and then you can say run.

00:03:26.660 | And then it would run, but to program it,

00:03:29.220 | you didn't type it, 'cause it was a printer terminal.

00:03:31.460 | You would make the stack of cards,

00:03:32.820 | and that would get it into the computer's memory.

00:03:35.780 | - Okay, so where was the magic?

00:03:37.960 | - The magic was that you could create,

00:03:40.700 | you had a language, and you could create

00:03:42.340 | what you wanted to create, right?

00:03:43.780 | You could create a world, or what have you,

00:03:46.060 | and have this interaction.

00:03:47.660 | And you could compute things, you could do numbers.

00:03:51.060 | I was playing Oregon Trail, right?

00:03:53.980 | So you were less like--

00:03:54.820 | - So you can play video games?

00:03:56.740 | - Well, video. (laughs)

00:03:58.660 | - Right, without the video.

00:03:59.900 | - You could play text games,

00:04:01.220 | and then imagine 'em in your brain, right?

00:04:03.420 | - Oregon Trail, there's this meme I saw recently.

00:04:08.100 | If you wanna feel bad about yourself as a programmer,

00:04:11.780 | realize that one person wrote Railroad Tycoon.

00:04:16.420 | I think that's the name of the game.

00:04:17.780 | It's this cool little builder game.

00:04:20.220 | One person wrote it in assembly.

00:04:22.900 | (both laugh)

00:04:25.540 | So from scratch, and for people who don't know,

00:04:29.300 | it kinda looks like a SimCity-type game.

00:04:31.580 | It's a city builder, but obviously centered on railroads.

00:04:35.060 | And there's a nice graphics, it's three-dimensional,

00:04:36.940 | all that kinda stuff.

00:04:37.980 | All the things, all the rich, colorful things

00:04:40.940 | you would imagine for a three-dimensional video game,

00:04:43.780 | all written in assembly, meaning the lowest level code

00:04:47.340 | next to binary, which is fascinating.

00:04:50.100 | And you had to notice the magic

00:04:53.460 | at that low level at that time.

00:04:55.620 | You didn't have all the graphics,

00:04:57.100 | you didn't have all the APIs and all the sample codes,

00:05:02.020 | no stack overflow, no internet, none of that.

00:05:04.380 | - You just had, you had to know registers,

00:05:06.340 | you had to know the opcodes,

00:05:08.220 | and you had to imagine the world in your brain,

00:05:10.420 | the memory structures and everything.

00:05:12.100 | There's no visualization.

00:05:13.220 | You visualized it all yourself, right?

00:05:15.380 | And so that was magic, but then the next part of the magic

00:05:17.980 | of where I got hooked even further,

00:05:20.340 | was like, I'm doing these little things.

00:05:22.300 | And then electronic arts came out for the Apple II.

00:05:25.500 | So I got an Apple II, and electronic arts came out,

00:05:28.220 | and I was programming and doing basic

00:05:29.940 | and making my own games.

00:05:31.740 | But then there were two games that really blew my mind.

00:05:34.380 | One was pinball construction set,

00:05:37.140 | and the other one was music construction set.

00:05:40.780 | And these were both places

00:05:42.060 | where I could create pinball games,

00:05:43.980 | and I could create musical scores, 'cause I love music,

00:05:47.180 | and I could then play them, right?

00:05:49.300 | And so when you had that, you were like,

00:05:51.860 | oh, this is something very different.

00:05:54.380 | So I could create myself,

00:05:56.220 | but then there was others that create tools

00:05:58.580 | so you could create at a visual level.

00:06:01.180 | And then you would read the backstories,

00:06:02.740 | 'cause electronics arts back in the day,

00:06:04.700 | it was one programmer who would program those things,

00:06:07.740 | you know, each of those things.

00:06:08.740 | And you could read their backstories.

00:06:10.140 | It was literally like a musician or someone else,

00:06:13.180 | like you could read Rick Rubin's, like, here's the thing.

00:06:15.500 | They tell you all that stuff.

00:06:16.780 | And there was one guy who wrote music construction set.

00:06:20.780 | He wrote it all in assembly, and he was 16 years old.

00:06:23.940 | And I was probably 12 or 13 at the time.

00:06:28.900 | And I went, oh my, if he was able to do this

00:06:33.020 | and had published, right,

00:06:34.700 | and this amazing tool was created,

00:06:37.620 | I'm like, what could I do?

00:06:38.740 | And so then it just kept building off of that.

00:06:41.580 | But really it was those seminal things,

00:06:43.500 | first the introduction,

00:06:44.500 | and then the power through programming

00:06:47.300 | and turning these things into what you wanted

00:06:49.460 | to turn it into.

00:06:50.740 | And you didn't have to be 40, 50 years old

00:06:53.900 | and have PhDs.

00:06:55.420 | And then I was like, okay, this is really cool.

00:06:58.660 | - I wish we did that with programmers

00:07:00.980 | where we treated them like artists.

00:07:02.500 | We would know the backstory these days, today.

00:07:05.260 | Or we'd, not just programmers, engineers.

00:07:07.540 | - Engineers, designers.

00:07:09.020 | - Yeah, like all the things about a product

00:07:11.340 | that I think we love are the little details

00:07:14.380 | and there's probably a human being

00:07:16.100 | behind each of those details

00:07:18.820 | that had their little inkling of genius that they put in.

00:07:22.460 | I wish we knew those stories.

00:07:24.020 | That's always sad to me when I,

00:07:25.660 | 'cause obviously I love engineering

00:07:28.100 | and I interact with companies and they,

00:07:30.180 | you know, autonomous vehicles,

00:07:31.900 | something I'm really interested about.

00:07:33.100 | And I see that companies generally,

00:07:35.740 | and we'll probably talk about this,

00:07:37.060 | but they seem to want to hide their engineers.

00:07:39.460 | Like engineers hold the secrets,

00:07:42.740 | like the great secret.

00:07:44.580 | We do not speak of the great secret.

00:07:47.060 | But then the result of that is you don't,

00:07:49.860 | you don't get to hear their stories.

00:07:52.300 | The passion that is there behind the engineers,

00:07:56.140 | like, and also the genius, the little,

00:07:59.060 | there's a difference between the stuff that's patented,

00:08:01.540 | like the kernel of the idea

00:08:03.740 | and the beautiful sort of side effects of the idea.

00:08:06.540 | And I wish companies revealed the beautiful side effects

00:08:09.180 | a little bit more.

00:08:10.780 | But, so sorry for the distraction.

00:08:13.380 | So what, you mentioned Apple II.

00:08:15.740 | What was the first computer you fell in love with?

00:08:18.660 | Like the product, the thing before you

00:08:21.380 | that was a personal computer?

00:08:23.620 | - It was the Apple II.

00:08:25.180 | So the Apple II was something I was just lusting over.

00:08:28.940 | You know, it was, I think it was at the time,

00:08:31.380 | it was the, you know, the person of the year.

00:08:33.980 | Maybe it was that year, I don't remember what, but.

00:08:36.940 | - Well, Apple II was the person of the year?

00:08:38.860 | - Yeah, for "Mind" magazine back in, I don't remember when,

00:08:41.700 | but it was around that same time I was so young,

00:08:43.980 | but I had, there was the Apple II

00:08:46.620 | and I didn't know what it was, but I knew about tools

00:08:49.060 | 'cause my grandfather taught me all about tools

00:08:50.780 | and creating things, right?

00:08:53.820 | And I saw this thing and I had the, you know,

00:08:56.500 | that IBM experience, that terminal experience.

00:08:59.220 | And I'm like, oh, I could have that at home, right?

00:09:01.580 | And so I need to have that at home.

00:09:03.060 | And the only thing that was really talked about

00:09:04.900 | in our circles was the Apple II.

00:09:06.980 | And I was just like, that's it.

00:09:08.900 | So I went, jumped up and down, it was very expensive.

00:09:12.580 | I have to have this, my parents were like, what?

00:09:14.460 | You know, it was $2,500 back then.

00:09:18.140 | In 1981, it was like crazy, right?

00:09:20.980 | So I was like, I'm gonna make as much money

00:09:22.980 | as I can this summer.

00:09:23.900 | And my grandfather said, 'cause he helped me learn

00:09:26.800 | all about tools and build things together,

00:09:29.100 | I will match whatever you make so you can get this computer.

00:09:32.220 | So I worked very, very hard as a caddy, golf caddy.

00:09:36.620 | Cadding actually for the, you know, the families in,

00:09:39.620 | you know, at the country clubs in the town where we lived.

00:09:43.980 | And did whatever I could.

00:09:45.460 | And that end of that summer, we got my Apple II.

00:09:48.380 | And you couldn't tear it away from me.

00:09:50.260 | It was my friend, it was everything.

00:09:52.740 | - From a product perspective,

00:09:54.660 | what do you remember that was brilliant?

00:09:56.940 | The design choices, the ideas behind it,

00:10:01.140 | or is it just that it exists?

00:10:02.780 | Or the very idea of a personal computer

00:10:05.180 | is the brilliant design choice?

00:10:07.180 | - Yeah, it was that I could actually have this kind of tool

00:10:10.060 | in my house and I could use it anytime I wanted.

00:10:12.980 | I could program it any ways.

00:10:14.340 | There was no, you know, there was no internet connection.

00:10:16.740 | There was no, it was all just you.

00:10:18.860 | You either loaded software that you got from someone, right?

00:10:22.700 | Or you created it yourself.

00:10:24.220 | And then there was the whole other thing

00:10:25.780 | which was started happening, which we were doing,

00:10:28.420 | and this was kind of like MP3s and stuff.

00:10:30.380 | We were sharing software, right?

00:10:32.220 | So you built this community of sharing software.

00:10:34.020 | You would go and pirate,

00:10:35.780 | that was what it was called, pirate all this software.

00:10:37.820 | You'd never use it all, but it was just that fun thing

00:10:39.940 | of like, I'm gonna get all this other stuff

00:10:41.820 | and then tear it apart and do disassembly on it

00:10:44.140 | and see behind the scenes.

00:10:45.660 | So you really had a sense this was your world

00:10:48.620 | and you owned it, right?

00:10:50.140 | And you could like literally go into every register.

00:10:52.580 | We didn't have all those security layers like we do now.

00:10:54.620 | Like you could really touch bits and you could poke bits

00:10:57.620 | and you could make this light turn on.

00:10:59.260 | And you know, and the Geek & Simon just lit up.

00:11:01.780 | Now it's so abstract, you know,

00:11:05.260 | people don't even understand, like usually, you know,

00:11:07.580 | some programs don't even understand memory.

00:11:09.100 | They just think it's unlimited, right?

00:11:10.780 | - Yeah, and security.

00:11:12.700 | It's like now there's all this security that you should have

00:11:16.060 | but it's like the adults all showed up to the party

00:11:19.140 | and now you can't have all the fun.

00:11:21.060 | - Right, it's like, no, no.

00:11:22.700 | You know, this was the thing where if the power went out,

00:11:26.380 | you lost your whole program.

00:11:27.580 | You might've worked a whole day on it.

00:11:28.940 | And if you didn't press save at every other line

00:11:31.740 | and you were to save, save, save,

00:11:33.340 | and it would like, grr, grr, the disk drive

00:11:35.620 | or the tape drive, grr, grr, grr.

00:11:38.060 | Like every single step was contemplated

00:11:41.620 | because if you didn't, you lost maybe a ton of work.

00:11:45.220 | - So a lot of the magic was in the software.

00:11:47.500 | The fact that you could have software,

00:11:48.900 | the fact that you could share software,

00:11:50.940 | the community around the software,

00:11:53.820 | it wasn't necessarily the hardware.

00:11:55.500 | - Well, that was the first step.

00:11:56.740 | The second step around the hardware

00:11:58.780 | was I got things like the Mockingboard,

00:12:01.220 | which the Mockingboard paired with the music instruction set

00:12:03.980 | you could now generate all kinds of tones and notes.

00:12:06.300 | And it was a synthesizer in the Apple II.

00:12:09.060 | So you would plug in this card and you go,

00:12:10.980 | oh my God, look at this.

00:12:12.020 | And it would, you know,

00:12:13.260 | you could start generating cool sounds.

00:12:15.500 | You're like, it like it was a Moog, you know,

00:12:17.900 | like a Moog in a way, early Moog.

00:12:20.260 | - What year are we talking about?

00:12:21.700 | - This is '82, I think, '81, '82.

00:12:25.780 | - And I bet you can make all the kind of synthetic sounds

00:12:28.460 | that are very cool in the '80s.

00:12:30.220 | - Yeah, the eight bit, you know, chip tunes, right?

00:12:32.620 | Chip tune, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

00:12:34.500 | And then, you know, when you wanted to add a joystick,

00:12:37.940 | you had to pull a chip out

00:12:39.100 | and you had to like plug in a dip socket

00:12:41.140 | to put in a joystick.

00:12:42.220 | And then I was like, oh, and then I had to get more memory.

00:12:44.900 | How do we do that?

00:12:45.820 | And I wanted to speed up product.

00:12:47.340 | So then that turned into a company actually from that,

00:12:51.900 | but it was in a hardware software, no one had that.

00:12:54.620 | But it was all about, you know,

00:12:55.900 | modifying this thing in every way.

00:12:57.380 | First was software,

00:12:58.500 | and then you started gaining confidence.

00:13:00.140 | And then I got a little bit more money and stuff,

00:13:01.860 | and then you could get into the hardware and, you know,

00:13:04.220 | wire things.

00:13:05.100 | And then the Apple II came with all the schematics, right?

00:13:09.220 | So in the back, in the early Apple IIs,

00:13:12.500 | you could open up and all the schematics were there.

00:13:14.860 | - So you purchased the Apple II

00:13:16.540 | and the schematics come with it.

00:13:17.980 | - Yeah, it came with it.

00:13:19.540 | - That's an interesting choice.

00:13:21.340 | That's an interesting choice from a company perspective.

00:13:24.980 | - Right? - So interesting.

00:13:25.820 | - It's a real maker kind of thing.

00:13:27.580 | - Right.

00:13:28.420 | Ah, I wonder what they, so that was intentional.

00:13:32.740 | Like this is-- - Absolutely intentional.

00:13:35.180 | - This is for the cutting edge folks too,

00:13:37.340 | or especially for the cutting edge.

00:13:38.180 | - It was only the cutting edge.

00:13:39.180 | It was geeks for geeks.

00:13:41.380 | So we were like, oh, how did they make it?

00:13:43.140 | And then we got to learn through that.

00:13:44.500 | Apple I did the same thing, right?

00:13:46.340 | It just, Apple II became more packaged up

00:13:48.620 | and had, you know, a little bit better software, right?

00:13:52.020 | Came with basic and then, you know, so it was really,

00:13:55.300 | it was what we might think of as a raspberry pie today

00:13:58.580 | or something like that, but not with so much software.

00:14:01.780 | It was literally, and all the chips were out there

00:14:03.860 | so you could inspect the buses and the, right?

00:14:06.020 | 'Cause everything was just broken out.

00:14:08.260 | - So I guess that's the idea behind stable,

00:14:12.980 | big projects in open source, like on GitHub.

00:14:15.820 | That you have the schematics there

00:14:18.180 | and it's kind of a product,

00:14:20.460 | but I wonder why more companies don't do that kind of thing.

00:14:23.580 | Like we're going to release this

00:14:25.460 | to a small set of people, self-selected perhaps,

00:14:31.700 | that are kind of the makers, the cutting edge folks,

00:14:35.140 | the builders, the at-home engineers.

00:14:38.620 | Like in some way, what Tesla is doing with the beta

00:14:43.540 | for the full self-driving is kind of like that.

00:14:47.460 | It's like selecting a group of people,

00:14:48.940 | but that has to do more with you,

00:14:51.620 | how safe of a driver you are

00:14:53.100 | versus how much of a tinkerer you are

00:14:55.380 | because you don't get to tinker.

00:14:56.820 | I wonder, is that a crazy idea

00:14:59.220 | to do for really cutting edge technologies?

00:15:01.940 | Especially you're interested in like hardware stuff.

00:15:05.460 | Is that crazy?

00:15:06.820 | Why don't more companies do that kind of thing, you think?

00:15:10.180 | - I think back then it was about a community

00:15:13.540 | and serving that community of builders.

00:15:15.740 | Now this is about people who want to get the experience

00:15:19.100 | and want it really simple and easy.

00:15:20.740 | And they're like, and so there's the audience

00:15:24.380 | or they believe the audience is small

00:15:26.140 | who would value those other things

00:15:27.700 | that we're just talking about.

00:15:29.060 | But if we look at things like Raspberry Pi

00:15:30.940 | and all of these other little boards, right,

00:15:33.700 | there's a whole world more than I've seen.

00:15:36.820 | Like it's amazing what you can do now with these little kits

00:15:40.060 | and the software that's created.

00:15:43.540 | And so there's a whole nother,

00:15:45.180 | I think another batch of makers and builders

00:15:47.540 | that are coming up through the ranks.

00:15:49.100 | And if we look at YouTube channels and stuff, right,

00:15:51.660 | they take these little boards, they hack them,

00:15:53.220 | then they print out parts on their 3D printer,

00:15:56.660 | assemble them and they create robots and what have you.

00:15:59.460 | So I think it's happening.

00:16:01.900 | It's just not as, I guess, raw as it used to be.

00:16:06.900 | But it's there and it's really expanding around the world.

00:16:11.860 | And that's really nice to see

00:16:13.260 | 'cause it's a whole new generation who are empowered.

00:16:17.580 | I think there's a semi-dormant genius amongst millions.

00:16:21.220 | So like Raspberry Pi is revealing that a little bit.

00:16:23.540 | It's probably, I wouldn't be surprised

00:16:26.060 | if it's several million Raspberry Pis

00:16:28.300 | that have been sold and shipped.

00:16:31.580 | And it's kind of this quiet storm of genius,

00:16:36.340 | brewing of engineers.

00:16:37.540 | We don't get to hear it because they're not organized.

00:16:39.980 | I mean, we get to hear it through inklings here and there.

00:16:42.260 | Like I said, YouTube, there's little communities

00:16:44.700 | that are local and so on.

00:16:45.700 | But if they were organized,

00:16:47.740 | (both laughing)

00:16:49.860 | if a leader would emerge, no.

00:16:51.740 | Okay, so when did you first start to dream

00:16:54.980 | about building your own things,

00:16:58.540 | designing your own products,

00:17:01.300 | designing your own systems and software and hardware?

00:17:05.100 | - Well, in high school, there was a company

00:17:09.060 | that a friend of mine founded and I was the second employee.

00:17:13.540 | It was called Quality Computers.

00:17:15.660 | And it was a mail order,

00:17:19.220 | 'cause there's no e-commerce then.

00:17:20.380 | There was no internet again.

00:17:21.740 | You either mailed in your little coupon

00:17:23.580 | and you said, "This is what I wanted to order,"

00:17:25.300 | or you wrote in to get a catalog and delivered to you.

00:17:28.780 | Turnaround time in this stuff was like,

00:17:30.780 | from the time you wanted to the time you bought it

00:17:32.540 | was maybe eight to 12 weeks.

00:17:34.540 | That was just the normal way of getting things.

00:17:37.380 | So Quality Computers was a mail order for Apple II.

00:17:42.420 | And it was software and all kinds of accessories.

00:17:46.540 | So hardware accessories, so hardware,

00:17:48.060 | plug-in cards, joysticks, all this stuff.

00:17:50.620 | And what we noticed was there were

00:17:55.180 | accelerators and memory cards.

00:17:57.620 | And to be able to use those cards,

00:18:00.620 | you had to actually go and change the software you used

00:18:03.740 | to access this new memory.

00:18:05.420 | So you literally have to go and you took the program

00:18:07.940 | that you had, let's say it was Apple Works,

00:18:09.300 | which was like an early Microsoft Office

00:18:11.300 | or something like that.

00:18:12.460 | And you had to literally change the code

00:18:15.060 | and you would install these patches

00:18:18.020 | to then take advantage of the hardware.

00:18:20.380 | So what we started creating was software on top of it

00:18:23.540 | to do the automatic installation of all of these patches.

00:18:27.780 | So we made it much easier to take new hardware

00:18:30.340 | and the existing software you have

00:18:33.340 | and expand it into this new world.

00:18:35.340 | So it was creating tools

00:18:36.500 | and the really great customer support.

00:18:38.300 | And we started getting a lot of orders

00:18:40.940 | 'cause we had the software make it easier to install

00:18:43.540 | to give them the superpower.

00:18:45.460 | And at the same time,

00:18:47.100 | they would be able to change their software

00:18:50.780 | and have a new world that wasn't existing

00:18:53.140 | from the companies that were creating the initial products.

00:18:56.420 | And so it was more of that.

00:18:57.980 | And then that happened with hard drives.

00:19:00.740 | So I wrote a hard drive optimizer for the Apple II

00:19:04.620 | to like read, 'cause you could get really fragmented.

00:19:07.380 | So I wrote that piece of software

00:19:08.820 | and we sold that through the company

00:19:10.100 | along with the hard drives that we sold from third parties.

00:19:12.940 | So that all happened in 12th grade,

00:19:17.180 | freshman year of college.

00:19:18.700 | - You wrote a hard drive optimizer in 12th grade

00:19:23.140 | for the Apple II.

00:19:24.540 | - Between 12th and freshman year.

00:19:26.700 | - What programming language?

00:19:28.020 | Do you remember, is it assemblies?

00:19:30.100 | - There were certain inner loops were assembly

00:19:32.060 | and other loops, actually there were really early Pascal,

00:19:35.260 | no, C compilers.

00:19:39.540 | - What was the motivation behind these?

00:19:41.420 | Is it to make people's lives easier?

00:19:43.780 | Is it to create a thing experience

00:19:45.660 | that is simpler and simpler and simpler,

00:19:47.780 | thereby more accessible to a larger number of people?

00:19:51.060 | Or did you just like to tinker?

00:19:52.900 | - No, no, no, it was two things really.

00:19:54.380 | 'Cause one, we wanted to sell more hardware

00:19:56.460 | and software, right?

00:19:57.620 | So it was like, oh, make it easier for the user.

00:19:59.900 | And then the other thing was,

00:20:01.020 | because I was also manning the customer support line,

00:20:03.660 | people would call and I'd go, this doesn't work.

00:20:06.580 | And I'm like, oh, I gotta go fix the hardware and software.

00:20:09.100 | I gotta fix the software to make the hardware

00:20:10.740 | and the installation process better.

00:20:12.300 | So my whole world was out of box experience

00:20:15.860 | from when I was in high school.

00:20:18.380 | 'Cause I had to man the customer support line,

00:20:20.460 | pack the boxes and write some of the code

00:20:22.820 | while we were doing, while Joe, Joe Gleason,

00:20:25.140 | who was the founder of Quality Computers,

00:20:26.940 | he was off doing the mark, the ads,

00:20:30.020 | placing the ads for the mail order,

00:20:32.220 | making sure we were running the credit cards, right?

00:20:35.780 | It was two of us and then it turned into a third,

00:20:38.180 | and then we hired another person from high school

00:20:39.940 | to like pack boxes so I could stay

00:20:41.700 | on the customer support line or doing the software, right?

00:20:44.540 | And it was all in his parents' basement, right?

00:20:47.660 | - As you were scaling exponentially.

00:20:50.260 | - Scaling, right, exactly, bootstrapping.

00:20:52.660 | - So we'll jump around a little bit,

00:20:54.380 | but what were the, you said you love music.

00:20:56.460 | What were the ideas that gave birth to the iPod

00:20:59.700 | if we jump forward?

00:21:01.060 | And how far back do those ideas stretch?

00:21:07.420 | - If you look at the history of technology,

00:21:09.580 | there's, I mean, not just the product,

00:21:14.580 | but the idea is truly revolutionary.

00:21:17.940 | Maybe its time has come,

00:21:21.200 | but just if you look at the arc of history,

00:21:25.740 | sort of music is so fundamental to who we are as a humanity,

00:21:30.740 | and to be able to put that in your pocket,

00:21:34.100 | make it truly portable is fascinating

00:21:36.540 | in a way that's truly portable.

00:21:40.140 | So it's digital as opposed to sort of like a Walkman

00:21:43.980 | or something like that.

00:21:45.100 | So what were the ideas that gave birth to the iPod?

00:21:49.700 | - You know, I was in love with music since I was a kid.

00:21:53.020 | Just loved music from, I think, second grade

00:21:55.740 | when I got my first albums and stuff like that.

00:21:58.140 | - What kind of music are we talking about?

00:21:59.660 | - So this was Led Zeppelin.

00:22:03.980 | This was the Stones, Hendrix, Aerosmith,

00:22:08.300 | Cheap Trick, Styx, Ted Nugent,

00:22:13.780 | you know, just the real American,

00:22:17.860 | and British rock and roll, right?

00:22:19.180 | - There's a bunch of people listening right now.

00:22:20.580 | Who, Ted, who's that?

00:22:22.100 | - Who's that? - Led Zeppelin?

00:22:23.300 | What is that?

00:22:24.140 | Is that who you? - Oh, yeah.

00:22:25.300 | (laughing)

00:22:27.900 | It drove my parents crazy.

00:22:29.460 | - Yeah, you just blasted loud.

00:22:31.700 | - Loud, just, and this was

00:22:33.620 | second, third grade, fourth grade.

00:22:35.100 | I just, it fell in love.

00:22:36.180 | And then we moved back to Detroit,

00:22:40.540 | and I loved listening to the radio station

00:22:43.060 | 'cause there was all kinds of crazy music

00:22:44.980 | 'cause you'd have an amalgam of rock and then funk and R&B,

00:22:48.780 | and I loved to listen at night.

