steve jobs
episode 35
The Moonshots Podcast finally arrives at the greatest innovator of his time - Steve Jobs. Steve saw the world in a unique way that has so much relevance to today's innovators.
Get ready to settle in for some deep learning from the Steve. The show will cover the early days, the ups and downs of Apple and the earth-shattering creation of the iMac, iPod, iPhone. This show is unmissable.
SHOW INTRO
Intro 1 - Steve Jobs Reads The Crazy Ones
A-BLOCK - HISTORY
Bill Gates on Beginning of Apple
Ed Catmull on the Brilliant Strategy For Pixar IPO
BOOK REVIEW
Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
B-BLOCK - STRATEGY
Secret of Apple is its a Software Co
Partner Instead of Build
Fallacy of Zero Sum Competition
Apple Is Run By Ideas And Autonomy
Great Teams Great Work
TRANSCRIPT
Hello and welcome to the moonshots podcast. It's a very special episode, 35. I'm your cohost Mike Parsons. And as always, I'm joined. By Chad Owen in New York. How are things? Chad Owen great. Mike, aside from, uh, some post cold, uh, voice strangeness, uh, things are going well. How's your morning been? And Sydney, Sydney is incredibly chilly this morning, but Hey, it's winter.
It's got to get cold at some point here in, in, uh, the usually sunny Sydney, Australia. I'm all warm. I am ready. In fact, I'm want to admit to all our listeners that I'm rather fired up for this show because Chad, this is going to be the almighty. One of the greatest, most exciting shows we've ever done. Why don't you share with everyone, the topic, the guru that we shall be diving into and delving into their world?
Who is this very special? Innovative? Yeah. Well, we've been on an Apple kick here recently and this, uh, This Apple train is not over yet. Hmm. Uh, our last show was about Steve Wozniak in this show. We're going to be talking about the other Steve jobs. Co-founder of Apple and yeah. Uh, you know, the JC to all the Apple fan boys out there in the world.
Indeed. And, uh, you know, the funny thing about Steve is very complex guy, moldy, dimensional, but I think. We have to recognize that he has been at the head of not only one, but two companies. I think some of our listeners might not fully appreciate that Steve Jobs was not only founder and CEO of Apple, but he actually was the CEO of Pixar.
And just as a reminder, you know, Apple super heavyweight champion of the technology field. Peaks are by far the most successful Hollywood studio in history, their success per film, their earnings per film, ah, outperforms anybody else. And he was instrumental in both companies. I mean, if you had done one.
You'd be very happy, but to have done, to makes this a very special show. I mean, Chad, when you think about all the things Steve jobs can mean, what does he mean most, uh, for you? What role has he played and his inventions played in your life? Well, I, I did want to remind our listeners that we did a show on ed Catmull, who was also there at the beginning of a, of Pixar.
So if you're curious about the, the early beginnings of, of, of Pixar, be sure to check out that show. That was show number. That was a fair while ago. I think, I think ed I'm going to guess was in the low tens somewhere around there. What do you think. Maybe 16, 15, eight show number eight that, and, uh, yeah, it was, uh, it was one of the early ones.
Uh, we, you know, we had, uh, had a great guests on that show too. Um, Simon banks. So, but to answer your question, Mike, Steve for me is an innovator on two very interesting front. And I see him as an innovator on the kind of physical. You know, creating amazing physical experiences with products and on one side, and then pairing that with the software and the backend UI and user experience together into products and services that.
We all take for granted today. Yeah. Yeah. He was remarkable in blending hardware and software in a way that, you know, Microsoft and many other companies have attempted to do, but no one's really come close. So let's be honest. I think the other thing I would just to add on top of that is he did all of those things, Chad, but can you think of someone that has disrupted.
So many industries, but if you think about he disrupted animated film, he disrupted the PC market, the phone market, he disrupted the music market, the software. If you actually go through the list of things, his inventions are wildly disruptive. I mean, Every other, I mean, it's, it's a, it's actually far greater than the Amazon effect.
I mean, Steve job messes with a lot of people's other businesses through the art of innovation. He's yeah. His innovation. Yeah. His innovation it's it's interesting. You bring up Amazon. I believe that Steve jobs, innovation. Model, if you will, is very different from Jeff Bezos's, that's where I are. As we are always talking about the flywheel at Amazon, that is that's Jeff basis, his kind of core thesis on, on innovation.
Right? Whereas I think Steve jobs is, is much more of a complete disruption, blue ocean, you know, creating new markets. Yeah, uh, kind of innovation from whole cloth, you know, taking a complete divergence from what has come before, whereas Jeff basis is it, I think it's still innovative, but it's much more tied to kind of the current reality and what customer's current needs and focuses are.
Absolutely. Absolutely. And, and the, um, the, the knock on effects of all the innovation of Steve jobs is just off the planet, because I want to remind you. The back in 2007, uh, Apple was far from being the greatest. Smartphone manufacturer in the world. And in fact, a lot of people thought it was crazy that they're making a phone, but look in just such a short time.
And just over 10 years, they make more profit per phone than the rest of the industry combined. They are truly a super weight, a super heavyweight champion, if you will, uh, when it comes to that. But he, the crazy thing, Chad is he did this with Pixar too. Pixar is incredibly dominant. In the animated film industry.
And if you had said 15, 20 years ago, that Disney was not going to be the dominant force in animated film, you would have been laughed out of the room. Um, ironically, they ended up acquiring a, uh, but I think the sheer scale and effect on business on our personal lives, you cannot understate the impact of Steve jobs.
And I just think it's so exciting. To, to delve into this world because. What happens is when they have this great disruption, it is not only a company I would propose to you, Chad, it starts to become like a cultural force. It starts to become something bigger than a company it's sort of, and you mentioned the fan boys and stuff like that, but.
Really, it becomes a way of life. It becomes a status symbol. It becomes to have meaning far beyond that, of just a product. And one of the crazy things is it's not only their products that, uh, are permanently marked in our minds and hearts, but it's even their advertising. I mean, these, these, where does it stop?
There is just innovation all around Steve jobs. It's quite remarkable, right? Yeah. And rather than you and I go a little fan boy here and talking about Steve, I'd love to just jump right into the clips here because we've got some, some really great ones. So actually, uh, just start out with, with Steve doing a really great reading.
Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes, the ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules and they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them about the only thing you can.
Can't do is ignore them because they change things. They push the human race forward while some may see them as the crazy ones. We see genius because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.
Boom. I mean, there it is. So that was taken from their crazy ones, a TV ad, and that was part of a bigger campaign called think different, which is really the source of how we all perceive Apple today. And it was one, uh, one of the greatest campaigns, the coolest thing is it was not their most successful.
And there's one other that we will talk about later in the show, which was even more successful. And this speaks so much to the cultural crossover that Apple has. And I think Chad, a lot of that came from the fact that. Steve as much as he was into technology and software and engineering, it was also a man of the arts.
And I think that's what really stands him apart. He was, you know, part art, part science, and I think that's why he's had such a cultural and business effect on the people he worked with on our lives as consumers. And I think that it's, he stands alone because he had that multidisciplinary. Characteristic and, and Chad, I was just wondering, can you really think of many current tech CEOs that strike you for having both that art and science, that philosophy and engineering intersection?
There's still very few isn't there. I'm not really sure that, that I know of any exactly offhand. And I'm struck at the kind of pressure points. Of Steve reading that because this was in the early two thousands when this campaign a little bit before then, so in the nineties, but at the time he probably wasn't thinking, Oh, well, I'm talking about myself.
Although maybe he included himself in, in, in the geniuses. But I think certainly today we would. Well, we would kind of lump him in with, for, for viewers that are listeners, that haven't seen this it's lots of imagery of just all of the greats, you know, throughout time, Leonardo, DaVinci, Einstein, Gundy, Martin Luther King, you know, all of those kind of grades.
And I think, you know, we could almost just insert a picture of, of Steve jobs in there as well, but his deep curiosity, and multi-disciplinary thinking that you mentioned Mike, I think. Is is definitely part of what drove him and the Apple to create the kinds of products that they did. Whereas they're, they're contemporary companies like HP and others were solely focused on we're building machines for engineers and.
Steve was way ahead thinking of like, well, you know, how can we get graphics in here and topography and, and things so that he could open it up to the world. You know, of creativity, not just science and engineering. The big takeout for us here is as obsessed as we might like to be with a certain skill.
Steve jobs is a great showcase, a great argument for the breadth. Of perspective and a worldview. That's not singular, but it's more diverse and inclusive and takes in different ideas and, and almost contrarion things and mixes them all up. And I think that serendipity is where you get some real, real magic.
And certainly someone that recognized the magic of, of Steve jobs was for many years, they were kind of on again, off again. Friends than enemies or frenemies. However you want to say it. But bill Gates, founder of Microsoft has some really, you know, great benefit of hindsight because they worked together for, for more than 20 years in different capacities.
And we've got this next clip, which is really going to take us back to the beginning of Apple. And it's going to refer to some of the really tremendous things that Apple did not only of recent, but of. The really early days. So let's now listen to bill Gates talking about the beginning of Apple. What Steve's done is quite phenomenal.
If you look back to 1977, that Apple two computer, the idea that it would be a mass market machine, the bet that was made there by Apple uniquely, there were other people with products, but the idea that this could be an incredible empowering phenomena, Apple pursued that dream. Then one of the most fun things we did to go to the mat was the Macintosh.
And that was so risky. And people may not remember that Apple really bet the company, Lisa hadn't done that well. And some people were saying, okay, that general approach wasn't good. But the team that Steve built, even within the company to pursue that. Uh, even some days it felt a little ahead of its time.
I don't remember that Twiggy disk drive in 28 K
uh, the Twiggy disk drive. Yes, Steve, I gave a speech once, which was one of my favorites where he talked about in a certain sense, we build the products that we want to use ourselves and. You know, so he's really pursued that with incredible taste and elegance that has had a huge impact on the industry and his ability to always come around and figure out where that next bet should be, has been phenomenal.
You know, Apple literally was failing when Steve went back and reinfused the innovation and risk-taking that have been phenomenal. So the industry has benefited immensely. Uh, from his, his work. Yeah, so much in there from bill on Steve. What's interesting to me is how bill calls out a few of Steve's traits.
One of them is this kind of editing ability of Steve's to kind of bring the company on back to build things that they should actually be. Building. And I think that's, it's portrayed differently in different accounts, you know, kind of, depending on where you go to, to learn about how things were handled.
And I understand that. Uh, you know, certain products kind of have a more fraught history than others, but it's resulted in, you know, more successful, more widely spread, more innovative products. Absolutely. Well, did you also hear the interesting, uh, crossover that he has with the was building products that we wanted to use?
And do you remember how in the walls show he was continuously talking about build for yourself? You are your customer. That's also very nicely tipping in, um, to Martha Stewart, the, your own customer. And, uh, that's how he rekindled. And frankly, he saved Apple by getting back to its roots. Of building products that, you know, he wanted to use things that he would be proud to share with his friends and family.
And I think it's, I think it's a big lesson for anyone building a product right now is build something that you, you desire that you really want to use yourself. If you're not the customer, you're going to struggle deeply. And having that empathy and understanding of what the customer really wants. Yeah.
And frankly, it's just, you're going to be spinning in circles for forever until, until you do have that kind of problem solution fit yourself, uh, before you can then go and test it on, on others. And Steve had a very. In hindsight, you know, he calls it a great opportunity of coming back to the company. So he could be on the outside, working at next and founding Pixar and saying, Oh, Apple is doing all of these things wrong.
Here's how I would do it. And then he was actually, you know, he actually was given and took that opportunity. Can you seize that opportunity to come back? And then again, Build things that he, that he actually wanted to use. Yeah. And you have to remember too, that what he built it next was essentially OSX.
So in the main thing that came back was a Unix-based operating system, which I don't know if you remember Chad, after a lifetime on windows. When I finally got on OSX, I was like, Oh my gosh, It doesn't crash. It just doesn't crash. And do you remember windows machines used to crash regularly back in the day and they still do.
I mean, I really, honestly can't even recall the last time my Mac has crashed. I know it's crashed once or twice, but in the last few years, but, well, you know, here's the thing, uh, Chad what's really interesting is, is when, when people. When innovators and creators and product designers, either end customers, they get this strong mission about them and they know what they're about on the inside so that they can tell actually better stories on the outside and what we're going to do now.
