jonathan ive
episode 20
Broadcast date: Coming Soon in February 2018
The Moonshots Podcast wraps up it's design series with a study of Jonathan Ive from Apple. Learn the ideas and practices from the hottest designer on the planet.
INTERVIEWS
Apple – Designed by Apple in California
Apple’s Jonathan Ive in Conversation with Vanity Fair’s Graydon Carter
CLIPS FROM SHOW
APPLE PHILOSOPHY OF DESIGN
Listening, Good Ideas, Designing & Making
Simplicity
Jonny’s Worries
BEYOND DESIGN
AI - Framing the Problem
Learnings from Steve
People is Why
Jonathon ive transcript
TRANSCRIPT
Hello, and welcome to the moonshots podcast. It's Wednesday, February seven, 2018. And it is a fantastic episode 20 on your co-host Mike Parsons. And I'm joined by the man himself all the way from Colorado, Mr. Chad Owen. The number two, zero Mike, who to thought we'd made it to 20. What does that make it does that like six months and 20 episodes or so?
Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, we just got through planning about another six months. I know we're awake gluttons for punishment. We kind of have these crazy roadmap of shows and, you know, it's like ideas just keep coming. We had to sort of get back to the show a little bit. Didn't we. Yeah, well, it's, it's just amazing to me how we keep uncovering more and more innovators, you know, not just in Silicon Valley, but in all different professions and industries and even era's.
Yeah. And it's almost just a lesson in reminding us of how much you can gain by just simply like looking around, uh, yourself, looking around the world and discovering that. People are actually giving you all the clues for success, whether they be in Silicon Valley or abroad. And I just, every single episode, I feel like I've walked away with tons and tons of learnings.
And it's a really good reminder to keep you on track. And I, I feel like we might get some of that magic in today's show. Yeah. So we're going to close this triptych of designers with one that we can't ignore it, and even kind of bled into our last episode in talking about Dieter, the kind of, I don't know if it's kind of just a natural, you know, offspring of, of, of Dieter's philosophy.
Um, but we're picking right up with Johnny ive from Apple and. I think, uh, the clips that we've got on this show really help us understand, you know, what's going on underneath the hood, uh, at Apple, which is, you know, one of today's hottest and the largest company. It's quite ridiculous. Any marketing, uh, survey or rankings will always put Apple is the number one powerhouse brand in the universe.
And then if you go over to our friends, uh, you move away from Madison Avenue and head down to wall street. You will also find that it is the largest company on the planet and Chad, any thoughts on what ties those two together? What makes them this brand and business powerhouse? Well, it's kind of a rhetorical question given the theme, but I would, I would have to argue the design.
And, and their, their culture of design, their philosophy of design. And it, it started with Steve jobs. And I think Johnny and others have called that duo of, of Steve and Johnny is kind of, you know, spiritual brothers, so to speak from, I think their connection was very fast and very deep when he joined Apple in the nineties.
Yeah. And together, how prolific did Steve jobs and Johnny ive become, if you just look at the list, it it's all size, all spectrums of consumer electronics and personal computer wearables. I mean the iPhone, the iPad, the Apple watch the iPod, the Mac book. Um, it just is. It's just a home run after a home run.
It's unprecedented that a company could succeed with the iPod, then the iPhone, then the iPad and who knows what will be next, right? Yeah. Well, here's the, here's a great intro clip giving us a little bit of background on Johnny both before and, and kind of at his beginnings at Apple. Apple's Johnny IFE has just been promoted to chief design officer at the company.
Here's how the mastermind behind the iPod and iPhone Rose to become the most famous designer on the planet. Graduating with a first class degree I've spurred B career step was helping found Tangerine, a London based design company, designing everything from power tools to toothbrushes. I also worked with client Apple doing some early designs.
What would become the power book in 1991? I've joined Apple in 1992, where he worked on the second version of the Newton, the message pad one, Ted Apple in the mid nineties was a far cry from the Apple of today. However, losing cash and lacking focus in its product lineup. I was planning on quitting, but the return of co-founder Steve jobs in 1996.
Changed everything with the iMac, G three Apple swept aside years of Dole, Samy computers. And I just work with jobs on this landmark device, thrust into the forefront of Apple. I could achieve broader recognition for his contribution to the iPod in 2001, which I've insisted should have a pure white color scheme and the charging cable to the air buds over the next decade, I would level his legendary attention to detail at many Apple hits, including the iPhone iPad and plenty of Macs.
Following the death of Steve jobs in 2012, five took another major step it's Apple taking charge of software design as well as hardware and the following year Apple's mobile gadgets got a major reworking in the form of iOS seven, a flatter, more colorful look, but since spread to the Mac Ives, latest creation is the Apple watch unveiled in 2014.
It remains to be seen whether this way gadget can have the same impact as apples of the products. But what certain is that Ivy has become one of the company's greatest assets. And we're excited to see what he built next.
Yeah. What they'll, uh, they'll come up with next. It's interesting to me that the, the thing that stood out was the comment about how he was insistent upon the Apple iPod, having an all white design, um, Is a callback to Dita rounds where you know that the color shouldn't be, you know, a feature or an extraneous feature that he's really, you know, focused on the, the form and the function.