00:22:50.380 | So I had a clock radio.

00:22:51.740 | But if I had the clock radio on,

00:22:54.580 | parents would go, "Go to sleep, stop that,

00:22:57.780 | "turn that stuff off."

00:22:58.820 | So I hacked the clock radio and put a headphone jack in it.

00:23:02.260 | - Nice.

00:23:03.740 | - Right, so I'd say, "Oh, there, wow,"

00:23:05.820 | okay, and then I could listen to it all night,

00:23:09.220 | and no one could hear me, right?

00:23:10.420 | And I could just sit there and, you know.

00:23:12.300 | - Just huddling around the radio.

00:23:13.900 | - Groove out.

00:23:14.740 | - Just listening to Zeppelin, "Stairway to Heaven."

00:23:18.580 | What would you say is the greatest rock,

00:23:20.860 | classic rock song of all time?

00:23:23.060 | - Greatest classic rock song of all time?

00:23:25.500 | - What pops into mind?

00:23:26.540 | Well, no, you know what?

00:23:27.700 | I mean, this has to be objectively number one.

00:23:28.540 | - That's really hard, dude.

00:23:29.940 | This is so hard. - No, you have to.

00:23:31.220 | This is a serious journalistic interview.

00:23:34.580 | You're not going to back down from these kinds of questions.

00:23:37.060 | - Oh my God.

00:23:37.900 | - No, I don't know. - It's a challenge.

00:23:39.300 | - Yeah, it's hard to pick,

00:23:40.860 | but to me, "Stairway to Heaven" is a safe fall.

00:23:45.660 | It's so often considered to be one of the greatest songs

00:23:49.020 | of all time that you almost don't wanna pick it.

00:23:51.700 | - Right, exactly.

00:23:52.540 | - But you've returned to it time and time again,

00:23:54.460 | and it's like, yeah, this is something pretty special.

00:23:58.100 | This is a rock opera of sorts.

00:24:00.720 | - Well, the rock opera that really blew me away

00:24:03.140 | and still continues to blow me away

00:24:04.700 | is all of "Dark Side of the Moon."

00:24:07.260 | Like that, I love Zeppelin.

00:24:09.980 | I can't say which one's better,

00:24:12.120 | but "Dark Side of the Moon" for me,

00:24:13.900 | it was a audio experience, right?

00:24:16.820 | The whole thing from soup to nuts,

00:24:18.200 | plus all the synthesizers, all of those things.

00:24:21.340 | - Okay, so back to the iPod.

00:24:23.780 | So from the early age, you loved music.

00:24:26.500 | - Loved it, absolutely loved it,

00:24:28.380 | and always was just around it

00:24:30.500 | and it was always playing.

00:24:33.180 | I played it so loud that I actually hurt the earring

00:24:37.780 | in my right ear, and I still suffer from that today.

00:24:41.580 | And then-- - No regrets.

00:24:43.700 | - No regrets whatsoever, going to concerts

00:24:46.060 | in downtown Detroit and all that crazy stuff.

00:24:48.260 | So moving forward, so in college, I was a DJ.

00:24:53.260 | So I would DJ and hang out and play all the tunes I love

00:24:58.660 | and whatever for the crowd, and then I continued

00:25:01.780 | to do that in Silicon Valley when I moved right after school

00:25:06.740 | and so I was belugging all of these CDs around with me,

00:25:10.220 | a thousand CDs, right?

00:25:12.300 | And at the same time, and so those were heavy,

00:25:16.740 | and at the same time, I was doing the Philips Nino and Velo.

00:25:20.300 | Those are Windows CE-based mobile computing products.

00:25:25.620 | Nino was the first device to actually put audible books

00:25:29.900 | on tape, so I worked with Audible, we met in a conference,

00:25:33.420 | and they were like, "We don't wanna do hardware,

00:25:35.060 | "we just wanna do content."

00:25:36.180 | I was like, "Well, we have this device,

00:25:37.820 | "let's get it together," and we got Audible on that,

00:25:41.100 | and this was in '96 or '97, first Audible books.

00:25:46.100 | And it, you know, I was like, "Oh my God, that's audio.

00:25:49.340 | "Well, what if we put music on it?"

00:25:51.820 | Right, and so, and the memory was very small at the time,

00:25:55.940 | right, there was almost no flash, it was all DRAM.

00:25:58.580 | When you did Audible, you stored it in DRAM.

00:26:00.780 | (laughing)

00:26:02.540 | Right?

00:26:03.380 | - Which is okay, probably, 'cause how much books do you need

00:26:08.380 | is the idea.

00:26:09.980 | By the way, brilliant, I mean, just putting books,

00:26:12.980 | I know it's probably not the sexiest of things,

00:26:15.660 | but putting books on a mobile device is a brilliant step.

00:26:21.500 | I don't know, sometimes you can't measure

00:26:25.420 | how much human progress occurred because of an invention.

00:26:29.180 | Like, there's the sexy big products, but you never know.

00:26:32.100 | Like, Wikipedia is one of those things

00:26:34.420 | that doesn't get enough, I think, credit

00:26:37.380 | for the transformational effects it has.

00:26:39.740 | It's not seen as the sexiest of products, but maybe it is.

00:26:43.220 | When you look at human history, Wikipedia,

00:26:46.860 | arguably, is one of the big things

00:26:48.700 | that basically unlocked human knowledge.

00:26:52.700 | - Human knowledge, and human editing,

00:26:54.700 | and just the human nature of building something together.

00:26:59.500 | - Yeah, so it's fascinating.

00:27:01.540 | Sometimes you can't measure those things,

00:27:02.980 | maybe until many, many decades later.

00:27:04.940 | Anyway, sorry, so that was there,

00:27:09.220 | and then there was Audible, you put books,

00:27:11.780 | why not put music?

00:27:13.340 | - Music, and I'm carrying around the music

00:27:15.460 | for the DJ gigs, and you're like, wait a second,

00:27:18.100 | two and two together, right?

00:27:19.900 | Let's get rid of this, and then MP3s show up.

00:27:23.100 | - The actual encoded-- - The format.

00:27:25.500 | MP3s showed up around '97, '98.

00:27:29.180 | - So MP3s is compressed so you can have,

00:27:33.180 | like, the storage is reduced significantly.

00:27:35.780 | - Right, so you could go from a large, full,

00:27:38.820 | full lossless digital track into something

00:27:43.820 | that can be stored in four to eight megabytes,

00:27:47.660 | something like that for the audio.

00:27:49.100 | Now, that's a reduced quality,

00:27:51.220 | but you could get it down there,

00:27:52.300 | and you're like, oh, okay.

00:27:54.020 | And now, if we have enough flash or DRAM,

00:27:56.460 | we can put 10, 15, what have you,

00:27:59.020 | all in that same memory, and it starts to replicate a CD,

00:28:02.740 | and then ultimately, if you put it on a hard drive,

00:28:05.020 | you could start to put thousands of songs.

00:28:07.700 | - Yeah, that's also another brilliant invention.

00:28:10.140 | But people don't realize, I think people would be surprised

00:28:13.820 | how big, in terms of storage, raw audio is.

00:28:17.700 | And the fact that you can compress it, like,

00:28:20.500 | I don't know what the compression is,

00:28:23.980 | but it's like 10X, it's very significant compression,

00:28:26.780 | and still, it sounds almost lossless.

00:28:29.660 | - Much to the chagrin of Neil Young,

00:28:31.660 | who does not like that.

00:28:33.820 | - But even Neil Young, even the stuff he talks about

00:28:37.340 | is still tiny files relative to the raw.

00:28:40.660 | So he wants us to increase it just a little bit more,

00:28:43.660 | a little bit more.

00:28:44.780 | But it's still, that's an invention.

00:28:46.860 | That's a thing that unlocks your ability

00:28:49.420 | to carry around a device like a Nino and listen to music,

00:28:52.340 | 'cause without that, there's no way you can carry it

00:28:54.500 | on a gigantic hard drive.

00:28:56.300 | - Right, exactly.

00:28:57.420 | And so, so then, that, so it was MP3s, the Nino,

00:29:01.260 | and my hatred of carrying around all this heavy stuff

00:29:05.780 | that then spawned Fuse, and then ultimately,

00:29:11.460 | became a lot of that, the ideas and things of that nature,

00:29:15.660 | and my passions were born into then the iPod.

00:29:19.060 | You know, it was too, Apple needed something,

00:29:21.500 | and I wanted to fix something, and it all kinda,

00:29:24.700 | you know, came together at the right place, right time,

00:29:27.140 | plus the right technology came at this.

00:29:29.060 | It was just like the stars aligned.

00:29:31.420 | - So how did it come to life,

00:29:33.500 | the details of the stars aligning,

00:29:37.100 | but the actual design, the actual engineering

00:29:40.340 | of getting a device to be small,

00:29:42.900 | the storage, the interface, how it looks,

00:29:47.900 | the storage, the details of the software,

00:29:51.420 | all that kinda stuff.

00:29:52.460 | What are some interesting memories

00:29:54.740 | from that design process?

00:29:57.020 | What are some wisdoms you can--

00:29:59.340 | (laughing)

00:30:01.460 | - Art, from that process.

00:30:03.220 | - Well, you know, how long do you wanna go?

00:30:05.740 | 'Cause I have, I can go deep, so--

00:30:09.420 | - Let's go at least 20 hours, let's go--

00:30:11.780 | - Okay, 20 hours.

00:30:12.620 | - This is one of the lengthy documentaries

00:30:14.860 | that make it happen. - We're gonna turn it

00:30:15.700 | into episodic binge listening. - On Netflix.

00:30:18.820 | Yeah, Game of Thrones.

00:30:20.140 | - So let's just start with, you know,

00:30:23.100 | after I was asked to be a consultant

00:30:24.660 | to put this thing together.

00:30:26.380 | So I already had knowledge of, you know,

00:30:28.420 | the space and the technology and all that stuff,

00:30:31.060 | but I had to very quickly, and a lot of the suppliers,

00:30:34.700 | because of what I was doing at Fuse,

00:30:36.100 | trying to create that thing.

00:30:39.300 | And as a contractor, I was like,

00:30:42.180 | okay, what is the first thing you need to do?

00:30:43.660 | So after I showed a, you know, different architectures

00:30:48.540 | and what three different products could be

00:30:50.780 | to Steve about options for storage options,

00:30:53.780 | battery options, form factor options,

00:30:56.300 | there was three options.

00:30:57.740 | And as I was told, given very good advice,

00:31:02.060 | give to the two options you really do not like,

00:31:04.540 | but they're options, and give the best option last,

00:31:06.540 | 'cause Steve will shoot all those down

00:31:08.500 | and give the best option last,

00:31:10.500 | and then you could talk about that.

00:31:11.860 | And so that was the one that had a 1.8 inch hard drive

00:31:16.860 | and a small screen, like the screen you know it,

00:31:23.820 | on the original iPod, classic iPod.

00:31:26.820 | And then I had enough of the idea

00:31:29.660 | of the three or four different CPUs and processor suppliers

00:31:34.660 | and kind of systems that were out there

00:31:37.780 | that I had gone and found and put together

00:31:40.100 | on power supplies, you know, disk drive interfaces,

00:31:43.780 | firewire interface, all that stuff.

00:31:45.460 | So I put together all of those schematics,

00:31:48.660 | or you know, block diagrams, they weren't schematics yet,

00:31:50.660 | 'cause it was just me.

00:31:51.980 | And coming up with a bill of materials,

00:31:54.700 | coming up with what it could look like,

00:31:56.220 | what would be the input output,

00:31:58.260 | how we could make a better headphone jack,

00:32:01.540 | that was also on there.

00:32:03.700 | Screen suppliers, tearing apart calculators,

00:32:07.140 | so got calculators and all kinds of electronics

00:32:09.340 | to get the right size, different sizes of small LCDs.

00:32:14.340 | So I got all kinds of different battery types.

00:32:17.300 | I got different types of, you know,

00:32:19.260 | and different battery sizes, AA's, AAA's,

00:32:22.380 | working through all the different,

00:32:24.260 | and there was lithium ion, nickel metal hydrate.

00:32:26.180 | So I took all the battery types,

00:32:27.860 | I took all of the memory types, processing types,

00:32:31.940 | LCD types, and connectivity,

00:32:37.220 | and all that stuff, not wireless, but wired,

00:32:40.180 | and laid out these things as Lego blocks.

00:32:43.180 | So literally had all of these things as just,

00:32:46.300 | and so I made them so I could like, you know,

00:32:48.860 | put them together and figure out

00:32:50.220 | what the compact form factor would be.

00:32:52.900 | - Oh, like how do we shove them together?

00:32:55.340 | What's the smallest possible box you can get?

00:32:57.340 | So the questions was on storage, so the hard drive,

00:33:01.220 | batteries, AA, AAA.

00:33:03.460 | - Right.

00:33:04.660 | - Screens, so screen size, and then for that,

00:33:07.740 | you're tearing apart calculators.

00:33:09.940 | - Calculators, digital cameras, whatever,

00:33:11.620 | and getting little things, right?

00:33:12.740 | So you can make it physical, right?

00:33:14.740 | If you can make the intangible tangible,

00:33:17.060 | like, and so I can say, look, we can make this,

00:33:19.180 | and I brought this whole bag of goods,

00:33:21.540 | and it was like, right?

00:33:23.580 | And like, here's this, here's this.

00:33:25.220 | This is why AA's won't work,

00:33:26.940 | and 'cause it makes it too fat, and everything.

00:33:28.500 | So just educate everybody through,

00:33:30.340 | here's the parts that we can use.

00:33:32.340 | - It's a not sheet of paper, it's physical.

00:33:34.020 | You're playing in the physical space.

00:33:35.300 | - Oh, I would go back and forth.

00:33:36.700 | So truth be told, because there weren't

00:33:39.420 | a good enough graphical tools on the Mac,

00:33:43.180 | I was using a PC with Vizio and some 3D tools,

00:33:46.340 | and I was doing 3D design at the same time

00:33:49.100 | I was taking all these physical parts,

00:33:50.780 | and going, okay, what feels right?

00:33:52.220 | 'Cause you have to go from the details,

00:33:55.340 | and then the rough, and you go back and forth,

00:33:57.060 | and you iterate, right?

00:33:58.260 | And so it was just a lot of fun,

00:34:00.220 | and then I ultimately ended up with a styrofoam model

00:34:03.060 | and printouts that came from Vizio

00:34:05.300 | that I glued together and put my grandfather's

00:34:08.220 | fishing weights in, 'cause I also modeled the weights.

00:34:11.340 | Right, so I said, oh, this is this many ounces,

00:34:13.780 | this is this many ounces in grams.

00:34:15.580 | And then I went and got all that,

00:34:17.020 | and made the, weighted these styrofoam models

00:34:21.220 | to then match that, so when you picked it up,

00:34:23.380 | it felt more or less form factor right,

00:34:25.460 | and it also, you felt how much,

00:34:27.660 | you know, was it gonna be dense enough?

00:34:29.580 | Is it gonna feel solid and rigid in your hand?

00:34:32.820 | Right?

00:34:34.060 | - Why does it need to feel rigid?

00:34:35.980 | - 'Cause it has to feel substantial.

00:34:37.660 | It has to feel like I have like a bar of gold in my hand.

00:34:40.940 | Right? - Yeah.

00:34:41.780 | - You know, maybe you know this,

00:34:43.420 | when you open and close a car door,

00:34:45.460 | you know that thunk and you go bam,

00:34:47.100 | and you go, that feels solid, that feels real,

00:34:49.260 | and then you get this tinny car that's like ding,

00:34:52.260 | and you're like, does this feel safe?

00:34:54.260 | Does this feel like a value?

00:34:55.900 | And so when you have a device like that,

00:34:58.300 | and you wanna make sure that there's not too much air in it,

00:35:01.460 | you distributed the density of the masses in the right way,

00:35:05.660 | so it feels like it's the right thing.

00:35:07.500 | So you have to model battery life, costs,

00:35:11.500 | mass, sizes of different things,

00:35:16.100 | and then you have to also think about

00:35:17.380 | what the UI is gonna look like, right?

00:35:19.060 | So you have all of these constraints you're working,

00:35:21.180 | variables you're working with,

00:35:22.500 | and you have to kind of, you know,

00:35:24.260 | you can't get the perfect of everything.

00:35:26.300 | What's the best, you know, local maximum

00:35:29.260 | of all of these components that come together

00:35:31.300 | to provide an experience?

00:35:32.420 | - Local maxims, it's always trade-offs.

00:35:34.300 | What about buttons?

00:35:35.740 | - Buttons, well, there was also the buttons too, right?

00:35:37.900 | - Oh, by the way, a lot of these battles

00:35:39.540 | fought inside your mind, or is it with other people?

00:35:41.940 | Is it with Steve, is it lower, like what?

00:35:44.860 | - This was all independent.

00:35:46.140 | This was me before being able to present to Steve,

00:35:48.540 | 'cause I had to feel really confident

00:35:51.020 | that if I was gonna put this in front of him,

00:35:53.980 | that it could be made, right?

00:35:55.260 | So I had to convince myself,

00:35:56.980 | and go work through all the details,

00:35:58.620 | through the very, very rough mechanical design,

00:36:01.340 | electrical design, software things,

00:36:03.820 | because I didn't wanna present something

00:36:05.260 | that was gonna be fictional, right?

00:36:07.020 | My credibility would be like trashed, right?

00:36:10.180 | - So you mentioned convince yourself.

00:36:12.060 | You're painting this beautiful picture

00:36:15.700 | of a driven engineer, designer, futurist.

00:36:19.700 | How much doubt were you plagued by through that,

00:36:24.900 | like this is even doable?

00:36:26.380 | 'Cause it's not obvious that this is even doable.

00:36:29.900 | Like to do this at scale, to do this kind of thing,

00:36:33.100 | to make it sexy, to shovel the screen,

00:36:37.100 | the batteries, the storage, to make the interface,

00:36:42.580 | the hardware and the software interface work, all of that.

00:36:45.140 | I mean, I don't know, I would be overwhelmed

00:36:47.220 | by the doubt of that, because so many things have to work,

00:36:50.220 | plus the supply chain.

00:36:51.580 | - Like at that point, I wasn't getting

00:36:53.180 | into any of those details or anything.

00:36:54.980 | You know, there's the basic stuff

00:36:57.180 | that you have to put together.

00:36:58.620 | And then you have to, you know,

00:37:00.260 | through my learnings at General Magic

00:37:01.820 | and my learnings at Phillips and delivering, you know,

00:37:04.500 | multiple, you know, large-scale programs in manufacturing,

00:37:07.860 | you kind of get a rule of thumb

00:37:09.140 | and you know what to focus on at the beginning

00:37:11.260 | and what not to worry about over time.

00:37:13.460 | Like when I was early in my career,

00:37:14.780 | I worried about everything on the engineering details

00:37:16.900 | so much so that, you know, I would be a nervous wreck.

00:37:19.740 | Sooner or later, you learn how to filter out

00:37:21.660 | and figure out what to prioritize.

00:37:23.620 | And so 10 years later, you know,

00:37:25.260 | I was able to do a much better job

00:37:27.300 | of filtering out the things of like,

00:37:29.340 | we'll get to that in, you know, in weeks to come.

00:37:31.700 | But right now we got to like solve, you know,

00:37:33.820 | the very important things,

00:37:36.060 | which is, could this actually be something real

00:37:39.220 | and that you could deliver, you know,

00:37:40.780 | enough battery life, right?

00:37:42.700 | Enough of an interface, the right cost, right?

00:37:46.860 | And the right price point.

00:37:49.060 | - So you were sitting on a track record

00:37:51.620 | of successes and failures in your own mind

00:37:54.460 | where you had sort of already a confidence, a calmness,

00:37:59.460 | but still, was there a doubt that you can get this done?

00:38:03.340 | - Always, always.

00:38:05.180 | - How hard is it to achieve a sort of a confidence

00:38:08.460 | to a level where you could present it to Steve

00:38:10.300 | and actually believe that this is doable?

00:38:12.340 | Like, what, do you remember when you felt--

00:38:15.300 | - Yeah, that moment?

00:38:16.140 | - Yeah.

00:38:16.980 | - I think it was after I triple checked,

00:38:19.540 | I couldn't bring anyone in, right?

00:38:22.540 | I couldn't let anyone in on this.

00:38:24.500 | So it was just me.

00:38:25.940 | - Are they gonna trample on it, that kind of thing?

00:38:27.660 | Why?

00:38:28.500 | - No, no, no, no, because I couldn't bring any,

00:38:29.540 | when I mean bring anyone in on this,

00:38:31.260 | one, it was a highly confidential program inside Apple.

00:38:33.780 | There was like four people who knew about it, right?

00:38:36.540 | And so I couldn't bring anyone from Apple

00:38:38.220 | because I was a contractor.

00:38:40.060 | I couldn't bring anyone else from the outside world.

00:38:42.100 | I'm working for Apple and I'm under this crazy NDA, right?

00:38:45.460 | In this contract.

00:38:46.580 | So it was just, it was,

00:38:48.940 | so I'm doing this.

00:38:50.740 | Oh, and at the same time,

00:38:51.660 | I'm also buying every competitive product,

00:38:53.540 | MP3 player and tearing them all apart, right?

00:38:55.900 | Tore them all apart and looking at them

00:38:58.140 | and trying to learn from those as well.

00:39:00.100 | So it was all of this stuff in six weeks.

00:39:02.340 | So I didn't sleep, right?

00:39:05.380 | - Yeah, yeah.

00:39:06.420 | - But I was like, because I was trying to make this,

00:39:09.340 | I was envisioning this since the Nino, right?

00:39:12.740 | And I was like, oh my God, right?

00:39:15.220 | But there was another doubt that I had.

00:39:17.140 | And it wasn't just, could you make the product?

00:39:19.540 | But could Apple actually have the balls to make it?

00:39:24.540 | Because Apple was not the same company

00:39:27.220 | that you know it today in 2001.

00:39:31.500 | - Really?

00:39:32.340 | It was cautious, conservative, careful?

00:39:34.060 | - No, no, no.

00:39:34.900 | It was barely break-even.

00:39:36.340 | It was worth four or $5 billion company.

00:39:39.180 | - Oh, so the guts required there

00:39:41.100 | is not necessarily in the innovation.

00:39:43.060 | It's like, this is gonna cost a lot of money

00:39:45.260 | and we're gonna potentially lose all of it

00:39:47.140 | 'cause it'll be a flop.

00:39:49.660 | - Well, there's not just that, but there was only the Mac.

00:39:53.020 | And the Mac wasn't doing very well.

00:39:54.780 | There was less, it was about a 1%

00:39:57.580 | only in the US market share for the Mac, right?

00:40:01.060 | The company was in debt.

00:40:02.700 | Bill Gates had to give him a loan, right?

00:40:07.660 | Michael Dell at the time was saying,

00:40:09.820 | shut down the company

00:40:10.940 | and give the money back to the shareholders.

00:40:13.940 | So this is not the company that people go,

00:40:17.420 | oh my God, the iPhone came out.

00:40:18.900 | It's a very different level of confidence

00:40:20.660 | and financial situation that the company was in

00:40:24.340 | versus the iPod.

00:40:25.580 | - So given that, what was the conversation

00:40:27.620 | when you finally presented to Steve?

00:40:29.460 | What was that conversation like?

00:40:33.220 | - The conversation was, well, we went through it,

00:40:37.900 | the presentation and all that stuff happened.

00:40:40.820 | And he was just like,

00:40:42.420 | and he would flip through it real quick,

00:40:45.540 | throw the presentation aside and said,

00:40:47.220 | okay, let's talk about this, right?

00:40:49.740 | And so we went through it all.

00:40:51.380 | And one was a big conversation about Sony.

00:40:55.660 | And Sony was the number one in all audio categories,

00:41:00.380 | home, portable, whatever, in the world, okay?

00:41:03.860 | I had been already gone through 10 years of failure.

00:41:07.420 | And I was like, wait a second,

00:41:08.260 | how are we gonna compete with Sony?

00:41:11.420 | And I was always worried that Sony was gonna come out

00:41:14.300 | with whatever it was that we're gonna come out with,

00:41:16.100 | their MP3 player, and that was it, game over, right?

00:41:19.860 | And so I was like, Steve,

00:41:23.300 | and this is why it took me four weeks

00:41:26.220 | to finally sign on to join Apple

00:41:27.980 | after he green-lighted the iPod program in that meeting,

00:41:32.060 | was because I had built other things in the past

00:41:35.180 | at Philips, the Nino and Velo,

00:41:36.820 | but they didn't know how to sell it or market it.

00:41:38.820 | They didn't know how to retail it, right?

00:41:41.380 | So I was like, we could build this.

00:41:42.860 | And I was like, Steve, I'm pretty sure I can build this.

00:41:45.140 | I've done this before, but how are we gonna sell it?

00:41:49.020 | You have all your marketing dollars on the Mac.

00:41:51.380 | And he looked at me and he goes,

00:41:54.180 | you build this with a team and our team

00:41:56.940 | and Apple and just me, right?

00:41:59.580 | And I dedicate that we will make sure

00:42:03.020 | that at least two quarters of all marketing dollars

00:42:05.580 | will only go to this product and nothing else.

00:42:08.960 | - Wow.

00:42:10.360 | - Right?

00:42:11.200 | Mac was the lifeblood of all revenue of the company.

00:42:14.240 | - So Steve saw something special here.

00:42:17.080 | - Exactly.

00:42:18.440 | And he said, I'm going to commit all the marketing dollars.