And I promise this in, in the early part of this show, we now are gonna talk about. Apple's most famous ad is called the 1984 ad made by my favorite film director to Ridley Scott. And this ad was a absolute game changer. It did a number of things. First of all, it's generally considered the most effective ad ever run because they paid for one placement of the ad.
That placement was on the Superbowl and in, it was so controversial when it, when it was ed, uh, in the halftime break that it set the world on fire. It was the real talking point after the game. And for the days after that, here's the other thing. This ad was so powerful because it didn't talk about the product.
It talks about the mission behind, uh, what Apple was doing and really set them up. And, and really was the, forbearer not only a thing different, but it's this mega brand that the company has gone on to, to, to become. So we're going to listen to a guy called Lee Clough. He's from a very famous agency called TB w a.
And they made the ad way back then in 1984. And what I want you to remember as we listen to this, is that what we take for granted now is that halftime break in the super bowl is full of these very interesting Epic multimillion dollar ads. These all started. With Apple, with their ad. They were the first to do this and they started what is now a billion dollar industry, which is super bowl advertising.
So let's have a listen to Lee cloud telling the story behind these very iconic ad, 1984 today, one year after Lisa, we are introducing the third industry milestone product. Macintosh. So there was this challenge for Steve. I gotta introduce Macintosh. It's gotta be dramatic. It's gotta be famous. It's gotta be different.
We had a meeting where we presented a whole bunch of thinking that went into launching Macintosh. He thought it was brave. He thought it was great. It was the board of directors thinking it was really stupid and irresponsible. And there was a moment in time when the board was trying to pull the plug on all the funds and then have it not run.
And he was there with Wazniak and he said, well, I'll pay for half of it. If you will, they didn't have to come to that. But they did make that overture at one point. So you open on this place that represents the future with people marching to. Uh, central hall. Our idea was that big brother represented the control of technology by the few lots of people decided partly by the blueish quality, partly by the competitive situation.
Uh, Apple found themselves in that big brother represented IBM. And that really wasn't the intent, but it probably worked on that level as well. Well, but running down one of the quarters was. A girl who you saw glimpses of. She came bursting into the back of the room and she had stopped and swung once, twice, and then heaved the hammer.
Yeah, a giant explosion. You'll see why 1984 would be like 1984. 1994. It wasn't designed to only run on the super bowl. It was designed to have a media life beyond the super bowl, but the board of directors at Apple decided it was irresponsible since it didn't show the product and the product wasn't even available yet to continue running it.
And that becomes almost part of the legend. Oh, and the genius of just running at once on the super bowl. Every news show, the next morning was bad. Basically saying that the game was okay, but did you see the commercial? Our vision was more about the idea of how the world is going to change because of the computers.
Not that we were changing the Superbowl that day, but it did create a phenomenon where people started thinking, designing advertising specifically for the super bowl and keeping it secret and having it be a surprise. All those things were kind of born out of 1984, running ones. Yeah. I mean, I was born in 1984, but that adds, uh, still is one of my favorites.
And one thing that's really stuck out to me is that the product is nowhere. In the ad. And I don't, I don't know that the pump did the Macintosh to make it out by the end of 1984. Well, it was famous because the, the, the not only was the product, not in the ad, the product was not even available, but can you imagine the demand for it?
Once it finally became, it had already become such a cultural phenomenon and the product wasn't even out. Isn't that just, I mean, Lee cloud there, he admits that there was some, you know, convenience. In how it all played out, which might, you know, in retrospect look like a well-planned situation. But can you imagine that both Steve's said, look, guys, we'll pay for this ad ourselves.
We believe in it so much now doesn't that tell you everything you need to know about two founders doing what's right. Yeah. And again, Steve jobs reaching into the multidisciplinary world to kind of have the foresight of going to someone like Ridley Scott or in, in collaboration with, with, with TBD, I don't know of many or any companies at that time that had done that.
In such a way. I mean, it is kind of like a short film that you're watching it is. And I know it's inspired so many other kind of similar ads to this day. And of course, Apple is still known for its it's, uh, innovative ad campaigns in the way places, products, or not inside of it's advertising. Exactly. And it shows you.
You know, I love the conviction. I love the and thinking. I mean, he's literally doing things different. They, they do it themselves. They did something that nobody at the time was doing and it shows you the power of his strategy, the power of his thinking and his ideas, the way he was able. To find opportunity through thinking differently to everybody else.
He had the confidence and the courage to think different and do do bold and courageous things. And I think that's another thing that I think we can all take something from, I mean, that story from Lee cloud disconfirms to me how courageous Steve jobs was. Don't you don't you feel that when you listen to that, Chad?
Yeah. And another thing that, that comes back. The Steve jobs was, he did not lack conviction. And I think this ad shows his conviction for his positioning of Apple against all of the other players. And you can kind of read some of the subtexts and think, Oh, well, you know, this is a knock on IBM. But to Steve, I don't think it really mattered.
He was just going so far field and saying, you know, we are so different and unique and only, you know, for this kind of person that it created this magnetism for everyone to flock to the Macintosh product. And that was even more successful than the Apple two, which had been. An extremely successful product, uh, you know, five, six years previous.
So I think what this clip is, is teaching me is the, the value of choosing and owning a very kind of unique and different position amongst the rest of your, your competition. Because clearly, if you didn't think that Apple was different and no way. Like an IBM before this ad, after this ad, you're like, yeah.
Yeah, of course, like you want to root for Apple because Apple is, you know, the woman that throws the hammer that breaks the screen and everyone else, or the corporate drones, you know, inside the dystopian machine. But let's build on that. I think you can only have that conviction. If you are the customer, if you're working incredibly hard on solving problems that your customers face, I don't think you can buy that in.
You know what I mean? You can't, it's gotta be there. And I think that it, he's thinking it's the, the, this, this boldness that he has, which is, which is really appealing. Now we have big bets. Yeah. Yeah. So in the same way that this was, is willing to put his own money and borrow from, from Steve as well, uh, in, into this 1984, add after, after founding Pixar and pooling all with, with ed Catmull and others pulling all the resources in behind the launch of toy story, the first animated feature.
