Founders - #349 How Steve Jobs Kept Things Simple

Episode Date: May 20, 2024

What I learned from reading Insanely Simple: The Obsession That Drives Apple's Success by Ken Segall. ----Learning from history is a form of leverage. —Charlie Munger. Founders Notes gives you the super power to learn from history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand.Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for FoundersYou can search all my notes and highlights from every book I've ever read for the podcast. You can also ask SAGE any question and SAGE will read all my notes, highlights, and every transcript from every episode for you. A few questions I've asked SAGE recently: What are the most important leadership lessons from history's greatest entrepreneurs?Can you give me a summary of Warren Buffett's best ideas? (Substitute any founder covered on the podcast and you'll get a comprehensive and easy to read summary of their ideas) How did Edwin Land find new employees to hire? Any unusual sources to find talent?What are some strategies that Cornelius Vanderbilt used against his competitors?Get access to Founders Notes here. ----(1:30) Steve wanted Apple to make a product that was simply amazing and amazingly simple.(3:00) If you don’t zero in on your bureaucracy every so often, you will naturally build in layers. You never set out to add bureaucracy. You just get it. Period. Without even knowing it. So you always have to be looking to eliminate it.  — Sam Walton: Made In America by Sam Walton. (Founders #234)(5:00) Steve was always easy to understand. He would either approve a demo, or he would request to see something different next time. Whenever Steve reviewed a demo, he would say, often with highly detailed specificity, what he wanted to happen next.  — Creative Selection: Inside Apple's Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs by Ken Kocienda. (Founders #281)(7:00) Watch this video. Andy Miller tells GREAT Steve Jobs stories. (10:00) Many are familiar with the re-emergence of Apple. They may not be as familiar with the fact that it has few, if any parallels.When did a founder ever return to the company from which he had been rudely rejected to engineer a turnaround as complete and spectacular as Apple's? While turnarounds are difficult in any circumstances they are doubly difficult in a technology company. It is not too much of a stretch to say that Steve founded Apple not once but twice. And the second time he was alone. —  Return to the Little Kingdom: Steve Jobs and the Creation of Appleby Michael Moritz.(15:00) If the ultimate decision maker is involved every step of the way the quality of the work increases.(20:00) "You asked the question, What was your process like?' I kind of laugh because process is an organized way of doing things. I have to remind you, during the 'Walt Period' of designing Disneyland, we didn't have processes. We just did the work. Processes came later. All of these things had never been done before. Walt had gathered up all these people who had never designed a theme park, a Disneyland. So we're in the same boat at one time, and we figure out what to do and how to do it on the fly as we go along with it and not even discuss plans, timing, or anything. We just worked and Walt just walked around and had suggestions." — Disney's Land: Walt Disney and the Invention of the Amusement Park That Changed the World by Richard Snow. (Founders #347)(23:00) The further you get away from 1 the more complexity you invite in.(25:00) Your goal: A single idea expressed clearly.(26:00) Jony Ive: Steve was the most focused person I’ve met in my life(28:00) Editing your thinking is an act of service.----“I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — GarethBe like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ----Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work.  Get access to Founders Notes here. ----“I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — GarethBe like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast

Okay, so the book I'm going to talk to you about today is insanely simple, The Obsession That Drives Apple's Success, and it was written by Ken Siegel. This book is a little different from the books that you and I normally talk about. It is not a biography, but it is a fascinating look into how it was working with Steve Jobs because Ken Siegel was the ad agency creative director of the firm that Steve used when he was at Next and then when he came back to Apple to lead that turnaround. And so at this point, I've made, I don't know, 10 episodes on Steve Jobs. I've read as many books on him as I can find. And yet there were stories in this book

that I have found nowhere else. And it's because Ken worked with Steve intimately for over a decade. Steve had no problem calling Ken at midnight to debate a single word in the ad copy. And so one of the things that Ken noticed that was different from the other clients that he had was that Steve's dedication to simplicity was almost religious in nature. And you would see that religious-like dedication to simplicity throughout the entire way that Steve ran his business, to the way he communicated internally with his employees, to the way he communicated externally to his potential customers, to how he organized his team, to how he's built his products. And so Ken noticed that Steve had a tool to do this, and he calls it the simple stick,

which is one of my favorite stories. This is the second or third time that I've read the book. And considering I reread my highlights all the time, it's like the 10th time I read the book. And for some reason, I failed to make an episode on it before. So I'm rectifying that mistake here. But the simple stick, the reason I bring that up is because from the veryth time I read the book. And for some reason, I failed to make an episode on it before. So I'm rectifying that mistake here. But the simple stick, the reason I bring that up is because from the very first time I read the book, you know, probably eight years ago, something like that, this idea of the simple stick always stuck in my mind. So the simple stick is just a tool that Steve Jobs used to keep his team from overcomplicating things.