00:42:20.880 | If you can deliver the experience

00:42:22.560 | that we're all talking about, if we can do that,

00:42:25.040 | and that was Jeff Robbin as well,

00:42:26.160 | 'cause iPod would have never happened without iTunes.

00:42:29.200 | You know, people don't understand that was a bundle.

00:42:31.300 | You couldn't do one without the other and vice versa.

00:42:33.720 | So Jeff and I were, you know,

00:42:35.200 | if Jeff and you can present and bring that experience

00:42:39.520 | to life, I will put all the marketing dollars behind it.

00:42:42.660 | - When did the marriage of iPod and iTunes sort of,

00:42:47.160 | what was that birth of ideas that made up iTunes?

00:42:53.240 | - iTunes existed before the iPod, okay?

00:42:56.480 | And so Jeff Robbin had his company,

00:42:58.600 | oh man, I can't remember the name of it, but it was bought.

00:43:00.880 | He was making a MP3 player app for the Mac.

00:43:04.880 | Steve saw it because there was MP3 player apps

00:43:08.240 | like Winamp and other things that were on the PC,

00:43:10.640 | real player, and Steve saw that going on

00:43:13.960 | and saw that Jeff and his small team had this,

00:43:17.840 | I can't remember, Sound something.

00:43:19.780 | Anyways, he bought that and that became the basis of iTunes

00:43:23.000 | and then Jeff ran all of iTunes.

00:43:24.920 | And so what happened specifically there was

00:43:27.960 | they were starting to hook up

00:43:28.960 | to all these third-party MP3 players

00:43:31.380 | 'cause there's a lot of Korean, the MP man,

00:43:34.600 | like Walkman, but MP man, all these,

00:43:36.800 | and they were trying to hook 'em up

00:43:38.320 | and they were like, these are horrible experiences.

00:43:41.160 | And through that, and they said iTunes was something

00:43:44.880 | that was gonna help grow the Mac base

00:43:46.560 | because we were trying to get more people on the Mac.

00:43:49.440 | So this program would be a great new thing

00:43:51.560 | you could add to the Mac.

00:43:53.080 | And there was also internet connectivity

00:43:54.640 | at the time for the iMac.

00:43:56.080 | And so they did that and then they're trying

00:43:58.360 | to do these hookups.

00:44:00.160 | They weren't going well.

00:44:01.300 | And that's when they said, we need to build our own.

00:44:04.540 | Or Steve said, we need to build our own

00:44:06.180 | since these are such horrible experiences.

00:44:08.040 | People don't wanna just burn CDs from iTunes.

00:44:10.680 | We need to get that music on the go,

00:44:12.940 | but in an Apple fashion.

00:44:14.420 | That's when I was called to come in to do that,

00:44:18.420 | the iPod thing, after the six weeks.

00:44:20.900 | Then he already envisioned, I'm sure he had it envisioned

00:44:24.300 | 'cause they were trying to do this thing.

00:44:26.740 | Okay, now that's it.

00:44:28.380 | iTunes, what, it wasn't called iPod yet.

00:44:32.500 | What would become the iPod?

00:44:33.840 | That is gonna be the thing that then propels Apple

00:44:36.600 | into this new thing because you're gonna bring

00:44:38.160 | all these music lovers in that are gonna need

00:44:40.400 | their next generation or Sony Walkman version 2.0.

00:44:45.400 | - So when you look at, again, apologies to linger on iPod,

00:44:51.720 | but it's one of the great inventions in tech history.

00:44:58.240 | What wisdom do you draw from that whole process

00:45:00.800 | about spotting an idea?

00:45:03.660 | This is something you talk about in your book, Build.

00:45:07.160 | How do you know that an idea is brilliant?

00:45:11.480 | At which stage?

00:45:12.800 | When did you know it was a good idea?

00:45:14.640 | (laughing)

00:45:17.680 | And maybe is there some phase shifts?

00:45:22.000 | First you complete out, then maybe, hmm.

00:45:25.160 | And then maybe it becomes more than a hmm

00:45:27.160 | and becomes a little more confidence, that kind of stuff.

00:45:29.920 | And also wisdom about who to talk to

00:45:34.040 | so they don't trample the idea in the early stages,

00:45:37.880 | that kind of stuff.

00:45:39.000 | Any thoughts about this?

00:45:40.240 | - We could go on, again, how long do you wanna go?

00:45:42.740 | (laughing)

00:45:43.720 | - This is a Netflix series, I told you.

00:45:45.940 | Multi-season.

00:45:47.280 | - So a lot of lessons learned over those years

00:45:50.460 | of failure and success.

00:45:51.980 | But the first thing it starts with,

00:45:55.840 | there's a whole chapter called Great Ideas Chase You.

00:45:58.720 | And so it kinda goes into in Build.

00:46:00.720 | And it goes through kinda chapter and verse

00:46:03.080 | about all of those, how Nest became into being.

00:46:07.440 | But let's talk about it specifically for iPod.

00:46:10.860 | So for me, I always had pain,

00:46:13.560 | the pain of carrying these CDs everywhere.

00:46:15.800 | And I had the joy of music.

00:46:18.520 | If you could say all of a sudden I could get

00:46:21.780 | the music I love all the time in a portable package

00:46:25.820 | and I can have all the music I love all the time.

00:46:28.080 | I was solving a pain, which was,

00:46:30.600 | for me it was thousands of CDs,

00:46:31.840 | other people might be 10 or 15 CDs.

00:46:33.980 | And then I can have the joy of all this music uninterrupted.

00:46:38.160 | That was taking the pain, making a painkiller for it.

00:46:43.240 | And then at the end was a superpower,

00:46:45.380 | an emotional superpower that said,

00:46:47.160 | oh my, this is something different.

00:46:50.580 | So when you can actually focus on a pain

00:46:54.840 | and get a painkiller for it, not a vitamin.

00:46:57.400 | So the difference between a painkiller

00:46:58.800 | and a vitamin is very clear.

00:46:59.960 | One, you need, I gotta get rid of this pain.

00:47:02.900 | A vitamin, maybe it works, maybe it doesn't,

00:47:05.340 | maybe somebody needs it, maybe not,

00:47:06.840 | it's all marketing story, right?

00:47:08.960 | So you start with the pain, give 'em a painkiller,

00:47:11.600 | and hopefully if you can do it in the right way,

00:47:13.820 | you give them a superpower, an emotional superpower.

00:47:16.580 | That is always, and that's the way to know

00:47:21.580 | that you're hitting on something that's really powerful.

00:47:23.740 | - The pain and the joy.

00:47:25.540 | - Exactly.

00:47:26.940 | - Are you always aware of the pain?

00:47:30.360 | So it seems like a lot of great products,

00:47:34.300 | it's like we do a lot of painful things

00:47:36.340 | and we just kind of assume that's the way

00:47:40.000 | it's supposed to be, like with much autonomous vehicles,

00:47:42.620 | we all assume we're supposed to be driving.

00:47:45.260 | And it doesn't, you don't think of it as a pain.

00:47:50.500 | - Right, well you've habituated it away.

00:47:53.740 | - Yeah. - You've habituated it away.

00:47:55.140 | For me, when I go to other places,

00:47:58.860 | living in Bali or living in Paris or whatever,

00:48:01.060 | and I'm not driving, I'm walking or I'm using a scooter

00:48:05.100 | or what have you, different thing,

00:48:06.820 | and you go, oh my God, when you left that environment,

00:48:10.220 | because everyone else is driving all the time,

00:48:12.340 | you're like, that's what you do.

00:48:13.580 | And you find out there's other ways of living

00:48:15.620 | and there's freedom when you get rid of that,

00:48:17.580 | and you're like, oh my God, I didn't know

00:48:20.620 | that this was so much better.

00:48:21.780 | So there's something in the book that's called out

00:48:24.740 | and I deemed it the virus of doubt.

00:48:27.540 | And what the virus of doubt is, is when there's pain

00:48:31.020 | and it's been habituated away,

00:48:33.240 | you use the right marketing messages

00:48:35.900 | to bring people back to that initial experience they had

00:48:39.500 | or the initial experience that they had of that pain.

00:48:42.220 | Do you remember when the first time you did blah

00:48:45.580 | and it felt like this, right?

00:48:48.980 | And then you reawaken that habituated pain.

00:48:53.460 | And people, and it becomes visceral,

00:48:57.020 | and then they're like, oh, yes, I hate that.

00:49:01.180 | And then you go, now I have the painkiller

00:49:04.060 | and the joy for you.

00:49:05.780 | That's when it all comes together and it goes.

00:49:08.080 | - Let me, on this, on the pain and the joy

00:49:12.740 | that's brilliantly put, you mentioned selling

00:49:17.740 | and marketing, right?

00:49:19.740 | Marketing dollars.

00:49:21.220 | I have a love-hate relationship with marketing,

00:49:25.260 | like with a lot of things that require artistic genius.

00:49:30.940 | To me, the best marketing, I suppose,

00:49:34.100 | is the product itself and then word of mouth.

00:49:37.460 | So like create a thing that people love.

00:49:40.420 | - Oh, absolutely, that's fundamental.

00:49:41.940 | - Yeah, but so any other marketing requires genius

00:49:46.580 | to be any extra thing.

00:49:48.460 | 'Cause to me, I don't, yeah, maybe you can,

00:49:53.460 | by way of question, 'cause you're,

00:49:56.380 | (laughing)

00:49:58.220 | I'm just speaking off the top of my head as a consumer.

00:50:01.660 | What is great marketing?

00:50:03.700 | What does it take to reveal the pain and the joy of a thing?

00:50:08.300 | - Okay, it all starts at the beginning.

00:50:11.860 | And let me give you, I'm gonna give you

00:50:13.420 | a couple of different ways of looking at it, okay?

00:50:15.900 | And again, we might go a little long here.

00:50:18.500 | So just stay tuned in.

00:50:22.260 | So the first thing is-- - Start at the beginning.

00:50:23.900 | - Let's start at the beginning.

00:50:26.060 | In the early part of my career,

00:50:28.300 | like General Magic and Phillips and what have you,

00:50:31.200 | and especially when I was a teenager,

00:50:36.420 | when I was making my own chips and stuff like that,

00:50:39.920 | I really worried about just putting cool things together.

00:50:44.100 | I'm like, that, when I put those two cool things together

00:50:46.580 | as an engineer, you go, that's cool.

00:50:48.900 | And then I would talk to the other friends

00:50:50.500 | who might be geeks too, and they go, yeah, that's cool.

00:50:53.260 | Because we knew the bits, so we put them together

00:50:57.060 | and that's a new way of doing it.

00:50:58.260 | And you're like, wow, that's all what?

00:51:02.860 | It's not why.

00:51:03.960 | Why are you doing this?

00:51:06.380 | We know what we're doing, but we don't know

00:51:08.340 | why we're doing it 'cause we're not articulating it

00:51:10.340 | for ourselves 'cause it's just something

00:51:12.180 | we're like putting it together and like, yeah, that's cool

00:51:14.160 | because we think we're solving some problem we have,

00:51:17.920 | but we're not really articulating it.

00:51:19.700 | So what normally happens, and this happens

00:51:21.860 | 'cause we invest in so many companies around the world,

00:51:24.940 | you have these brilliant engineers, designers,

00:51:26.980 | scientists, researchers, they put together these what's.

00:51:31.560 | And then they develop it, develop it, develop it,

00:51:35.780 | and then at the end, they call in marketing

00:51:38.180 | and say, now tell a story about this

00:51:40.700 | and let's get it out to the world, okay?

00:51:42.920 | What happens then is marketing's like,

00:51:46.380 | well, why do people need this?

00:51:48.300 | Tell us why people need it.

00:51:50.220 | And so they create a story around this product,

00:51:53.540 | but the product was born out of what's, not why's.

00:51:56.920 | And so they start telling, marketing starts telling a story

00:52:00.780 | and it turns out to be a fictional story usually.

00:52:03.520 | They say, oh, this is going to do these things.

00:52:06.200 | The product comes and is delivered.

00:52:07.940 | And it falls flat on its face

00:52:10.100 | because the marketing doesn't match the product

00:52:12.940 | because they weren't both created

00:52:14.500 | at the beginning together, right?

00:52:17.960 | There are what's when you create a product,

00:52:19.700 | but there's a lot more why's,

00:52:21.380 | and the why's help inform the what's.

00:52:23.740 | And the why's also inform the marketing.

00:52:27.040 | - So that's what you mean deeply,

00:52:31.280 | we should start at the beginning.

00:52:32.640 | So the designer should be also the marketer.

00:52:35.620 | The engineer should be the marketer.

00:52:37.980 | - Exactly, stop impressing the geek next to you.

00:52:40.580 | What is the superpower you're bringing

00:52:42.560 | or the pain you're killing for the end customer, right?

00:52:47.560 | Now let's contrast that.

00:52:49.960 | Think about a movie.

00:52:53.040 | A movie starts with a treatment.

00:52:54.900 | It has an audience that says the audience,

00:52:56.860 | here's the characters, here's the storyline, the plot,

00:52:59.200 | here's the arc of the story, right?

00:53:02.700 | It pulls that all out.

00:53:04.620 | Then there's a script that's written.

00:53:07.260 | And that script is then produced.

00:53:09.540 | And then you add all the flourishes and what have you,

00:53:11.540 | music and graphics and what have you, right?

00:53:14.740 | And then it comes out,

00:53:15.820 | and then there's the marketing of the movie.

00:53:17.260 | And that story was created at the beginning.

00:53:19.700 | What you need to do if you're gonna do a great product

00:53:22.780 | is create that treatment for your product.

00:53:24.960 | And I call that the press release.

00:53:26.980 | Do the press release, like the treatment,

00:53:30.500 | who's the audience, what features do you have,

00:53:33.260 | what pains are you solving for people?

00:53:35.020 | To have the virus of doubt there to remind them

00:53:37.820 | what pains they have and why you're solving them,

00:53:40.060 | the price, all of those things.

00:53:41.780 | And you use that as the bar,

00:53:45.300 | the measuring stick for what you do during development.

00:53:48.540 | Because what happens that along the route, you know this,

00:53:52.620 | oh, we're not gonna be able to get that feature done on time.

00:53:55.420 | Throw that one overboard, we have to hit the date.

00:53:58.500 | Oh, we're not sure this product's right yet.

00:54:01.020 | Add another feature.

00:54:02.620 | Add another feature creep, right?

00:54:05.340 | If you don't have that story you know you're gonna tell

00:54:07.300 | at the beginning, you don't have that bar, right?

00:54:11.460 | And then at the end, you don't know when you're done

00:54:13.740 | if you don't have that story.

00:54:14.580 | So you can actually look at that press release.

00:54:16.920 | You change it over time, that draft.

00:54:21.900 | But then when you're done, you know the what's and the why's,

00:54:24.880 | you have all the things, the audience and everything,

00:54:26.900 | and then you can give that to marketing and say,

00:54:29.500 | well, and marketing's been along the way, let's be clear.

00:54:32.100 | But then everybody's in sync.

00:54:33.900 | And that's when you can tell a cohesive non-fictional story

00:54:37.300 | about, and the product delivers on that story,

00:54:39.580 | or hopefully over delivers on that story.

00:54:41.980 | - So in the drafting from the beginning to the end

00:54:46.520 | of the press release, what does a successful team look like?

00:54:49.820 | Who's part of the draft?

00:54:51.500 | Is it engineers, designers?

00:54:53.540 | What's the purpose of a marketing department in a company,

00:54:57.780 | small, let's say small company, but more than two people?

00:55:02.420 | So from where does the why come from?

00:55:06.860 | Should it always come from the designer,

00:55:08.780 | or should there be a marketing person

00:55:10.540 | that steps in and asks the question?

00:55:13.620 | So I'll just keep asking random questions.

00:55:16.060 | - I know these are great questions.

00:55:17.860 | So, 'cause you're just like, I'm like,

00:55:20.060 | I can't wait to tell you the answer.

00:55:22.180 | So it's in the book as well.

00:55:23.740 | But you have to separate out

00:55:25.740 | the various functions of marketing.

00:55:27.780 | When, that's what I thought.

00:55:30.540 | I was like, marketing's marketing.

00:55:31.820 | You know, and I was, and it's really not.

00:55:34.380 | There's so many disciplines, just like in engineering,

00:55:36.580 | mechanical, electrical, software, and even software.

00:55:39.420 | It's, you know, are you cloud services,

00:55:41.660 | firmware, applications?

00:55:43.660 | Marketing has that much diversity as well, okay?

00:55:47.060 | And you have to honor that.

00:55:48.940 | And so there is marketing communications,

00:55:52.340 | like PR, press, press.

00:55:54.660 | There is social marketing.

00:55:57.900 | There is a marketing creative, right?

00:56:00.940 | There's marketing activation.

00:56:02.740 | But there's another thing that also comes out,

00:56:06.460 | and people confuse it with marketing,

00:56:10.420 | which is called product marketing or product management.

00:56:14.140 | And product management or product marketing

00:56:16.460 | is the voice of the customer.

00:56:18.060 | They're the person who sits there

00:56:21.980 | and listens to what's going on

00:56:23.380 | in the competition, in the marketplace,

00:56:26.140 | understanding the needs and those pains of the customer.

00:56:29.180 | And they're representing them in every single meeting

00:56:32.340 | so things don't get off track, right?

00:56:35.620 | So that, and they're creating the messages,

00:56:39.020 | not the marketing.

00:56:40.060 | What happens is there's messages

00:56:41.340 | that product marketing creates.

00:56:42.580 | Like, those are the deep messages.

00:56:43.980 | Like, we need to save 20% of energy, let's say, right?

00:56:48.780 | And then marketing turns that into something

00:56:50.860 | that's with creative and everything

00:56:52.980 | and brings that message across.

00:56:54.260 | Maybe it doesn't say that,

00:56:55.140 | but it comes maybe visually or some other way.

00:56:58.180 | So product management does that

00:57:00.620 | and holds that press release along the route

00:57:05.460 | and making sure that we're tracking.

00:57:07.700 | And then also marketing is tracking with that press release

00:57:10.220 | to make sure they're not telling a fictional story, right?

00:57:12.780 | 'Cause they can also add extra adjectives or something,

00:57:15.900 | and then the product can't deliver that.

00:57:17.380 | It's like, no, no, no, no, no.

00:57:18.820 | Keeps everybody in check.

00:57:19.660 | - It has to be grounded to the press release,

00:57:21.300 | to the raw sort of ideas.

00:57:22.140 | - Right, to the customer needs, right?

00:57:24.100 | 'Cause they're always representing the customer.

00:57:25.980 | So you have to have a product manager.

00:57:28.740 | Typically, that's the founder, right, in the beginning.

00:57:32.260 | And then over time, you hire a product management team

00:57:36.500 | to then really watch over this the whole way.

00:57:40.260 | And they are talking to customer support.

00:57:42.740 | They're talking to engineering.

00:57:43.700 | They're talking to design.

00:57:45.180 | They're talking to sales and marketing.

00:57:47.660 | And they are always in the mix.

00:57:50.580 | And it's the hardest thing to hire for.

00:57:52.540 | - Ooh, yeah.

00:57:53.500 | So they have this very important job

00:57:55.660 | of developing and maintaining the why.

00:57:58.980 | - Exactly.

00:57:59.860 | - Why is it the hardest to hire for?

00:58:01.700 | - Because you have to understand.

00:58:03.580 | First, nobody reports to you.

00:58:05.160 | - You're alone.

00:58:07.380 | - So you're alone, and you have to build great ties

00:58:10.580 | with all of these different functions.

00:58:13.780 | You have to understand what they do,

00:58:15.940 | be empathetic with what they do,

00:58:17.700 | and you have to project the customer's empathy

00:58:21.980 | or empathy for the customer to them and tell them why

00:58:25.340 | and why this customer needs this, why this doesn't work,

00:58:28.740 | and so that they learn more.

00:58:30.300 | They're not just doing,

00:58:31.140 | but they learn about the customer's point of view

00:58:33.860 | and stand in their shoes to be able to then

00:58:37.220 | make better decisions on the engineering details

00:58:39.580 | or the operational details, customer support details,

00:58:42.620 | so they understand.

00:58:45.820 | If they're not the customer that it's intended for,

00:58:48.500 | they start to live through their eyes

00:58:51.620 | and see through their eyes of that customer

00:58:53.820 | so they make better decisions.

00:58:55.140 | - And there's probably fascinating, beautiful tensions

00:58:59.500 | between that and sort of the engineers,

00:59:03.540 | oh, that's cool, sort of the developing the what.

00:59:08.220 | - Exactly.

00:59:09.260 | - Which makes it an extra hard job, I'm sure.

00:59:11.900 | - Exactly.

00:59:12.740 | - Can I ask a sort of a little bit of a personal question?

00:59:15.780 | One subfield of marketing, you mentioned comms and PR.

00:59:19.000 | (sighs)

00:59:22.740 | How do I ask this?

00:59:23.580 | - I can hear your struggle in your sigh.

00:59:26.200 | - Why or do the comms and PR folks sometimes

00:59:32.940 | kill the heart and soul of the magic that makes a company?

00:59:41.480 | Or is that wrong to say?

00:59:45.140 | Give me an example.

00:59:46.700 | - I will say the spirit of the example,

00:59:48.980 | which is it feels like often the jobs of communications

00:59:53.980 | is to provide caution.

00:59:57.620 | It almost works together with legal to say--

01:00:01.300 | - A shield.

01:00:02.140 | - Yeah, we probably should not say this.

01:00:06.520 | Let's be careful, let's be careful.

01:00:09.180 | Now, that makes sense, except in this modern world,

01:00:15.180 | authenticity is extremely valuable.

01:00:20.180 | And revealing the beauty that is in the engineering,

01:00:24.980 | the beauty of the ideas, the chaos of the ideas,

01:00:29.900 | I think requires throwing caution to the wind

01:00:33.380 | to some degree.

01:00:34.700 | - I agree.

01:00:35.540 | - And I just find that, boy, I mean, it's really,

01:00:41.100 | so to push back on myself,

01:00:43.020 | I think it's an extremely difficult job

01:00:45.420 | because people hold you responsible

01:00:47.500 | if you're doing communications when you take risks.

01:00:51.500 | - Right.

01:00:52.340 | - And especially when they fail.

01:00:54.820 | So it's like, it's a difficult job.

01:00:57.540 | So I understand why people become cautious,

01:00:59.580 | but to me, communications is about taking big risks

01:01:03.540 | and throwing caution to the wind at its best

01:01:06.100 | because your job is to communicate in the long term,

01:01:11.100 | communicate the genius, the joy,

01:01:16.020 | the genius of the product.

01:01:19.300 | - Right.

01:01:20.140 | - And that sometimes is attention with caution.

01:01:23.180 | Sorry, so I, because I've gotten a chance

01:01:26.420 | to meet a lot of very interesting people

01:01:28.620 | and interesting engineering teams and so on,

01:01:31.300 | I look at what they're doing

01:01:33.340 | and I look at what's being communicated

01:01:35.780 | and it's just, there's a mismatch

01:01:37.700 | because the communication is a lot more boring.

01:01:40.140 | It's like, there's something very,

01:01:43.140 | like just straight up boring

01:01:45.940 | about the way they're communicating because of caution.

01:01:49.820 | - Okay.

01:01:50.780 | You have just teed me up or another diatribe, okay?

01:01:54.740 | I'm gonna get on my podium here.

01:01:58.140 | - Yes, please.

01:01:58.980 | It all comes out of the leader.

01:02:04.420 | If the leader doesn't know how to storytell

01:02:06.420 | or the leader doesn't know how to do bold storytelling,

01:02:09.780 | then you get even more conservatism

01:02:14.340 | from the PR and communications folks

01:02:17.380 | because they're always, so if you have a,

01:02:19.540 | not a bold leader, they're always going to be a filter.

01:02:23.660 | Right, they're always gonna try to smooth things out

01:02:25.900 | and take off the rough edges and try,

01:02:27.660 | so they're gonna be even more,

01:02:28.740 | if you have a conservative messaging leader,

01:02:31.540 | you're gonna have even a more conservative

01:02:33.900 | communications department.

01:02:35.300 | Why, because they wanna keep their jobs.

01:02:37.300 | Okay, it's really simple.

01:02:40.140 | They gotta keep their jobs.

01:02:41.060 | If they say one wrong thing, it could be the end of it.

01:02:44.460 | So if you have a very conservative leader,

01:02:46.780 | they're going to be even more conservative.

01:02:48.940 | If you have a bold leader, they will be,

01:02:51.020 | oh, they'll always take a little more conservative bend,

01:02:54.260 | but you're still gonna have bold communications.

01:02:56.460 | - Yeah, that's brilliant.

01:02:57.700 | - Okay, so it starts with the leader.

01:03:00.220 | Now, that said, when you think about the messages

01:03:05.220 | and the joy and revealing things, right,

01:03:11.260 | many of these leaders don't tell great stories.

01:03:18.580 | So what we do at FutureShape, our investment firm,

01:03:22.380 | is we take those scientists, all of,

01:03:24.340 | and the great minds and everything,

01:03:25.820 | and what do we surround them with?

01:03:28.220 | Marketing and communication people and storytellers

01:03:31.500 | to give them the confidence to tell a much broader story

01:03:36.020 | about the impacts of what they're creating

01:03:39.100 | and how big the global change can be with those technologies

01:03:43.700 | because usually they don't,

01:03:45.340 | those leaders who created those technologies,

01:03:47.620 | they don't really know how to communicate really well

01:03:49.500 | and they don't feel very comfortable in how they speak.

01:03:52.780 | - Yeah, so it's interesting 'cause stories,

01:03:55.660 | I'm a huge fan of stories.