He essentially bets the company on the success of that feature. And so here's actually a great clip we have from ed, just talking about what it was like, uh, working with Steve as Pixar, as being, being prepared, kind of unexpectedly for an IPO. Uh, w we're out trying to figure out how to make this movie.
And, uh, w we were a group though that had been through failures together. So we'd all experienced that, and it was really difficult to figure this out. We made a lot of missed estimates and the first version, it didn't work very well. Um, but we, uh, as we got closer, um, it became apparent that we were onto something really big.
And I have to say, John lasted, I believe right from the minute that this is going to be. Gigantic, but from Disney's point of view, it was a boutique film. So they didn't put any consumer products behind it because they didn't see it being anything. Uh, but as we got into the last year, it was now apparent.
It was, it was big. And so Steve said, okay, now we are, we are going to revolutionize this industry. Um, but we're also in a position where, because we've got the experience here. Not only do we have the first film out, we will probably have the second filling out before anybody else can get into this. Um, but the deal that we had with Disney frankly, was not a very good deal.
We got like three to 5% of the profits or something like that. So there's not all that, not very good, not very good. So, so Steve called John and me together and he said, Okay. Our deal lasts for three pictures and at the end, we're on our own. Michael Eisner will realize, as soon as this film is successful, that he will have just created his biggest nightmare.
So he will not want the contract to end. So when the film comes out, he will renegotiate. And when we renegotiate, um, I want 50% of the profits. But if we get 50% of the profits, that means we have to put up 50% of the money. So in order for us to put up 50% of the money, we have to have the money in the bank.
Therefore we should go public. So, or saying, Whoa, this is a little early here. Let's prove our worth first bit. But Steve being, Steve had a compelling way about him. Um, so we put on the road show, uh, we went out and showed pieces of the movie, uh, but what he, what, what he told people as we went on the road show.
So I w I went out with our CFO, went with us, Lawrence Levy, uh, and Steve, and, um, as we went out, the argument was that the company will go public one week after the movie opens. So you will see that we're changing the industry. And so that's the prep. So the movie comes out, it opens huge, he gets incredible reviews.
And then the next week we go public and it was the biggest IPO of the year was bigger than Netscape and incredible. What was that incredible thing? What a story? I mean, talk about bold faith. Doing what you believe in. And Chad, just to frame this, they went IPO a week before their product launched. I mean, is that the most harebrained scheme you've ever heard of or a week after the product launches and then they, then they do their IPO week after that's right.
Just a week after your first product comes out. I mean, come on. But it wasn't that brilliant. For somebody who on one hand is crafting beautiful products, has the ability to think in terms of business strategy, you knows the terms of the contract with Eisner at Disney, he backwards engineers. He said, well, we don't want to be in that position.
We're going to need half the money. If we want to have the profits. Let's IPO. And you could hear in ed Catmull, wasn't he, Ed's just like, you're like, can you imagine Steve saying, Hey guys, we're going to IPO the week after and you can just see it going, what are you crazy? You could hear that, that just the boldness of this idea, must've been earth shattering.
I mean, they must've been totally focused on the product. And then from left-field incomes jobs, Hey guys, we're going to IPO a week later. He's just ridiculous. Yeah. And to put some, some numbers on it. So in today's dollars toy story had an opening opening gross of $60 million, which for a first 3d animated film, uh, is pretty incredible.
I mean, I know today's blockbusters have 150, $200 million releases, but way back in, uh, in 95 at that, that's a huge thing, but here's the kicker. So toy story grossed in 1990 $5, $30 million. Pixar IPO the next week out of, at a market cap of $1.5 billion. I'm like, gosh. And of course, you know, John's being the, the main founder of that company.
I think he had somewhere around 80% of that stock. So, you know, he was taking a huge risk and bet there. He had assembled and they want the inside story, you know, go back and listen to episode eight with ed Catmull. They had really created an amazing team of experts to pull this off. And they spent years creating toy story.
Yeah. And many failures before that. Chad, it's important to recognize they failed a lot before they got there. But I think once Steve. Recognized what they really had. He was like, I'm all in, you know, he pushed all of his chips out and, and, uh, and that is strangely reminiscent of what Musk did when you know, both Tesla.
And, uh, I think was it Tesla and solar city were both running out of cash and he wrote. He's lost check. He had normal money and he just wrote the check for it. Before that, when he started, when he infused cash into space X to get there, I know they're successful launches and he wrote the last of his PayPal money.
And then they got the contract from NASA. That's right. Yeah. And I think, again, it all comes back to doing something that you love solving a problem that you see and just working like crazy on it. But what a brilliant, I mean, context, see, it was bigger than Netscape. Uh, I remember when Netscape IPO in 96, everyone was like, the internet is here.
So it was the biggest. You know, shiny, honest internet stock IPO, and yet Pixar outperformed it. That's just how brilliant Steve's idea was and, and created billions of dollars. In value instantly not only through the launch of the film, but the raising of the capital, which in the longterm Disney ended up buying back just a stunning story.
I mean, and this is the, the, the, the history that we've just painted, um, with all of these revolutions in terms of what they did. Uh, technology. I mean, the, the we've talked about the Apple too and the Mac, but don't forget, that was the iMac, the iPod, we talked about OSS, but also don't forget, they have created the world's most beautiful retail, which are the world's most highest performing stores.
They created iTunes, the iPhone and so on and so on. And so on. I mean, this is. Uh, a tremendous history and what's very exciting is for the second half of the show, we're going to start to get into how they actually did it. What are some of the ideas that, that lay B, you know, in that success? What are they doing?
What are they thinking? How are they approaching the world to create so many blockbusters, whether it's at Pixar or Apple, all of it kind of comes back down to some philosophies and thinking of Steve jobs, who there's so much more to, to get into here. Um, before we get there though, Mike, I am, uh, I know.
That you have been fortunate enough to work your way through the Steve jobs biography by Walter Isaacson. And so I wanted to bring back a segment of our show, or we talk about interesting books relevant to our innovators and, um, Just first for anyone that has a passing interest in either the history of Apple or Steve jobs, uh, as an innovator, would you, would you recommend the book and maybe what some of your favorite passages and or anecdotes were?