If an idea was not distilled down to its essence, Steve would reject it. If an idea took a turn when it should have traveled in a straight line, Steve would reject it. So an example that comes up over and over again in the book is if you made two different versions of anything, Steve would hit you with the simple stick until you simplified it down to one. There was an ad made many decades ago for the Macintosh. And it said the tagline on the ad was describing the Macintosh. And it said that it was simply amazing and amazingly simple. Steve wanted Apple to make products that were simply amazing and amazingly simple. And the simple stick was the tool that he used to make that happen. And so the main thesis behind this entire book and why I want

to talk to you about it is that people prefer simplicity. Customers respond to it, yet humans naturally overcomplicate things. True simplicity that is applied consistently throughout your entire organization is extremely rare. Just think about every single business that you ever interact with. Most of the businesses, the products and services that we use, that we buy would not be described as a product of clear thinking and simplicity. Keep in mind the timeframe that we're talking about. We're talking in most of the book is about the time where Steve comes back to Apple. Apple is losing money.

Their product line sucks. They either have to turn it around or die. So I think one of the things that Steve realized and a lot of other history's greatest entrepreneurs realized is that simplicity actually helps you scale. And so when I was reading this part of the book, I thought about Sam Walton. When I read, I read his autobiography multiple times. The last time I made an episode on it was episode 234.

But he has a line in that book where he says, if you don't zero in on bureaucracy every so often, you will naturally build in layers. You never set out to add bureaucracy. You get it, period, without even knowing so. You always have to be looking to eliminate it. The simple stick was how Steve eliminated it at its source. There's a great line in Sam Walton's autobiography that's by a Walmart executive. And it's a story about how Sam is trying to use the simple stick. He's constantly questioning. And let me just read this to you. He says, I'll give you an example that drove Sam crazy until we started doing something about it. When merchandise came into the back of a store, it was supposed to be marked at the right price and marked correctly on the spot.

But because it often wasn't getting done properly, we created positions called test scanners, people who go around the stores with handheld scanners, making sure everything is priced correctly. There's another layer right there. And Sam didn't ever visit a store without asking if we really needed these folks. And I think that story is a great example that humans naturally overcomplicate things. And it's the leader's job to constantly question, do we actually need this additional layer? The more layers you have, the harder it is to scale. So the simple stick is the tool.

I want to go into detail on how Steve did this with the first thing I think is probably the most important is the way he communicated. I've told you in the past, I think he's the clearest thinker, the clearest communicator of every single person I've read about. And so Steve believed that blunt communication was effective. Direct communication is extremely simple. So in every single book that I've ever read about Steve Jobs, the people that worked with him all say the exact same thing. He was very easy to understand. If he thought something was great, he's going to tell you. If he thought your work was shit, that's one of his favorite words to describe poor work. If he thought something was great, he's going to tell you. If he thought your work was shit, that's one of his favorite words to describe poor work.

If he thought your work was shit, he's going to tell you. In fact, the first meeting that Steve Jobs had with the author, Ken Siegel, right? Steve goes up to him. He's like, your TV work is great. And Ken's like, great. And he goes, but your print work is shit. The reason this is important, because if somebody is that direct with you, you know immediately what you need to do. Ken knew immediately what he needed to do.

Oh, OK. If I want to keep Steve as a client, my print work has to improve right now. Employees, like all other people, respond to clear communication. There is a book that I've read multiple times. I think I've done two podcasts on it. Maybe the last time I did the podcast on it was episode 281. That episode is called Working with Steve Jobs. It is about this book called Creative Selection, which is written by Ken Kosienda. Ken was a programmer who demoed multiple times and worked closely with Steve Jobs. I want to read this section from Ken's book that is so excellent. And if you haven't listened to episode 281, I would listen to it after you get done with this one. And so he's describing how clear Steve's communication was to his employees. And this is what Ken says. Steve was at the center of all circles. He made all of the important product decisions. That's hilarious because the amount of detail and what he's paying attention to that I'll get to in this book is

it's exactly what Ken Kosian is saying here. He made all the important product decisions. From my standpoint, as an individual programmer, demoing to Steve was like visiting the Oracle of Delphi. The demo was my question, and Steve's response was the answer. While the pronouncements from the Greek Oracle often came in the form of confusing riddles, this was not true with Steve. Listen to this line.