01:03:57.860 | Have you ever read the book "Story" by Robert McKee?

01:04:01.660 | You should read this, and this is what I read when I was 26.

01:04:04.660 | "Story" by Robert McKee, and it's a book

01:04:08.460 | all about the ways to do script writing,

01:04:12.500 | the prototypical types of scripts, drama, comedy,

01:04:16.700 | and how it's been shown over millennia

01:04:20.580 | how these stories are done.

01:04:21.740 | It's a fascinating thing and it gives you an insight to,

01:04:26.060 | and it's written for obviously Hollywood

01:04:28.660 | and movies and things like that,

01:04:30.620 | but it's incredibly useful for what we do

01:04:33.900 | as designers and engineers and technology leaders.

01:04:37.980 | - There's some aspect in this modern day

01:04:40.300 | where this podcast and so on,

01:04:42.640 | what I love is the humans behind the story too.

01:04:47.300 | So some part of the story is the human beings.

01:04:49.540 | So humor, drama,

01:04:55.660 | heartbreak, hope.

01:04:57.380 | - Emotions.

01:04:58.220 | - Emotions.

01:04:59.540 | That's not just about painting a beautiful story

01:05:03.060 | that's flawless, it's--

01:05:05.740 | - Vulnerability.

01:05:06.620 | - Yep, it's being a dreamer, over-promising,

01:05:11.620 | and then failing, so changing your mind,

01:05:16.220 | realizing just the whole of it,

01:05:18.540 | and then also being, depending, of course,

01:05:21.500 | where your personality is, embracing the full richness

01:05:26.020 | and the complexity of the personality of the leader

01:05:28.620 | or the different people involved.

01:05:30.300 | I mean, that's all part of it.

01:05:31.780 | Like you can't just present this beautiful,

01:05:34.740 | always Pleasantville view of a product.

01:05:37.860 | There has to be this humanity that's part of it,

01:05:42.860 | the full rollercoaster of the humanity,

01:05:45.940 | which I think has been very difficult

01:05:48.460 | for companies to embrace.

01:05:50.420 | I'm not sure why.

01:05:52.420 | Maybe it's just an old-school way of doing things

01:05:54.700 | that people think that we present a facade

01:05:57.620 | and we generate the story and we tell the story

01:06:02.860 | as opposed to sort of--

01:06:04.700 | - Well, we learn, especially in the technical world,

01:06:07.460 | we present the story as it's faster, it's smaller,

01:06:11.300 | it's longer battery life, it's bits and numbers

01:06:14.580 | and metrics.

01:06:19.020 | That resonates, sure, with other geeks.

01:06:22.380 | What resonates with the planet?

01:06:26.740 | It's all emotions, right?

01:06:28.540 | And if you can bring a great emotional story

01:06:31.220 | but with a great rational story at the same time,

01:06:33.780 | why you should do this, and it's like, oh my God,

01:06:36.940 | you bring that superpower, that joy, then it all hangs.

01:06:41.340 | - And there's personal drama too, like the human.

01:06:45.020 | - Right.

01:06:46.060 | Here's the pain I had, remember that thing?

01:06:48.740 | - And I mean, just, you're obviously

01:06:53.740 | this extremely well-known human being

01:06:59.020 | that's behind a lot of these great inventions

01:07:02.460 | of the technology world,

01:07:03.580 | but you're also just a human being.

01:07:04.860 | You have a clearly, like, a distinct personality

01:07:09.380 | that comes through, like your eyes light up,

01:07:11.840 | just the way you communicate, it's you.

01:07:15.620 | - Thank you.

01:07:16.460 | - Some people are more stoic, some people are,

01:07:18.700 | like Elon is all over the place, the chaos.

01:07:23.000 | Steve Jobs, there's a very, I mean,

01:07:27.140 | it's hard to put into words, I can be poetic and so on,

01:07:29.460 | but there's a very distinct, comes on stage,

01:07:32.860 | that personality right there, that's not just the product,

01:07:35.860 | that's something else too.

01:07:37.220 | - Correct.

01:07:38.060 | - And you have to reveal that a little bit

01:07:40.180 | and allow people to reveal that a little bit

01:07:43.140 | and just let them be themselves.

01:07:45.860 | - Well, look, why do I think your podcast is so amazing?

01:07:50.860 | Because you are yourself.

01:07:53.060 | You talk about yourself, you bring your emotions into it,

01:07:55.620 | and you don't modulate it, you're you, right?

01:08:00.500 | It comes through, it's true, it feels right.

01:08:03.980 | You are you, you dress the way you wanna dress,

01:08:07.540 | you say, "This is me and this is all of me,"

01:08:09.620 | and you become vulnerable, right?

01:08:11.540 | It's much easier to do a podcast like that

01:08:14.060 | than run a very large company where a lot of people

01:08:17.300 | would feel the pain if you make,

01:08:18.780 | if you say something stupid.

01:08:20.220 | - Right.

01:08:21.060 | - So it's much more easy to be afraid and be careful.

01:08:26.060 | But nevertheless, the same applies.

01:08:29.800 | Authenticity and risk-taking is the only way, unfortunately,

01:08:36.140 | to be successful in the long term.

01:08:39.540 | Let me, just 'cause we're jumping all over the place,

01:08:41.460 | (Lex laughing)

01:08:42.940 | just linger on the iPod.

01:08:44.660 | - Sure. - One of the great designs,

01:08:46.460 | broadly speaking in the word design of all time,

01:08:50.820 | what does it take to design a great product?

01:08:53.700 | If you look, we could jump around, we could look at Nest,

01:08:56.700 | we can look at iPod, we can look at iPhone,

01:08:59.620 | and many of the great things you design,

01:09:02.620 | but just looking at that one transformational thing,

01:09:08.220 | what can you say about what it takes to do a great design?

01:09:13.220 | Or maybe what makes a great design?

01:09:15.200 | - Well, we talked about a painkiller,

01:09:22.900 | and we talked about that joy that comes from it.

01:09:27.820 | But then there's the behind the scenes, there's the team,

01:09:33.180 | there's everyone who brings it to life,

01:09:35.300 | brings that story to life.

01:09:37.840 | If you have a great story, and you know the why,

01:09:41.840 | then you can communicate it to those people

01:09:44.240 | who are working on it.

01:09:46.000 | And then they bring their own thing into it, right?

01:09:49.060 | It becomes emotional for them too.

01:09:51.180 | It's not just a job, it's a mission.

01:09:53.380 | And so many of the details that are born

01:09:58.400 | out of these early prototypes,

01:10:02.000 | these things that you still haven't given full form to,

01:10:04.840 | there may be 80% done, or maybe even 60% done,

01:10:08.880 | but you can see enough in there.

01:10:10.720 | Then you take those great ideas,

01:10:12.720 | and you give the why's to the team.

01:10:14.960 | And so that they feel it, they can understand it,

01:10:18.520 | then they bring their best and their ideas to the table,

01:10:22.640 | and then you can select from those,

01:10:24.640 | and you can then start to,

01:10:26.160 | it could be just a pixel change.

01:10:29.840 | It could be a slight change on how you do the audio

01:10:32.400 | for the feedback, or maybe a curve on the mechanics,

01:10:35.840 | or something like that of how it feels.

01:10:38.200 | Because everybody brings themselves

01:10:39.920 | trying to feel this thing.

01:10:41.720 | They're not just doing something

01:10:42.720 | that someone told them to do.

01:10:44.480 | If you can instill that mission, and that why into that team,

01:10:48.200 | it doesn't have to be big, you get, I feel, a 10X.

01:10:52.520 | Everyone comes together in a special way,

01:10:54.960 | and the magic is created.

01:10:58.760 | You put the love into it,

01:11:00.680 | the customer feels the love on the other side.

01:11:02.640 | - So the,

01:11:03.880 | making the team,

01:11:08.160 | like taking them in onto the vision, onto the why,

01:11:11.760 | now they feel, all the little details we think of,

01:11:16.240 | the original iPod, and all the many generations after,

01:11:21.240 | all those little details are,

01:11:25.320 | in them is the emotion of the engineers and the designers.

01:11:29.680 | It's their baby.

01:11:30.600 | - Working nights, struggling, this isn't right.

01:11:34.160 | Like you said, changing little pixels here and there,

01:11:37.080 | changing the shape of things,

01:11:40.080 | changing the feel of things,

01:11:42.440 | like the materials, the, I don't know,

01:11:47.080 | just everything on the software,

01:11:48.320 | and the heart of the packaging.

01:11:49.520 | - The words on the packaging.

01:11:51.520 | - Just everything.

01:11:52.360 | - The words on the website.

01:11:53.880 | - And always jumping from the very specific detail problem

01:11:57.240 | to the big picture, how the thing feels, the overall.

01:12:00.200 | - Always jumping back and forth.

01:12:01.600 | What does it look like to the customer?

01:12:02.960 | How are we gonna implement it in the most efficient way?

01:12:07.680 | 'Cause a lot of the stuff you don't know

01:12:10.360 | is some of that stuff is hacked in,

01:12:12.520 | maybe hacked in at the end.

01:12:13.720 | It may not be the most beautiful architecture

01:12:17.040 | that a geek would look at and go,

01:12:17.960 | "Oh my God, that's so beautiful,"

01:12:19.760 | 'cause we can look at and visualize

01:12:21.400 | this incredible software stack or hardware stack.

01:12:24.480 | Some of it could just be hacked in.

01:12:26.680 | You make it better over time,

01:12:28.280 | but it was that brilliant thing,

01:12:29.280 | and we gotta get that in,

01:12:30.600 | because that's the way you do it now,

01:12:32.240 | and we'll make it more efficient later.

01:12:34.200 | - Maybe this is a good moment to draw a distinction

01:12:38.600 | between design and engineering,

01:12:40.240 | and does such a distinction even exist?

01:12:42.480 | Are these distinct disciplines or no?

01:12:46.400 | - I don't think they're distinct.

01:12:47.880 | I think they're different types of design.

01:12:49.960 | I think there's always this idea of this,

01:12:54.960 | oh, on the mount, designer, and it all comes down,

01:12:58.400 | and it all flows down like some magic.

01:13:00.720 | There are electrical designers, there's AI designers,

01:13:05.360 | there is data scientist designers.

01:13:07.760 | Everybody has design, and there's a chapter in the book

01:13:10.600 | all about that, actually, that it's not just,

01:13:14.120 | you go to the mount, and it comes down,

01:13:15.760 | and you're enlightened.

01:13:17.520 | It's each person brings their form of design

01:13:20.760 | and their craft, 'cause if they're really good,

01:13:24.120 | they're artists in their own right.

01:13:25.480 | They're not just engineers, they're not just designers,

01:13:27.680 | they're artists, they're empathetic,

01:13:29.560 | they really wanna bring their best.

01:13:30.920 | A lot of the best engineers I have are not the technical,

01:13:33.640 | or that I've worked with, are not the technical

01:13:36.360 | gotta get it exactly right.

01:13:38.200 | They're the artists, they came from music,

01:13:39.840 | or they came from other things, and they see that.

01:13:43.400 | When you work with very rigid engineers,

01:13:47.000 | this is the way, the only way, la la la,

01:13:49.440 | those are not the engineers I wanna work with.

01:13:52.400 | - They're all a bit artists at heart.

01:13:54.760 | - Right, they understand the practicalness.

01:13:59.040 | They don't have to have the rigidity of,

01:14:01.240 | this is the way it's done.

01:14:03.440 | If you're building something new, all new and revolutionary,

01:14:08.920 | none of us are experts at it.

01:14:10.440 | And if you come with that expert mindset, just tell me,

01:14:14.400 | and I can give you a story,

01:14:15.400 | I should probably give you that story,

01:14:17.320 | about that if you come with the expert, and I'm the expert,

01:14:21.200 | when you're doing something no one's ever done before,

01:14:23.760 | I don't want you on the team.

01:14:25.480 | Because we all are learning about something

01:14:27.640 | that has never been in existence before.

01:14:30.800 | And we have to bring that level of vulnerability

01:14:33.480 | and openness to new ideas and new ways of doing things

01:14:37.640 | throughout the team.

01:14:39.480 | - So you want people that are able to have

01:14:42.600 | that beginner's mind or whatever,

01:14:44.960 | don't come in as an expert, what's the story?

01:14:47.320 | - Okay, not a lot of story.

01:14:48.680 | No, I can tell it.

01:14:49.800 | - All right.

01:14:50.880 | So you asked what were these risks,

01:14:55.280 | like on the early iPod, and there was a few big risks.

01:14:58.680 | Like one, and this doesn't go in the story,

01:15:00.920 | but like putting rotating media in your pocket

01:15:03.920 | and it could drop at any time, what happens there?

01:15:07.040 | And like you can damage, 'cause the heads

01:15:08.680 | and the hard drive media are so close, it smacks, it's dead.

01:15:13.240 | So that was one big one, like holy shit, right?

01:15:16.640 | So that was something, and we had to design special tests

01:15:18.840 | and everything and special software on that.

01:15:21.040 | But then there was another one, which was at the early days,

01:15:24.560 | the way the first generations of iPods,

01:15:26.760 | I had to hack the IDE interface to the hard drives.

01:15:31.760 | So I was like, okay, what we're gonna use

01:15:34.320 | is we're gonna use this chip for hard drive,

01:15:36.920 | to make a hard drive, you had to have a chip

01:15:41.000 | that did firewire to a hard drive, okay?

01:15:43.840 | And then that would become a portable hard drive.

01:15:46.760 | Well, then we had the MP3 player

01:15:50.680 | and the user interface and everything.

01:15:52.360 | So there was times when it was just this hard drive

01:15:54.480 | and there was times when it was a MP3 player

01:15:57.440 | and I had to hot switch between what the hard drive

01:16:01.760 | thinks it was talking to, right?

01:16:03.900 | So designed this thing, tore it apart,

01:16:05.800 | did all this stuff, and I was like,

01:16:07.500 | maybe I'm gonna screw up IDE and there's something,

01:16:10.840 | there's some holes I'm gonna see.

01:16:13.000 | So I go, who's the expert at Apple

01:16:15.400 | who understands IDE and everything?

01:16:18.400 | So this person comes over,

01:16:21.160 | the mass storage specialist comes over

01:16:23.560 | and I put on the whiteboard and said,

01:16:24.960 | here's how we're gonna do this thing

01:16:25.880 | and here's the commands and da-da,

01:16:27.080 | and this is how it hot switches and everything.

01:16:28.440 | He's like, that's never gonna work.

01:16:30.520 | I was like, what?

01:16:32.520 | It was never gonna work.

01:16:33.880 | I said, well, let me go over here

01:16:35.120 | and show you this right here.

01:16:36.240 | I have it prototyped and it's been working for days.

01:16:38.760 | I just wanna see if you're gonna have it

01:16:40.120 | find any holes in the thing.

01:16:42.000 | Didn't even, and he just stormed out of the room

01:16:44.280 | and never even, right? - Yeah, that's hilarious.

01:16:47.880 | I've had a lot of experience like this with experts.

01:16:50.760 | Like for example, this ridiculous room.

01:16:53.260 | I had a person, and there's many people like this,

01:16:59.200 | that I showed them, here's the situation.

01:17:02.220 | - For acoustics or something? - For acoustics, yeah.

01:17:04.960 | They're like, no, no, no, no, no, this is horrible.

01:17:07.960 | (Luke laughing)

01:17:10.120 | This is not gonna work.

01:17:11.720 | The reflection, the curtains are not gonna stop.

01:17:15.480 | There's a bunch of terminology they're telling me.

01:17:19.440 | It's a similar kind of situation as the idea,

01:17:22.000 | which I was like, no, listen.

01:17:25.400 | I just need to see, is there major issues?

01:17:27.640 | And they're like a low-hanging fruit that are fixable

01:17:30.200 | and major holes I should be aware of, not like let's--

01:17:33.720 | - $100,000 to upgrade.

01:17:35.560 | - To upgrade for what exact purpose?

01:17:38.320 | - What, not why.

01:17:39.360 | Yeah, exactly, exactly, the why.

01:17:41.760 | The focusing on the story, on the content,

01:17:44.680 | on the why, the why, the why.

01:17:46.760 | And that actually, I've experienced that, unfortunately,

01:17:49.880 | in the artistic realms too, which is like photography

01:17:53.560 | and videography, cinematography.

01:17:55.500 | It's interesting, I talk to photographers

01:17:58.640 | that are quote-unquote experts, and it's always about,

01:18:03.080 | so much of the focus is on the equipment.

01:18:08.040 | The equipment behind the sensors and the lighting.

01:18:12.520 | And it's like, all right, all right.

01:18:15.300 | But what about the feeling

01:18:21.200 | of the story you create visually?

01:18:26.120 | - The difference between a movie that's really well-told

01:18:30.080 | and it doesn't have all the effects and everything

01:18:33.040 | versus maybe some of the superhero movies

01:18:35.200 | we see all the time, which is, good luck if there's a story,

01:18:38.160 | but man, there's a lot of action and CGI.

01:18:41.320 | - Well, that's right.

01:18:42.600 | And there's also value to those, right?

01:18:46.160 | CGI, superhero. - Oh, sure.

01:18:48.240 | Can tell a better story,

01:18:49.640 | but you have to have a good story to begin with.

01:18:51.820 | - Sure, exactly.

01:18:53.040 | But if you're focused on the story,

01:18:55.560 | I guess you need to start with a story.

01:18:57.360 | You need to start with a story.

01:18:58.800 | And if you bring in experts,

01:19:01.560 | they can often be detrimental, I guess, to the why.

01:19:06.560 | They're too good at doing the what.

01:19:09.080 | - Well, you can bring in experts for why.

01:19:11.560 | There's lots of experts for why.

01:19:13.840 | Too many times we get experts for what.

01:19:16.480 | - Yes.

01:19:17.320 | - And then they only focus on the what.

01:19:19.200 | And so they come with the specs and feeds

01:19:21.680 | and the numbers and all the other stuff.

01:19:24.120 | But what you're really asking for is,

01:19:25.400 | I need somebody about the why

01:19:26.680 | and understanding what we're trying to get done here

01:19:29.280 | and fitting the what's into that why, right?

01:19:32.560 | - That's why I do think that one of the qualities

01:19:37.560 | that I really enjoy for people to work with

01:19:39.800 | is like humility for a particular problem

01:19:41.840 | when you approach it.

01:19:43.100 | Basically, I don't know how to solve this,

01:19:45.540 | but we're going to figure it out,

01:19:47.320 | as opposed to, oh, I've solved this thing many, many times

01:19:51.040 | before I know exactly what to do.

01:19:53.480 | Humility before the chaos.

01:19:55.760 | So having an open mind that this is going to require,

01:19:59.240 | a totally new way of doing things

01:20:01.760 | is a really nice quality to see.

01:20:03.600 | You know, you're one of the fascinating humans

01:20:07.360 | in the history of Silicon Valley.

01:20:09.600 | Steve is another one of those.

01:20:11.400 | So those two humans came together for a time

01:20:13.840 | to work together.

01:20:15.200 | What was it like working with Steve Jobs?

01:20:18.840 | What aspect of his behavior and personality,

01:20:22.480 | let's say, brought out the best in you?

01:20:24.440 | - Pushing you.

01:20:27.320 | Really pushing you.

01:20:28.580 | Relentless on the details.

01:20:30.600 | Challenging you for the right reasons.

01:20:33.840 | It wasn't bullying.

01:20:35.000 | It wasn't demeaning.

01:20:36.400 | He would critique the work, not judge the person,

01:20:39.080 | at least not in front of them,

01:20:41.320 | or inside of a, you know, in front of a group

01:20:43.440 | or anything like that.

01:20:44.800 | No, it was really that attention to detail.

01:20:46.840 | And when he would make a decision, you know,

01:20:50.280 | there are, when you make the first version of anything,

01:20:52.720 | something revolutionary,

01:20:53.920 | there are a lot of opinion-based decisions.

01:20:56.520 | And there's only one or two people,

01:20:58.660 | three people who hold those opinion-based decisions

01:21:01.580 | and what they should be.

01:21:03.020 | And when you have those opinions,

01:21:06.640 | and you're trying to work with a team

01:21:09.860 | to implement those decisions,

01:21:13.700 | you have to really tell the why of those decisions.

01:21:16.860 | Just don't go do it, but why it's there.

01:21:19.860 | So you can feel part of that decision.

01:21:23.760 | You can understand what were the trade-offs

01:21:27.020 | of the different other answers to that opinion, right?

01:21:31.100 | And say, this is the reason why we picked what we picked,

01:21:35.220 | because it's this for the customer,

01:21:36.700 | or this for the whole overall story, what have you,

01:21:38.780 | so that you felt really good.

01:21:40.940 | Because a lot of times,

01:21:42.220 | most people want a data-driven decision.

01:21:44.300 | But with V1s, you don't get data, right?

01:21:48.120 | Maybe in a B2B, you could a little bit,

01:21:50.020 | 'cause you can talk to customers,

01:21:51.300 | but you can't do that with a consumer product.

01:21:52.940 | - V1, version one, B2B, business to business,

01:21:57.060 | versus what's the alternative?

01:21:59.300 | - Business to consumer, V1.

01:22:01.180 | - Okay, we're just defining some terms.

01:22:03.620 | (laughing)

01:22:05.020 | - Yes, sure, absolutely.

01:22:06.380 | - And when you say data-driven decisions versus what?

01:22:09.740 | - Opinion-based decisions.

01:22:11.200 | - So like gut, you have to use, you don't have any...

01:22:14.440 | - You can't fall back on any data or any previous history

01:22:19.860 | to kind of inform you of what's going on, right?

01:22:23.100 | And so if you look at most companies who are paralyzed

01:22:27.740 | and cannot make new innovations and new products,

01:22:31.780 | it's because they're trying to turn,

01:22:33.540 | and this is what I saw at Philips,

01:22:35.060 | they're trying to turn opinion-based decisions

01:22:37.380 | into data-driven decisions so they don't lose their jobs.

01:22:40.740 | So if you look at management consulting,

01:22:43.940 | management consulting is all about

01:22:46.220 | taking those opinion-based decisions,

01:22:48.500 | giving them to someone else to turn into data

01:22:51.020 | that comes back to them and says,

01:22:52.940 | they can blame the management consultants

01:22:55.700 | when something goes wrong, as opposed to, it wasn't me.

01:22:59.120 | Right?

01:23:01.140 | When you need to have to tell that story,

01:23:03.220 | you have to understand that, especially with V1,

01:23:06.100 | you need to be able to articulate those

01:23:10.700 | opinion-based decisions, and you need to own them.

01:23:14.300 | And if you fail with some of them, you didn't get it right,

01:23:18.060 | you then own them and fix them and move on, right?

01:23:21.540 | Version one of the iPod wasn't perfect.

01:23:23.980 | Version one of the iPhone wasn't perfect.

01:23:25.940 | We got a lot of opinion-based decisions wrong.

01:23:28.380 | But as you go through, 'cause you got more data,

01:23:31.980 | 'cause V2, you had data on those original opinions,

01:23:34.980 | and then you were able to then modulate off of that, right?

01:23:37.500 | And you'll still have new opinions

01:23:38.820 | because those are differentiators

01:23:40.620 | that we call differentiators,

01:23:42.620 | the things that move the product forward in its evolution.

01:23:48.260 | But at the revolution stage, opinions, opinions, opinions,

01:23:51.700 | no data.

01:23:52.580 | - And so you have this discussion, you and Steve,

01:23:55.620 | in the stage, and the whole team, with opinions.

01:24:00.620 | And there, you have to be harsh.

01:24:04.300 | (Luke laughs)

01:24:06.580 | - I wouldn't say harsh,

01:24:08.100 | but you have to be very determined, right?

01:24:10.340 | You know, there are two real opinion-based decisions

01:24:13.260 | that happened on the iPhone.

01:24:15.340 | One was the keyboard.

01:24:18.060 | Should we have a hardboard keyboard,

01:24:19.740 | or should we have a virtual keyboard?

01:24:21.460 | The BlackBerry was the number one

01:24:23.660 | productivity messaging device of its time.

01:24:26.860 | It was called a CrackBerry for a reason,

01:24:29.260 | 'cause people loved it, 'cause it was easy to type,

01:24:31.980 | and they could get their work done.

01:24:33.780 | But when you're saying, "We're gonna move from that,"

01:24:36.900 | everyone's talking about that in the market,

01:24:38.740 | and you say, "We're gonna move to a virtual keyboard,

01:24:41.300 | "and it's not gonna work as well as the hardware keyboard,"

01:24:44.780 | that's an opinion-based decision, right?

01:24:46.940 | Because the data is telling you,

01:24:48.540 | all the best sales are over here.

01:24:51.460 | - God, that takes guts.

01:24:53.180 | - It takes guts, but you have to look at it

01:24:54.780 | from a different point of view.

01:24:56.180 | And this is how I learned to come to understand this,

01:24:59.380 | because I had been building virtual keyboards before,

01:25:02.380 | and I knew the goodness and the badness in them, right?

01:25:06.540 | But he was like, "Look, those are productivity devices.

01:25:09.220 | "Ours is born out of an entertainment device

01:25:12.820 | "and productivity, right?

01:25:14.820 | "We need to show full-screen videos.

01:25:16.940 | "We are gonna have apps, or not apps, but our apps,

01:25:19.940 | "the Apple apps," 'cause there were no app store yet,

01:25:22.260 | "are gonna take over the whole screen.

01:25:23.420 | "You want a full-screen web browser.

01:25:25.420 | "You don't want one that's like half of the device

01:25:27.580 | "is just a keyboard.