I just thought that was really, really neat and interesting. Yeah. And it's, it's definitely a little nod to something that they've done many a time, which is, if you go back into the day, uh, computers were beige. Okay. And do you remember the revolution that the first IMAX, where, where they were these sort of lollipop colors and that took that one everyone's hot and affections and that didn't, they even also remember the little laptops that they had.
Uh, I kind of, what were they called? Those kind of clam laptops with quite rounded, but they were also really colorful. Yeah. The green blue. I think those were power books. Like the . I can't remember the, the idea there of just the role of color to, to serve the product, um, to, to really push against the status quo because you know, every pair of headphones until they did that were black, of course, uh, or maybe some.
You know, completely over the top, uh, hyper, hyper color, like bright pink and bright blue and bright yellow. Um, I, I think that the, the, the thing that strikes me when you, when you just go through the journey of Johnny, I was. Just the extent to which most people would have been happier saying, Oh, I did that one product, right?
I did the Mac, I did the iPad or the iPhone, but to think one individual has been there, the entire journey right up until the most recent iPhone X. And what's also important to know is that Johnny is no longer just an industrial designer because he is actually responsible, not any further. Hardware, but he's also in responsible for the software and the operating systems that Apple deploy.
And I can't, even my mind can't even begin to imagine a design role that oversees so many physical products and so many digital products too. I find that mindset. Well, it's fascinating to me too. How a company. Like Apple, this giant behemoth is an $850 billion company. As of today, can support and give someone like Johnny.
I have the resources for 25 years to oversee all of those, those products. And that really just goes to show how core to Apple design is that they could, that they could keep someone as. You know, prolific and brilliant is Johnny I for such a long time to hit so many home runs and what you're really leaning into there as culture, of course, you know, creating conditions that, that feel like that they can, uh, not only support one great design, but multiple continuous efforts.
And what's so great about the show today, is that what you're about to hear in this next clip is literally Johnny in his own words and his own voice. Literally breaking down the massive complexities and variables and how he thinks, how he feels about design, how he accomplishes being the head of design at Apple, Inc.
So let's have a listen to Johnny in his own words about his true philosophy of design. We are a small design team. We've worked together for 20, 25 years. One of the things that we've learned is the importance of listening, because as we all know, the very best ideas can very often come from the quietest voice.
Ideas are extremely fragile. Ideas are not predictable in terms of when you will have them and how many you're going to have. I have. And so over the years we've really created a team and an environment that I think really increases the probability of good ideas. And when they actually arrive, I think nurtures them, the design studio really is a workshop.
We designed three-dimensional objects and we make lots and lots of models and prototypes, designing and making really should be inseparable. For every finished product that you see tools had to be designed, process had to be created and experimented with. We've worked very hard to create a singular studio that has all of these different facets.
The hallmark of the group has been to be inquisitive and ask them for lots of questions. We have really made it a practice. So just have our heads down and work and ignore in some senses, all the reasons why something shouldn't be possible. Hmm. There's so many pieces of wisdom in there. Yeah, he's just bombarding us like the quietest voice.
Let's just unpack that one. Um, this just screams at me, ironically screamed, uh, that, um, it is so important to create a place in an environment where people who are not as. Chatty is us, for example, have the space and maybe even the safety to share their opinions because these people can often be the most thoughtful and insightful, and it goes directly to what we heard from ed Catmull.
Right. You've got to create. Uh, the brain trust. This is exactly that same philosophy. So if you're an entrepreneur and an innovator, sometimes you can be really charged up revved up to on a mission. But this thoughtfulness is in this safety, in the space for. Your contributors to come far and abroad from people who might not be the most chatty, but might be the most clued in, on the best design or the best idea.
This is a such a great learning from, from journey. And I know this doesn't come from this clip directly, but I think a practice that. I have seen at several companies to foster. This is to simply, and this sounds stupidly simple, but when you're in a meeting, be sure to check in with every single person in the room.
Either at the beginning or in the middle or at the end of that meeting, to be sure that you've heard from everyone at least once, because Mike, I'm sure you've been in a meeting where the hippo or, you know, the highest paid person, uh, you know, always gets the first and last words and just this simple practice of, you know, calling on each individual and being sure that they are heard is exactly when you get that.
Person who has the great idea, but maybe is unsure if they should, should speak it in the safety, in the, in the space to be able to share that idea. Uh, so true. And I, and another truism, particularly for all of the founder leader types that are listing, uh, the rule I love is always listen first, speak last and just create some space for folks.
And, and that space really matters because. Creativity and design is not a linear process. And Johnny touched on that in his philosophy. It's not like a then B then C it's sort of a little bit more messier than that. And it's interpretive and subjective. So you need to have. Some frameworks that support that openness for all voices to be heard, but you can't assume that it's going to be a linear process.
And boy, what I, he didn't, uh, didn't call it out as hard as we normally do Chad, but did you hear him say we make a lot of 3d objects, a lot of models, a lot of prototypes, and this is music to my years. Yeah, the making design and making inseparable. I think again, we, we heard it from Dieter Rams and the last show.