I double underlined it, highlighted it. It's so important. He was always true with Steve. Listen to this line. I double underlined it, highlighted it. It's so important. He was always easy to understand. He would either approve a demo or he would request to see something different next time. Whenever Steve reviewed a demo, he would say, often with highly detailed specificity, what he wanted to happen next. He was always trying to ensure that the products were as intuitive and straightforward, another word for simple, right, as possible. And he was willing to

invest his own time, effort, and influence to see that they were. In that example, Steve is doing that with his employee when he's saying to Ken, hey, your TV work is great. Your print stuff is shit. It needs to get better. He's doing the exact same thing with one of his vendors. Being blunt, being direct is the most simple form of communication. And I think one of the most important byproducts of this is that with clear communication, with the blunt communication that Steve used, everybody understood the standards that he insisted they upheld. So there's this great video. I'll link it down below.

And this guy named Andy Miller, I've watched this video, I don't know, 50 times. He sold his company to Apple for $275 million. And Andy said that you are aware of the consequences if you screw up. And Andy says that something that Steve would repeat to him was that, Andy, you are a very complicated man. And that was not a compliment. Andy said that Steve's whole world was simplicity. He wanted everything boiled down to its essence. And he tells us one story. Again, this is, it just makes, it makes you yourself, this direct communication is blunt communication. I think I really truly believe it makes you easy to interface with. And so Andy was daydreaming one time. He's sitting in a meeting with Steve Jobs and Tim Cook and all these like high-end executives. I think there's like four to six of like Steve's top team in the room and Andy's there. And Andy's daydreaming.

He's like, how the hell did I get here? Like, how did I wind up here? This is Steve Jobs. I cannot believe this is happening. And so Steve noticed that Andy wasn't paying attention. So he asked him a question related to what they were talking about. And he's like, OK, Andy, what do you think about this? And Andy couldn't answer it. And Steve said, you weren't paying attention, were you?

And he's like, no, I wasn't. He goes, OK, if I ever notice that again, you won't be in the room and you won't be at Apple. Think about that. You think at the end of that exchange was Andy left like, I wonder what he meant by that. What should I do next? No, you know exactly. Blunt communication is simple. Again, I think this part that blunt communication makes your standards easy to understand for others.

It's very important. It's also not just Steve Jobs, not the only person that did this. So I obviously, you obviously know I make all these episodes on Michael Jordan. I'm kind of obsessed with his competitive nature. And I was rewatching the documentary, The Last Dance. And there was a couple things that Michael said that I think he shares in common with Steve Jobs. And I actually took screenshots of what Michael was talking about. And so I want to compare when Michael came to the Chicago Bulls in 1984 to when Steve Jobs came back to Apple in 1997.

And so Michael in the documentary is talking about why, you know, when they're winning championships, when all these new people come in after the Bulls won the third championship, like, why are you so hard on your teammates, Michael? And he says, again, this is very clear communication. When I got here, we were shit. Meaning the Chicago Bulls were a terrible, terrible team when he got there. And we got to elevate to being a championship quality team. This is the punchline. There's certain standards that you have to live by. And when I saw that,

and I'm reading this book, I'm thinking about what Michael Jordan said on The Last Dance. I'm thinking about what Ken Siegel's writing in this book. I thought of, there's this guy named Mike Moritz. A lot of people describe him as the best venture capitalist of all time. Way before he's a venture capitalist, he wrote this book called The Little Kingdom, How Apple and Steve Jobs Changed the World. It was published. The book is published before Steve Jobs gets kicked out the first time. Mike is a fantastic writer. Transitions from being a journalist to an investor. Winds up being world class at that as well. But then, which is most fascinating, is Michael updates the book.