01:25:28.540 | "Maybe you don't need that keyboard in every instance.

01:25:30.500 | "So we want that part of the screen to change

01:25:32.340 | "based on the tool you may need at the time,

01:25:34.660 | "and maybe it's just full view, right?

01:25:36.900 | "So you have to go and understand

01:25:38.060 | "it's a different type of device,

01:25:39.340 | "just 'cause that's that,

01:25:40.580 | "and it's successful for that reason,

01:25:42.180 | "the Crackberry for the keyboard,

01:25:43.820 | "that's not the only thing you're gonna do with this device,

01:25:46.020 | "'cause people only did messaging,

01:25:47.860 | "and maybe a few phone calls, right?

01:25:49.660 | "This was gonna be so much more.

01:25:50.820 | "It was gonna be an entertainment web browsing device.

01:25:53.340 | "So you wanted those tools to go away,

01:25:55.500 | "but it wouldn't be as good as the hardware keyboard.

01:25:58.700 | "So that's an opinion."

01:25:59.740 | Well, let me give you another opinion-based decision

01:26:01.860 | that got turned around before it shipped.

01:26:03.860 | Steve said, "No SIM slot.

01:26:07.200 | "I don't want any slots.

01:26:08.380 | "We're gonna make it very pure."

01:26:10.420 | Johnny was like, "Of course, no slots."

01:26:13.140 | Johnny, yeah.

01:26:13.980 | We all looked around and go, "That doesn't work.

01:26:18.540 | "You can't do that.

01:26:19.380 | "Well, why does Verizon?"

01:26:20.300 | And then he would always,

01:26:21.180 | and this was the magic of Steve,

01:26:22.460 | like when you said, "No, that doesn't work,"

01:26:24.060 | he'd go, "Well, why does Verizon not have any SIM slots?"

01:26:27.540 | They showed that you can do a mobile phone

01:26:29.300 | with no SIM slot, and you're like, "Okay, here we go."

01:26:32.420 | And so a few days later, we come back with,

01:26:35.740 | so product marketing, voice of the customer,

01:26:39.540 | engineering, we all come back with all the data

01:26:41.500 | showing how many data networks and mobile networks

01:26:46.260 | required SIM cards versus did not,

01:26:49.540 | and what the trends were.

01:26:50.620 | And so we showed the data, and that killed the,

01:26:54.840 | or excuse me, brought back the SIM slot

01:26:56.980 | on the original iPhone, because we're like,

01:26:59.280 | 'cause he was just like,

01:27:01.580 | "We're gonna tell AT&T to not use a SIM, right?

01:27:04.360 | "We're gonna just tell them to do it differently."

01:27:06.900 | But we were like, "If we want this thing

01:27:08.500 | "to go anywhere around the world,

01:27:09.500 | "you wanna put that friction in."

01:27:11.260 | People are gonna move from place to place.

01:27:13.140 | They have different SIMs because of the prices

01:27:15.420 | and all that stuff.

01:27:16.260 | We had to show all of that data,

01:27:17.820 | and then that opinion-based decision got turned

01:27:20.980 | into a data-driven decision,

01:27:22.780 | and the SIM slot obviously showed up.

01:27:25.500 | So those are two, at the very same time.

01:27:27.580 | - So interesting, yeah. - Right?

01:27:29.900 | Opinion can hold, and so can data overrule opinion

01:27:33.640 | when data does exist for a V1.

01:27:36.140 | - But at the end of the day,

01:27:37.580 | you don't know what the right answer is.

01:27:40.500 | So doing no SIM card slot may have been the right decision.

01:27:45.500 | We won't know, because maybe if that was the decision,

01:27:52.740 | then like many times throughout Apple's history,

01:27:56.140 | you basically change the tide of how technology is done.

01:28:01.140 | - Absolutely. - You never know.

01:28:03.540 | - Apple started Wi-Fi.

01:28:05.180 | People don't understand.

01:28:06.020 | Wi-Fi came out of it.

01:28:06.860 | There was no Wi-Fi in 2001.

01:28:08.780 | Apple started Wi-Fi,

01:28:10.420 | and then everyone else got on board.

01:28:13.580 | If you look at now where we're going,

01:28:15.200 | we're going to phones without SIM slots,

01:28:17.580 | 'cause we have eSIMs, right?

01:28:18.940 | And now the SIM slot's becoming legacy, legacy.

01:28:21.380 | It's a legacy port.

01:28:23.100 | That legacy port'll probably be gone by six, maybe 10 years.

01:28:28.100 | It'll be gone.

01:28:29.500 | I'm pretty sure of that,

01:28:31.440 | because it's so much easier for carriers.

01:28:32.700 | They don't have to have physical things to go out.

01:28:35.940 | So right now it's just the early days.

01:28:38.700 | But it will happen, and it will go its way.

01:28:41.100 | It'll fall away, but it will take time.

01:28:43.180 | You just couldn't do it back then.

01:28:44.980 | - So timing is essential here,

01:28:47.140 | but at the end of the day, it's opinions,

01:28:48.820 | and that's where the genius is.

01:28:49.980 | Sometimes the data tells you one thing,

01:28:52.160 | but the data at the end of the day does represent the past.

01:28:55.940 | - Exactly. - And the future

01:28:57.420 | may be different than the past.

01:28:59.180 | - Right.

01:29:00.620 | - Sometimes there's wisdom in the past,

01:29:03.620 | and sometimes it's actually representative

01:29:06.660 | of something that should be overcome,

01:29:09.140 | and progress looks like leaving that stuff behind.

01:29:12.340 | The headphone jack.

01:29:15.460 | - Right.

01:29:16.640 | - I mean, that, when different folks were getting rid

01:29:20.220 | of the headphone jack, boy, I would love to be

01:29:24.900 | a fly on the wall of those discussions.

01:29:28.060 | - We had that, oh.

01:29:30.700 | - That was a discussion that happened almost every year.

01:29:34.380 | That was an every year, should we get rid

01:29:36.060 | of headphone jacks on the iPod, right?

01:29:38.860 | When are wireless headsets gonna happen, right?

01:29:41.460 | And it took years to build all the right protocols,

01:29:44.520 | the chips, all those things, to make the experience

01:29:47.300 | that is the AirPods today, right?

01:29:50.940 | To say, have the confidence, 'cause Bluetooth was good,

01:29:53.620 | but it wasn't Apple-like.

01:29:55.680 | So now it's like, we gotta make our own chips,

01:29:57.460 | we gotta make our own software stacks.

01:29:59.020 | Now we have the confidence to remove the headphone jack

01:30:02.020 | and actually make you pay $200 more for your iPhone

01:30:04.900 | that you were just paying 'cause of the headphone jack.

01:30:07.360 | Now we've grown our revenue, we've given a new experience

01:30:10.460 | to the user, right?

01:30:11.960 | And ta-da, you know, and it's just, it's magic.

01:30:15.700 | And now the world's transformed to everyone,

01:30:18.020 | you know, moving to that, right?

01:30:19.980 | But it took years to understand the problem,

01:30:22.920 | develop the technology, and not just rush it to market,

01:30:26.780 | to get a half experience, but to get it right

01:30:28.940 | and refine it, then ship it.

01:30:31.060 | And only then, after, it was probably four or five years

01:30:33.740 | in development, just like the M1 processor, right?

01:30:38.020 | That was a work from 2008, right?

01:30:42.080 | Grinding away, grinding away, grinding away,

01:30:45.340 | then saying, okay, now we have the confidence

01:30:47.060 | we're doing our own silicon for all the iPhones

01:30:49.660 | and iPods and such.

01:30:54.660 | Now we're gonna turn to the Mac

01:30:56.180 | and make sure we have the best processor, right?

01:30:58.220 | Not just that we have the best integrated design team.

01:31:01.620 | And then, same, we're gonna, you know,

01:31:03.620 | and then besting everyone, making sure the software

01:31:07.020 | and the hardware is designed at the same time,

01:31:09.460 | making sure the kernels, all those things

01:31:11.100 | are gonna use the best efficiency, and then popping it out.

01:31:16.100 | And then it feels seamless, it's magic.

01:31:19.400 | There were no, as far as I could tell,

01:31:21.940 | unless you were in real esoteric drivers

01:31:23.680 | or something like that, it just worked.

01:31:25.940 | It was magic.

01:31:27.080 | Like the Transcend, it was not even a speed bump.

01:31:29.500 | It was not even a crack in the road.

01:31:31.300 | - So perhaps famously, Steve had a bit of a temper.

01:31:36.140 | - True. - Steve Jobs.

01:31:37.620 | Would you say his particular personality in this aspect

01:31:42.220 | was constructive or destructive in the process

01:31:47.220 | of shaping these opinion-based ideas?

01:31:55.340 | - So in "Build," I write a chapter called "Assholes."

01:32:00.340 | - Yes, and you lay out beautifully the types of assholes,

01:32:05.840 | and maybe you could speak to the constructive

01:32:09.520 | and the destructive types of assholes.

01:32:12.480 | - Okay, so there's really two delineations

01:32:16.120 | that I have found of, you know, real fundamental ones,

01:32:20.640 | and that is, again, the why.

01:32:24.600 | Why do I feel this person is an asshole?

01:32:27.320 | Okay, they might not be.

01:32:28.900 | I feel this is a person who's an asshole.

01:32:32.660 | Are they motivated by their ego,

01:32:36.860 | or are they motivated by their mission,

01:32:40.360 | something they're trying to do

01:32:42.200 | and doing in service of something else, right?

01:32:44.800 | Sometimes those lines can be blurry,

01:32:47.100 | but it's usually pretty clear.

01:32:51.080 | When it's ego-motivated, it's clear they're just trying

01:32:55.480 | to get up in the ranks, push people down, shove people aside.

01:32:59.640 | I think we saw a president do that on a stage once.

01:33:02.560 | You know, I'm me, and I'm the guy, right?

01:33:08.880 | And I'm gonna prove it by pushing everyone away

01:33:12.120 | and being nefarious or what have you,

01:33:14.520 | either passively aggressive or aggressively aggressive,

01:33:18.120 | what they're doing about themselves.

01:33:21.400 | There's another one, which is someone

01:33:23.560 | who's so attentive to detail and unrelenting

01:33:26.320 | that they're trying to get the right things

01:33:30.280 | for the customer or in service of their mission,

01:33:33.640 | and they wanna make sure we fulfill those things, right?

01:33:37.760 | And they really care.

01:33:39.020 | They don't micromanage all the details,

01:33:41.220 | but they micromanage the details where the customer,

01:33:44.220 | it touches the customer in some way.

01:33:48.240 | People who work with those types of people

01:33:50.960 | who are unrelenting and push you and might make you upset,

01:33:54.800 | a lot of times it's a knee-jerk reaction to go,

01:33:57.960 | they are an asshole.

01:33:59.280 | Get off my back, you're an, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

01:34:05.720 | Right?

01:34:06.560 | And you're protecting your ego,

01:34:09.240 | because what's happening is that person

01:34:11.080 | is usually pushing you beyond your boundaries.

01:34:13.720 | They see something that we can do, or you can do,

01:34:18.280 | that you're just either not wanting to do for whatever

01:34:21.000 | reason, you're not confident in that,

01:34:23.520 | you're like, I don't wanna take the extra time,

01:34:26.160 | and saying, no, we need to get that done, and pushing you.

01:34:28.920 | Okay?

01:34:30.400 | And so when we came to those areas,

01:34:35.400 | it wasn't just a one-on-one,

01:34:36.960 | it could be Steve against the team going,

01:34:39.040 | we need glass instead of plastic

01:34:41.360 | on the front face of the iPhone.

01:34:43.120 | And we're going to do this.

01:34:45.480 | And we're like, God, you know?

01:34:48.000 | And so we did it.

01:34:49.520 | And he pushed us because he didn't know all the details,

01:34:52.520 | but he could see in our minds that we're like,

01:34:55.000 | yeah, we could probably, yeah, we could probably,

01:34:57.560 | but man, it's really putting us at risk,

01:34:59.600 | and we laid out the risks for him.

01:35:01.560 | And he's like, I'm willing to take those risks.

01:35:03.640 | We'll do that.

01:35:04.480 | We're like, we might be three months late.

01:35:06.480 | He's like, this is so important, we need to stay on time.

01:35:12.080 | But it would be all the time, push, push, push.

01:35:14.880 | It reminds me of kids growing up, and me growing up,

01:35:18.440 | when your parents push you to make you grow

01:35:21.720 | beyond your boundaries, your personal boundaries,

01:35:23.760 | and you're like, God damn it, I'm sorry.

01:35:25.760 | But they do it for the right reasons.

01:35:28.640 | Now, let's see, it's not bullying.

01:35:30.960 | It's not about bullying.

01:35:31.880 | It's not about demeaning.

01:35:33.520 | It's about either pushing you to another part

01:35:36.320 | of the mission that needs to get done,

01:35:37.520 | or it's about critiquing your work, but not judging you.

01:35:41.000 | - Yes, well, there's a lot to say there.

01:35:43.800 | So one, it's fascinating.

01:35:46.680 | It really is fascinating,

01:35:48.120 | and you laid out a very nice picture,

01:35:49.880 | but it does feel like there's sometimes gray areas,

01:35:54.880 | which is why it makes all of this very complicated.

01:35:57.120 | So one question I have for you

01:35:58.480 | in terms of glass on the iPhone,

01:36:00.720 | how important is it that, like Steve in that case, is right?

01:36:09.600 | 'Cause I could argue each side.

01:36:12.640 | It seems like in one sense,

01:36:14.840 | just having a strong vision and opinion

01:36:18.160 | is already going to make everybody grow,

01:36:20.760 | even if it turns out to be the wrong.

01:36:22.920 | As long as you are sort of standing your ground,

01:36:25.840 | you know, Napoleon invading Russia or something

01:36:30.680 | in the winter, like it's just not gonna be a good idea.

01:36:34.840 | - Right.

01:36:35.680 | - It's not a good idea, but I'm gonna hold to that.

01:36:39.080 | And then once you decide, you go all in.

01:36:41.640 | And then from that,

01:36:42.760 | even if the whole team knows it's the wrong decision,

01:36:45.120 | just sticking by it, powering through,

01:36:48.120 | you will learn through the pain of it.

01:36:50.360 | Everybody will learn.

01:36:51.480 | So that's one side.

01:36:52.960 | The other is maybe the asshole, the vision-driven asshole,

01:36:57.960 | gets to be more and more of an asshole

01:37:02.560 | if they have a track record of,

01:37:05.720 | through that process, having built people up,

01:37:08.200 | having made the correct decisions.

01:37:10.440 | They're not allowed to be an asshole.

01:37:12.960 | - They're in rare air and no one can challenge them.

01:37:15.080 | - Right. - Right?

01:37:16.520 | Steve was never that.

01:37:18.640 | That's the great thing.

01:37:19.800 | He was never unchallengeable.

01:37:22.640 | You could challenge him.

01:37:23.840 | Now, the plastic to glass story is a perfect example of this.

01:37:28.840 | So at the beginning of the project,

01:37:33.120 | well before we were going,

01:37:35.040 | we had always had these things about, you know,

01:37:37.120 | plastic front iPods, these kinds of things,

01:37:39.560 | you have scratches and all that stuff.

01:37:41.520 | So we said, "Are we gonna have a glass

01:37:46.840 | "or a plastic cover for the display?"

01:37:50.200 | 'Cause the display was glass underneath it.

01:37:52.560 | We argued back and forth about glass versus plastic.

01:37:57.120 | And then we all landed together on plastic.

01:38:00.720 | Okay?

01:38:03.400 | The original decision was plastic.

01:38:05.680 | And the reasons were, okay,

01:38:07.440 | we don't wanna make a mistake, glass can break,

01:38:10.360 | you know, people drop them all the time.

01:38:14.200 | So we don't wanna have a fragile device

01:38:16.760 | because you're gonna be using even more

01:38:20.000 | than a music player, right?

01:38:22.400 | And you're gonna be holding your head

01:38:24.600 | and putting in your pocket and misses and all that stuff.

01:38:27.760 | So we went down the road with plastic.

01:38:30.200 | When it was shown, when the product was shown

01:38:33.640 | at Mac World in 2007, the first time, that was plastic.

01:38:38.640 | We had just enough of them in the field at the time.

01:38:44.800 | We started to start seeing light scratches on the plastic.

01:38:48.720 | Reviewers who didn't have the device yet

01:38:53.240 | 'cause it was behind glass.

01:38:54.600 | If you remember 2007, the Jesus phone comes up

01:38:58.120 | and no one could even touch them.

01:38:59.440 | You could just look at it

01:39:00.400 | in this beautiful museum quality box.

01:39:02.960 | Like it came from the future or whatever, the past.

01:39:05.760 | It was like, oh, and you just looked

01:39:07.360 | and that was all you got.

01:39:08.600 | But then people said, well, what screen is,

01:39:11.760 | what covers on that?

01:39:12.720 | You know, reviewers who knew better, you know,

01:39:15.280 | it's plastic.

01:39:16.320 | And they were like, really?

01:39:17.720 | And so there was enough of a doubt there.

01:39:21.000 | And then when we started to do it,

01:39:22.400 | and then Steve changed the frame of reference

01:39:25.000 | of the question or of the result

01:39:27.560 | of what the customer would think.

01:39:29.160 | And he was like, if we designed it with plastic

01:39:32.920 | and it's in their pocket all the time

01:39:34.480 | and it gets scratched by coins, lightly scratched

01:39:37.040 | or by keys or something like that,

01:39:39.520 | that is a design problem.

01:39:41.720 | We need to fix the problem.

01:39:42.640 | That was our bad.

01:39:44.240 | If they go off and drop it or even slightly drop it

01:39:49.760 | and it cracks, it's the customer's fault.

01:39:54.560 | And they have much lower,

01:39:56.320 | they have less likelihood to complain.

01:39:59.040 | Yes, they'll complain,

01:40:00.400 | but they're part of that failure.

01:40:04.600 | Yes, oh, that's fascinating.

01:40:06.720 | And then-

01:40:07.680 | There's truth to that.

01:40:08.720 | Right?

01:40:09.680 | Because then they were part of why it failed.

01:40:11.960 | Whereas the design, they didn't do anything wrong.

01:40:13.800 | It was just sitting in their pocket

01:40:14.880 | and it's scratching, and that's normal use.

01:40:18.560 | Abnormal use is a bad drop.

01:40:20.000 | And we're like, oh, now we get it.

01:40:23.240 | And so we all moved to that mindset

01:40:26.080 | when you framed the problem and the solution in that way

01:40:30.440 | versus the original framing where we all landed on plastic.

01:40:34.080 | And then he was unrelenting on that, but we all had moved.

01:40:38.760 | And we had moved mindset and we understood the why

01:40:42.800 | and we marshaled together.

01:40:45.680 | And then by the end of June, and it was crazy,

01:40:48.880 | the mechanical product design teams, sourcing,

01:40:52.720 | all of us, the partner Corning,

01:40:55.520 | pulled together to make that happen

01:40:57.520 | because it was the right reason.

01:40:59.320 | So this, you look at these stories

01:41:03.320 | and you hear just the top line rumors of the takeaways,

01:41:07.040 | but that's not usually how it all happened.

01:41:09.160 | Like one leader was, that's not how Steve was.

01:41:12.240 | Now I've seen leaders who are just pounding

01:41:15.000 | and just had no real empathy for the team

01:41:18.160 | and understanding the why.

01:41:19.200 | And it's just, it is the way I want it.

01:41:21.120 | I am the supreme leader.

01:41:23.640 | That wasn't like that.

01:41:24.760 | - He just had a very strong opinion.

01:41:27.640 | - Very strong opinion.

01:41:29.320 | - But it was challengeable.

01:41:30.880 | - It was challengeable.

01:41:31.800 | And if you came with the right thing,

01:41:34.260 | you could modulate that, but you had to come with a team.

01:41:37.120 | It couldn't just be you.

01:41:38.280 | It had to become a team and data to overcome

01:41:41.600 | 'cause it was a very strong opinion.

01:41:43.240 | - And there's personal quirks of character, like you said.

01:41:46.520 | - Bad days and good days.

01:41:47.800 | - Bad days and good days.

01:41:48.640 | So there's also the three options you said.

01:41:51.320 | You noticed that the third option

01:41:53.200 | is always going to be the one that's picked.

01:41:55.400 | Those kinds of--

01:41:57.240 | - Idiosyncrasies.

01:41:58.080 | - Idiosyncrasies.

01:41:59.520 | And that, so that brings up another thing.

01:42:01.800 | You said challenge the idea, not the person.

01:42:07.220 | I'm somebody who has a, I have a temper.

01:42:13.480 | I use colorful language and so on.

01:42:15.520 | When I'm on teams, I work.

01:42:17.240 | In my private life, I'm much calmer and so on.

01:42:19.400 | But when I get really passionate with engineering teams--

01:42:22.240 | - Sure.

01:42:23.520 | I've been called an asshole.

01:42:24.920 | (laughing)

01:42:27.040 | - I mean, I am distinctly aware that you cross lines often.

01:42:32.040 | There's like levels, right?

01:42:35.760 | - Sure.

01:42:36.680 | - You know, you could, it has to do with language

01:42:39.260 | and how language is heard.

01:42:41.100 | So for example, you could say a lot of stuff to me.

01:42:43.480 | You could swear.

01:42:44.520 | You could say stuff that sounds personal.

01:42:46.160 | Like, I don't know, Lex, sometimes I think

01:42:51.160 | you're the dumbest human on the face of the earth

01:42:54.400 | or something, I don't know.

01:42:55.240 | - Yeah, sure, sure.

01:42:56.060 | - This sounds very personal, right?

01:42:57.440 | But I'm not gonna take that personally.

01:42:58.880 | I understand what's being said.

01:43:00.400 | And then I also notice that there's other people

01:43:02.520 | that take stuff more personally.

01:43:04.160 | - Absolutely.

01:43:05.000 | - This has to do with teams and figuring out like,

01:43:07.200 | okay, who's going to take certain words personally or not?

01:43:10.080 | And you have to know, that's what makes a great coach,

01:43:12.840 | a great leader, a mentor.

01:43:14.520 | You have to like factor all that in.

01:43:17.040 | But it just, there's something about just being an asshole

01:43:19.880 | and being passionate and really driven

01:43:23.880 | that sometimes you do cross lines.

01:43:27.020 | And that's, I don't know what to do with that

01:43:30.360 | because it feels like it comes with the territory.

01:43:32.700 | Like you have, it seems like you can't just have

01:43:36.320 | a perfectly optimized.

01:43:38.920 | - No, no, absolutely not.

01:43:41.180 | We're humans.

01:43:42.080 | - Yeah.

01:43:42.920 | - We're humans.

01:43:43.760 | We're humans.

01:43:44.600 | We're programmed, everyone's programmed the same way

01:43:45.420 | to react the same way to given stimulus, right?

01:43:48.120 | - Yeah.

01:43:48.960 | - So, you said, I don't know if this was a real example,

01:43:53.400 | but you said, oh, you're the dumbest human on earth

01:43:55.680 | or whatever.

01:43:56.600 | I would never say that.

01:43:58.600 | Absolutely never.

01:44:00.000 | And if someone said that to me or I saw someone else

01:44:02.520 | say that to another person on the team, absolutely not.

01:44:06.200 | That is not allowed because that's judging someone.

01:44:08.660 | You may be heated and you can get heated

01:44:10.680 | and you can say it in your intonation,

01:44:12.800 | but to then try to put a label on it

01:44:15.280 | and put a label on a person, that is not allowed.

01:44:17.960 | So, if you let that kind of culture happen

01:44:20.560 | and it becomes somewhat, you know, sometimes it's in jest.

01:44:25.560 | You know, it has to be very much in jest

01:44:28.040 | and those two people have to have

01:44:29.080 | a really good working relationship.

01:44:31.680 | But other than that, I'm sorry, it's gonna be a lot more,

01:44:34.980 | you could say, aseptic in that way

01:44:38.120 | that you're not gonna add that stuff in,

01:44:39.760 | but you can do it with all other types of ways

01:44:42.300 | without saying that because then people who do react

01:44:45.480 | to that kind of language and don't have those shields

01:44:48.480 | because they might not have that same confidence level

01:44:51.720 | that you do and you can just brush it off,

01:44:54.360 | that can be very cancerous in a team

01:44:56.960 | because people then mean that.

01:44:58.960 | And then they see, oh, that's the right way to be.

01:45:01.240 | You gotta snuff that out and you gotta be that change

01:45:05.480 | or that model that you wanna show the team.

01:45:08.000 | - Yes, it's true.

01:45:08.960 | Even if it doesn't affect me,

01:45:10.640 | it's going to affect a significant enough fraction

01:45:14.200 | of brilliant people where that shouldn't be part

01:45:17.480 | of the culture.

01:45:18.300 | - Exactly, and other people see that happen

01:45:20.220 | and then, oh, I guess that's acceptable, right?

01:45:22.720 | Just like politics in the workplace,

01:45:24.600 | is that acceptable or not?

01:45:26.120 | I call it out exactly when I see it in front of everyone,

01:45:29.140 | right, because it's just another ego-driven thing.

01:45:32.800 | You have to set the tone as a leader

01:45:35.640 | for what you want your organization to be

01:45:37.580 | and how it gets reflected in the world.

01:45:39.840 | And you have to uphold that.

01:45:41.200 | And you can't, sure, you can have an excursion

01:45:43.800 | outside of that, but you have to go back and say, I'm sorry.

01:45:47.180 | - Yeah, yeah, go back to it.

01:45:49.160 | - You have to go and apologize, heal,

01:45:51.040 | and say, I was not the person I wanted to be that day.