And here's Johnny again, echoing the fact that you need the designers in the making. To, to be together in one space. And you also are bringing in the end consumer, you know, he started and ended this clip. You're talking about listening and then asking good questions and being inquisitive, which. Then goes into the designs, which goes into the prototyping, which then gets feedback.
And then of course, you know, this amazing rapid prototyping learning loop that you and I have seen, you know, transform companies. Yeah. And here's the lesson in this. Here's why it really matters building a prototype in the early. Early part of your entrepreneurial or innovation journey, you're creating a new product.
The longer you leave it untested through the form of a prototype. The more you're just guessing, you know, and if you want to, de-risk the process, literally just challenge yourself. Get. Come hell or high water. Get that idea in front of customers. Let them touch, feel, click, interact with it and get real genuine feedback.
And this will keep you on the straight and narrow. This will be your real guiding light for, for creating great, a great product. Prototype prototype, prototype it's music to my ears. Chad, new Zeke. Yeah. I think just from what we've seen be created in these rapid prototyping environments, it's not surprising to me how successful Apple has been with the launch of all of its products, because you just know that every single minute detail has been put in front of a customer.
Observed. And when they see that moment of delight in the customer, they're like, okay, now it's now it's ready. Right. And isn't it crazy to think if you sit back and look at all the products that come out of this philosophy and this process, what are some of the key thing? What, what are the characteristics, if you had all the Apple products from Johnny in front of you, what words would you think best?
Describe the designs, the products themselves, what words come to your mind? Chad? If you just imagine all those iPad I-pads, I-phones max in front of you. What are some of the words that come to mind about what ties them all together? I would have to say elegant and intuitive and you you've teed me up really nicely here.
I think another one is simplicity or just simple. Um, and we've actually got a clip from Johnny talking about this philosophy of simplicity in the design of Apple's products. I think there is a profound and enduring beauty in simplicity in clarity, in efficiency. True simplicity is derived from so much more than just the absence of clutter and ornamentation.
It's about bringing order to complexity, bringing order to complexity, huh? Yeah. I don't know. What's interesting to me is he says, it's not just saying no to things. You know, you're making things simpler just by removing things, but also ordering them, which is kind of a different definition of simplicity.
I would just think of simplicity as stripping things away. Yeah, well, so it's stripping things away, but it's knowing what to strip away. You can't, you can't go in there with a machete and just swing. Um, but just, I want you to appreciate that the variables on hardware alone. I just millions of them and the fact that they managed to create simplicity, intuitiveness, and elegance across software, across hardware.
I mean, they even get it right in the, in the stores they build, which happened to be on a per square foot basis. The highest producing most productive retail spaces. In the universe, they sell more per square foot than Tiffany's. Does who have traditionally held, held this number one position? So they are somehow using this philosophy.
They're able to create this greatest of simplicity just enough, never too much. I think the question we can all ask ourselves when we release a product is just the same as when we're writing, which is okay. I've got a first draft. What can I cut? You make a cut, reduce your words down. Then you ask yourself again, what can I cut?
And to just reduce the app products and services down to the essential and get rid of all that noise and clutter that we somehow creeps into the product. So next time you are launching a product or a service. I want our listeners just to ask themselves, what can we cut? What's essential. If the customer only had 60 seconds for this product or service, what would be the things they would really use?
What wouldn't get a looking. I think that will help us decode and declutter and get things to their simplest, most elegant form. But that's so hard. I feel your pain so hard, easy to say, hard to do, right. And this has really come to the fore for me, especially in, and I've been doing a lot more writing and, uh, conjunction, you know, with my, my client work.
And it's so easy to make, you know, a 10 minute piece on something, but how can you distill, I think in tandem with this word simplicity, I think you got it right as essential what's essential and that, you know, this thing is only. As complicated or complex as it needs to be to get the job done. That's kind of another thing that Apple has done really well.
Clay Christiansen has this idea of jobs to be done when it comes to products and services. And he'd come up with this. I think in the eighties, his example was. McDonald's found that they were selling all of these milkshakes in the morning, like between eight and 10:00 AM and they had no idea why. And so they hired some consultants of course, to figure it out.
And what they found was people needed something easy to take in their car for breakfast. And the easiest thing to get the most calories were milkshakes. So then in response, McDonald's created all of these breakfast items that could be carded in people's cars, but it's just interesting. I think Apple takes that idea of what is this thing?
You know, what is its job? What is it trying to do? And it just does that, that thing. So, well, you know, that's the genius of the simplicity of, of the iPod is, you know, I think originally wasn't it like a thousand songs in your pocket? That was the only thing it did was it gave you your entire music library in your pocket.
Yeah. And, and, and it's at the heart of that simplification. It's getting to essential as it's checking in with customers, what really matters and you got it right. It is hard. And this, this is not only hard for us, but actually what's really fascinating is that it's not, it's not. Is not for a moment sitting there saying it's easy either.