I think somewhere in maybe 2008, 2009, something like that. And the updated version is the version I read. And now it's called Return to the Little Kingdom. I want to read this. Tell me this is not the exact same thing that Michael Jordan is talking about. Michael Moritz is discussing the unparalleled story of Apple, right? Michael Jordan just said, hey, when I came to the Bulls, when I got here, we were shit. And we elevated to being a championship quality team. And so therefore, now you're coming in new to something we built. So I'm going to

insist that there are certain standards that you have to live by. Michael Jordan was the leader of the bulls, just like Steve Jobs was the leader of Apple. And this is what Mike Moritz said on the unparalleled story of Apple. This is why I keep making podcast after podcast, reading book after book of Steve Jobs. Why is it so important for you and I to revisit this, to talk about this, you know, every few weeks, every few months, at least, you know, hopefully a couple of times a year, because this is what Mike Moore had said. Many are familiar with the reemergence of Apple. They may not be as familiar with the fact that it has few, if any, parallels. When did a founder ever return to the company from which he had been so rudely rejected to engineer a turnaround as complete and spectacular as Apple's? While turnarounds

are difficult in any circumstances, they are doubly difficult in a technology company. It is not too much of a stretch to say that Steve founded Apple not once but twice, and the second time he was alone. Steve Jobs did not complete that turnaround without crystal clear communication. So this is also something that why it's also rare. It's rare in like, let's say, the normal population and probably extremely common in the population of the people that you and I study, these world-class entrepreneurs, because most people don't want blunt communication because blunt communication creates conflict. That is why it's rare. There's a great line from

Jeff Bezos. So Jeff Bezos is known for being a very blunt communicator. Jeff Bezos says, I think in his shareholder letters, if I'm not mistaken, he said that he would take conflict over agreement every time because he believes that conflict produces a better result. Most people don't want conflict. Jeff Bezos didn't run from it. He wasn't afraid of it. Steve Jobs would agree. He did not clearly run from conflict from blunt communication. And I think what Steve and Jeff both share in common. And again, I've done what, I don't know, seven episodes on Jeff. Steve and Jeff had one thing in common, or they had a bunch of things in common. But one thing above all is they put the quality of the work above being liked.

And this idea of blunt communication, this idea of being very easy to understand, it's not just when Steve was speaking to you. It's also in his written material as well. So there's a great thing in the book that I want to read to you. And it's about, you know, Ken made these ads. And then he gets an email from Apple's legal team. And he says, I was surprised one day to get an email from the Apple lawyers concerning a newspaper ad that was going to run in just three days. Steve Jobs had already approved it.

Now Apple's lawyers are saying that they had some problems with it. So doing my duty, I sent an email to Steve advising him that there was a wrench in the works, his own legal team. I asked Steve for his guidance. Just minutes after I hit the send button, his reply landed in my inbox. Fuck the lawyers. So again, so far we have two examples of Steve communicating directly with Ken. One was they were having a conversation. Love your TV work. Your print work is shit. Ken knows immediately what to do. Now an email, he's saying, fuck the lawyers. What do you think? Ken knows what to do. Steve is saying, run the ad. And another very valuable consequence of this simplicity is that Steve was able to run his business. He ran his business as if there was little time to waste. He was like this since he was like a kid. Remember, I told you this story

when he was 19-year-old working for Nolan Bushnell. Nolan Bushnell is the founder of Atari. He was Steve Jobs' mentor. He's like a decade older than Steve Jobs. And he wrote an entire book about what that was like. And he's like, oh, Steve had one speed, go. And I think the clear communication helped with that because you can't move fast if your communication isn't simple and easy to understand. So before I move on from this section, what is the opposite?

If you really think about what is the opposite of blunt communication, what is the opposite of direct communication? Ken makes the case, and he picks a great word for this. He says that it's meandering communication. So I went to the dictionary and the definition of meandering, and you apply it to communication, is communication that moves slowly in no particular direction with no clear purpose. Communication that takes a turn instead of traveling in a straight line. If you rambled, Steve would cut you off. If you move slow, he would fire you. So that's Steve using simplicity in the way he communicated. Now, another way he used simplicity is how he

organized his team. So his favorite way to work is small groups of very smart people. And in fact, Steve was speaking at a conference. It was the All Things D conference shortly before he died. And you could see he clearly very sick. And he was talking about this in very early days. I'll give you an example of when he was building the Macintosh when he was in his 20s. And then right before he died, he says, we have zero committees. We are organized like a startup. One person is in charge of iPhone OS. One person is in charge of Mac hardware. One person is in charge of marketing. One person is in charge of Mac hardware. One person is in charge of marketing. One person is in charge of operations. We are organized like a startup. We are the biggest startup on the planet. And I think the main principle here is not only is this simpler,

