Apple

Because the technology crashed and burned at Xerox. [Why?] I learned more about that with John Sculley later on and I think I understand it now pretty well. What happens is—like with John Sculley—John came from Pepsico. And they—at most—would change their product once every 10 years. I mean, to them, a new product was a new sized bottle. So if you were a "product person", you couldn’t change the course of that company very much. So, who influences the success at Pepsico? The sales and marketing people. Therefore they were the ones that got promoted, and they were the ones that ran the company. Well, for Pepsico that might have been okay, but it turns out the same thing can happen in technology companies that get monopolies. Like, oh, IBM and Xerox. 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 that can make the company more successful are sales and marketing people, and they end up running the companies. And the "product people" get run out of the decision-making forums. And the companies forget what it means to make great products. Sort of the product sensibility and product genius that brought them to that monopolistic position gets rotted out by people running these companies who have no conception of a good product versus 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 usually about wanting to really help the customers.

Notes

• Apie tai, kodėl Wozniak’as nebeturėtų būti toks populiarus, koks yra.

• Tim Cook yra naujasis Steve Balmer. Execution CEOs value stability, process and repeatable execution. On one hand that’s great for predictability, but it often starts a creative death spiral – creative people start to leave, and other executors (without the innovation talent of the old leader) are put into more senior roles – hiring more process people, which in turn forces out the remaining creative talent. This culture shift ripples down from the top and what once felt like a company on a mission to change the world now feels like another job. Ir Steve Jobs apie tai.

• Podcastas apie pirmojo iPhone sukūrimą. Pasakojama apie tai, kad Apple buvo kone priversta kurti savo telefoną, nenorint prarasti stiprių pozicijų, kurias sukūrė iPod ir iTunes, apie tai, kad Steve Jobs buvo gan nusistatęs prieš appsų parduotuvę, nes norėjo turėti savo perfect closed system ir apie tai, kad telefonas ant scenos buvo pristatinėjamas pagal "golden path" - veiksmų seką, kuria naudojantis telefonas turėjo mažesnę tikimybę užlūžti.

• Vienas iš būdų sumažinti tikimybę, jog dizainas bus nuleak'intas - jį turi matyti kuo mažesnis kiekis žmonių. Dėl šios priežasties, inžinieriai dirbantys su pirmosios iOS branduoliu, driveriais, failų sistema, procesoriaus architektūra gaudavo štai tokius, kompiuterio motininę plokštę primenančius prototipus. Nuorodoje matomas variantas su ekranas, tačiau dažniausiai darbuotojai gaudavo plokštes net ir be jų, tad visą savo darbą galėdavo atlikti tik prisijungę šią plokštę prie kompiuterio ar televizoriaus, nė nenuotuokdami, kaip atrodys galutinis produktas.