Yeah. Um, I would say that this is definitely a book. Worth reading. Um, it's right up there. I think, I think the way I would phrase this is I think this book is more helpful than the, uh, dramatization in the Steve jobs film from 2015. Um, that was pretty good. Um, but I think what the books book does is it really explores some of the complex relationships.
Steve has. I mean, man, he has a complex, really complex personal life. Um, he was abandoned as a child and adopted, you know, there are these themes that came out of the book that he. I had this famous thing called the reality distortion field, where he would just refuse to admit facts. If they didn't subscribe to his worldview, it explores his pursuit of perfection.
We've talked about the art and science and how he loved the Beatles and Bob Dylan, he loved design. Um, I think so it explores explore some of those, uh, themes really, really well he's artistry. And I think that one thing we probably. Yeah, I think younger members of our audience probably don't remember, but before Steve jobs came along and the technology world was these awful beige boxes.
I'm talking about boxes that were like this off-white color. Terrible looking monitors and Steve came along and he said, look, I love the likes of, uh, do you remember data rum show? Uh, very inspired by him. He brought good design into technology. It literally didn't exist in the category before then. And so the book really celebrates, you know, his love of design.
Um, you know, how to build, uh, Uh, product and the, and just the, he gave everything cause himself to his products. I think one of the. Um, bitter twists of, of the book is that it sets up that he gave so much to his products, that he really didn't put enough effort into his family. And one of the sad things, the book touches on is, you know, he abandoned his own daughter in the same way that he was and tried to patch it up later.
But you know, very complex guy, uh, gripping read, uh, Walter Isaacson is, is. Very very good, right. A very famous writer. So you'd be, you'd be doing very well just for inspiration and a good story to get into the book, Steve jobs by Walter Isaacson. Yeah. It it's been on my audible list for a long time. It's just, I, I see the, uh, the hours needed to invest in it and just, um, haven't, haven't had a chance to dig into it, hopefully with, uh, the stories we've heard about.
Uh, in the beginnings of, of Apple and the Apple two back in the, in the seventies, you know, Apple and Microsoft started just like a year or two apart. I think, you know, sometimes people forget that all the way up to the 1984 ad and the launch of the Macintosh and even founding of, of an IPO of Pixar in the mid nineties.
And as you've mentioned before, we've seen and over. So, so many other things, you know, we could really just. Uh, do a show on the, the, the individual innovations and, and product kind of accomplishments of, of Apple while, while, while Steve was there. But like you said, we really want to dig into some of the strategy and, and ways that, that Steve operated Apple so that we can get some takeaways and learn how to apply it.
To our own businesses. So, um, the first clip we have in this next block is according again, we have to take Steve his own word. Um, he did mention his, his reality distortion field. He's, he's talking onstage with, uh, with bill Gates, uh, at a conference in 2007, about how he sees how he views Apple, uh, specifically kind of in distinction to companies.
Like Microsoft. So I'll just let him speak about what he sees as the secret of Apple. Phew. If you look at the reason that, um, the iPod exists and that Apple's in that marketplace, um, it's because these really great Japanese consumer electronics companies who kind of own the portable music market, uh, for a long one, invented it and owned it.
Uh, couldn't write, couldn't do the appropriate software. Couldn't conceive of and implement the appropriate software because an iPod's really just software it's software and the iPod itself it's software on the PC or the Mac and it's software in the cloud for the store. And it's in a beautiful box, but it's software.
If you look at what a Mac is, uh, it's, it's O S 10, right? It's in a beautiful box, but it's OS 10. And if you look at what an iPhone will hopefully be it software. And so. The the big secret about Apple, of course not. So big secret maybe is that Apple views itself as a software company be fundamentally software company, but you've been known at least to your customers and to most journalists as the company that kind of pays a lot of attention, integrating software and hardware.
Um, the, the frame, the way he frames the business as, as a software, um, it's, it's, you know, you could argue this both ways. Couldn't you chat? I mean, truth be told is that the hardware is gorgeous. Equally. OSX is just the most robust, sturdy, never fail S I've ever used. And I love it to death. We were both recording the show on OSX.
I, I think, you know, he's teasing us a little bit here because it's, it's, yinging yang there. I mean, they both worked so well together. The conviction, I think he's, I think he's kind of answering the chicken and the egg question here, or at least his perspective of, you know, is it the software first or the hardware first?
He's saying here, well, you need to have the compelling, Oh my gosh. I have to have it software and experience side of things. And then like the icing on the cake is it's in a beautiful package. Yeah, and it's elegant and it's pretty. And I want to, I want to show it off, uh, kind of, kind of thing. What instantly comes to mind when you say that Chad is GoPro.
What, what jobs is laid out here? This is what GoPro should have done. GoPro was a neat bit of hardware with terrible software and got caught out massively. Uh, I think, you know, Everyone copied the hardware and then their point of difference really went away. Didn't it? Yeah. Yeah, because I think they weren't able to respond to.
You know, the clones, if you will, and the product experience behind the hardware, it wasn't there yet. And so it was kind of a race to be commoditized very, very quickly. And so yeah, it, this GoPro is the same as the Chinese knockoff is the same as the Eastern European knockoff, et cetera. Yeah, exactly, exactly.
And I think what, what, what jobs is bringing here is enormous clarity. In the sequencing of things, the priority of things. In fact, one of the things, when you listened to him, I mean, obviously he's a very good speaker, so he's quite convincing, but actually the content of often what he says demonstrates not only conviction, but enormous clarity and foresight and what he should do, what he shouldn't do.
Uh, you'll often hear him talking about, well, that's not our business. You know, they've been very deliberate. Uh, in, in, um, not making mistakes, many tech companies have made and trying to get into content and services. Like they know which side of the bread is buttered for them and they stick to it. And I think this also comes true when he talks about yeah.
When you build and when you partner. So let's have a listen now to Steve talking about this idea of when to partner, instead of building. We don't think one company can do everything. So you've got to partner with people that are really good at stuff like we're not, I mean, maybe Microsoft is great at search.