01:45:53.720 | I'm really sorry.

01:45:55.240 | - Yeah.

01:45:56.080 | - And even in front of the team and have that humility

01:45:59.400 | and say, we're all human here.

01:46:00.800 | And just 'cause I'm the leader

01:46:01.760 | doesn't mean I don't make mistakes.

01:46:03.500 | - So have the self-awareness, apologize.

01:46:06.640 | - Exactly.

01:46:07.800 | - And that's also part of the culture.

01:46:10.260 | - Oh, yeah.

01:46:12.320 | - How are you different from Steve as a leader and designer?

01:46:16.880 | So you've spoken about sort of what made you strong,

01:46:20.320 | which is he was able to challenge,

01:46:22.160 | he was able to push you to bring out the best.

01:46:26.060 | - Well, I come from the technical angle, right?

01:46:28.680 | Deep technology, software, hardware, systems thinking,

01:46:33.240 | implementation, all that stuff.

01:46:34.560 | So I have a different bent.

01:46:36.280 | He wanted to be an engineer, started,

01:46:38.800 | but really he was much better at all the other things,

01:46:40.960 | the storytelling, the interfacing,

01:46:43.520 | and being the voice of the customer

01:46:45.720 | and being that product marketer in a way, right,

01:46:47.960 | that we talked about.

01:46:49.160 | I grew into being the product marketing, the marketing.

01:46:51.560 | He came really out the other way, right,

01:46:53.920 | and never got really deep technically.

01:46:55.600 | So that's two different mindsets.

01:46:57.600 | One's not better or worse, it's just, that's how it is.

01:47:00.160 | And it takes all kinds to,

01:47:02.400 | and all kinds can do great designs.

01:47:05.040 | - Did it manifest itself differently,

01:47:06.640 | just the fact that you came from those different places?

01:47:09.760 | - Absolutely.

01:47:10.600 | - So like the discussion about glass on the iPhone

01:47:15.040 | was probably had a different flavor to it.

01:47:17.180 | - Sure, when you started getting into the technical details,

01:47:20.320 | enough so you're getting the third order technical details,

01:47:23.320 | and he can't argue with that anymore.

01:47:25.680 | Then with someone he's like, okay,

01:47:28.000 | at some point he's like, I can't win this war.

01:47:30.920 | And he learned that very early on

01:47:32.800 | 'cause he didn't like the way the look of the Macintosh

01:47:36.080 | board, the PCB was laid out.

01:47:39.560 | He wanted it to be beautiful on the outside

01:47:41.560 | and on the inside.

01:47:42.520 | He's like, why are all these wires running this way?

01:47:44.960 | Why doesn't it have all this symmetry

01:47:47.280 | and we have to make it beautiful on the inside.

01:47:49.560 | And even the traces on the boards

01:47:52.160 | have to look a certain way.

01:47:53.600 | So the teams made the board they knew that would work.

01:47:56.560 | And then they made the board that the way Steve wanted it.

01:47:59.720 | And that didn't work.

01:48:01.040 | And then Steve instantly figured out like at some point,

01:48:03.920 | don't micromanage every single detail.

01:48:06.000 | There's some things he doesn't know enough about.

01:48:07.800 | And so he would get out of that.

01:48:09.080 | But that was one of those instances

01:48:11.240 | where he pushed really hard and that's his opinion.

01:48:13.340 | So they said, okay, we're gonna make it

01:48:14.520 | a data driven decision and we're gonna make both.

01:48:16.720 | I'm gonna show you the results.

01:48:19.000 | And then from there, he didn't get into those details.

01:48:21.480 | So from that, you could have a great challenge.

01:48:23.960 | 'Cause then you could get those data and say,

01:48:26.720 | we can't do that and let me show you why,

01:48:28.520 | or we can do that.

01:48:29.680 | And then Steve would go, you can't do that.

01:48:31.120 | And you're like, oh, we can do that.

01:48:32.040 | Let me show you.

01:48:33.160 | So there's certain times when you were like

01:48:34.840 | bringing something to reality

01:48:36.440 | that he didn't think could exist.

01:48:38.080 | So it was always that creative tension,

01:48:42.800 | that interaction that was so successful.

01:48:45.300 | I think, but there was one other fundamental thing

01:48:48.480 | that was different and that it graded on the team

01:48:51.880 | and that I made sure and I learned from to not do.

01:48:56.520 | And I over, maybe overdue now in the opposite direction,

01:49:00.680 | which is when there's a great idea that comes from the team,

01:49:04.680 | acknowledge that person and go, that is a great idea.

01:49:07.880 | As the leader, the opinion driven, that's a great idea.

01:49:11.100 | Let's build on that.

01:49:11.960 | Let's see if that can do that.

01:49:13.200 | Or it's a great idea, but not for now, put it aside.

01:49:15.520 | But call out when people have great ideas

01:49:17.920 | because it's infectious.

01:49:19.400 | And that means, maybe not ideas that come bubble up

01:49:21.840 | to the customer level, but inside the organization.

01:49:24.480 | People like, they get rewarded for their ideas

01:49:26.400 | and say, that's a great one.

01:49:27.800 | Steve was always like, you give an idea

01:49:32.960 | and he would go, hmm, okay.

01:49:34.620 | I don't know.

01:49:37.480 | The next day, 24 hours later,

01:49:39.040 | it would come back with slight modifications.

01:49:40.920 | I've had this genius idea.

01:49:43.320 | Right?

01:49:44.160 | And sooner or later, we'd look around the table

01:49:46.840 | and we'd like roll our eyes and go, here we go again.

01:49:49.320 | - So it demotivates you from generating ideas a little bit.

01:49:53.400 | - Well, we got used to it,

01:49:55.160 | but later on in the team, it was just not,

01:49:59.240 | it doesn't want to bring the best, right?

01:50:02.240 | 'Cause if you're always like, the reaction is never,

01:50:05.840 | that's a genius idea.

01:50:07.680 | It was always like, it was either negative or neutral.

01:50:11.360 | Right?

01:50:13.280 | Then it doesn't have that same emotional effect

01:50:15.920 | that you want you to bring your best.

01:50:17.920 | - Yeah.

01:50:18.760 | Sometimes it's fun when people get excited about ideas.

01:50:20.360 | Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:50:21.200 | You kind of build on top excitement.

01:50:23.880 | But coupled with sort of harshness when the idea is bad

01:50:26.880 | and you call out the bad ideas too.

01:50:28.880 | So it's the good and the bad.

01:50:30.840 | - Oh, you could say, you don't have to say bad idea.

01:50:33.960 | You say, maybe not now.

01:50:35.600 | Let's table that for later.

01:50:37.020 | Let's discuss it.

01:50:38.000 | Or say, that's a decent idea,

01:50:40.600 | but did you think about that idea this way?

01:50:42.160 | Not just no or yes,

01:50:43.880 | but let's talk about why that might not be applicable

01:50:46.920 | in this case so that they can learn.

01:50:48.960 | So the next time they bring the next idea,

01:50:50.800 | they can modulate and understand

01:50:52.520 | and start seeing through the opinion-based decision makers

01:50:55.120 | or the database decision makers

01:50:56.240 | and bring better formatted arguments or ideas

01:50:59.560 | so that you have better chance of success the next time.

01:51:02.440 | - Yeah.

01:51:03.280 | - Right?

01:51:04.120 | You got to train through those moments.

01:51:04.960 | You got to teach those are teaching moments.

01:51:07.200 | - Yeah, teaching moments.

01:51:08.880 | I aspire to be that kind of person.

01:51:10.560 | I'll usually say that that idea is shit.

01:51:14.560 | That is the, like, and then you,

01:51:17.880 | that I remember that this brilliant person

01:51:21.120 | just gave that really shitty idea.

01:51:23.120 | So I remember to make sure the next time

01:51:24.680 | they give a good idea, I really compliment that good idea.

01:51:27.160 | - Exactly.

01:51:28.000 | - But I personally, I mean, it's emotion,

01:51:32.120 | but I call out the really shitty ideas.

01:51:34.680 | - But you should call out the really great ones.

01:51:36.240 | - Yeah.

01:51:37.080 | - If you let the pendulum swing both ways,

01:51:38.240 | then everybody goes, he's balanced.

01:51:39.680 | - Yeah, exactly.

01:51:40.520 | - It's always one way.

01:51:41.640 | - That's right.

01:51:42.480 | - Why bring any idea?

01:51:43.720 | - I'm all about the pendulum.

01:51:45.160 | - Right.

01:51:46.360 | You got to have both, the joy and the pain.

01:51:49.540 | (laughing)

01:51:51.260 | - Don't just give me pain all the time.

01:51:52.100 | - The yang and the yang.

01:51:53.900 | So you mentioned the glass and the iPhone.

01:51:55.860 | So you wanted to, not just the iPod, not just Nest.

01:51:59.020 | You were one of the key figures

01:52:00.460 | in the creation of the iPhone.

01:52:02.020 | What's the interesting aspects?

01:52:03.740 | What's the good, the bad, and the ugly

01:52:05.500 | of the origin story of the iPhone?

01:52:07.440 | Again, this is a Netflix series that spans multiple seasons.

01:52:13.060 | - Change my flight, please.

01:52:14.500 | - Yeah, what wisdom, what interesting memories

01:52:18.340 | you have from the finding?

01:52:19.460 | So the pain and the joy that was foundational

01:52:24.460 | to the iPod, all the CDs you had to lug around.

01:52:30.860 | What was the pain and the joy and the vision

01:52:36.380 | of the iPhone in your mind, in the mind of the team,

01:52:39.940 | in Steve's mind, and so on?

01:52:42.120 | - Well, there's multiple pains.

01:52:44.420 | You have to also look, there's not just customer pain,

01:52:46.500 | but there's business pain.

01:52:48.780 | And it's about the, so Apple now is getting out

01:52:52.540 | of that place where it was in 2001.

01:52:54.460 | Now people are starting to pay attention.

01:52:56.540 | Apple's starting to get in the culture again.

01:52:58.500 | It's becoming relevant.

01:53:00.200 | Cash is starting to flow.

01:53:01.780 | iPod is 60% of that, of the revenue,

01:53:06.580 | total revenue of Apple, doing an 85% market share.

01:53:10.620 | You're starting to get a wind at your back.

01:53:11.980 | You got confidence.

01:53:13.100 | Like Apple had been beaten down since probably

01:53:15.980 | the first time the Mac was, since the Mac,

01:53:18.780 | it was a beaten company ever since the Mac.

01:53:21.580 | So we're talking 15 years at that point, right?

01:53:25.380 | This is the first time you're seeing,

01:53:27.340 | like, and Steve would proudly came in front of us and said,

01:53:30.960 | "Today I can tell you all of the employees,

01:53:34.540 | "we are now out of debt.

01:53:36.000 | "We paid off our debt."

01:53:38.300 | It was a joyous moment for him, right?

01:53:42.420 | And then ultimately for our team, because no more debt.

01:53:45.860 | Wonderful, right?

01:53:47.740 | So now what you have is you have this successful thing,

01:53:50.540 | changing the face of Apple,

01:53:52.420 | and you hear these heavy stomping footsteps

01:53:58.040 | of the mobile phone industry.

01:53:59.900 | Boom.

01:54:01.060 | And it's the feature phones at that time.

01:54:03.380 | They're adding cameras.

01:54:04.560 | They're adding color displays.

01:54:06.260 | They're seeing the success of the iPod and going,

01:54:08.860 | that's just music.

01:54:10.860 | We have some storage.

01:54:12.880 | We can load music on our phones

01:54:15.220 | and we can do what the iPod does plus more.

01:54:18.160 | Boom, boom, boom, right?

01:54:22.620 | And you're like, and how many hundreds of millions

01:54:25.580 | of them are being sold at that point?

01:54:27.180 | It wasn't billions yet, but it was still,

01:54:28.940 | you know, 100 million, 200 million a year.

01:54:31.420 | iPod hadn't gotten there.

01:54:32.460 | It was 20, 40, 50 million, something like that.

01:54:35.900 | So now you're like, okay, what are we gonna do

01:54:38.700 | about this, you know, Goliath

01:54:41.300 | who wants to take our lunch, right?

01:54:44.660 | The schoolyard bully.

01:54:46.540 | And so there was one, let's partner with them.

01:54:50.180 | So iTunes music store was there.

01:54:54.340 | All of these phones are gonna need music.

01:54:57.020 | So they can come to the iTunes music store

01:55:00.780 | and get that music for those phones.

01:55:02.240 | 'Cause it wasn't just about the hardware player

01:55:04.420 | at that point.

01:55:05.380 | It was about the software that you need on the desktop

01:55:07.620 | and the content that you needed to download.

01:55:10.100 | So now Apple had multiple legs of the stool

01:55:12.340 | as Steve would always refer to it.

01:55:14.740 | So now the mobile phone industry,

01:55:16.700 | okay, we're gonna work with them.

01:55:18.940 | They are going to make an iPod shuffle basically

01:55:22.620 | inside of a phone, can have 99 songs total.

01:55:27.140 | And they're gonna come to our store

01:55:28.820 | and you're gonna, it's like, okay, great.

01:55:31.220 | It's all gonna be well and good.

01:55:32.260 | And that became the Motorola Rocker Project.

01:55:35.060 | It was Apple and Motorola getting together.

01:55:38.440 | There's gonna be software on this smartphone,

01:55:41.340 | or not smartphone, but feature phone

01:55:43.140 | to hook to iTunes to get your music.

01:55:45.520 | It wasn't even downloadable over a cloud or anything

01:55:47.780 | 'cause that wasn't available yet.

01:55:49.220 | They didn't have data networks yet.

01:55:51.620 | It was a disaster from the beginning.

01:55:56.580 | Two different cultures,

01:55:58.140 | two different types of leadership styles,

01:56:00.340 | not necessarily the most competent engineers

01:56:03.420 | on the other side.

01:56:06.060 | And it turned out to be an absolute horrible disaster.

01:56:10.380 | I watched the pains,

01:56:11.380 | 'cause luckily I didn't have to be part of it.

01:56:12.780 | I watched the pains on Jeff Robbins' face

01:56:14.620 | each time we would meet.

01:56:15.500 | And he would be like, "These guys are just,

01:56:18.980 | like, really?

01:56:20.620 | Do we have to do this, Steve?"

01:56:21.940 | And he's like, "We're contractually obligated."

01:56:24.180 | And when it came out on stage and Steve showed it,

01:56:26.700 | it was maybe a one minute.

01:56:28.780 | Steve loves those extended, like drawn up.

01:56:31.580 | It might've been a one minute, two minute kind of thing.

01:56:33.580 | And he literally threw that phone out of his hand

01:56:35.640 | as fast as he could, right?

01:56:37.460 | 'Cause it was horrible.

01:56:38.740 | So there was the pain of, we're not gonna partner.

01:56:41.540 | So if we can't partner with these guys,

01:56:43.460 | we have to become one of them to actually compete,

01:56:47.420 | to save the thing that is bringing Apple

01:56:49.860 | from that 15 years of malaise, right?

01:56:53.220 | So then from that, we were made a prototype

01:56:59.800 | of an iPod plus phone, a classic with,

01:57:03.380 | it was an iPod, but it had a phone inside

01:57:05.900 | with all the music and all the other stuff.

01:57:07.780 | And you use your headset, wired headset to do the audio.

01:57:11.620 | There was another project at the same time,

01:57:16.020 | 'cause we were doing videos in the iTunes music store,

01:57:20.180 | iTunes video store for music videos and movies.

01:57:23.580 | And it would be a full screen iPod.

01:57:27.160 | So instead of the classic, the way you know it,

01:57:30.220 | it would be full screen and it would have

01:57:32.180 | a virtual click wheel.

01:57:34.060 | It'd have a virtual, like single touch touchscreen

01:57:36.660 | that you could scroll, right?

01:57:38.660 | Think of maybe an iPhone like you knew it, right?

01:57:41.900 | And then there was a third project going on,

01:57:44.220 | not in, those two were going on in my team,

01:57:46.340 | but the third project going on was

01:57:48.900 | the multi-touchscreen technology to drive a Mac tablet.

01:57:53.900 | And so that Mac tablet, that touchscreen technology,

01:58:02.580 | there was just way too much you had to change

01:58:04.380 | on the software and everything to be able to use a tablet.

01:58:08.380 | We see this all the time, like people are like,

01:58:09.740 | there's not enough tablet apps today

01:58:11.220 | that are modified for tablet.

01:58:12.580 | They're just phone apps that are grown up, right?

01:58:14.820 | So then there would just be Mac touch stuff.

01:58:17.420 | So you'd have to have a whole developer community.

01:58:20.220 | That probably wasn't the best place

01:58:21.660 | to take that technology first.

01:58:23.480 | So you take that technology,

01:58:25.020 | marry it with the full screen iPod

01:58:26.820 | and the phone stuff we were working,

01:58:28.260 | 'cause the iPod phone with a rotary dial

01:58:30.940 | was just like a rotary phone.

01:58:32.500 | We couldn't make that interface work well for data input.

01:58:35.820 | You put those three together and now is where those,

01:58:40.260 | those three things that then created the form

01:58:43.860 | or the technology and the form inside

01:58:46.220 | what would become the iPhone,

01:58:48.340 | married with a bunch of low level software

01:58:51.700 | from the iPod and manufacturer software

01:58:54.460 | and drivers and communication stuff,

01:58:57.340 | combined with a very reduced Frankenstein Mac

01:59:02.700 | OS and I mean that in the best way.

01:59:05.900 | It means it wasn't Mac OS just changed a little.

01:59:08.980 | It was totally, things were hacked out and changed

01:59:11.460 | and new code was inserted.

01:59:13.260 | And it really was a whole set of things

01:59:16.500 | from all different places to make that first iPhone OS.

01:59:20.420 | And then there was another team working on the apps

01:59:23.380 | and then another team working on the design

01:59:24.980 | of how it looked overall between all that stuff.

01:59:27.580 | So all of those things came together

01:59:29.380 | to create what we know as the first generation iPhone.

01:59:32.820 | - And those are all probably fascinating

01:59:34.740 | engineering challenges.

01:59:36.100 | - Correct.

01:59:36.940 | - And great teams like creating Frankenstein OS.

01:59:41.380 | That's fascinating 'cause you're simplifying, simplifying

01:59:45.140 | but then you're just pulling different stuff from

01:59:47.180 | and you're basically inventing,

01:59:49.500 | I mean they're probably not thinking of it that way

01:59:51.220 | but a new era of computing, a new kind of computer.

01:59:56.020 | It really is Frankenstein.

01:59:57.220 | - Right and you didn't have to run Mac software.

01:59:59.620 | If you look at some of the other smartphones of the time

02:00:02.260 | like Windows and stuff, they were like,

02:00:04.940 | we need to make sure it runs Excel

02:00:06.900 | and it runs Word or something like that

02:00:08.740 | in some reduced thing.

02:00:09.940 | This was like, no, no, no, no.

02:00:11.020 | This was born out of entertainment.

02:00:12.760 | So we didn't have to go and take all the same application.

02:00:15.880 | All those other ones was about compatibility.

02:00:19.240 | This was about a whole new way of being.

02:00:21.780 | - What did you think about the Steve Jobs presentation

02:00:26.620 | of the iPhone, the sort of the first iPhone--

02:00:31.620 | - Phone, internet communicator and iPod in your pocket.

02:00:34.460 | - Yeah, they are going to sort of present,

02:00:36.820 | announcing three new products kind of thing

02:00:41.340 | and then saying that it's all in one.

02:00:43.300 | Just this is a good example,

02:00:44.940 | one of the sort of historic presentations of a product.

02:00:49.940 | Clearly there's like some showmanship that works,

02:00:55.060 | some reason it works.

02:00:56.740 | It doesn't always work, it often doesn't work,

02:00:59.540 | but in this case, it often did for Steve.

02:01:02.660 | How did that feel?

02:01:04.920 | What part of the actually,

02:01:08.360 | the design process was that presentation?

02:01:13.440 | You know what I mean?

02:01:14.280 | Like from the early, 'cause you said,

02:01:15.820 | so consider the why, the press release at the very beginning.

02:01:19.420 | - Steve was doing that the entire time.

02:01:21.280 | He was working on that story from day one.

02:01:24.580 | He was pitching us this, this, this, and then this,

02:01:27.140 | and then he would look at our faces,

02:01:29.300 | 'cause you wouldn't, most people wouldn't,

02:01:31.380 | at least if you're working for him,

02:01:32.780 | wouldn't tell him what you really thought

02:01:34.260 | of what he was saying, but he would look at your faces.

02:01:36.980 | And then he would talk to a few real trusted confidants

02:01:39.820 | outside of the organization and see what they thought.

02:01:44.820 | And they could give him feedback on it

02:01:47.620 | and they could really challenge him,

02:01:49.260 | but he would also look at their faces and go, hmm.

02:01:51.500 | And so when you see that, hmm,

02:01:53.860 | then he would modulate it and change it slightly

02:01:56.220 | and change it.

02:01:57.060 | So he was working during all of that time

02:01:59.060 | on the story and the storytelling, right?

02:02:01.500 | And the whys.

02:02:03.020 | While we're working on that and helping us refine it,

02:02:04.900 | just like the switch from plastic to glass, right?

02:02:08.560 | All the time working on that.

02:02:10.220 | So when he comes out on stage,

02:02:12.140 | he does something that every marketer is told not to do.

02:02:15.740 | Say, these three things are now combined in one.

02:02:18.220 | That is like the, they say that that is the laziest form

02:02:23.060 | of storytelling possible for marketing, right?

02:02:26.820 | - Yeah. - Right?

02:02:28.060 | But it was the best one because it was all those pains.

02:02:31.300 | It was like, I want my iPod, but I want my communications

02:02:35.340 | and I want my internet browsing

02:02:36.820 | because I want it on the go so I can look up things

02:02:38.900 | 'cause it was information.

02:02:40.780 | And when you were on the road, you had a laptop,

02:02:42.860 | you had an iPod and you had a phone

02:02:45.660 | and you had to carry all of these things with you at once.

02:02:49.100 | Now we're gonna solve that pain for you

02:02:51.680 | and put it all together.

02:02:52.980 | So he was just showing you the pain

02:02:54.460 | and beating that virus of doubt and going,

02:02:55.900 | it's now in this one magical thing.

02:02:57.860 | And he could come up and masterfully tell that story

02:03:00.820 | 'cause he told it almost every day

02:03:03.700 | to all of these people inside very quietly.

02:03:06.900 | And then it was just, right?

02:03:09.340 | It was like a Tony award-winning play

02:03:12.460 | that had been worked on for 10 years.

02:03:14.700 | - But also the human came through, the timing.

02:03:17.020 | - It was all that.

02:03:17.860 | It was all of it.

02:03:18.680 | And of course he was dramatic at certain points

02:03:20.680 | and he would raise his voice and a wry smile

02:03:23.860 | or whatever it was.

02:03:24.700 | - Right, that wry smile was magic.

02:03:25.540 | - It was all those touches.

02:03:26.620 | He was an actor as well as a storyteller.

02:03:29.180 | - Yeah.

02:03:30.300 | - But it was the truth, right?

02:03:32.680 | The truth came through.

02:03:34.020 | It was a nonfiction story.

02:03:36.460 | And then he added those personal flourishes on top of it

02:03:39.500 | to dramatic effect.

02:03:41.160 | It's amazing.

02:03:43.780 | - So there's a designer you mentioned, Johnny Ive.

02:03:51.240 | You both are brilliant designers, great human beings.

02:03:55.600 | There were some battles fought in the distant past

02:03:59.200 | between the two of you.

02:04:00.560 | Looking back, what is the positive characteristics

02:04:04.080 | of Johnny that made you a better person and designer

02:04:07.160 | having worked with him?

02:04:08.320 | - Watching the process that the design team

02:04:17.760 | that Johnny led.

02:04:18.920 | I don't know where, 'cause that was over years.

02:04:22.100 | I didn't see all of those things.

02:04:23.500 | But watching the design process of really,

02:04:26.240 | 'cause it was really a team that was about materials.

02:04:29.900 | It was about form.

02:04:31.420 | It was about colors.

02:04:32.700 | It was about these physical characteristics.

02:04:35.660 | When we talked about this earlier, it was design.

02:04:38.820 | What is design?

02:04:39.660 | Design's everywhere, okay?

02:04:41.080 | So what they were really focused on was form,

02:04:43.740 | how the feel was, how it looked, the aesthetics,

02:04:47.740 | the physical aesthetics.

02:04:49.160 | And watching, going through that process,

02:04:53.240 | I learned so much in that process

02:04:55.360 | about how to do colors, how to do materials,

02:04:59.960 | how to think deeply about curves, right, and shadows,

02:05:04.960 | and how it would look not just in your hand,

02:05:10.080 | but how it would look in the photograph

02:05:12.160 | you were gonna take for marketing, right?

02:05:14.880 | - So how it would look, how you would feel, all of it.

02:05:19.880 | - It was all of those physical things around that

02:05:23.660 | and watching the process to get there,

02:05:26.440 | that was enlightening for me, right?

02:05:31.220 | It opened my mind to go, oh, okay.

02:05:35.040 | Just like there's a process for all these other things,

02:05:37.240 | it wasn't just magic and you say,

02:05:39.840 | ha ha, there it is.

02:05:42.680 | It was really a process of refinement.

02:05:44.820 | You know, of opening the funnel at the beginning

02:05:46.760 | and refining down over time to get to that final,

02:05:51.040 | the final mile and selecting and doing the selection.

02:05:53.560 | And certain times there were opinion-based design details.