He's literally, he has worries. He has concerns. He has doubts and questions throughout the whole process. And we've got this fantastic clip coming up and it's him talking about what keeps him up at night. So let's have a listen to good old Johnny. Thanks that you've made or any things you've learned that are absolutely the kiss of death or the design process and the dogma.
Um, that, that sort of sense of, um, sort of dismissing. Ideas, um, too quickly. I think what's what, what really does haunt me, um, are, are the ideas, um, that we've missed? What worries me the most are those things, um, that I'm not aware of? Um, I mean, over the last 20, 25 years, we've. One of the things I think we've, we've, we've learned.
I mean, one is, is how profoundly important an idea is and how, how fragile an idea can be that then over, over the course of development can become so powerful, so robust, so influential, but at those early stages, How fragile, how easily missed, how, how easy it is to compromise. Um, and that's what worries me, you know, the, the, those things that perhaps you're just not aware of it.
Hmm. Not knowing what you don't know that I think that worries all of us. Yeah. And just to how many possibilities you have when you're developing an iPhone? I mean, you, you, your brain almost, you know, seizes up at just attempting to imagine the possibilities to imagine what you, what you don't know, but did you notice?
I really loved, um, the word that he used to describe design and creativity was how fragile it is. It goes back to him talking about creating an environment that increases not only the number of ideas, but nurtures those ideas as well. And if I had to make a guess, I would think that it's this inquisitiveness that they have around, what's going to delight the customer and their commitment to rapid prototyping is what's going to nurture.
The those ideas to become, like he said, kind of the overwhelming, um, you know, design philosophy around a particular product. Right? So, so you're, you're, you're being on. And what I wanted to follow that up with is asking you when you've got this curiosity and appetite to tell a story, to make a film about.
People going for moonshots and innovators, you have sort of an idea and a curiosity and you can test it out, write it up, scripted out, storyboard it. But how do you protect it in its early stages? When as Johnny said, it's so fragile. I mean, what, what do you do to protect the integrity of a script idea or a film idea?
Hm, I think paradoxically, like you have to let it go, like to not be attached. Um, sorry to get like Zen Buddhist on your own shots podcast.
Yeah, I think, I think it's detaching from. The idea is actually going to give it its own legs and let it succeed. I think it's when you get too detached to these ideas that you can kind of smother or crush them because as you were saying, you know, we can go into our caves and do our work. In isolation, but that's not, that's not how we get the best ideas out into the world.
Mm. Yeah. And, and what do you do to capture an idea at a really early stage? Like what's the artifact that you use when you're talking to your team when you're talking to your clients? Um, how do you give it some sort of tangibility so that you can then sort of let it go on its course. For me, it starts with just asking the right questions, this idea of inquisitiveness I love, um, and listening, you know, that's it's, most of what I am doing really is just.
You know, building rapport with people and listening and asking the right questions and signaling to them, you know, to go deeper and further by asking the follow on questions, you know, not leaving it kind of at super superficial questions, but really, really understanding why, you know, it kind of like a small child to keep asking why and why do you do what you do?
Why is that important to you? And, um, That's really most of my process. And then the easy part is turning on the camera and, uh, and capturing all of that. Yep. So, If you think about what you're doing, you're really listening, uh, understanding very, very much in parallel with, with what Johnny's is talking about.
I think the, the interesting, uh, Thing that we can take from him is there are a set of things that we can all do to optimize the output of design. We know it's not a linear process, but we know that we can let everyone be heard. We know that we can be curious. We know that we can prototype. These are all things we can do to improve the odds.
With a well-designed product. Uh, so it brings me to, to something I'm being kind of looking forward to here. Uh, I want to, uh, go, uh, to, with you on this one. Uh, Chad, what is, if you can do it, what is your favorite Jony ive? Apple product. And why? I mean, take us through the thinking, what are the ones that are your faves, help us understand where that simplicity and elegance really comes to bear for me, it has to be the Mac book and the Mac book pro um, before the MacBook and MacBook pro you know, my idea of a laptop was like a 10 pound black.
Plastic, you know, brick and afterwards, um, you know, I had no idea that a laptop could be both. So I'll use the word again, elegant and extremely functional. I think the amount of computing power that Apple fits into all of their devices is mind boggling. Um, and. It was really comical when I first got my Mac book pro you know, setting it next to my old laptop.
And it's just like one was from the 1950s and hormones.
Well, you know, the, the I'll tell you a funny anecdote about Mac books is, uh, Recently, one of my colleagues said to me, Oh, Hey, uh, we should get you a new Mac, um, Mac book. Uh, which one do you want? And the funny thing is my Mac book is almost four years old and the thought, the thought of upgrading had never come into my mind.
So it still looks gorgeous, right? It still works great. Both from a hub hardware and software perspective. And it was such a little aha. I was like, Oh, um, Oh, I guess it would be neat to have a slightly slimmer one slightly snappier faster, but. It was kind of nice and well, maybe I can just give my laptop to my son.
Um, yeah, that's kind of cool. But there were, there was a time, Chad. Well, I remember in my career where I was updating my laptops, cause they would fall apart. They would get too slow. I was doing that every 18 to 24 months. Do you remember those days? Oh, yeah. Yeah. I think I went through three HP laptops in a year and a half.