We're not, we're not trying to be great at search. So we partner with people that are great at search and, uh, we don't know how to do maps on the backend. We know how to do a great, the best maps client in the world, but we don't know how to do the back end. So we partner with people that know how to do the back end.
And what we want to do is be that. That consumer's device and that consumers experience wrapped around all this information and things we can deliver to them in a wonderful user interface in a coherent product. And so in some cases, you know, we have to do more work than others. You know, in the case of iTunes, there wasn't a music delivery service.
It was any good. And we had to do one, so we'll do one. But in other cases, there's companies doing a way better job because we're not as good at this stuff as other people are, and we'd love to partner with them. And so we selectively do that and I think it's, it's really hard for one company to do everything.
Yeah, there's Steve kind of, uh, going back to the, you know, the, the management grades, like Peter Drucker and this idea of core competencies and really staying in your lane and doing what your best ad, and then having strategic partnerships to, to, to, to leverage and then place the really big bets when, when you have to, when you're well-positioned to, it's not to say that you don't.
You don't try anything new because you don't want to, but it's kind of like pick the best opportunity. Don't just try everything. Or as he says at the end, don't, don't try to be the best at everything. Cause you'll be good at nothing. Yeah. This, this really reminds me, Chad, uh, talking about this is, uh, I think Yahoo is a great case study of a company that could have listened more to, to Steve on this partner instead of built.
Don't you think don't you think that was a company that just spread itself across so many things? You're just like, what business are you not in? Right. Yeah. In the same way that of that AOL did too. That's a great, that that was even a full runner, which makes the whole Yahoo thing, even more of a crime because you're like, guys, did you not learn from what AOL just did?
But here's the interesting thing. There was this very famous memo wrote. And it was cold. I think it was that pain. The peanut butter memo. Yeah, this is yes. The peanut butter manifesto. So this guy, Brad, Garlinghouse wrote this memo way back in the day, 2006 and said, Hey everyone, we're not doing what Steve jobs is talking about here.
We're trying to do a little bits of everything and we're doing none of them. Well, and this is exactly what Steve jobs is talking about. He didn't want to do anything badly. So he was willing to decide to cut back functionality on a, on a device he was willing to get out of, or stay out of different businesses, ordered to focus.
And I think AOL Yahoo are all examples of companies that didn't know when to partner, instead of build, they invested loads of cash got themselves. Into heaps of problems. And this really speaks to understanding market dynamics. I mean, don't you get the feeling, Chad, that, that the map in Steve jobs, his mind of where everyone fitted in the ecosystem was like, Razorshop like, he knew exactly how everything was moving.
Yeah. And I think it was very simple in him. I think he could keep in his mind's eye. What Apple's focus was at each point in its history, going on all the way back to the Apple one and the Apple two computer it's like going to have a low cost computer that there's a programmers can write their own programs for which again, very innovative at that time.
Um, and that's all they did. Was just, you know, build that thing. And I think if you look at each, each new product category that has spun out of Apple, it's, it's a very similar thing. It's the, the hyper-focus positioned against all other alternatives. Uh, in such an effective way that I think really just increases the chances that it will be successful in the marketplace.
Absolutely. And, um, this next clip we've got, just speaks to how he understands all those machinations and what, how he was very contrarian to how others thought about Apple. Like people would all have a, like a common. Philosophy about how Apple works, whether it was only for elite people or whether it was in this massive rivalry with Microsoft, but he saw things differently.
So let's actually listen to him, break things down, and this is going back in history a while, but it's a very powerful thinking here on the fallacy of zero sum dynamics within competition. Apple was in very serious trouble. And, um, what was really clear was that if the game was a zero sum game, where for Apple to win, Microsoft had to lose.
Then Apple was going to lose, but that's a lot of people's heads were still in that place. Was that from your perspective? Well, a lot of people's heads were in that place at Apple and even in the customer base because Apple had invented a lot of this stuff and Microsoft was being successful and Apple wasn't and there was jealousy and this and that, there was just a lot of reasons for it that don't matter.
But the net result of it was, was, there were too many people at Apple and in the Apple ecosystem playing the game of, for Apple to win, Microsoft has to lose. And it was clear that you didn't have to play that game because Apple wasn't going to be Microsoft. Apple didn't have to beat Microsoft. Apple had to remember who Apple was because I'd forgotten who Apple was.
And so to me, it was pretty essential to break that it's, it's clear that he's talking here in 2007 when Microsoft was a much bigger company than Apple at the time. But it's very clear that you can see Steve jobs not taking that zero sum point of view, going all the way back to the founding of the company.
I don't think Steve ever saw what they were doing at Apple as taking away from other companies and vice versa. I don't think he saw what companies like IBM and HP and. In Microsoft, we're doing as necessarily taking away from Apple. And I think the biggest lesson for me is like, that is so freeing. Like you just understand that, like, you know that it's not a zero sum game and it's not a doggy dog kind of road.
You're like, Oh, wait a minute. Like, I don't ha I mean, yes, you need to be abreast of what's going on, but you don't have to feel threatened. Uh, or cornered or vulnerable about the competition. I think that's why he was able to take such huge bets. Yeah. And I, it feels like when you work in an environment around Steve jobs, whether it's at Pixar at Apple, that it feels like ideas are the currency of discussion.
Um, and whether it's product ideas or business ideas, To me, I think it's refreshing. And it's a big reminder to all of us that we sometimes get so charged up. And so we worked so hard on our businesses, uh, in the day-to-day, uh, that we get in the weeds. And we forget to ask some of those bigger questions and discuss bigger ideas.
Cause we're just so busy executing, but don't you get the sense as we're getting into this, that this is all about ideas for, for Steve jobs. Yes. The, the freedom to the freedom and the curiosity too. Come up with the ideas and test the ideas and not care like what the other people are doing. Um, which is funny because yeah, that's probably the biggest thing to try and resist, you know, the group think.
And the classic thing that happens in business categories is everybody behaves to what we call the category norm. So if everyone in the detergent industry does it with a certain way or. Does, uh, retailing or advertising a certain way over time, everyone starts to copy each other and it became, yeah. And everything becomes the same.
