Feb 24, 2019 · 1h 36m · a16z
Inside the Apple Factory: Software Design in the Age of Steve Jobs
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
Former Apple principal software engineer Ken Kocienda joins host Frank Chen to discuss the creative process, organizational culture, and engineering breakthroughs behind products like Safari and the iPhone keyboard. He explores how small teams, working demos, Directly Responsible Individuals, and the integration of liberal arts with engineering defined Apple's software legacy under Steve Jobs.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. How this is scored →
The host as informed peer 2.8 Guest teaching 4.3 Guest disagreement 0.6 The host pushing back 0.7
speaking balance: gold is the host, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 17:58 Disputing Host's Premise on Product Volume
Ken explicitly rejects Frank's assumption that Apple shipped too many products for Steve Jobs to be involved in granular software demos, pointing out Apple's tight four-product matrix.
Hardest push from the host ▶ 1:09:30 Challenging Apple's Potential Hero Worship CultureFrank directly presses Ken on whether Apple suffered from blind obedience and unhealthy hero worship of Steve Jobs.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 1:05:20 Steve Jobs Decision-Making with DRIsKen educates the host on how Apple decisions actually worked under Steve Jobs, revealing that Jobs ignored top executives in the room to ask the individual DRI directly.
The host holds their own ▶ 51:45 Contrasting Apple's Taste with Google's A/B TestingFrank demonstrates deep industry knowledge by contrasting Apple's bold intuition-driven design trade-offs with Google's relentless A/B testing methodology.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | The host as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | The host pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ken Kocienda's Unconventional Path Before Tech | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Frank asks friendly biographical questions about Ken's background. Ken explains his unconventional path from an Ivy League history degree to motorcycle mechanic school and living in Japan. | |
| Discovering the Web and the Journey to Apple | 4 | 3 | 0 | 0 | Frank shows good familiarity with Silicon Valley history, referencing LoudCloud, Nautilus, and the running joke about the year of desktop Linux. Ken outlines his discovery of the web and transition to Easel and Apple. | |
| Building Safari: Open Source and the Page Load Test | 5 | 4 | 0 | 0 | Frank provides informed context about Netscape's historical cross-platform compilation burden across 20 platforms. Ken explains why the team picked Konqueror over Mozilla due to codebase size. | |
| Apple's Product Focus and Executive Involvement | 3 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Frank asks whether Steve Jobs' focus on browser speed was planned or lucky. Ken gently refutes the notion of luck, explaining that Jobs mandated speed over a year in advance. | |
| The Role of Demos in Apple's Creative Process | 4 | 6 | 4 | 2 | Frank asserts that it was unusual for a CEO of Apple's size to attend every software demo milestone. Ken explicitly disputes Frank's premise, pointing out that Apple maintained a tight four-product matrix during that era. | |
| Management Crossroads: Shipping Teams vs. Shipping Products | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | Frank articulates the transition dilemma of first-time managers shifting from shipping products to shipping teams. Ken candidly recounts almost resigning before Scott Forstall redirected him to Project Purple. | |
| Project Purple and Directly Responsible Individuals | 3 | 4 | 0 | 0 | Frank uses mathematical analogies to ask about Apple's nested tiers of secrecy. Ken details joining the small team responsible for building the touchscreen UI kit from scratch. | |
| Solving the Touchscreen Keyboard Challenge | 3 | 5 | 0 | 0 | Frank brings up the BlackBerry keyboard gold standard of that era. Ken explains the psychological threshold of touching keys smaller than a finger and how software assistance made touchscreen typing feasible. | |
| Extreme Secrecy and Organizational Constraints | 3 | 5 | 1 | 2 | Frank asks if extreme secrecy was a feature or a bug. Ken outlines the trade-offs between small-unit cohesion and limited diversity, sharing a funny story where Jobs' keynote tricked even internal engineers. | |
| Strategic Trade-offs: Shipping Without Copy and Paste | 4 | 5 | 1 | 2 | Frank contrasts Apple's taste-driven decision to ship without copy/paste against Google's culture of A/B testing everything. Ken explains how ruthless product focus prioritized core execution over feature completeness. | |
| Demoing for Steve Jobs and the iPad Keyboard | 1 | 6 | 0 | 0 | Frank listens as Ken gives a detailed narrative about demoing the iPad keyboard options to Steve Jobs. Ken explains how Jobs ignored top executives to ask the individual DRI directly for the decision. | |
| Apple's Culture: Excellence over Hero Worship | 2 | 5 | 2 | 3 | Frank challenges Ken on whether Apple suffered from blind obedience and hero worship of Steve Jobs. Ken reframes this critique, arguing that Jobs' true focus was customer satisfaction rather than autocratic rule. | |
| Designing iPad Multitasking Gestures and Steve Jobs's Final Decision | 2 | 5 | 0 | 0 | Ken recounts a design dispute where Scott Forstall disliked a rubbery gesture animation, but Steve Jobs tested it and praised it as quintessential Apple design. | |
| Decision-Making, DRIs, and Product Demos with Steve Jobs | 3 | 5 | 1 | 2 | Frank asks if relying on Jobs slowed down organizational decisions. Ken corrects this, explaining that DRIs were expected to bring decisive proposals rather than undecided options to avoid severe executive feedback. | |
| Determining iPhone Icon Sizes Through the First Touch Screen Game | 2 | 5 | 0 | 0 | Ken tells the story of Scott Herz creating a target-tapping game to empirically determine that 57 pixels square was the optimal touch target size for iPhone icons. | |
| Career Advice for Future Engineers: Humanities and Real-World Practice | 3 | 4 | 0 | 0 | Frank notes how typical tech interview loops focus rigidly on data structures and algorithms. Ken advises young engineers to build real projects while studying humanities to develop taste and human understanding. | |
| Evaluating Company Culture Beyond Visionary Leaders | 3 | 4 | 0 | 0 | Frank asks about key cultural elements like collaboration and decisiveness. Ken describes a non-political culture where collaborative brainstorming made it impossible to separate individual patent contributions. | |
| Documenting Apple History and Writing the Creative Selection Memoir | 2 | 3 | 0 | 0 | Frank asks if Ken needed official corporate clearance to write his memoir. Ken admits he did not seek advance approval, approaching the book as a historical record of the Jobs era. |
Statements from this episode (24)
Apple Insists on Controlling All Core User Experience Technology
“And so the, you know, the vision for Apple back then, and even still today, Is that Apple wants to be in control of what it considers to be critical technology. It's critical to its user experience.”