Yep. Yep. I was, uh, I was a big Dell. What was it? The Dell inspire on or something like this. Um, and, uh, you would just literally wear them out. They'd look a bit shabby. That'd be slow as well. As hell. Um, and you were just dying for, for, for, for a new one. It was so funny how my mind, uh, doesn't even go there now.
Okay. So you've put the map book up there just to check in. You're saying Mac book, surpasses, iPhone and iPad. I just got to check on I, yeah, I have to go. Cause the MacBook pro was my first Apple product. Then I ever bought me too. Me too. I've only ever had two. I bought one in 2007 and then I bought one in 2012.
And so, you know, over 10 years, I've just had these two MacBook pros and like, And then in terms of, you know, how often I use it and everything like, yes, I probably use my iPhone more, but I am more annoyed with just how prevalent, you know, we are in using these computers in our pockets and, and being in front of screens.
And what not that I kind of, I still have to put the MacBook pro on the, yeah, fair enough. I'm with you there. Um, before, before I give you mine, um, I, I will admit that I am very partial to my, my Mac book and, and have been I've I've always been delighted by them. The interesting thing I will say is I am totally with you on the iPhone.
I particularly feel that the ex afforded me. A better battery, uh, some most screen real estate. Um, but I must honestly admit that as nice as all that is. Is it a thousand dollar phone? I feel like that's pushing it. There's a couple of little usability things that. When you're using this as much as I do, it can be a little bit, um, aggravating.
So I'm, I'm again, definitely drop the iPhone down the list. I'm actually gonna run with, um, the, I pad because particularly with the introduction of the keyboard covers, um, I, I find it a delight to travel with. Uh, I do a lot of, uh, Plane travel. And, uh, the fact that with, uh, the cloud backing it up, I can seamlessly move from phone to iPad, to Mac book in and around.
So I'm going to put, uh, the, uh, the iPad up there. I think some honorable mentions, some runners up would definitely be the air pods, which I've had now for, for about half a year. The air pods, uh, Deceivingly good sound quality, great elegant little a carry pod. If you don't have a pair and you work out and have an Apple watch, I strongly recommend to the audience to consider the AirPods.
The integration is fabulous. I will say that the Apple TV and the Apple watch are my disappointments on design. I feel like they, they could do, um, I could provide so much more benefit. They could solve so many more problems than they do. So I'm going to put the Apple TV and the watch in the more homework for you, Johnny buckets.
Yeah. I mean, I think the iPad is, is a great choice that the iPad is pretty much kicked off the tablet computing revolution. Yeah. It's been the best selling and probably will till the end of time be the best selling. Yeah. I think you're right. That, that slight different mode of computing that's, you know, it's not a phone and it's not a laptop is really fascinating.
And honestly, that's really all the computing that. A large swath of the population needs, you know, they don't need the MacBook pros like we have. Um, but they need a little bit more than what they could do on their phone. So, yeah, I, I love that. I wish I had an iPad, an iPad. I had the very first iPad and ran it into the ground.
Um, But haven't, haven't picked up any of the newer models. Yeah. The, the, the last thought to kind of close this out, that I though I'd offer you, Chad, is that I, uh, you know, it's been, actually, I've been having this thought a couple of times on this trip, um, that I'm, uh, currently on in Europe. And when I sit down in the morning and I have my Mac book, my iPad and my iPhone, I have my.
Uh, Apple AirPods to listen to my music and my watch. I feel like I am a, I have all the tools I could possibly imagine to, to be productive at work, to keep in contact with friends and family. To measure my sleep. So I'm doing my sleep tracking, my fitness workout. Like I feel like all I need is a few of these Apple tools and I can go out.
And I, I think about what work you and I create together on the podcast or when we work on projects together. I think about what we, what we produce with these few tools is remarkable. Um, yeah, I would be an interesting challenge to see what we could do with just one of them to see how far we could push with just an iPad and a USB mic or, uh, you know, just a phone.
That's always been something that's fun for me as a filmmaker. You know? W how far can you go with just an iPad or just a phone? Yeah, I know there are particular break points. Do you know any break points where you have to move from one to the other? I'm not, I'm not sure. I mean, there have been successful Sundance award winning films shot on I-phones.
So like we don't have any excuses. Yeah. I find that, um, there are particularly when I'm designing and this means I'm getting out Adobe illustrator or XD. I can do comparable things. On the iPad or phone, but I just want to, I want to be on the Mac book. Um, another thing is I love reading on the iPad, not so much of a fan of it.
Um, on the map book, any sort of longer form writing has to be on the iPad on the Mac book. I hate it when I have to do more than one sentence on my phone. I don't know what it is. So do you know, the cheat I'm using now is I'm actually using dictation. If I'm in a situation where I actually have to answer an email.
Uh, quick smart or something like that. I'll invariably dictate it because I just like the thumb, the thumb typing thing just drives me. Bonkers. Apple is certainly the. The tools of choice, uh, for people like yourself and me who are kind of in embedded in this fast moving rapid prototyping design world.
