The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 97 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 1 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Thiel: Creating New Value Cannot Be Reduced to a Formula
“The creation of new value cannot be reduced to a formula and applied by professionals.”
Jony Ive: Asking consumers to design the future is fundamentally unfair
“We don't do focus groups because that is the job of the designer. It is unfair to ask people who don't have a sense of the opportunities of tomorrow from the context of today to design.”
Steve Jobs Fired Two Apple Board Members For Never Disagreeing
“In fact, Ed Catmull told this great story where Steve was talking about that he had fired two people from Apple's board, and the reason Steve gave Ed surprised Ed, and Steve said, is because they didn't ever disagree with me.”
Jobs regularly noted Apple products end up in landfills while Pixar films endure
“He used to say regularly that as brilliant as Apple products were, eventually they all ended up in landfills. Pixar movies, on the other hand, would live on forever.”
Steve Jobs: Top performers refuse to work alongside mediocre talent
“The Macintosh experience taught me that A players like to work only, only with other A players, which means you cannot indulge B players.”
Jobs: Apple was worth saving because it was the only Windows alternative
“There is something good here worth saving. I don't quite know how to express it, but it has to do with the fact that Apple is the only alternative to windows and that Apple can still inject some new thinking into the equation.”
Jobs: Become a manager only to stop bozos from ruining your group
“The only good reason to be a manager is so some other bozo
Doesn't be the manager and ruin the group that you care about.”
Apple never ran a single A/B test on the original iPhone software
“At Apple, we never would have dreamed of doing that, and we never staged any AB test for any of the software on the iPhone.”
Apple's core design team had 16 people compared to Samsung's 1,000
“There's 16 odd designers focusing on refining and improving Apple's products and manufacturing processes. By comparison, Samsung has a thousand designers working in 34 research centers around the world. Apple had 16 in one spot.”
BeOS Founder Brought No Laptop or Presentation to Crucial Apple Pitch
“The founder of B walks in and he pursued a different approach. He hadn't brought anyone else from his team. He wasn't carrying a laptop. In fact, he had prepared no presentation whatsoever because the two teams had been kept separate.”
Ed Catmull was the most influential figure on Jobs's management style
“I think the person that was most influential on how he managed when he came back to Apple was actually the time he spent with Ed Catmull. Seeing how Ed Catmull actually ran Pixar.”
Steve Jobs: Marketing is about values because people remember little else
“To me, marketing is about values. This is a very complicated world. It's a very noisy world. And we're not going to get a chance to get people to remember much about us. No company is. And so we have to be really clear on what we want them to know about us.”
Jobs in 1996: Apple must innovate out of trouble under proper leadership
“The cure for Apple is to innovate. It's way out of its current predicament. There's a lot of good people left at Apple that are capable of doing that with proper leadership, which is what has been missing.”
Jobs to Avi Tevanian: Challenge me to reach excellence over ego
“I don't care about being right. I just want to be excellent. Please continue to challenge me. It's the way we get to the right decisions, and I enjoy it.”
Playing it safe instead of starting a company is a giant mistake
“One thing that reading biographies of dead people will do for you, it will remove the illusion that you have something to lose. If you want to design calculators at HP, then do that. But if what you really want to do is to try to start a company, you're making…”
Jobs: The hierarchy of ideas should not map to organizational hierarchy
“The first one was a real belief that there wasn't a hierarchy of ideas that mapped onto the hierarchy of the organization.”
Jobs: Shifting skepticism proves previous turnaround goals were successfully met
“Every time we convince people that we've accomplished something at one level, they come up with something new. I used to think this was a bad thing. I thought, oh geez, when are they ever going to believe that we're going to be able to turn this thing around? …”
Jobs considered annual reviews useless because feedback should be constant
“Steve, Steve thought annual reviews was the dumbest thing ever. Cause like, I'm giving you feedback constantly. Why would I wait for 12, you know, once a year to give you feedback.”
Steve Jobs considered a free, ad-supported version of Mac OS
“And he's like, Hey, what if we gave it away for free? And we just did an ad supported version of Mac OS. And instead of buying them, you can get it for free, but you have to watch an ad every time before you use your computer.”
Steve Jobs's return to Apple is history's greatest entrepreneurial comeback
“The wilderness period, you know, when Steve was fired from Apple, and then when he comes back and goes on, it sets the greatest record, in my argument greatest record in entrepreneurship history, and Steve would tell you this himself.”
Jobs (1996): Apple must innovate its way out of its predicament
“The cure for Apple is to innovate its way out of its current predicament. There's a lot of good people left at Apple that are capable of doing that with proper leadership, which is what has been missing.”
Jobs: Do not dwell on success, move immediately to what is next
“I think if you do something and it turns out pretty good, then you should just go do something else wonderful. Not dwell on it for too long. Just figure out what's next.”
Jobs: A company's hierarchy of ideas must not match its org chart
“The first one was a real belief that there wasn't a hierarchy of ideas that mapped onto the hierarchy of the organization.”