Apple Chose Konqueror Over Mozilla for Safari Because of Codebase Size
“And looking at that, it really just came down to Conqueror was one-tenth the size of Mozilla.”
Preventing Code Speed Regressions Guarantees Software Performance Improves Over Time
“Ok team, if we check in code, and it doesn't make any speed regression, only two things can happen. Either the code will remain the same speed, or it'll get faster.”
Safari Was Three Times Faster Than Internet Explorer at Launch
“And eventually Safari, as when it was released, it was three times faster than MSIE at loading web pages.”
Apple Maintained a Remarkably Small Product Lineup Through 2019
“Certainly during the Steve Jobs era, and I still think to today here in 2019 Apple didn't ship a whole lot of products.”
Apple's Small Product Lineup Enabled Steve Jobs' Hands-On Software Management
“Since there were so few products, Steve could keep tabs on what the software, ah, teams were doing. That there was this big initiative, ah, to make a web browser so he could keep his, ah, his, He could keep tabs on it. He could find the time on his schedule to…”
The Original iPhone Software Team Never Exceeded 20 Engineers
“Now, eventually we wound up adding over time more people. We probably never had more than 20 software engineers and maybe 10 designers. Those two managers, and the executive, and Steve, and that was it, so.”
Apple Halted All iPhone App Work in 2005 for Software Keyboard
“Henri, who was the software engineering manager, called all of the engineers out in, out of our offices, into the hallway. We had a group meeting. Again, about two dozen people, probably even less than that, and said, okay, you all stop. Stop what you're doing…”
Steve Jobs Mandated Software Keyboard to Free Screen Space for Apps
“His idea was that We want, we need a keyboard some of the time, but we certainly don't need it all of the time, and so the idea of the keyboard being in software is that it could get out of the way, it could go off the screen, and which would then turn, make t…”
Touchscreen UI Software Must Interpret Intent Rather Than Literal Inputs
“Because you didn't get this tactile feedback, because you couldn't feel the edges of either keyboard keys, or any button, or anything in the user interface, is that the software had to be there working behind the scenes to give you what you meant, maybe differ…”
Steve Jobs Personally Approved Every Engineer Added to the iPhone Team
“Steve was still personally approving every person that was submitted to get disclosed on the project.”
Small Engineering Teams Provide Underestimated Power and Unit Cohesion
“I think there is a really underestimated power In keeping your team small. The cohesion, the small unit cohesion that you have”
iPhone Autocorrect Dictionary Lacked the Word 'iPhone' Until After Launch
“And when he said that, that's, When I knew that I was going to have to go back the next day and add iPhone to the autocorrection dictionary.”
Apple Omitted Copy and Paste From First iPhone Due to Time Constraints
“And so we knew that we wanted cut, copy, paste, but we knew that there was simply not going to be time for it. So we didn't spend any real development effort on it.”
Ken Kocienda Invented the iPhone Magnifying Loupe for Cursor Placement
“The one thing that I did implement for the first iPhone was the loop. So you press and hold, and it would give that little magnifying glass above your finger that would show. And the whole idea of that is that we wanted your finger to be right where The insert…”
Steve Jobs' Software Demo Room Was Shabby With Standard Office Furniture
“No, it was this shabby little room with this mangy old couch, and just standard issue office furniture,”
Steve Jobs Rejected Sales Pitches in Demos, Wanting Only Product Substance
“And so it's very, very interesting then how the demos go from that point in that he didn't want a lot of words. He didn't want a lot of, you know, used car salesman pitches, right? All he really wanted to know was what was next.”
Steve Jobs Asked Individual Contributors Directly for Key Product Choices
“He doesn't ask, you know, Scott Forstall, who is, you know, he knows much better. He doesn't ask, you know, any of the other people in the room. He asks me, the individual contributor, you know, just coming in, but I'm the DRI. You see, that's the thing. He wa…”
Steve Jobs Evaluated Products by Pretending to Be Customer Number One
“He was, in my view, I don't know what's going on inside his head, but just having seen him do that, having at least, you know, enough experience with him and his approach to evaluating work is that he was putting himself in the position of a customer. He had, …”
Steve Jobs Sided With Ken Kocienda Over Scott Forstall on iOS Gestures
“And so and it also just goes to show that there could be disputes, even up at the highest level. Scott knew that I was very excited about this feature and wanted to show Steve, so he let me. And Steve was the one who had the final vote, and he sided with me, a…”
Every Steve Jobs Demo Had One of Three Strict Outcomes
“That was the outcome of every demo with Steve. Approved, not approved, give, bring me something different next time, or not approved, give me these specific changes. It was one of those three things.”
Apple Shipped Original iPhone App Icons at 57 Pixels Square
“The we determined that if you made a rectangle that was 57 pixels square, that pretty much everybody could tap it a hundred percent of the time. No matter where it was, again, since you were going quickly, you could tap it comfortably. And that, Number, he jus…”