Yeah. That I really use. And it's definitely a defacto standard would be very hard to de-position, uh, Apple out of that, um, because of the, the, the attention to design across hardware and software. But. You know, we've, we've learned so much from Johnny already. I think it's kind of relieving to know that he still does worry about some stuff and he is not some magical article in the, in the, in the ivory tower.
Yeah. Yeah. And an interesting question that he was posed, um, from one of the interviews that we listened to, of course. Everyone nowadays are getting questions like this, but he had an interesting perspective, um, when he was asked about kind of the role of artificial intelligence in design. So here's Johnny answering that token question about how artificial intelligence will impact design.
Do you see a future where an AI robot could go forth and design the iPhone 10? I think there are aspects of what we're doing in terms of sort of advanced modeling, um, where absolutely there's there is a role. Um, but some of the, I mean, you, you know, how. Actually we were talking about this yesterday, how we understand the problem, even right at the very beginning, how you understand the problem, how you frame the problem is a critical part of the design process.
And it's a very creative part of the design process. So, um, and I think that's when you understand potential opportunities. Um, but so no, I, I think there are, um, and always will be a very important role for, uh, for us and the sorts of the questions that we would ask that are, um, perhaps not obvious. Yeah, I, I, I like this idea that you can train computers to do a bunch of stuff, but to ask questions that are not obvious to perhaps come at things from a different point of view touches a little bit on where I think, uh, Johnny sees creativity coming from.
How did you, how did you think about, I mean, you're, you're a storyteller you had, this is, you know, Can can, can AI create a better story, a better movie than you? I mean, there is music being created now by DeepMind. I mean, where does this start? Where this is in, when you hear him say this, like, where does your mind go?
Hi, I don't have anything to, to add really his. Insight into it's how we frame these design challenges and problems. Like that's where the human ingenuity shines. I think it's absolutely true. Um, I think as in all of this kind of fear-mongering about AI stealing jobs, I think it's, it's, it's an unreality, like it's not going to happen because this abundance of artificial intelligence.
Work and labor will be executing on these ideas that the humans are creating. So we will just go from being, being the, kind of the idea originators and the hands that make the things to just being the idea generators. And then, and then the AI and the robots can, can make the things. And so I, I very much am a kind of a kindred.
Spirit with Johnny in that, you know, the human ingenuity at the beginning of, of, of the design. Phase is, is going to continue. Yeah. Yeah. I, I think, um, the irrefutable fact is that without a doubt, we are moving into an era where creativity, ideas and design are worth even more because they're often the things that help, uh, distinguish and we heard.
You know, uh, in our previous design shows that design is a differentiator and you have no better business case than Apple. And what Johnny does every day. If you want to know how to build the biggest brand, the biggest company in the world kind of starts with design, but the design, ethos, and philosophy of the company and the amazing thing it does, Johnny has been so humble and recognizing that it wasn't just him alone.
He has a team of. Design is in a studio, but he also got the remarkable opportunity, uh, to work with and for Steve jobs. And we have a clip coming up, which really gives us insight into the relationship between them. How that, how the advice from Steve came to journey. And I think this is remarkable. This clip that we're about to hear is an insight, a look behind the curtain on how Steve jobs and Johnny I've worked together.
So here let's have a listen to what a good old Joni I've learned from Steve jobs. Um, and it's a struggle to practice, but is, is this issue of focus? Um, Steve was the most remarkably focused person I've ever met in my life. And, um, and the thing with focus is it's not sort of like this thing you aspire to, or you decide, you decide on Monday, you know what I'm going to be focused.
It is a every minute a, why are we talking about this? This is what we're working on. You can achieve so much when you truly focus. And one of the things that Steve would say, um, because I think he was concerned that I wasn't, um, he would say, um, how many things have you said no to? And I would honestly, I would have these sacrificial things.
Cause I mean, um, I want you to be very honest about it. And so I say, I said no to this and no to that. And, um, He, but he, he knew that I wasn't vaguely interested in doing those things anyway. Um, so there was no real sacrifice. What, what focus means is saying no to something that you with every bone in your body, you think is a phenomenal idea, and you wake up thinking about it, but you say no to it because you're focusing on something else.
And then the third one is, is, is an interesting one, which is, um, Actually reflects a little bit poorly on. Um, but I remember having a conversation, um, with him and was asking why, um, would have been perceived that in his critique of the piece of work, he was a little harsh. And, um, and, and, um, you know, we'd been working on this, we put our heart and soul into this.
Um, and, um, I was seeing, you know, couldn't, we be a little bit more, could we not moderate the things we said? Um, little bit and, um, well, why? And I said, well, you know, cause I care about the team and you know, care about 'em and he said, this brutally brilliantly insightful thing. Which he said was no, Johnny you're just really vain.
Oh. Um, and he said, no, you just want people to like you, and I'm surprised at you because I thought you really held the workup as the most important, not how you believed that you were perceived by other people. And I was terribly cross, um, because I knew he was right. Hmm. There's yeah, there's two really amazing parts to this story to have been a fly on the wall, uh, in that conversation with Johnny and Steve
getting, getting throttled on, on the focus and then like, Now you're just soft on the work because you want to be like, Oh my gosh, two really important pieces of insight. I, I think for entrepreneurs though, I identify with both of these, um, It's easy for us to say no to things that we don't want to do. Um, and as Johnny said, that doesn't matter what Steve helped show him was, you know, Mike, you and I now I think have a pretty good idea on really what we want to go after and the type of work that we want to do and the clients that we want to work with.