And then everyone is, are the blue corporate drones in the 1984. Right. Yeah. And so you actually found a great clip, um, kind of talking about this freedom and flow of ideas and autonomy that exists inside of Apple and how that's contributed to its success. One of the keys to Apple is Apple's an incredibly collaborative company.
And so, you know how many committees we have at Apple? No zero. We have no committees, no committee. We are a very, we are organized like a startup one. Person's in charge of iPhone iOS software, one person's in charge of Mac hardware. One person's in charge of iPhone hardware, engineering, another person's in charge of worldwide marketing.
Another person's in charge of operations. It's, we're organized like a startup. We're the biggest startup on the planet. And we all meet for three hours once a week. And we talk about everything we're doing the whole business and there's tremendous teamwork at the top of the company. Which filters down to tremendous teamwork throughout the company.
And teamwork is dependent on trusting the other folks to come through with their part, without watching them all the time, but trusting that they're going to come through with their parts. And that's what we do really well. And we're great at figuring out how to divide it, things up into these great teams that we have and all work on the same thing, touch bases frequently, and bring it all together into a product.
We do that really well. And so what I do all day is meet with teams of people and work on ideas and solve problems to make new products, to make new marketing programs, whatever it is. And are people willing to tell you you're wrong? Yeah. I mean, other than snarky journalists, I mean, people who've worked for.
Yeah, no, we have wonderful arguments. And do you win them all or? Oh no, I wish I did. Oh, see, you can, if you want to hire great people and have them stay working for you, you have to let them make a lot of decisions and you have to, you have to be run by ideas, not hierarchy. The best ideas have to win so otherwise good people don't stay, but your must be more than a facilitator who runs meetings.
You obviously contribute your own ideas. I contribute ideas. Sure. Well, why would I be there if I didn't? Why would I be there if I didn't contribute ideas? I just love this idea of you cannot even dream of having the best people in the world. If you're not going to have. The freedom to explore and to live by big ideas.
I think that was a very interesting relationship. He drew there if you want great people, not only do you need a great mission, but you need to give the freedom for the ideas on how you're going to make that come to life. You have to give incredible freedom to celebrate. And I even love the fact that he's like, we argue about ideas and I've seen in my experience, if that's done well, if you've really Frank candid discussion can happen around ideas.
It makes them better and you really start to feel that he's crafting those conversations all the time. Yeah. And I'd be very curious how it actually is or was inside of Apple at the time and, and is today, but. I think what this is reinforcing for me is the importance of the diversity of input to get the ideas in.
I really do think that the best companies are, you know, diverse and inclusive and transparent, so that all perspectives and everyone's ideas can get kind of into the hopper. If you will. Then at that point, uh, you have the, the furious, intense, intense debate. You know, kind of backed by the things that you and I love, like rapid prototyping and working closely with customers, et cetera, and then giving the teams the autonomy to just go do it.
Exactly. Yeah. The one thing I want to add to your formula there is like you just get a crazy bunch of people together, diverse and interesting. But the one thing I want to stress is that if they don't have, they don't feel this safety to share. Wild wacky, crazy ideas. It can be as diverse as your light, but if everyone's in a state of fear, it ain't gonna work.
You know what I'm saying? Yeah. And I'm, I'm sure that if we could look at many products that have come out out of Apple and if just one idea didn't make it, I think it could have broken, you know, that product or. Or service, like everything that was put into the iPhone, like, you know, his kind of famous reveal of it, iPod camera, he just like keep web browser phone in one of those things was kind of left out and I'm sure it was, you know, Lucy in the back that was like, you know, what, if we like stick maps and navigation onto this, onto this thing.
And the famous one Chad was that he wasn't into the app store. It wasn't until gen three, that the app still came and it was actually, the team came to him and said, we've got to have an episode. Isn't that, isn't that amazing. A huge billion dollar business. Now iTunes, the whole thing is, you know, the thing is like, but it, as much as it is about ideas, it's also about people.
And, you know, what's interesting is, uh, so far we've heard quite a lot of conversation about ideas, breakthrough strategies, but. Uh, he started to elude. Then I thought it was really important that he attached that great people only come if they can work on great ideas. And I think that's really important takeaway for us and to remind ourselves is you cannot be the one guy with all OGO with all the ideas and everyone else is executing.
I think it's very clear that even Steve's like, yeah, even I don't get it right all the time. Yeah. And we've got an another really good clip, really, just to hear in Steve's words, he talked about in the last clip, I just go and meet with teams all across the company to, to get things done. And so here's some more about his philosophy on how he's brought together the right people to execute on those ideas.
My model of business is the Beatles. They were four very talented guys who kept each other's kind of negative tendencies in check. Uh, they balanced each other and, and, and the sum was greater than the total was greater than the sum of the parts. And that's how I see business, you know. Great, great things in business are never done by one person.
They're done by a team they're done by a team of people. And, and we've got that here at Pixar. Um, and we've got that at Apple as well. And so that's, that's what lets me do this. Well, you know what the Beatles, when they were together, they did truly brilliant, innovative work. And when they split up, they did good work, but it, it, it, it, it was never the same.
And I see business that way too. It's really always a team. Yeah. Um, a lot to discuss here. I think what's, what's really interesting is, you know, successful companies, you will often find there's two founders. You often find that this is very early team that sticks around that, you know, and I love this idea of modeling enough, the Beatles, um, and they often have formative years, all that.
There's like a correlation. If you look in history, all of these great sporting teams, music bands, business teams. They all had their equivalent of starting off in the garage for a year or two where things, where the bonds came together. But I just honestly cannot enforce enough. Everybody listening and Chad, from, from me to you, one of the things I observe in the world is that.
Great products can only be built by great teams. You cannot build a great product. If there's not a great team, it just will not happen. Do you see this in your world when you, when you're working? Can you see like, you know, basically great teams equals great work. Does this come true for you? Yeah, I have to work at this every week, uh, to surround myself with the best collaborators, uh, both.
On on my side and the client side, to be sure that our creative vision comes to light. And I, I think Steve has, he's had many different partnerships over the years, both. In co-founding Apple and co-founding Pixar. Um, he does a pretty good job of, of shining light on the teams that are doing the work. I mean, yes, he does get up there and present, you know, the, the reveal on, on stage.