but if you think about this, if the ultimate decision maker is involved in every step of the way Steve believed, that the quality of the work increases. It's also, I think he's right about that. And I also think that's just the way he liked to work. It's also, I think he's right about that. And I also think that's just the way he liked to work. In fact, there's a line in the book. There's a quote in the book where Steve says, the way I like to work is where I touch everything. One of my favorite maxims that you see that appears over and over again,

if you analyze what's actually taking place in all of these books that you and I are reading and talking about is that actions express priority. Steve shows you with his actions, how he spends his time, what's important to him. So there's a ton of examples in the book, but like Steve did not believe in delegating marketing and advertising decisions at all. This is not an exaggeration. He approved every single image that was used in an ad. He would approve every single word. He would deliberate over the copy. This is when he's calling Ken at midnight to talk about a

single word. The degree to which he did this cannot be understated. It didn't matter if it was a billboard in Missouri or a full page ad in the Wall Street Journal. It is not going out until he approves it. And so there's no way you can work like this unless you have a very simplified structure. He hated what he called big company behavior. And so let me give an example. It's very common for executive CEOs, founders of giant companies. You have people filtering all kinds of things for you, right? But Steve put the quality of the product above everything else. And then he says in another book, hey, I truly believe that we're making the best products in the world. I want every single person in the world to have access to an Apple device, which is funny because the way they're priced.

But his whole point was that to do that, we have to get world-class, not only building, we already build world-class products, but we have to get world-class at marketing. And so I remember when I read that for the first time, I think this is episode 204, it's a long time ago, many, many years ago. And I remember the note I left myself that I was trying to put into my own words, like, what is he saying here? And I was like, oh, if you believe that your product will improve the life of your customer, then you have a moral obligation to get good at marketing. I believe that is what Steve Jobs believed. And yet in this book, there's an actually interesting idea for you and I on how to do that.

So the way I think about what the lesson is in the book is like, if this is important to you, it's one of your top priorities, right? Do not let other people filter for you. And so Steve did something that's very interesting. So obviously he's got marketing people on his marketing and advertising team, right? He's got outside ad agencies. He insisted on seeing the ads before his executives. He didn't want them to filter what he saw because they could start guessing like, oh, you know, Steve won't like this. We don't need to show that one to him. He's like, no, no, I don't want this filtered at all. The ads are created by the advertising agency. They go straight to me. have maybe the image or the demo of what the ad is going to look like. Maybe it's the video and

they want to like set it up and they're like setting it up and they narrate to you before. And he's like, stop doing that. And he has a great, again, this is just simple, clear communication. Are you going to be sitting next to me explaining these things when I see the ad in the newspaper? And the answer is of course not. And so if you really think about it, like one of the supporting characters of this book is the number one. Steve was obsessed with trying to get as close to the number one as possible. We'll talk more about that in a little bit. But I was thinking about what he was saying.

I was like, oh, well, the only thing more simple than one is zero. And what's happening in this meeting is like, oh, he wants zero words. He wants to see it just like a potential customer would see it. And how this is related to this idea that Steve wanted see it just like a potential customer would see it. And how this is related to this idea that Steve wanted to be organized like a startup. He just wanted these small groups of smart people all dedicated to a single thing, have one top priorities. Ken talks about the amount of people in a meeting where they are literally deciding what Apple ads the public is going to see. It's like there's a handful of people. He talks about other companies

in the book where he'll count. There'll be like 32 people in the room. Steve Jobs would never allow that. There's stories in the book where if he notices a spectator to a meeting that is not essential, he will ask them, why are you here? If there's not a good response, he'll make them leave. Simplicity's best friend is small groups of smart people. So he did this in the beginning of his career. So his commitment to small groups of smart people sometimes included designing the team within constraints. So when he was building the first Macintosh, he's in his 20s, he limited the team to 100 people. If you wanted to add a person, if you say, hey, we need, you know, this person's help, you first have to find the person that was unnecessary and replace them. And then I'm really

glad that I reread this book after I just read the book on how Walt Disney built Disneyland, because I didn't understand the first time through without that additional context that there's another benefit when it comes to just organizing your entire team or company into these small groups of smart people. Because if you're doing something new and creative, creativity is not a process. It's not scripted. And something that Steve had in common with Walt Disney was they were both comfortable with an absence of process. And so I want to read this excerpt to you from the book that I just did on episode 347, where the entire book is about how did Walt Disney build what he considered his masterpiece,