02:05:58.560 | - Yeah, color. - But a lot of data,

02:06:00.340 | a lot of data-driven designs of what can we deliver

02:06:04.720 | in volume, what can we do different things?

02:06:06.640 | So you always had these constraints

02:06:08.720 | that you had to work with under.

02:06:09.680 | And sometimes they and the team, not just I,

02:06:13.600 | would say, we need this.

02:06:14.860 | And we're like, we can't deliver that.

02:06:16.900 | But maybe we were able to work together

02:06:18.760 | to find different design characteristics

02:06:20.820 | and different implementation characteristics

02:06:23.300 | that could get to that point

02:06:25.520 | without what they were describing.

02:06:27.520 | And instead of yes, yes, yes, no, no, no,

02:06:30.820 | let's find some other way to solve the problem together.

02:06:34.540 | - Yeah, and I've seen this in several companies

02:06:39.540 | I've more closely interacted with,

02:06:41.780 | like Tesla is an example.

02:06:43.480 | Sometimes, talking about curves,

02:06:46.420 | sometimes it's very painful on the engineering side

02:06:51.140 | to deliver a very specific kind of thing.

02:06:55.400 | And one question that comes up in my mind is like,

02:06:59.100 | well, how far should we go to try to deliver

02:07:02.940 | a tiny adjustment in a curve, in the curvature,

02:07:06.900 | or in like whatever the form factor is

02:07:10.420 | in a color of the material,

02:07:12.460 | when the cost is like 10X to deliver,

02:07:15.580 | not financially, but just like in effort.

02:07:17.780 | - Yeah, personal cost to do it.

02:07:18.780 | - How many problems to have to solve?

02:07:20.820 | I don't know if you can say any wisdom to that,

02:07:26.420 | 'cause when you're thinking about curves,

02:07:29.220 | you're designing in the space of ideas.

02:07:31.300 | You're like platonic forms kind of thing.

02:07:34.380 | Not always grounded to like how much this is,

02:07:37.680 | how much pain is gonna be involved in delivering this.

02:07:40.980 | But that's as you should, perhaps,

02:07:44.220 | 'cause then if you're always thinking about the pain

02:07:47.380 | required to deliver this thing,

02:07:49.900 | you'll be too conservative.

02:07:51.220 | You wouldn't do the wild ideas.

02:07:53.040 | - Right, exactly.

02:07:55.300 | But you have to understand, again, the why behind it.

02:07:58.460 | And at Nest, when we had limited resources,

02:08:01.680 | putting a screwdriver in the box,

02:08:04.660 | a custom-designed screwdriver in the box,

02:08:07.540 | was born out of those experiences I had at Apple,

02:08:10.020 | and seeing how you can create something that's emotional.

02:08:14.220 | It's part of marketing,

02:08:15.220 | and it's part of the product experience overall,

02:08:17.820 | even though it seems extraneous.

02:08:20.380 | I went back and made the design team,

02:08:23.340 | and the mechanical team change some curves

02:08:25.740 | on the Nest Protect, the smoke and CO detector

02:08:28.260 | we did at Nest, after they had already tooled it.

02:08:32.020 | And I said, "There's a cost more."

02:08:33.260 | I said, "It doesn't look right."

02:08:35.140 | But they're like, "Oh, well, we have."

02:08:37.700 | I said, "No, you're gonna go back,

02:08:39.220 | "and you're gonna make that change.

02:08:40.400 | "I told you we needed to do it.

02:08:42.960 | "We had a better-looking model.

02:08:44.260 | "That is gonna get done.

02:08:45.500 | "I know it's gonna be a terrible cost to you,

02:08:48.700 | "but we already had this discussion,

02:08:50.540 | "and that's the way it's gonna have to be.

02:08:52.180 | "And I'm sorry, but it is what it is."

02:08:55.140 | Because it's better for the customer,

02:08:58.940 | and it looks better, and the pictures,

02:09:00.100 | and all the other stuff.

02:09:00.940 | And then we did it, and it was great.

02:09:02.260 | And everyone agreed it was great at the end,

02:09:04.380 | but it was pain to get there.

02:09:07.040 | Those are where those little details

02:09:09.200 | are where the magic comes out.

02:09:10.800 | If you don't take those pains and put in the love,

02:09:16.880 | the customer's gonna feel,

02:09:18.360 | they're either gonna feel the pain,

02:09:20.840 | or they're gonna feel the love if you put it in.

02:09:23.880 | So it depends on how much time and effort

02:09:27.040 | you wanna put into something,

02:09:28.440 | and what really matters to you,

02:09:30.200 | and so how you communicate what you do.

02:09:32.560 | - We're human beings, after all.

02:09:34.200 | Is there something you've learned

02:09:36.960 | from the tensions that are natural,

02:09:40.560 | or that happen in teams when they're passionate,

02:09:43.200 | and they're trying to solve these problems?

02:09:45.480 | Is that the way of life?

02:09:47.280 | And there's the human drama.

02:09:49.080 | Is that it is what it is?

02:09:54.320 | Does that make you better, actually,

02:09:56.040 | the drama, the tension between personalities,

02:09:58.920 | and all that kind of stuff?

02:10:01.320 | - Look, a rollercoaster ride without ups and downs

02:10:04.520 | is no fun.

02:10:05.520 | It's the journey.

02:10:08.040 | It's the journey that brings out the best in everyone.

02:10:12.160 | We're forged, we're tempered by those experiences.

02:10:17.240 | Not all the ups, but also the downs,

02:10:19.800 | and that's when you get the humanity and the connection,

02:10:22.120 | and we can tell these stories

02:10:24.080 | till we're blue in the face and smile every time

02:10:26.920 | because we did something together

02:10:28.840 | that each of us couldn't do apart,

02:10:30.680 | but when it comes together,

02:10:32.160 | that's where all the emotions happen,

02:10:34.040 | and that's where, if it's born out of the right reasons,

02:10:36.680 | and the right story, and the right way,

02:10:38.560 | that's where the magic happens,

02:10:40.160 | not just for the customer,

02:10:41.600 | but for how it transforms each person who is working on it,

02:10:45.400 | and they will never forget those experiences in their life,

02:10:48.440 | positively and negatively, that happened at the time,

02:10:51.280 | but they look back, and it's only positive

02:10:53.720 | because they did something that mattered.

02:10:55.760 | - Yet another brilliant idea that you brought to life

02:11:00.400 | is Nest, Nest Thermostat, and the big umbrella of Nest.

02:11:05.400 | Again, as part of this Netflix series, season three,

02:11:13.120 | what was the most memorable, the most painful,

02:11:17.840 | the most insight-laden challenge you had to overcome

02:11:22.840 | to bring Nest to life?

02:11:26.560 | - Well, the first thing for me

02:11:31.360 | was making someone care about their thermostat.

02:11:35.540 | No one considers it.

02:11:39.560 | They never had any customer choice.

02:11:41.640 | They didn't install it.

02:11:43.160 | They usually don't even use it

02:11:44.460 | because it's so complicated or what have you.

02:11:46.520 | They just, they bitch at it.

02:11:48.760 | They hide it in the corner,

02:11:50.480 | and then they just pay the bill of whatever it is.

02:11:54.240 | It's totally unloved, unconsidered, right?

02:11:58.120 | So how do you wake up, like I said, the virus of doubt,

02:12:00.680 | how do you wake that up and get people going,

02:12:03.400 | remember every day when you go in,

02:12:04.840 | and it's like, you're just frustrated,

02:12:06.560 | and then you get the bill and you pay the bill,

02:12:08.040 | so you have to do that, so that was one thing.

02:12:10.020 | I think the other big one was not delivering,

02:12:12.960 | all of it was hard, right?

02:12:14.040 | It was constrained.

02:12:14.960 | We had only so much stuff.

02:12:16.280 | We were bootstrapped.

02:12:17.700 | We didn't have massive funding.

02:12:19.080 | We didn't get hundreds of millions of dollars,

02:12:21.200 | but we did it for the right reasons,

02:12:22.340 | but I think the other big part of it

02:12:24.440 | was not just building a disruptive product

02:12:27.720 | because a lot of the people on the team had done that.

02:12:29.680 | We knew what we were doing,

02:12:31.040 | and that was if we got the design right,

02:12:34.880 | we could deliver it with enough time.

02:12:38.760 | It was getting the disruptive go-to-market.

02:12:42.940 | In other words, how to take that product

02:12:44.860 | from the end of the production line

02:12:46.800 | and get it into the customer's hands

02:12:49.400 | because there was no retail or customer choice

02:12:53.780 | in thermostats.

02:12:54.940 | No one even, it was never considered purchase.

02:12:57.780 | They never thought they had choice.

02:13:00.060 | Some guy, usually in suspenders and a butt crack,

02:13:03.420 | told them, looked around, looked at their house and said,

02:13:07.140 | "This looks like somebody who's got as well to do.

02:13:09.840 | "This thermostat is now gonna cost you $350.

02:13:12.980 | "Thank you very much."

02:13:14.580 | And you're like, "I'll take whatever you give me," right?

02:13:17.060 | And then, and it goes into another house

02:13:18.800 | that's worth $100, it was the same damn thing, right?

02:13:21.700 | So there was no price transparency.

02:13:23.320 | There was no choice.

02:13:24.380 | You just got what you were given.

02:13:26.660 | So how do you go, and this was an entrenched industry.

02:13:30.760 | That's why there was no innovation in it

02:13:34.260 | because it was doing just fine

02:13:35.580 | 'cause every house needed them.

02:13:37.780 | All the installers were programmed by the product deliverers,

02:13:42.780 | by bonuses to say,

02:13:48.040 | "You're gonna only carry our product,

02:13:49.240 | "and if you sell this many,

02:13:50.420 | "you're gonna get a free trip to Hawaii," right?

02:13:53.620 | And for these guys who install,

02:13:54.680 | "I get a free trip to Hawaii," that's dream for them, right?

02:13:58.160 | So this whole channel was fully controlled

02:14:00.640 | by the product guys, and it was almost monopolistic in a way.

02:14:04.000 | So how do you go around that?

02:14:07.080 | So creating a disruptive go-to-market channel,

02:14:11.180 | one was direct to consumer, right?

02:14:13.020 | And all the marketing that was necessary

02:14:15.660 | to get that message across.

02:14:17.820 | Another one was getting the installation right.

02:14:20.800 | No one was self-installing thermostats.

02:14:24.460 | So how do we get enough people who are early adopters

02:14:27.260 | to be able to self-install them confidently

02:14:30.580 | so they didn't still have to call the guy

02:14:32.860 | to come and install it

02:14:34.380 | because then he would say, "This is a crap product."

02:14:36.300 | No, I got the must-better product, right?

02:14:38.380 | So you had to get rid of that friction.

02:14:40.700 | And then ultimately, how do you get the people

02:14:42.800 | who were not just early adopters,

02:14:44.400 | but people who needed to see it

02:14:45.780 | and touch it before they bought it,

02:14:47.500 | how do you get that into retail

02:14:49.540 | when the large brands of the time of thermostats

02:14:53.180 | and Home Depot and Lowe's had contracts

02:14:55.700 | that they couldn't bring in any other brands?

02:14:58.500 | They were owning the channel all the way

02:15:00.340 | to where there was any sort of slight customer choice.

02:15:04.260 | And it was really contractor choice more than it was

02:15:07.900 | and consumer choice.

02:15:09.300 | So all of that had to be innovated along with the product.

02:15:13.540 | And so to me, that was a huge challenge

02:15:15.460 | and something I had never done,

02:15:17.300 | most of us had never done.

02:15:18.460 | And we had to create, that was as much as a project

02:15:21.940 | as actually delivering the product itself.

02:15:24.580 | - So it turned out to be a giant hit.

02:15:28.440 | (laughing)

02:15:30.940 | And it was acquired by Google for $3.2 billion.

02:15:35.260 | As a founder and leader, just out of curiosity,

02:15:39.640 | in these cases of acquisition, is it always a good thing?

02:15:44.680 | Is there any part of you and the team

02:15:47.540 | that considered saying no?

02:15:49.120 | - We considered saying no all the way along the process.

02:15:53.760 | We had all been in big companies before.

02:15:56.680 | We knew what it was like and the politics

02:16:01.040 | and all the other stuff.

02:16:02.200 | And what I came to learn, especially from Phillips,

02:16:06.440 | 'cause Phillips was a very, it was 375,000 people,

02:16:08.920 | it was a big, it was massive company, right?

02:16:11.800 | And tons of politics.

02:16:13.480 | And I was like, do we wanna go back into that world?

02:16:15.320 | 'Cause I had so many negative experiences from that.

02:16:17.920 | But then going to Apple, which was not big,

02:16:22.280 | but it was big enough that it could have all these dynamics.

02:16:24.640 | But then when you saw a leader rise up

02:16:26.580 | and get rid of those dynamics

02:16:28.240 | or not allow many of them to flourish,

02:16:31.360 | then you're like, oh, with the right leadership,

02:16:34.960 | this can be a beautiful marriage, right?

02:16:37.920 | And so for four months, we were working together with them,

02:16:40.960 | with Google, to make sure that we had the right leadership

02:16:43.920 | and we were gonna be in the right environment

02:16:45.600 | that it felt right.

02:16:46.720 | So that happened, it absolutely happened.

02:16:50.040 | We worked on all the details.

02:16:51.280 | We didn't even talk about price.

02:16:53.160 | We were talking about how's the brand gonna work?

02:16:55.600 | Who's the team gonna work with?

02:16:56.720 | How are we gonna get IP?

02:16:58.360 | How are we gonna do exchanges?

02:16:59.480 | How are we gonna get budgets and all that stuff done?

02:17:01.480 | So we worked through all of that

02:17:02.480 | before we actually sealed any kind of deal.

02:17:04.320 | 'Cause they were already investor in the company.

02:17:05.800 | So we already knew, they knew relatively

02:17:08.360 | where the end point was for the price.

02:17:12.000 | So working through all those prerequisites,

02:17:14.240 | I knew that as a individual product company

02:17:20.120 | that was trying to create a platform,

02:17:22.800 | no investors were gonna invest in a platform

02:17:25.120 | that could take three, four years

02:17:27.440 | and many, many hundreds of millions of dollars to build

02:17:30.360 | without all kinds of new products at the same time.

02:17:33.680 | And products that we were having, which were successes,

02:17:35.920 | but they weren't even break even yet, right?

02:17:37.560 | We were still developing them.

02:17:39.440 | So how are we gonna get more people to fund

02:17:41.960 | all of these things and this platform

02:17:44.120 | that I really wanna create?

02:17:46.080 | Because my worry, and I had seen this many times

02:17:48.200 | in Silicon Valley, is these small startups have bravado.

02:17:51.200 | And they said, I'm gonna take on the big guys, right?

02:17:54.600 | With a platform.

02:17:55.720 | But when those platform guys show up

02:17:59.000 | and Apple says they're gonna get in the,

02:18:00.860 | at the time, nobody cared.

02:18:03.080 | They were curiously, "Guys, curious, what's next?"

02:18:05.560 | Yeah, yeah, yeah.

02:18:06.400 | Apple wasn't in the market.

02:18:07.960 | Google wasn't in the market yet.

02:18:10.000 | Amazon wasn't there.

02:18:11.240 | Microsoft, Samsung, they were not,

02:18:13.560 | they were all just, "That's curious."

02:18:16.400 | Right?

02:18:17.720 | - Yeah.

02:18:18.540 | - And I had watched, if you said,

02:18:19.880 | "I'm gonna go challenge them

02:18:21.680 | "and I'm gonna build a platform."

02:18:23.480 | And then they all of a sudden, one by one go,

02:18:25.220 | "Oh, well, we're building a platform now.

02:18:26.840 | "We're building a platform."

02:18:27.880 | They fudded you to death, fear, uncertainty, doubt.

02:18:30.680 | And the developers run away

02:18:32.080 | and you can't make that platform.

02:18:33.120 | So I'm like, before the landscape gets changed on us,

02:18:36.440 | 'cause we've attracted so much attention,

02:18:37.960 | they announced something,

02:18:39.000 | we need to change the landscape on them.

02:18:42.440 | Let's go to the best place

02:18:45.160 | where we can build out the platform,

02:18:47.100 | have the right leadership behind us

02:18:49.380 | to help us grow this thing into what the vision it should be.

02:18:52.480 | And that's what we believe we were doing

02:18:54.200 | with the Google acquisition.

02:18:55.800 | - Is it possible to take on the platforms?

02:19:00.680 | So you said there's a lot of startups

02:19:02.640 | with bravado and all that kind of stuff.

02:19:04.880 | Doesn't mean, James Joyce, when he was 20,

02:19:07.880 | said, "I'm gonna be the greatest writer of the 20th century,"

02:19:11.460 | before he wrote anything of value.

02:19:14.700 | One of them might be actually right.

02:19:17.600 | Yeah, in this modern world, when you,

02:19:22.000 | so first of all, people should definitely get your book,

02:19:26.080 | "Build," it has just this giant number of advice

02:19:31.320 | on this exact question of how to build cool things,

02:19:36.320 | how to build a startup,

02:19:37.800 | how to all the different stages of that team and hiring.

02:19:41.720 | - It's mostly human nature.

02:19:43.100 | It's not technical, it's mostly human nature behind it.

02:19:46.360 | - And it turns out it's, you know,

02:19:48.440 | turtles all the way down, that's human at the bottom.

02:19:51.160 | Yes, so is it possible to build startups

02:19:56.160 | that take on the big guys,

02:19:58.800 | whatever that is of the modern era?

02:20:01.160 | So for now, it's these platforms of Apple, Google, Twitter,

02:20:05.440 | I don't even know, Meta, I guess, called now.

02:20:08.480 | - Sure.

02:20:09.560 | - Is it possible to take 'em on?

02:20:11.360 | - Absolutely, but you don't take 'em on on their same turf.

02:20:15.240 | You take 'em on on the turf

02:20:16.400 | they were gonna want to have in the future, right?

02:20:20.040 | Spotify is a platform.

02:20:21.560 | It started as an application, is now a platform, right?

02:20:26.000 | Think of WeChat.

02:20:27.240 | Think of all the super apps out there

02:20:30.300 | that are now wallets and delivery services

02:20:33.560 | and travel services and transportation services

02:20:37.240 | all within an app.

02:20:38.600 | - Yeah.

02:20:39.440 | - They've innovated in a different level,

02:20:40.880 | in a different space

02:20:41.720 | that the platform companies weren't, right?

02:20:44.760 | Or they, you know, Google was an app company.

02:20:49.440 | It was solving search.

02:20:51.120 | And then it became a platform company.

02:20:52.960 | Apple was solving personal computing,

02:20:55.200 | and then it, or iPhone was doing, you know,

02:20:59.680 | solving internet browsing, all that stuff.

02:21:01.320 | And then it became a platform company

02:21:03.120 | when the App Store was added.

02:21:04.400 | If you look it up, there's no such thing

02:21:06.480 | as building a platform company.

02:21:07.640 | You build a great app first, and then you can expand it

02:21:11.180 | and have the right to become a platform.

02:21:13.180 | - Your whole book is just a bunch of advice

02:21:18.420 | for young people, but let me ask--

02:21:20.040 | - And older people.

02:21:20.960 | - And older, well, everyone is young at heart.

02:21:23.280 | - Sure.

02:21:24.120 | - If you're not, you should be.

02:21:25.320 | So what, in terms of picking a career,

02:21:28.160 | you have a device in this point,

02:21:29.720 | what advice would you give to a person

02:21:32.440 | on how to pick a career?

02:21:34.200 | - What is it you want to learn?

02:21:37.360 | And who is it you want to learn from?

02:21:39.400 | Just like you pick a university,

02:21:41.100 | you're like, I wanna go here for this expertise.

02:21:44.880 | I've heard about these programs,

02:21:46.240 | especially graduate, graduate studies.

02:21:49.900 | You go for a certain program with a certain set of people.

02:21:52.680 | Why don't you do that when it comes to a, you know, a job?

02:21:56.480 | You just don't go, or in a career,

02:21:58.440 | you just don't go and say, I just wanna go work at Google,

02:22:00.920 | or I just wanna work at Apple.

02:22:02.480 | You wanna go to a certain team with a certain set of people

02:22:05.760 | and work with them on something

02:22:07.280 | that you're really curious about and you wanna learn about.

02:22:10.480 | - That's such, I just wanted to comment that,

02:22:13.000 | that's such a, it's a subtle but a brilliant framing

02:22:17.140 | of just ask the question, what do I want to learn?

02:22:22.320 | And then see what career path is going to maximize that.

02:22:27.320 | That's so interesting.

02:22:31.040 | It's the first question I ask anyone who interviews with me.

02:22:34.040 | When I say I'm gonna bring somebody on the team,

02:22:36.720 | first question is, what do you wanna learn?

02:22:39.600 | I don't want the expert, like we talked about earlier,

02:22:41.880 | says, I'm the expert in this.

02:22:43.600 | You're gonna hire me as the expert.

02:22:46.080 | We're doing something new.

02:22:47.640 | You're not an expert 'cause we're not an expert either.

02:22:50.160 | What is it you wanna learn?

02:22:51.520 | And on the topic of learning,

02:22:56.520 | what is the best way to learn?

02:23:00.640 | What starting, you go into this new place,

02:23:06.880 | into this new world, into maybe V1,

02:23:10.680 | you said you're building V1.

02:23:12.240 | I mean, the whole world is late,

02:23:15.400 | it's full of V1s or V0s waiting for the V1 to come along.

02:23:20.400 | - Zero to one.

02:23:21.240 | - Zero to one.

02:23:22.080 | What's the process of that look like?

02:23:25.560 | What's the process of learning?

02:23:28.000 | How do you learn?

02:23:29.880 | - Well, let me put a framing

02:23:31.720 | and then we'll talk about that last piece.

02:23:34.520 | I have now, looking back, especially writing this book,

02:23:38.000 | I have a version one of myself, a version two,

02:23:40.920 | a version three, a version four.

02:23:43.360 | I had a lot of opinions about myself

02:23:46.680 | and what I wanted to do.

02:23:47.520 | Sometimes those opinions for certain people,

02:23:50.240 | those opinions are formed

02:23:52.120 | and they get the data from their parents

02:23:54.080 | and they go do what their parents told them to do

02:23:55.840 | or their surroundings.

02:23:57.440 | My opinions was like, I wanna go and learn this,

02:23:59.600 | I'm curious about that.

02:24:00.560 | I made the zero to one move.

02:24:02.480 | And then over time, by doing, I was refining those things

02:24:06.960 | and learning what I was really curious about

02:24:08.520 | and what I was really good about

02:24:10.280 | because I was getting data.

02:24:12.000 | And then I was like, then I had another set of opinions

02:24:14.280 | to create version two of me.

02:24:16.560 | And then I would go and do it.

02:24:17.560 | So it was learning by doing.

02:24:19.840 | Starting with the opinion,

02:24:21.080 | you're not gonna get any facts.

02:24:22.600 | Most people are like,

02:24:24.200 | where do I make the most money for my position?

02:24:27.240 | They're trying to start with data.

02:24:29.000 | Start with the why.

02:24:32.600 | What's your curiosity?

02:24:33.800 | What do you wanna learn?

02:24:35.520 | And then follow that.

02:24:37.360 | I took the lowest job on the totem pole at General Magic

02:24:42.360 | 'cause I wanted to get in there

02:24:43.560 | to work with the right team.

02:24:44.880 | I didn't even know what they were doing.

02:24:47.640 | But I thought that it felt right.

02:24:49.600 | I was barely living above the poverty line working there,

02:24:54.160 | working 80 hours a week 'cause it was so amazing to learn,

02:24:57.920 | just like a college student.

02:24:59.360 | That's what I was doing.

02:25:00.600 | And then I learned more from that

02:25:03.800 | and then changed those opinions into data.

02:25:06.200 | And then I found other opinions.

02:25:07.880 | So it's the same thing.

02:25:09.360 | But it was by doing.

02:25:10.520 | The way you find out what you wanna do in life

02:25:13.800 | is by figuring out what you don't wanna do.

02:25:16.680 | And the only way you find that out

02:25:18.000 | is by doing a bunch of stuff.

02:25:19.360 | - Doing a bunch of stuff and refining it.

02:25:21.800 | - That's hilarious.

02:25:22.760 | Yeah, that's brilliant.

02:25:23.920 | So in terms of the career path

02:25:27.240 | of leaping into the startup world and launching a startup,

02:25:31.560 | what does it take to successfully found a startup,

02:25:35.320 | to have a chance to succeed?

02:25:37.760 | And maybe how do you decide to take that leap?

02:25:42.760 | Is there sort of having founded,

02:25:47.760 | having been part of many V1s,

02:25:52.680 | many of some of the most successful V1s ever,

02:25:55.680 | what's it take to take that leap?

02:25:58.920 | Maybe leave your job,

02:26:01.120 | cushy job at a company and do the startup.

02:26:06.480 | - What does it take?

02:26:07.480 | It takes belief in yourself.

02:26:10.880 | That's the first thing.

02:26:12.400 | Belief that you can do it.

02:26:13.640 | Not, but hopefully with mirrors or mentors around you

02:26:17.600 | or coaches around you to make sure you know you're not crazy.

02:26:21.360 | It's a crazy smart idea, but you're not crazy

02:26:24.080 | and you're just working on something

02:26:26.120 | as like a lone mad man or woman.

02:26:29.020 | You have a great idea.

02:26:32.880 | And like I said, great ideas chase you.

02:26:34.860 | In this world, there are so many people

02:26:38.760 | who have more ideas than they have time to implement.

02:26:41.720 | I used to be like that.

