"If you were a ‘product person’ at IBM or Xerox: so you make a better copier or better computer. So what? When you have a monopoly market-share, the company’s not any more successful. So the people who make the company more successful are the sales and marketing people, and they end up running the companies. And the ‘product people’ get run out of the decision-making forums.
The companies forget how to make great products. The product sensibility and product genius that brought them to this monopolistic position gets rotted out by people running these companies who have no conception of a good product vs. a bad product. They have no conception of the craftsmanship that’s required to take a good idea and turn it into a good product. And they really have no feeling in their hearts about wanting to help the costumers.”
Great words, but he lost any right to them when he made famous the "You're holding it wrong" workaround. IMO that was the defining moment when Apple started its decline on product innovation.
If it were that big of deal, don’t you think Apple would have been forced to recall it and definitely couldn’t keep selling it for 3 years. True they did redo the antenna for the Verizon CDMA iPhone 4. But they never bothered to back port the changes to the GSM one.
I also had a GSM iPhone 4.
Compare that to how quickly they ran away from the shitty Intel modems when they were selling some made by Intel and some made by Samsung (?)
I’d add a corollary to Steve’s often quoted idea, that became even more relevant after Covid. Everyone competent that makes tons of money retired early. We are left with the dregs at all these companies, the newbies and those that didn’t budget well and plan for early retirement.
Any interaction you have with a company post-Covid you can feel it. Nothing works anymore and you can’t even tell anyone about it or why.
At best, a company's culture is just a branding and marketing strategy to attract employees and to appear cool. They are not real cultures -- they are constructed, forced and dictated by management, and oftentimes cult-like in their construction.
Company cultures are not built to last, they are designed to generate profit. The culture is incidental, it will be whatever is most profitable at any given moment. At best, a company's culture is just a branding and marketing strategy to attract employees and to appear cool. Therefore they are fickle and prone to complete collapse when just a few people are replaced.
It was going to happen Covid or not. People get old...what are you going to do? Is it really that bad if a bunch decide, "you know what? I'll take the financial hit and retire a few years early because I have been reminded of the fragility of life".
Oh I don’t blame them, I was a scientist and retired early myself. So has my brother that was a doctor. But what world is left behind when all the competent and passionate people exit the working world early? We see that world every day on the news now and it isn’t pretty.
>But what world is left behind when all the competent and passionate people exit the working world early?
Again, it was going to happen eventually. Boomers should have done better to mentor the youth and pass the torch. Some did, most didn't. That time has now passed. Millenials and Gen-Z will have to pick up the pieces after things fall apart and it will be painful...many things will just not be the same. Things we took for granted may well just disappear given a smaller population size. But at least they can finally define how they want the world to work. Its been too long. Millenials are in their 40s now. They should have taken the reins years ago if the prior generation actually cared to pass the torch.
One of the things that I recall doing on Election Day was cursing out Trump when he was re-elected.
This shit stain is a representation of the Boomer's last act: To write the final chapters of the Millenials' adult years.
The mess that Trump is making with the tariffs and destruction of institutional knowledge will eventually get fixed but it will take 15-20+ years. Essentially the remaining years of Millennials working lives. At this point I am transitioning to acceptance. Acceptance that so many processes will have to be rebuilt by Millenials and Gen-Z. At least there will be an opportunity to reinvent old ways of thinking despite all the pain.
The companies forget how to make great products. The product sensibility and product genius that brought them to this monopolistic position gets rotted out by people running these companies who have no conception of a good product vs. a bad product. They have no conception of the craftsmanship that’s required to take a good idea and turn it into a good product. And they really have no feeling in their hearts about wanting to help the costumers.”
- Steve Jobs - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs:_The_Lost_Interview