which is Disneyland. And so we have a guy working for Walt Disney said, you asked the question, what was the process like? I kind of laughed because process is an organized way of doing things. I have to remind you during the Walt period of designing Disneyland, we didn't have processes. We just did the work. Process came later. All of these things had never been done before. Walt had gathered up all these people who had never designed a theme park. They had never designed a Disneyland. So we're in the same boat at one time and we figure out what to do and how to do it on the fly as we go along and not even discuss plans, timing, or anything. We just worked and Walt just walked around and made suggestions. That's the idea where Walt's just walking around and making

suggestions. If you read all these books on Steve Jobs, it's very similar. There was an absence of process. Steve made suggestions, changes were made, then Steve would review the changes and make more suggestions. Walt Disney and Steve Jobs both trusted their own taste and judgment. So another great reason to read this book too is like, I'm not saying that Steve's taste

and judgment were perfect. In this book, you have one of, undoubtedly one of the greatest entrepreneurs to ever do it. The book is full of bad ideas coming from Steve. Let me give you an example. So Ken Segal, 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. One of Steve's heroes was the founder of Sony, Akio Morita. And one of the most successful Sony products of all time are the Walkman or was the Walkman. And so Steve's like, oh, OK, we can call ours the Mac Man. And if that idea wasn't in this book, you would never believe that Steve Jobs would come up with such a terrible product name. There's another crazy idea that does not sound like Steve at all, but he was seriously considered. His idea was like, hey, what if instead at the time they were charging for operating

system upgrades that Apple just gives you for free now? And so, you know, you pay $99 or $129, something like that to upgrade the operating system on your Mac. 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. What?

That doesn't sound like Steve Jobs, right? And thankfully, both of those ideas, Steve changed his mind. And again, just this constant iteration. Let's surround myself with these small groups of smart people. Let's make suggestions. Let's make changes. And over time, our products will improve. Okay, so I want to move on to the third thing I want to talk to you about, which is, I mentioned earlier that the number one is like the supporting actor, the supporting cast in this book. And there's a line, the first time I read the book that I've never forgot about. And it says, the further you get away from one, the more complexity that you invite in.

And so I want to talk about their advertising first, but I think this applies to more than just ad. So your goal is a single idea expressed clearly. And for advertising, you really should try to pick just one message per ad. And so this is another example where they're going over this idea for ads for a new Apple product. And Steve's like another example where they're going over this idea for ads for a new Apple product. And Steve's like, well, there's five things they do really well. We should mention all five things in the ad. And the founder of the advertising agency and a close friend of Steve Jobs for like three decades, this guy named Lee Clow, he did this demonstration of the difference between a good ad and a bad ad. So Lee crumpled

up a piece of paper into a ball and threw it to Steve and asked him to catch it. And Steve was able to. And Lee says, that is a good ad. Then he crumpled up five pieces of paper into little balls and threw them all towards Steve at the same time and asked him to catch them. And Steve didn't catch any of them. And Lee said, that is a bad ad. And Lee's point was that the more things that you ask people to focus on, the less that they remember. So I remember reading James Dyson's autobiography for the first time. I've read it three times since then. The last time was episode 300, if you want to listen to it again. But he says something also. He's like, you simply cannot mix your messages when selling something new.

A consumer can barely handle one great new idea, let alone two or even several. So he talks about in the book when Dyson's first product is that Cyclonic vacuum cleaner. He thought it was the world's best vacuum cleaner. A byproduct of the product he made though, an added benefit was the fact that the vacuum cleaner could also be used as a dry cleaner for your clothes. James never, never mentioned that in his ads. He let the customer discover that use later on because in the marketing of the vacuum cleaner, he learned what Lee Clow had learned as well. Your goal is a single message, a single idea expressed clearly, one message per ad. So then you have this principle, the further you get away from one,

the more complexity you invite in for products. And it compares the operating system upgrades of Apple and Windows. So at this time, Apple offered the operating system Leopard as an upgrade. It had one version and one price. Microsoft was offering Windows Vista at this time. It had four versions, all with different features and all at different prices. And it's funny to see the difference today because this book is 15 years old. I just saw that there's four different versions of the Apple Pencil. There's no way that Steve would like that. There's another great story in the book where he's got a team that are at the time, they're trying to figure out, OK, you have this file on your computer from iMovie.