But I think it, at least in my exposure to him, he does a really good job of calling out the teams that, that make the products and the services possible. And I think it's because as, as he's. Told us here. It's like, it, it doesn't get done unless you're working like the Beatles. Well, half the thing is, you know, nobody can present as well as him.
So you kind of, even if it was your idea, you'd want him to present your idea because he'll do it much better than anyone else. Yeah. Yeah. And we could do probably a whole show on, uh, you know, the storytelling and presentation techniques of, of the keynotes over the years. I know that I've definitely cribbed and stolen a few ideas from, from the way he, he presents things.
Uh, definitely. Well, the nice, the nice thing is that, uh, part of his whole thing is preparation. He was apparently famous for massive amounts of preparation. Yeah. And, and the, the Steve jobs movie that you called out starring Michael Fassbender, you definitely see that because the, the kind of storytelling, uh, frame is you only see.
Everything play out in the preparation for different launches over the course of Apple and Steve's history. So you only get these kinds of small windows into a. Into what's happening like right before he goes on stage and you see him, you know, yelling at people about projectors and faulty prototypes and spotlights and all those kinds of things.
So, yeah, it's definitely a stickler for details when it comes to that. Yeah, but, but again, that was never done until Steve jobs came along, nobody presented like a Hollywood showcase nobody. And everyone's copying them now. Exactly. Oh my gosh. So like just does, I'm like recapping in my brain here. I mean, clarity on, he knows what businesses in he's.
No, he knows the dynamics between partners and competitors and he's not just. Sh, you know, small minded stealing a little bit from this person to that person. He sees the bigger picture. Very powerful. I love this. I love the idea. I mean, for me, this is sort of heaven companies run by ideas. I think that's very exciting.
And the fact that he sees that it's not all about him. I think that was the big transformation that he had. He, he. Towards the end of his career as a capital alluded to is he really started to understand the human behavioral dynamics of companies. And he really saw that great teams equals great work. I mean, what a onslaught of ideas and inspiration and wisdom.
Oh, I mean, it's, it's exhausting. There's so much, Chad. Yeah. Well, I think we are going to have to do something a little unprecedented for the, uh, the podcast here. Like I'm sitting here looking at, uh, a list of like a dozen more clips from Steve. It sounds like we have to. Go into the forbidden, dark of a part to show.
Yeah. So as you mentioned, there's so many great things that we've already learned, whether it's kind of Steve's conviction and positioning and kind of audacity, you know, to, to launch an ad like 1984, When they're launching, uh, the Macintosh or I actually really enjoyed him talking about how competition doesn't have to be a zero sum game.
And if you don't see it that way, you actually have more freedom to do more with things, but we have so many more clips on. Probably what many of you heard or looking to learn most is what, what are Steve's thoughts on innovation, how to innovate? Um, how did he do it? Yeah, exactly. And, uh, I know that many of you probably have some favorite, uh, inspirational quotes or philosophical quotes from Steve because he.
Had some interesting views on life and, and the way he, uh, both, you know, developed and learned as, as a young man and also kind of, as he was, uh, in his later years after his diagnosis for cancer, kind of reflecting on his life and, and whatnot. He also has lots of really interesting perspective and, and things to share with us.
So that's just part of what we have in store for dealers. Show. Absolutely. I mean, we've got great thoughts around where we're going to hear from the CEO of Nike. We have great stories from, from him. We're gonna hear from Larry, Alison from Stevie himself. And I think it's going to be, it's going to be the innovation piece.
So how he created the products and the things that he did and what we can actually use ourselves. I think also what I like about the second show is we're going to have a lot on here sort of philosophies. Um, and both of those two topics are gonna work nicely against the history and the strategy that we've heard about today.
And I mean, I'm so excited to do that, that next show, but we're also very keen to hear from everybody, uh, what they like to bounce, not only Steve jobs, but about the Apple series so far, we are going to do this second, Steve jobs show. We'll follow that up with a Tim cook show. Um, and we might even do a bit of a recap because as you, as you might remember, you know, we had our Jonathan ive, uh, show way back in the day in our designer series, just so many amazing people at one company, such a rich history, such influence on business and culture.
I really, I just really love. This confidence and conviction to go and do things that are different to others. I mean, it was really the thing, different show for me today. What about you, Chad? Yeah. I mean, I'm, you got my brain going all, you know, through the Angela RN show and Steve Wasniak and Johnny Ivy, and, you know, we've still got Tim cook to come.
Another second half of the Steve jobs show. It's been really fun to take a deep dive into a company with such a storied history. So many successes with some failures too, but certainly no lack of lessons to be learned from all of these people. And. What they've done Apple. So I'm really excited for potentially three more shows.
Um, as, as we kind of complete our tour. Uh, to date of, uh, of all the happenings inside of, of Apple. Absolutely. Absolutely. I just want to encourage everyone. Who's listening to send us feedback, just go to moonshots.io and you'll find everything about the show. You'll find the show notes, the links everything's going to be there.
You can listen to the archive, catch up on some of our content and blogs. So that's moonshots.io. Chad. I just want to thank you for, for being part of this Epic Apple series. I'm uh, I'm just so it's so energizing, getting so much inspiration from, from just one person. It, it it's, it's remarkable. Isn't it?
Yeah, we, we sat down with a list of so many clips and I think we realized pretty quickly, we're going to have to split this up into two shows, but, um, I think if it was going to happen for anyone, it was, it was going to happen, uh, with Steve. Exactly. Exactly. Well, thanks for all of your ideas, contributions, your wizardry with all the audio production technology, uh, chatted.
So, so great to do this with you and with our listeners too. And how would you most like to hear about from our listeners, Chad? Uh, I would like anyone that is listening that has gotten at least hopefully one nugget of insight that you've applied to your day to day, uh, to stop on by the iTunes store and just leave us a review five stars if you think it's worth it.
But, um, I love, uh, seeing the, the new reviews pop up there and that of course helps other aspiring entrepreneurs and innovators come across the show. Absolutely. So, uh, reach out to us at the iTunes store. It's the moonshots podcast. This is halfway through Steve jobs, but it's the end of show 35, a big thank you to you, Chad and everybody listening.
We'll be back soon with the moonshots podcast. Take care. We'll catch you next time. And that's right.