Jobs: The performance variance in top talent dramatically exceeds normal life differences
“The dynamic range of people dramatically exceeds things you encounter in the rest of our normal lives, and to try to find those really great people who really, really love what they do.”
Senra: Aspiring founders make a giant mistake playing it safe
“One thing that reading biographies of dead people will do for you, it will remove the illusion that you have something to lose. If you want to design calculators at HP, then do that. But if what you really want to do is to try to start a company, you're making…”
Jobs: Act like a permanent CEO even when serving as interim
“And so I went back there as interim CEO and I decided right up front that I was going to act like I was the permanent CEO.”
Jobs: In a noisy world, marketing must clearly communicate a company's values
“To me, marketing is about values. This is a very complicated world. It's a very noisy world. And we're not going to get a chance to get people to remember much about us. No company is. And so we have to be really clear on what we want them to know about us.”
Senra: Premium well-designed products can command luxury auto margins
“Instead, Steve argued there was no reason that well-designed, well-made computers, just like Yvonne is arguing here, that well-designed, well-made clothing couldn't command the same market share and margins as a luxury automobile. A BMW might get you to where …”
Building great products requires taste developed through practice, not just pure data
“That building a great product is not scientific. It's not something that could just be derived from data alone. You have to have taste, and one way to develop taste is through years of practice”
Senra: Creating new business value cannot be reduced to a formula
“Jobs' return to Apple 12 years later shows how the most important task in business The creation of new value cannot be reduced to a formula and applied by professionals.”
Henry Singleton was an early investor in Apple Computer
“Not the one Henry helped to finance. He invested in Apple.”
Moritz: Turnarounds Are Doubly Difficult in Tech Companies
“While turnarounds are difficult in any circumstances, they are doubly difficult in a technology company.”
Apple reduced hardware development cycles from three years to nine months
“We reduced product development from three years to nine months. We made Apple one of the fastest companies in tech”
Steve Jobs Respected Colleagues Who Actively Pushed Back Against Him
“Steve respected talented people who could fight. You had to be willing to push back against Steve. Your ideas would only survive if you could evangelize them and convince all the smart people around that this was the best option.”
Atari founder Nolan Bushnell declined 30% of Apple for $50k
“Nolan Bushnow, the founder of Atari, recounts in his book and a bunch of other interviews I've seen with him. Biggest regret in his life, he was offered 30% of Apple, I think for like 50,000 or a 100,000, it was something like that. And he said, no”
Steve Jobs excelled at spotting markets full of second-rate products
“One of his talents was spotting markets filled with second rate products.”
Jobs: Companies Can Only Effectively Market Four or Five Innovations Annually
“If Apple comes up with a dozen innovations in a year, we can maybe advertise four or five of them. We can't advertise more than that, because even if we had all the money in the world, the customer would get very confused with all these messages coming at them…”
Craftsmen who build with irrational love usually become wealthy anyway
“There is an irrational love for the way, like, he approached the product that he made and the company that he built, and then ironically, these type of craftsmen usually wind up with the money anyways.”
Jobs: Apple was worth saving as the only alternative to Windows
“There is something good here worth saving. I don't quite know how to express it, but it has to do with the fact that Apple is the only alternative to Windows, and that Apple can still inject some new thinking into the equation.”
Steve Jobs eliminated 70% of Apple's product roadmap upon returning in 1997
“We actually got rid of 70% of the stuff on the product roadmap.”
Jobs in 2011: Apple's brightest and most innovative days are ahead
“I believe Apple's brightest and most innovative days are ahead of it, and I look forward to watching and contributing to its success in a new role.”
Jobs: Product innovation requires fiscal conservatism on the business side
“You need a risk-taking creative environment on the product side, and that requires a fiscally conservative environment on the business side.”
Retailers must ambush customers by paying a premium for high-traffic locations
“We had to ambush them. What that meant is that we had to go to high traffic locations and put stores there, even if it was more expensive.”
If you are moving slowly, narrow your scope and simplify
“Simple is fast, and I think what the advice that Herb would give you, and I think the advice that Steve would give you, if you feel you're not moving fast enough, narrow your scope, simplify, and then up the intensity”
Steve Jobs would hate Apple offering four different Pencil versions
“I just saw that there's four different versions of the Apple pencil. There's no way that Steve would like that.”
Steve Jobs originally wanted to name the iMac the 'MacMan'
“Ken Sego, the author. He's the one that came up with the name iMac. And thank God he did, because you know what Steve wanted to call the iMac before it was called iMac? He wanted to call the iMac Mac Man.”
Founders with great products have a moral obligation to master marketing
“If you believe that your product will improve the life of your customer, then you have a moral obligation to get good at marketing.”
Steve Jobs viewed slick internal slide decks as wasted thinking time
“If you had a slick presentation internally, Steve suspected that you spent the value, the limited valuable time that you had wrapping the idea, making it beautiful instead of spending the time thinking through the idea itself and getting to its essence.”