And I know because we've talked about it, that we get distracted by other things that we also really want to go and do. And I think the harder thing for us to do is to say no to those other ideas so that we can focus on what we're doing. And this has plagued me 10 years that I've been working for myself is I call it shiny object.
I syndrome every entrepreneurs suffers shiny object syndrome. I feel your pain shadow, and I feel your pain and hearing. That Johnny ive and Steve jobs had the same discussion about that. Same struggle is, um, it, you know, it makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside that it's not just me. It's not just you that our struggle.
I bet I loved the, the, the focus you put on, no focus is when you kill something that you're dying to do. No. Know, it's taking you off target is taking you away from other priorities. That is such a powerful thing. Like none of these sacrificial lambs, like tell me about something that you, you absolutely walked away from, and yet you were dying to do it.
And again, you, you see that in. The products that Apple releases, you can tell that they said no to, to a lot of things, but I'm a little curious to you, Mike, just about this idea of maybe thinking that we're focusing on the work and the. And the product, but when in actuality, maybe it's something personal or political or bureaucratic instead.
What, um, what have you seen, um, in the work that you've done that kind of reinforces that learning from Steve? Um, the best practice I can speak to is ensuring that people understand that it's a conversation about the work, uh, number one. And that means not the individual. And number two, we all own the work.
Okay. Um, and. Those are things that are deeply, um, I'm just working on those everyday. In fact, this morning, I was, uh, with a large group at a client and there's a lots of, uh, prototyping and ideas were flowing this morning and, uh, on a very complex, uh, uh, product in the financial services vertical. And at the heart of that was trying.
To create a place where all the experts could provide suggestions and ideas, uh, without all of the details and interdependencies being ripped apart and people feeling as a result of that, you don't want people to feel like. Their contribution is not welcomed or appreciated. Um, and what I would say in smaller teams say in startups and so forth, another thing you see is, um, good teams can have open Frank conversation about the work and.
Not be too attached, not have too much dogma or bias teams that suffer like a terrible symptom is all the passive aggressive behavior where the real problems are forget being addressed and the real problems and not even spoken. So when, when you are building a company or a product, you've got to find a way just to have an open and Frank conversation.
And for some. For some, and for most I would actually add that, uh, particularly like making people aware that they're too emotionally connected and, and the consi, uh, the path anymore because of that, that can be a very tough discussion. Mm. Yeah. And I think when, and it sounds like this was a personal conversation that Johnny and Steve had, but Steve saying to Johnny, Hey, it, you've made it personal.
It's about your personality and, and how you're perceived that feedback kind of aside and in private, I think is important. But yeah, giving and receiving feedback is so difficult sometimes because it's, so it can be so emotional. And so I think you're right in that, keeping the focus on the work and.
Having that shared responsibility is really important to know as the team going into that feedback process. Um, and I think it's also important both as a team to, to set that expectation at the beginning in that meeting and kind of close it at the end to kind of have a feedback process on the feedback process.
So if you feel like you struggled to make headway and you're spinning in circles in that meeting, Say that at the end, so that at the beginning of the next feedback cycle, you can try something different or, um, you know, just try and make that feedback process better going forward. And then if, if you are truly being vain, like Johnny was, maybe you can tell someone, Hey, I think you were putting too much weight, you know, on you on your voice and your feedback.
You know, I would love to hear more from other people next time. Yes. Yeah, absolutely. And what you're really pointing us to is that for all of this great design thinking that we're hearing about from Johnny, this, you know, ideas of simplicity and process and, you know, the things that keep him up at night, what, what Steve is highlighting to us as all of that functional stuff runs in parallel with emotions, feelings, you know, it's the people thing.
And, uh, I'm. Very very happy. We've got this final clip, which is really frames that you need that, that functional maturity and expertise on design, but more than anything is you need to understand that design is something that's done by people. And Johnny has a lot to share with us. There's lots for us to learn.
So let's have a listen to our final clip from Jony ive on why people. Now what really makes you feel incredibly excited when you get out of bed in the mornings? Uh, people
it's not the iPhone 22 or something. No. We make tools for people and, um, that, that, um, That's why we exist. That's what drives us. Um, we, um,
it really is. Yeah. Sense of trying to make something to the very best of our ability, um, that will enable and empower, um, my friends, uh, you know, the people that use our products. Um, but that that's what drives us. Um, and I think that it would be concerning if, if it was just a fascination with the technology.
I mean, I think part of the job of a designer in many ways, I think you can provide a focus for some goals for technology. But, um, you can have the most incredibly powerful technology that can be completely irrelevant unless it can connect to, to us in a meaningful and useful way. Right. Um, focusing the role of a designers, focusing the technology to connect it to a person and make it useful for them.