You have this whole movie you want to put into physical form. You want to make it into like a DVD. And so his team comes up with like this complicated presentation. He just ignores the presentation, walks over to the whiteboard, and he starts drawing out. He says, this is the application. It's got one window. You drag the video into the window, and then it has one button. Again, the further you

get away from one, the more complex you involve in. That one button says burn. And then Steve says, that's it. That is what we're going to make. And then he walked out of the room. After Steve Jobs died, Johnny Ive gave this great interview with Vanity Fair and he said something I'll never forget. I've mentioned it multiple times. He said that Steve was the most remarkably focused person he ever knew. So he, Steve would even do this when he, he would, the advice he'd give or the direction, not even advice, he made it mandatory, the direction he gave his advertising agency. He's like, listen, for every single quarter, we're going to have a single focus. So whatever product or feature that we are focused

on, we're going to be focused on that for the entire quarter. It's going to be mentioned in every ad and it's going to be the main thing you see when you go to apple.com. Steve's most important concern was making things easier for customers. And so this entire thing, when you think about this third section where it's like focus on one,

the further you get away from one, the more complexity you invite in. There's two things I think Steve understood instinctively that when you attempt to communicate more than one thing, you are dividing your audience's attention. And the reason I think that that was an instinctual thing to him is because he applied it to both internally, so like his teammates, his employees, and externally to his ads and his marketing. This idea, when you attempt to communicate more than one thing, you are dividing your audience's attention. It's very important. Number two, people find more words confusing. I love to read. I love to read probably, as you know,

probably more than 99% of the people on the planet, whatever that number is. It drives me batshit crazy when I read an 800-page book, and it's very common, you read an 800-page book when that book should have been 400, 300 pages. Editing your thinking is an act of service and it takes time and effort. That's why people don't do it. There's this famous saying that I was thinking of when I got to this section, you know, because I'm jotting down, I'm trying to like interpret it, like distill these ideas so I remember them in the shortest amount of time possible. And I was like, oh, this is like this, this thing is attributed to many different people, but it says I would have written you a shorter letter, but I didn't have the time.

And so that's been attributed to people like Mark Twain, Cicero, and Pascal. In fact, after I took that note to myself, the fact that, you know, people find more words confusing, you need to edit your thinking. And I really think editing is an act of service, but I'm, I was rereading Steve's shareholder letters from Pixar and his 1997 shareholder. This is hilarious how everything's connected. In his 1997 shareholder letter, he says, he quotes, he attributes to Pascal in the letter that I would have written you a shorter letter, but I didn't have time. And he's like, well, since I'm only working on Pixar, I have plenty of time. So I'm going to write you a long letter for the shareholder letter. But he certainly didn't do that when he went back to Apple. He didn't do it internally and he didn't

do it externally. He understood that people find more words confusing and that you really need to edit your thinking down to its essence. And I think viewing that as an act of service to other people, because that is what it is. Our time here is limited. Do not take two hours to say something you could say in 15 minutes. Don't take a thousand words when you can draw a picture. Editing is an act of service. So the fourth thing that I want to talk about and why simplicity is so important is because simple is fast.

So he comes back. This hilarious story because they're working on hiring a new advertising agency. Apple is. I should be clear, more clear here. So at the time, Gil Amelio is the CEO of Apple. He's the one that makes the decision to buy Next. He is the CEO of Apple right before Steve Jobs takes over. And when Steve comes back and now he takes over Apple, Gil is fired. Gil had this really complicated ongoing process to pick a new advertising agency.

Keep in mind, they're losing money. If they do not turn things around, they will literally run out of money and go bankrupt. And Gil's idea is like, okay, we need a new advertising agency, keep in mind, they're losing money. If they do not turn things around, they will literally run out of money and go bankrupt. And Gil's idea is like, okay, we need a new advertising agency, and this is the way we're going to do it. We're going to interview more than 20 different advertising agencies, and then compare them, and then pick the best one. Steve comes back immediately, and he cancels this entire process. Right before Charlie Munger died, he said something that's so important. And he said that trust is one of the greatest economic forces on earth. And what Steve did here is a perfect example of that. Steve canceled this entire process and he called somebody that he trusted. He called somebody that he had a relationship with. He calls his old friend Lee Clow. Lee Clow is the one that did the

1984 Macintosh ad. That was a decade before where we are in the story. Steve trusted Lee and that trust enabled him to move faster. That is so much simpler than sitting down. I'm going to interview. How the hell do you even interview 20 different advertising agencies? How long is that going to take? And then you have to whittle them down. Okay, now we got our top 10.

