Steve Jobs Interview on Apple's Success, Management and More

[MacRumors]

Fortune has published an interesting interview with Apple CEO Steve Jobs covering a wide range of topics. Jobs provide some insight into decisions Apple has made over the years and their design philosophies.

Jobs discusses why he thinks Apple has been successful and their unique approach to design. He takes pride that Apple can integrate both hardware and software design and feels this is a huge advantage over other companies. Jobs also feels that Apple needs to be picky about which products to pursue, and again points to their decision not to release a PDA as an example. Other notable quotes:

On Apple's Consumer Success:

"It's not about pop culture, and it's not about fooling people, and it's not about convincing people that they want something they don't. We figure out what we want. ... "So you can't go out and ask people, you know, what the next big [thing.] There's a great quote by Henry Ford, right? He said, 'If I'd have asked my customers what they wanted, they would have told me "A faster horse." ' "

Marathon Monday Meetings at Apple:

"So what we do every Monday is we review the whole business. We look at what we sold the week before. We look at every single product under development, products we're having trouble with, products where the demand is larger than we can make. All the stuff in development, we review. And we do it every single week. I put out an agenda -- 80% is the same as it was the last week, and we just walk down it every single week.

"We don't have a lot of process at Apple, but that's one of the few things we do just to all stay on the same page."

Apple placed at the top of Fortune's American's Most Admired Companies for 2008.

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[jonharris200]

Fascinating comment about Mondays. Guess that's how they get their Tuesdays right time after time after time...

[anthonyjr]

Every single product under development, eh? More than one?

Though still, it's nice to know that they care about their products more than anything.

[iMikeT]

Another great article about Apple to add to my bookmarks.

[BrownManUPS]

I really like how Apple is sticking true to their business model of the integration of hardware and software design, and giving special emphasis to the software (it seems as all their flagship products underlie the same architecture). The consistency that Jobs has brought alongside the amazing innovations truly make this company one to watch for the ages.

[amoda]

Okay, wow...that quote by Ford really hit me. Wow...

[overanalyzer]

Originally Posted by anthonyjr

Every single product under development, eh? More than one?

I presume that includes software development and updates too, so presumably at any given time there are update in the works for iLife and iWork apps, Safari, iTunes, OS X, iPhone firmware, various iPod firmware, AppleTV, Airport Extreme etc. in addition to 3G iPhones, incorporating new Intel processors into existing products, product revisions, and whatever R&D they're doing that may or may not yield a retail product. So yes...more than one.

[LimeiBook86]

Great article, interesting points about their Monday meetings.

[skinnylegs]

Props to Jobs and Apple. Simply classic Henry Ford quote!

[nemaslov]

Most companies have way too many products or lines. Take Sony: the Trinitron 3AE-34KBK , the Walkman 43KbH9-1 and so on. Way too com-plicated, With Apple you get a nano a mini or classic. Simple to read and remember and not some different edition for Europe or Asiaa. Slim lines.

Also not a million managers and levels to approve a product, concept or ad campaign. At Apple design IS as important as technology. A single voice. Yes maybe Jobs but it makes it so much purer.

[danbalsh]

What a great interview, its really great to get some insight into how Steve runs Apple.

[jonharris200]

"At Pixar when we were making Toy Story, there came a time when we were forced to admit that the story wasn't great. It just wasn't great. We stopped production for five months.... We paid them all to twiddle their thumbs while the team perfected the story into what became Toy Story. And if they hadn't had the courage to stop, there would have never been a Toy Story the way it is, and there probably would have never been a Pixar.

"We called that the 'story crisis,' and we never expected to have another one. But you know what? There's been one on every film. We don't stop production for five months. We've gotten a little smarter about it. But there always seems to come a moment where it's just not working, and it's so easy to fool yourself - to convince yourself that it is when you know in your heart that it isn't.

"Well, you know what? It's been that way with [almost] every major project at Apple, too.... Take the iPhone. We had a different enclosure design for this iPhone until way too close to the introduction to ever change it. And I came in one Monday morning, I said, 'I just don't love this. I can't convince myself to fall in love with this. And this is the most important product we've ever done.'

"And we pushed the reset button. We went through all of the zillions of models we'd made and ideas we'd had. And we ended up creating what you see here as the iPhone, which is dramatically better. It was hell because we had to go to the team and say, 'All this work you've [done] for the last year, we're going to have to throw it away and start over, and we're going to have to work twice as hard now because we don't have enough time.' And you know what everybody said? 'Sign us up.' "

It's right there in those last three words. Would love to see the reject iPhone though!

[bankshot]

Fortune also ran another very interesting article about Steve today. This one he declined to comment for, but among other things it talks about how he knew about his pancreatic cancer for 9 months before doing the surgery -- a fact that was kept secret until today. He'd apparently tried alternative therapies, much to the dismay of the board of directors, until finally giving in to surgery after the tumor had grown.

http://money.cnn.com/2008/03/02/news...tune/index.htm

There's also a whole bunch in the article about the stock backdating stuff -- interesting but not as much as the other topics. It also mentions at the end that he's done little in the way of philanthropy. It's his money, but that's kind of too bad.

[Peace]

Originally Posted by amoda

Okay, wow...that quote by Ford really hit me. Wow...

That is the cornerstone of great marketing and development. Thinking outside the beige box.

I'm sure Apple has a lot of stuff under development. Some will pass muster and go to market. Some won't and will go by the wayside.

Looking forward to tomorrow !!