I, I think that's a pretty good summation of the Apple design philosophy. Don't you? Yeah, I think you got it in one it's it's just, and, and you, you can tell by his response, um, Like he has the right order, you know, he knows that, yeah, there's some cool tech going on, but in the end it must be serving their users, their customers, and connecting them, delighting them and not getting in their way.
And it's such a timely reminder for the entrepreneurs and the innovators. Who are listening to this, you know, in the end, the success of your business will be in addressing the pains that your customers have and the gains that they're looking for. And you can pull on any whizzbang technology you like to get the job done, but it must be in order to serve those needs.
Yeah. It's a really, a really great reminder to keep everything, you know, human centered and focused. On the customers. Um, I know we keep harping on this practically in every single episode, Mike, but I think our experiences have shown and we're hearing from all of these innovators that that really is one.
Big part of their success is being inquisitive and listening to their, to their customers and to people and enter their own employees as well. Yeah. They have different ways of saying the same idea of, you know, focusing on customers or users. They might use words like design thinking. They might use words like customer obsessed or customer breakthrough, or it doesn't meant that the idea here.
Which along, probably along with, uh, a behavior of learning, uh, which seems to tie all of the innovators together. The other one is that they are just curious. They are obsessed about serving customers, digging into stuff that they need. And it's, it's a, it's a sort of humble reminder that it doesn't start with technology or tools.
It doesn't start with marketplaces. It doesn't start with anything else other than the customer. Um, the other thing that I loved hearing from Johnny was the importance of creating an environment that helps. Spark ideas and nurture those ideas. And he was given the license for 25 years or, and still to this day to do that, you know, he, I don't know how much Apple spends on research and development and design, but it's got to be in the billions of dollars.
Um, and it, and it shows. Yes. Yeah. And listen, just, just in the last week, they, they just, uh, made available their home pod speaker, which looks beautiful. And everybody says, sounds amazing. And it might not be the biggest product they've ever launched, but they continually. Bring to the four products that they said about the, the home pod.
It's been six years into development. That's how long they had to nurture that idea into a product. And one thing for sure is we know it's not easy, right? It's hard work. Johnny Ives still worries and keeps things, keeping him up at night, but he's given us a complete playbook on things that we can do.
Literally you can pause the show now and go and start doing these. And you, you will be. Increasing your likelihood of a product that will absolutely delight its customers. And this, the segue into the world of design, uh, was really interesting and fun for me. Mike hearing Joe and Dieter and Johnny, like you said, speak to the same truths in different ways has been really interesting.
And then comparing, you know, what these designers have said. Do people like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos is also really interesting because they're talking about the same thing, but from different perspectives or kind of different sides of the globe, so to speak. And, um, I just wanted to tease what we were thinking about for our next episode is going back to episodes one and two, when we profiled Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos and doing a little bit of an update show.
They've both been up to so many things in the last six months. Haven't they might go, Oh my gosh, these guys are prolific, right. I mean, you just can't turn your back for a moment and you're like, we got to do another show. He's done so much. I think, um, The launch of Falcon heavy just today and what Jeff Bezos has done, uh, with acquisition of whole foods and his, you know, jump into, uh, retail, uh, and, and storefronts has been really fascinating.
So I think we're gonna, we're gonna kind of unpack what's happened in the last six months. And see, you know, what's going on in the world of Ilan and Jeff. Absolutely. And I, I I'm really fired up for that. And, uh, I think there's a ton to learn there and a ton to unpack. And I want to remind everybody that you can go to moonshots.io and you can find all the show notes, all the information or the inspiration that you need to get on course for designing better products to go out there and to delight your customers.
So that's moonshots dot. I, uh, and, uh, kind of a wrap on our design series. I feel old designed up. I'm going to have to buy like a data Ram's coffee book or something when I get, yeah. Why wouldn't the little Bron, uh, clock that kind of square clock. Oh, yeah. I can't remember what it's called, but I mean, I'm sure if you just Google Bron or DDA ROMs, it's one of the first things that come up.
That's that's. That was the thing that I was coveting after doing all the research on him. And I wanted to remind all of our listeners too, Mike, and I love your feedback. Please email us at hello. At moonshots.io and, um, you know, we've done 20 episodes, but Mike and I don't want to congratulate ourselves too soon.
We'd love to do this for another 200. And so any ideas and feedback that you have on people and industries, places we should go. To find and uncover and unpack the wisdom from innovators. And we'd love all of your, all of your feedback. So you can just shoot us an email@helloatmoonshots.io. So we hope that you leave this podcast with a little bit more energy, a little bit more swing in your step, a little bit of design mojo.
Um, and we really want you to get ready for take off on the next show because we got Ilan Musk. Jeff Bezos. We've got a whole new bunch of lessons and learnings from them. So we want to share all of those with you on the next episode of the moonshots podcast. Chad, thank you. I hope you're inspired. I hope you're ready to go out there and carve the mountains of Colorado.
Yes. And I'm excited to record 200 more episodes of mood chats. There you go, guys. Couldn't have said it better myself. So thank you ever so much for joining us here on the moonshots podcast. We'll see you on the next show