02:26:42.960 | I would like, oh my God, I have this idea, this idea.

02:26:44.800 | And you try to do all of them.

02:26:47.360 | But the best ideas are the ones

02:26:48.720 | that you can really focus on.

02:26:50.280 | And you shut out all those other things

02:26:52.280 | and you bring them other ideas

02:26:53.380 | into the thing you're trying to do.

02:26:54.940 | So I try to run away from a great idea.

02:26:58.040 | And then it stalks me.

02:26:59.940 | It hunts you down because you're like,

02:27:01.920 | ah, that's gonna have this problem.

02:27:03.560 | I'm gonna put it aside.

02:27:05.320 | And then all of a sudden, a few days later,

02:27:08.760 | oh, I think I know how to solve that problem.

02:27:10.520 | Or I talk to somebody.

02:27:11.720 | And you're just always kind of

02:27:13.560 | niggling around the edges of it.

02:27:15.480 | And then at some point, it's like,

02:27:17.200 | it just becomes like this black hole

02:27:19.760 | that just sucks you in.

02:27:20.680 | You're like, I can't think about anything else but this.

02:27:23.320 | It's almost like a relationship in the world, right?

02:27:26.400 | You know, when you have it with a,

02:27:27.680 | you find your partner.

02:27:29.600 | You know, you're like, hmm, hmm, Wade, hmm, something.

02:27:33.120 | And then you're trying to like,

02:27:34.160 | and then all of a sudden it just,

02:27:35.780 | it comes together, right?

02:27:36.800 | It's kind of like that.

02:27:37.800 | - Ultimately, it's you focus.

02:27:39.000 | See, I'm different.

02:27:39.920 | I just dive right in.

02:27:41.320 | - I used to do that too.

02:27:42.280 | I used to dive right in.

02:27:43.680 | - Yeah.

02:27:44.520 | - But I learned that you need time.

02:27:45.360 | - It's more effective to run away from it.

02:27:47.360 | - Run away from it.

02:27:48.360 | And so it chases you

02:27:49.640 | because it makes you think harder about that story.

02:27:52.560 | - This is not dating advice.

02:27:53.940 | We're talking about startups.

02:27:54.780 | - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

02:27:55.920 | (laughing)

02:27:57.800 | - But ultimately, so you have achieve, focus on it.

02:28:02.800 | But you also said, so believe in yourself.

02:28:05.400 | So it's not necessarily even the idea.

02:28:06.920 | It's the human that believe in the human being.

02:28:11.920 | - You have to believe in yourself

02:28:13.960 | and the idea that you have.

02:28:15.600 | 'Cause if you don't have that belief,

02:28:17.820 | then you can't project that to other people

02:28:20.480 | to say, join the team.

02:28:21.740 | - Let me ask you, 'cause you mentioned mentors,

02:28:26.920 | and you've talked about having had

02:28:29.320 | incredible mentors in your life.

02:28:30.800 | You're also a mentor to a very large number of people.

02:28:34.660 | What does it take to find a mentor?

02:28:36.600 | How do you find a great mentor?

02:28:39.240 | - Usually, they also find you.

02:28:41.800 | - Is it like with the ideas?

02:28:44.440 | (laughing)

02:28:45.280 | - No, no, no, no.

02:28:46.880 | No, what happens is you're in the right,

02:28:48.960 | you have a community around you, okay?

02:28:51.120 | And because you've been building a network,

02:28:53.720 | 'cause you can't do it alone.

02:28:55.120 | So you have to create this network around you

02:28:57.160 | and of relationships that don't,

02:28:59.480 | not transactions, but relationships over time

02:29:01.520 | that you really cherish and people you talk to, okay?

02:29:04.920 | And you share vulnerable or nascent ideas with,

02:29:09.560 | or crazy opinions with, and then you argue them through.

02:29:13.360 | But you start to see resonate, and it's not about age.

02:29:18.360 | It's just about this connection, right?

02:29:20.640 | I have mentors, obviously, when I was young,

02:29:23.000 | all my mentors were older, and as I get older,

02:29:25.480 | I have mentors who are younger than me or the same age,

02:29:28.440 | right, they're not all just older, right?

02:29:30.480 | And so it's about that connection.

02:29:32.440 | It's about being on that same wavelength.

02:29:35.040 | But they also, they can counterbalance you.

02:29:39.180 | They compliment you in some way.

02:29:41.200 | Like my best mentors had nothing to do with technology.

02:29:43.760 | They didn't know anything about technology, right,

02:29:46.680 | the way we know it.

02:29:47.800 | They were all about human nature,

02:29:49.000 | and they could reflect that and help me get more human-focused

02:29:52.080 | and more empathetic because I was so detailed

02:29:55.320 | in the technology, I needed to see from other perspectives.

02:29:58.840 | But then they wanted to learn more about the technology,

02:30:01.200 | right, or they thought that this idea was so great

02:30:03.360 | that it should exist.

02:30:04.840 | Now let's work together on that.

02:30:06.720 | So it's really, they have to find you,

02:30:08.960 | and you have to find them, and that's by sharing.

02:30:11.720 | You just don't go and look it up on the internet

02:30:14.920 | and say who are the best mentors in the world.

02:30:16.760 | It just doesn't work that way.

02:30:18.640 | - So form a network of people and see where,

02:30:21.200 | I mean, it's like finding relationships, finding love,

02:30:24.040 | all that kind of friendship. - Human natures.

02:30:26.040 | - Venture capitalists, money.

02:30:29.860 | Do VCs help or hurt a business in general?

02:30:33.440 | So like in those early stages in the chase

02:30:35.680 | of developing a V1, just what's the constructive

02:30:39.800 | and destructive power of money

02:30:42.920 | in the development of a brilliant idea

02:30:45.360 | and the deployment of a brilliant idea?

02:30:47.640 | - I have seen brilliant venture capitalists.

02:30:51.700 | I have seen horrible ones,

02:30:54.320 | ones that care about their LPs more

02:30:57.000 | than they care about the entrepreneurs.

02:30:59.640 | Of course, everyone's in it, at the end of the day,

02:31:02.000 | especially venture capital, they have to give a return

02:31:04.560 | to their limited partners, the people who invest in money,

02:31:07.880 | that they have to shepherd that money

02:31:10.400 | and make sure it's watched over properly.

02:31:13.020 | But when there's not a balance, a pushback

02:31:15.560 | in a venture capitalist between what the LP needs

02:31:18.880 | and what the entrepreneur needs,

02:31:21.400 | and that the entrepreneur might be trying really hard,

02:31:24.040 | but if they don't see, the VC doesn't see,

02:31:26.400 | the exit's gonna happen in two years,

02:31:27.840 | and they just leave them hanging.

02:31:30.400 | When it's, there's no, the value exchange is only money

02:31:33.720 | and not mentorship or ideas or other things.

02:31:37.300 | When there's not a relationship, but really a transaction,

02:31:40.840 | that's when money is toxic.

02:31:43.640 | Because you can get money everywhere.

02:31:44.920 | Maybe it's a little harder today, you know,

02:31:47.000 | over the last month, but you can still find people

02:31:49.920 | with money who are on that, who wanna enable your mission

02:31:54.560 | and can be mentors, not always, not all of them,

02:31:58.040 | but some of them can be mentors, but they're on your side,

02:32:01.560 | then it's incredibly powerful,

02:32:03.520 | because it's not just one plus one equals two, right?

02:32:06.120 | It's something bigger than that,

02:32:07.640 | because then they can bring their networks of people

02:32:09.760 | and their networks of companies

02:32:11.320 | and other people they worked with

02:32:12.720 | that might wanna join your mission, right?

02:32:17.160 | That's the kind of venture capitalist

02:32:19.320 | and smart money that's out there, right?

02:32:22.120 | But you have to build a relationship.

02:32:23.960 | People go, "Oh, look at that valuation.

02:32:25.960 | "Oh, it's the brand name of the VC that's investing in me."

02:32:29.840 | No, it boils down to who's that partner

02:32:32.840 | and how experienced are they.

02:32:34.640 | Don't just give me the brand, give me the person,

02:32:37.720 | because that's the person I'm gonna be interacting with.

02:32:40.040 | - I have to, man, this is a million questions

02:32:42.080 | I wanna ask you, but-- - Season four.

02:32:43.840 | - We're on season five already.

02:32:46.800 | But let me ask you, it seems like,

02:32:49.200 | out of all the brilliant things you write about,

02:32:51.720 | it seems like not an important question,

02:32:53.080 | but it's a fascinating one to me, is lawyers.

02:32:55.400 | You write about this.

02:32:56.440 | Does a company need lawyers and why?

02:33:01.480 | And what kind?

02:33:04.440 | So you write about the value of this game, I guess.

02:33:07.840 | - Right, the legal game.

02:33:09.200 | - Why do we need lawyers?

02:33:14.440 | - You sound exasperated by lawyers.

02:33:16.160 | - I don't have a good question, I guess.

02:33:18.160 | Well, because-- - The why of lawyers.

02:33:21.360 | - The why of lawyers, yes, exactly.

02:33:23.200 | Okay, the why of lawyers.

02:33:25.040 | - Thank you.

02:33:26.400 | You even do the question.

02:33:27.640 | (laughing)

02:33:29.960 | - We just have to put why in front of everything you ask

02:33:32.040 | and then we'll be there.

02:33:33.240 | - Lawyers, why? - Why?

02:33:34.880 | - Even mafiosos had lawyers.

02:33:37.120 | (laughing)

02:33:39.320 | Okay, you know, Tony Soprano, you know, Scarface,

02:33:44.320 | all of them had lawyers, right?

02:33:47.000 | Why?

02:33:47.960 | Because there are things in this world

02:33:49.720 | that you don't always consider in the government,

02:33:53.320 | in laws, in competitors,

02:33:58.040 | because you're so focused on what you're doing,

02:34:00.360 | they have to watch out for you, right?

02:34:02.800 | Now, the best kind of lawyers are the ones

02:34:05.720 | who try to work with you to enable what you're doing

02:34:08.960 | and see gray areas.

02:34:11.640 | Law is not black or white, it's how it's interpreted, right?

02:34:15.360 | And so they can help interpret things a certain way

02:34:17.680 | or help push on things a certain way

02:34:20.000 | to get change to happen or allow change to happen.

02:34:22.440 | Because if you have lawyers who are always,

02:34:24.080 | just like you were talking about PR people,

02:34:26.480 | if you have lawyers who are always saying no to everything,

02:34:28.320 | because their job is to really say no or maybe,

02:34:30.760 | they'll never say yes.

02:34:32.640 | - And you also say their job is to say no

02:34:35.080 | and bill you by the hour.

02:34:36.320 | - Exactly, exactly.

02:34:38.360 | - Depressing. - Right?

02:34:39.560 | If you don't wanna know, don't ask 'em,

02:34:42.360 | 'cause you're gonna get a no or maybe a maybe.

02:34:44.160 | - And you'll get charged for it.

02:34:45.200 | - And you'll get charged for it anyways, right?

02:34:47.640 | So to have a partner, to have them on your team,

02:34:52.320 | to help you see maybe some of the things you don't see,

02:34:54.960 | some consequences, they help to rein that in

02:34:58.160 | or change your language.

02:35:00.080 | Like, are you gonna get sued for this ad?

02:35:02.200 | Just change this one word and it helps, right?

02:35:06.040 | So you need to have a partner.

02:35:07.680 | Most of the times, especially engineers or designers,

02:35:10.800 | they see lawyers as only stifling.

02:35:12.640 | Lawyers can actually, if you do it right

02:35:15.360 | and you have the right type,

02:35:16.600 | they can actually open up a whole new world for you

02:35:18.960 | because of the interpretation

02:35:20.480 | and how we go about doing things.

02:35:22.360 | - And they help you not get bogged down

02:35:25.480 | in the pain of little mistakes that didn't mean anything.

02:35:28.400 | - Exactly, you shot yourself in the foot

02:35:29.760 | and you didn't even know it.

02:35:30.600 | You didn't even know you were carrying the gun.

02:35:33.560 | - Just to jump around, Charles Bukowski once wrote,

02:35:36.680 | "Find what you love and let it kill you."

02:35:39.720 | So the question is about work-life balance.

02:35:44.080 | - That's like finding an idea and let it chase you.

02:35:46.520 | - Yes, but a little more aggressive.

02:35:48.600 | So what does work-life balance look like

02:35:54.320 | that maximizes success and/or happiness?

02:35:59.320 | Is there such a thing as work-life balance?

02:36:02.480 | Can you speak to this?

02:36:05.640 | - When your work is your life,

02:36:07.320 | and I mean that in the positive sense,

02:36:10.160 | when you're on a mission that really matters

02:36:12.960 | and you know that you can really affect,

02:36:15.880 | not just yourself, but other people's lives,

02:36:18.040 | and then that is very rewarding, right?

02:36:21.360 | That's not work.

02:36:23.240 | That's, like I said, a mission, right?

02:36:25.240 | You adopt that.

02:36:27.320 | But that said, you still need to have boundaries yourself.

02:36:30.200 | At General Magic, wonderful documentary,

02:36:32.240 | if no one's seen it, you gotta see that.

02:36:33.960 | It's amazing.

02:36:35.080 | I was physically and mentally unhealthy,

02:36:37.240 | socially unhealthy as well,

02:36:38.640 | because I put every waking minute into this thing,

02:36:42.040 | every ounce of me into it.

02:36:45.560 | And when it was a spectacular disaster,

02:36:48.840 | we were making the iPhone 15 years too early,

02:36:51.120 | the bottom fell out.

02:36:53.960 | I had nothing left.

02:36:55.640 | I had to get healthy socially, emotionally, physically

02:36:59.760 | after that trauma.

02:37:03.160 | I let everything go.

02:37:04.480 | I learned from that that you have to,

02:37:06.880 | even though you might put everything into your work,

02:37:09.520 | you need to find balance outside of it.

02:37:11.800 | Now, that doesn't mean you're always,

02:37:15.160 | it's three days a week working and four days a week

02:37:17.880 | or whatever it was.

02:37:19.120 | You're still working as hard as ever,

02:37:21.240 | but what you're doing is you're making sure

02:37:23.280 | when your thinking time is during work,

02:37:26.040 | that you're not ruminating at three in the morning.

02:37:28.120 | You use the tools that you have to put those ideas

02:37:31.320 | into databases or on pages or somewhere else

02:37:34.240 | so you can go back and look at them.

02:37:36.520 | So you're not always having to remember,

02:37:37.960 | 'cause what happens is most people

02:37:38.960 | don't write this stuff down.

02:37:40.360 | So they just sit here and I gotta remember this,

02:37:41.840 | I gotta remember this, I gotta remember this.

02:37:43.880 | If you just put it into the tools

02:37:45.480 | and you can come back to it, you can come back fresh.

02:37:48.040 | A lot of the time is about ruminating

02:37:49.680 | about what I need to get done and remembering everything

02:37:52.720 | instead of doing the work.

02:37:54.300 | - That's fascinating.

02:37:56.400 | So if you just put it down on paper,

02:37:58.080 | you can actually escape it.

02:37:59.960 | - Right.

02:38:00.800 | - Escape it for a time, to have peace for a time.

02:38:03.160 | You mentioned general magic.

02:38:08.160 | Let me ask you the Russian question.

02:38:10.600 | - The Russian question.

02:38:13.200 | - What's been the darkest moments of your life?

02:38:18.200 | Where are some of the darkest places

02:38:21.600 | you've got in your mind?

02:38:22.840 | You've talked about if you're doing these kinds of things

02:38:26.000 | with startups, you're gonna have to face a crisis.

02:38:28.920 | - Right, absolutely.

02:38:29.760 | - If you're doing it right, you're gonna face it.

02:38:31.360 | So for you personally, where were some of the tougher moments

02:38:36.040 | in your life?

02:38:37.400 | - Growing up, I went to 12 schools in 15 years.

02:38:43.160 | I was always the new kid.

02:38:45.360 | Put yourself in those shoes, right?

02:38:49.240 | - You picked on?

02:38:50.080 | - Well, absolutely, but even more so,

02:38:53.600 | I was the geek with the computer.

02:38:55.680 | Remember the nerds in the '80s?

02:38:57.320 | You probably don't know this, but believe me,

02:38:59.480 | we were made fun of.

02:39:01.140 | What were these computers?

02:39:02.800 | What were these things?

02:39:03.640 | You're off in a cold.

02:39:04.920 | They're all up partying or going, whatever it was,

02:39:07.400 | and I'm sitting there like, "Bleh."

02:39:09.280 | They're like, "This guy is just this alien."

02:39:11.920 | Right?

02:39:12.760 | "Who's this new guy who just showed up?"

02:39:14.320 | And then you would ask the smart questions,

02:39:18.000 | and you couldn't be the smartest,

02:39:20.280 | 'cause then you'd get picked on too.

02:39:22.600 | And you're the new kid.

02:39:23.720 | So you're in this environment that's ever-changing.

02:39:26.320 | You don't fit in, and you are just asking questions

02:39:29.840 | because you think they're the right questions to answer,

02:39:32.520 | but then they're like, "You're making us look bad.

02:39:34.400 | "Don't ask these smart questions

02:39:35.460 | "'cause you're gonna make us do more work."

02:39:37.240 | So right there, it's pretty tough,

02:39:40.620 | and I'm moving cities, right?

02:39:41.840 | And I didn't have the internet

02:39:42.880 | to stay connected to people.

02:39:44.120 | There was no internet.

02:39:45.960 | Phone calls were $2 a minute.

02:39:47.680 | - So it was lonely too.

02:39:49.360 | - It was lonely, right?

02:39:51.760 | Right?

02:39:52.580 | I was a latchkey kid, right?

02:39:54.920 | I had my brother, but he was a skateboarder,

02:39:56.960 | and he had a different social way of working.

02:40:00.640 | He loved to do that stuff and be outside.

02:40:02.460 | I loved the computer.

02:40:03.520 | - So even in the computer, you were alone in the family.

02:40:06.640 | With the computer in the family, you were alone?

02:40:09.080 | - I was absolutely alone.

02:40:09.920 | That was just me.

02:40:10.740 | And then you could find the other geeks, right?

02:40:15.320 | But there were just a few of us,

02:40:16.520 | and we made this little thing.

02:40:18.520 | But then when you moved away,

02:40:20.240 | then I had to use a BBS, a bulletin board system,

02:40:23.920 | and a dial-up modem.

02:40:25.020 | And then I started hacking the phone system

02:40:28.000 | to get free codes on MCI and Sprint back in the day

02:40:32.040 | to get long distance,

02:40:33.320 | to get free codes to call my friends,

02:40:35.200 | the geeks on the other side, right?

02:40:37.160 | Or to dial into a BBS cheaply

02:40:39.360 | that was in another part of the world.

02:40:41.260 | So this was this subculture,

02:40:43.660 | and that was not accepted in any way,

02:40:45.420 | and not the heroes that you see today

02:40:47.180 | that are on the richest people in the world and everything.

02:40:51.400 | So that was the first set of trauma.

02:40:54.300 | And then the next one really was general magic,

02:40:56.700 | you know, the end of that, like I described before,

02:40:59.140 | and pulling yourself out and going just,

02:41:01.880 | 'cause I got so insular in that world

02:41:04.020 | of geeking out and building stuff

02:41:07.120 | that I just tore all the social ties, right?

02:41:09.760 | Because it was just, it was a drug.

02:41:12.980 | I was hooked on the drug, I was a junkie.

02:41:15.480 | I had to get clean.

02:41:17.980 | - Yeah.

02:41:19.440 | And that made you who you are.

02:41:23.820 | - Tempered, tempered.

02:41:24.860 | - So Steve Jobs is no longer with us.

02:41:31.340 | One day you also will no longer be with us.

02:41:36.340 | That's the thing about this life, it ends.

02:41:39.740 | - Yeah.

02:41:40.580 | - So no matter how many incredible things

02:41:43.880 | you brought to this world,

02:41:44.960 | no matter how many inventions you built,

02:41:46.960 | you too shall perish.

02:41:49.580 | Do you think about this?

02:41:51.580 | Are you afraid of your death?

02:41:53.680 | - I am not afraid of my death.

02:41:59.240 | I am an atheist,

02:42:04.140 | and I think about the soul.

02:42:06.860 | Because I do, even though I'm an atheist,

02:42:08.500 | I think about the soul.

02:42:09.400 | And the soul is the thing that you instill in others

02:42:14.180 | when you go that lives on.

02:42:16.060 | It's not this thing that's magically in space.

02:42:20.580 | It's the thing that you've imparted onto people

02:42:23.420 | that you worked with and those relationships you've had.

02:42:26.620 | And that soul lives on in the stories that they tell, right?

02:42:31.420 | And through Build, I'm hopeful that those stories

02:42:34.140 | stay relevant because they're human nature.

02:42:36.660 | They're not about who knows what the next iPhone thing is

02:42:39.340 | or the next iPod thing is.

02:42:40.740 | The stuff that I have been able,

02:42:43.900 | the privilege to make and work with people,

02:42:46.700 | those are all ephemeral.

02:42:48.580 | The iPod's gone now, right?

02:42:49.820 | This week it was announced, iPod's dead.

02:42:52.300 | - And they're out. - After 21 years.

02:42:54.380 | It is that, those human connections,

02:42:59.200 | it's that growth that you've helped someone

02:43:00.900 | just like they helped me.

02:43:02.540 | Just like Bill Campbell or Steve Jobs is gone,

02:43:05.000 | but they made me be better.

02:43:07.020 | That's the soul that I believe in.

02:43:09.140 | - That's fascinating that you say that.

02:43:11.400 | Yeah, so many of these products,

02:43:14.340 | I mean, to push back a little bit,

02:43:16.140 | so even though the iPod is an end of an era.

02:43:18.580 | - Using it every day.

02:43:21.040 | - I think that, I mean, the number of people that impact it,

02:43:26.860 | it's just, so I suppose the soul is carried by the people.

02:43:31.860 | - Exactly.

02:43:33.060 | - Sometimes the products you create

02:43:34.780 | is the sort of the transport mechanism.

02:43:36.580 | - It's the vessel.

02:43:38.780 | And they felt the love and they felt that love

02:43:41.420 | and it transformed them,

02:43:42.420 | even if they don't have the vessel anymore.

02:43:44.500 | - Yeah, and in that way, the soul lives on.

02:43:46.780 | - Just like the body is the vessel.

02:43:48.820 | - That's beautifully put.

02:43:50.260 | Why do you think we're here?

02:43:52.180 | What's the meaning of life, Tony?

02:43:55.620 | - Jesus, man, death, we're going all around.

02:43:59.020 | Meaning of life?

02:44:00.020 | - Why, why?

02:44:01.060 | 'Cause you said it's important to have a press release.

02:44:03.760 | (both laughing)

02:44:06.420 | Humanity, life on Earth, if this thing, the consciousness,

02:44:11.780 | the falling in love and building bridges and iPods

02:44:16.780 | and rockets and trying to extend out into the cosmos, why?

02:44:22.060 | Why do you think we're doing it?

02:44:24.660 | (sighs)

02:44:25.780 | Is there any meaning to it?

02:44:27.660 | - We are naturally curious.

02:44:29.780 | We are naturally curious individuals.

02:44:35.100 | And we are always looking for meaning.

02:44:39.100 | We're always trying to ascribe meaning to something

02:44:42.860 | or understanding of something, right?

02:44:46.420 | And through that, it's just like evolution, right?

02:44:49.780 | In Darwinism, it's just that thing

02:44:51.540 | that's baked into our being at the most fundamental level.

02:44:55.380 | - Driven by curiosity.

02:44:56.820 | - Driven by curiosity.

02:44:58.740 | - You're creating some pretty cool things along the way.

02:45:01.420 | Tony, and speaking of cool things,

02:45:03.540 | you've created some of the coolest things ever.

02:45:06.960 | And on top of that, you're just an amazing human being.

02:45:09.500 | It's a huge honor that you would sit and talk to me today.

02:45:11.700 | This is fun.

02:45:12.820 | - Lex, this is great.

02:45:14.380 | I didn't know where we was going, and I'm,

02:45:17.340 | let's talk, I'm looking for seasons.

02:45:18.940 | - I would love to.

02:45:19.780 | - Seven, eight, nine. - Six, seven, yes.

02:45:21.100 | - So hang out and have dinner

02:45:22.900 | and just rap about all kinds of crazy.

02:45:25.300 | I'd love to continue this.

02:45:26.540 | - I would too.

02:45:27.380 | Thank you so much, Tony.

02:45:28.200 | - Thanks, man.

02:45:29.620 | - Thanks for listening to this conversation

02:45:31.060 | with Tony Fadell.

02:45:32.420 | To support this podcast,

02:45:33.920 | please check out our sponsors in the description.

02:45:37.020 | And now, let me leave you with some words

02:45:39.040 | from Tony Fadell himself.

02:45:41.180 | "The most wonderful part of building something together

02:45:43.740 | with a team is that you're walking side by side

02:45:46.740 | with other people.

02:45:48.380 | You're all looking at your feet

02:45:49.940 | and scanning the horizon at the same time.

02:45:52.580 | Some people will see things you can't,

02:45:54.700 | and you will see things that are invisible to everyone else.

02:45:58.540 | So don't think doing the work

02:46:00.180 | just means locking yourself into a room.

02:46:02.820 | A huge part of it is walking with your team.

02:46:05.340 | The work is reaching your destination together

02:46:09.260 | or finding a new destination

02:46:11.360 | and bringing the team with you."

02:46:13.340 | Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.

02:46:17.540 | (upbeat music)

02:46:20.120 | (upbeat music)

02:46:22.700 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

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

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