[Quillz]

Originally Posted by nemaslov

Most companies have way too many products or lines. Take Sony: the Trinitron 3AE-34KBK , the Walkman 43KbH9-1 and so on. Way too com-plicated, With Apple you get a nano a mini or classic. Simple to read and remember and not some different edition for Europe or Asiaa. Slim lines.

Also not a million managers and levels to approve a product, concept or ad campaign. At Apple design IS as important as technology. A single voice. Yes maybe Jobs but it makes it so much purer.

Sounds a lot like Ion Storm's philosophy of design being the law. Of course, they went bust at the start of the decade.

Also, there are four iPod lines, three MacBook lines and two desktop lines, though I personally find the whole "consumer" and "pro" distinction stupid and ill-defined. I wish they'd just advertise the MacBook Pro as being that... a better MacBook, not some kind of machine for "only pros to use." Creates too many elitist attitudes among the fanboys here.

[jonharris200]

I'm looking for a faster horse. Please PM me if you can help.

[KevanDual2.5]

I think this is one of the most insightful articles i have read on this topic. The Monday meetings must lead on nicely to the Tuesday announcements. The Henry Ford quote is brilliant. Simple, but so true.

The key comment, for me, was on how the bad times are handled. So many employers lay off staff as a quick solution to a potential dent in their profits. Steve's way of handling things sharply focuses how important the staff at Apple are. Sure, a fantastic product will always sell. But, those products have to be created by equally fantastic people.

I think that the staff within Apple are very aware of this ethos. It seems to me to be the Ying. The Yang must be the bad side of Steve that i read about earlier today. (http://money.cnn.com/2008/03/02/news...tune/index.htm)

Mr Jobs must be one of the most unique CEO's around. However, this seems to be a paradox. It is his uniqueness that has made Apple what it is, and that's a good thing. But i does lead to that inevitable question. What happens when he is not there anymore?

[justflie]

Excellent article. Love him or lump him, you have to admire what the man has done for the company and for the industry as a whole.

[DaBrain]

Apple is just a Class Act all the way around!

[Rocketman]

It's amazing what a buck will buy you these days!

Even the Fortune photo of Steve was "different".


Also: There has been talk of Apple buying back shares. Apple has predictably declined and may or may not split the stock in the new world of $500 shares like Google.

But who deserves to buy a soon to be astronomical AAPL stock at bargain basement prices more than Steve Jobs? He should take advantage of low interest rates, margin 30% of his DIS stock, buy a huge chunk of AAPL through pipeline.com or some such to minimize short-term pricing impact, then show us where his heart is. He could use the dividend from his holdings to cover margin interest and sell small chunks on strength. Best of all, besides the SEC filing he would have to do, it is a private transaction any citizen is allowed to do!

Rocketman

[123]

Originally Posted by Peace

That is the cornerstone of great marketing and development.

Ignore the customers. Yeah, the cornerstone of great marketing.

And re the quote: It's actually quite bad. The abstract concept behind a faster horse is faster personal movement/transport. And that's exactly what he provided. He could also have invented a horse that could run twice as fast and carry twice as much and he would have succeeded in the market too. They are basically the same thing. Steve's interpretation is just arrogant.

[Stig McNasty]

When Steve does go there will be a whole raft of internal Apple candidates to pick from. Steve Jobs isn't going to hand over 'his' Apple until he's well and truly happy that the line of succession is secure.
I'm sure that there's some serious grooming of potential Mini-Steves, and with the strength in-depth that Apple appears to have the future should be rosey.

[tuneman07]

I love the quote but in a way thats what he did- he gave them a faster horse. Nothing wrong with drawing from people's demands. I also think the pro/consumer thing is stupid but at the same time Apple computers seem more like a tool than a toy for many. Really I guess my main complaint isn't the name but the complete and utter lack of customizable options. They could probably expand their customer base greatly by giving more options to people on all models.

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Boy, you guys are such fans. Personally, I take some offense to the apparent lack of respect for customer input... that we- as a group- might be so weak in collective imagination that we might be able to only envision "a faster horse."

I- perhaps for one(?)- think that Apple would be much better at delivering great products if it shared concepts with the public and asked all that additional brainpower to offer suggestions on perfection visions of those product concepts.

For example, if Apple had shared that they were thinking of making a device along the lines of TV when it was just one of (probably) many concepts, is it that hard to believe that the collective brainpower of prospective customers would have missed simple must haves like 5.1 surround sound, at least the capability to output HD at 1080i/p (which can be user generated with camcorders that cost less than $1000 now), etc? But they did miss those features in a closed innovation model.

The iPhone is great and all, but had they shared a rough concept that they were considering making a combined ipod+cellphone+portable web appliance, don't you think that the brains outside of Apple HQ could have come up with doable potential additions like iChat, GPS, etc. (all of the common ground things that collectively many gripe about now)?

It's not like Apple would have to actually deliver on every request. But it seems more than plausible that such a model would help them to not miss crucial features like 5.1 surround out of the gate.

Personally, I always subscribe to the idea that more minds are better than a few. With the internet, it is very easy to share a basic concept for a new product and solicit input (be that narrowly focused to completely open feedback) from those that might buy the product if it is developed.

I believe that we live in a different world than the one that Ford lived in. And I think Apple could deliver much better products if they opened the communication channels to prospective buyers, granting them a voice in the product development process.

And yes, there are ways to do this while still being able to somewhat surprise the world with the "next big thing."

And yes, I'm not CEO of Apple, so clearly the above must be the wrong way to build world-shaking products that hit the target right out of the gate.

[minik]

What a boring article I have ever read. When I read the first few sentences, I already hate it.