Now we got our top five. Now we're down to two or three. Simple is fast. So Steve calls Lee. They immediately start working. The second ad they do is the here's to the crazy one ad. And so in the book, Ken is talking about that. The fact that that ad was created, they came up with the ad, they made it and they aired

it in less time than it would have taken Gil Amelio to complete all the initial meetings for the 20 different advertising agencies. Gil was being complex. And so therefore he was moving slow. Steve was being simple, so therefore he moved fast. There's a hilarious story. I did this episode on Herb Kelleher, which is the founder of Southwest. He's one of my favorite founders I've ever studied. I find him wildly entertaining.

It's episode 322 if you haven't heard it yet. But Herb also had like religious dedication to simplicity. And so there's a fantastic story in the book that I think is related to what Steve was doing at Apple and why simplicity is so important because it's fast. So it says Herb Keller illustrates the speed with which Southwest moves by telling a story about Don Valentine, former VP of marketing. Why would he be former? I wonder why. Valentine had just joined from Dr. Pepper. So, you know, a big, slow, bureaucratic organization.

No disrespect to them, right? Valentine had just joined from Dr. Pepper when the marketing group met in January. You got to remember these dates. January. They're meeting in January to discuss a new television campaign. Valentine was ready with his timeline for producing spots. I'm going to try not to laugh already. We're meeting in January.

So this is what he says. Okay, we're ready, guys. Let's do this. We're going to write the script in March. Pardon me? Two months from now? We're going to write the script in March. We're going to get script approval in April.

Remember, we're in January, for God's sake. So we're going to write the script in March. We're going to get script approval in April. We're going to cast this commercial in June. What the? What are you doing? And we're going to get script approval in April. We're going to cast this commercial in June. What the? What are you doing? And we're going to shoot it in September. When Valentine finished, Herb said, Don, I hate to tell you, but we're talking about next Wednesday.

We're not running this ad nine months from now. We're not going to take nine months. We're going to make an ad, and it's going to be done and shot by next Wednesday. 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.

And there's another thing that Herb and Steve had. This is the fifth thing I want to tell you about. And this is another thing that they both had in common. And it is how they taught. How they taught. There's a casual conversation with the ultimate decision maker. And the reason I thought about this section too, it's like, why do I want to name this like how Steve taught? There's a great line from Jim Sinegal, who's the founder and former CEO of Costco. And he says, as a leader, if you're not spending 90% of your time teaching, you're not doing

your job. What did Michael Jordan say? He was teaching. He was the leader of the team. He was teaching his team. There are certain standards that you live by. This is the Chicago Bull way. This is the Apple way.

This is the Southwest Airlines way. Jim Sinegal saying, this is how we do things at Costco. If you're not spending 90% of your time teaching, you're not doing your job. And the way Steve taught was through conversations. Says in the book, if you had this like slick presentation, this is internally, okay? I'm going to do an entire new, the next episode will be about how Steve Jobs sold. And I'll tell you more about that in a minute. But 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. He talks about that over and over again. Get to the essence of the ideal idea, boil everything

down. Do not use, when he told Andy, Andy Miller, the guy that sold his company for $275 million to Steve that I mentioned earlier, something Andy says in that video that Steve would say, do not use 10 words when you can use one. Use a picture instead of a deck with 100 words. He would tell Andy over and over again, you have to think like an Apple guy.

That is him. That is Steve teaching Andy. This is the standards of excellence we have. This is how we do things at Apple. Great companies have distinct cultures. They have a distinct way of doing things. I just spent the week with one of the most valuable private companies. It's run by, I'm not going to name the company or who the person is, but I would say is the 78 year old founder who's been running the company for 45 years. It's just like I described it as like, oh, I spent the week inside of one of these books. It is very obvious when you interact with all the, I was with their top executives, their 40 top executives and the founder.

It is very obvious. They have a distinct culture. And they are literally the best in class in their industry. And one of the executives said the founder has all, I think it's like 10,000 people, 11,000 people all marching in the same direction. You would say that about Steve Jobs. You would say that about Herb Kelleher. And what is remarkable is how informal Steve was. This is how he's teaching his entire company. It's a casual conversation with the ultimate decision maker. And if you can center these casual conversations around a demo or a picture, even better. But Steve

would just talk about why the product needs to exist, how the product worked, and why it is different and better than other products. And he loved to use visuals if he could instead of words, because he thought a picture was simpler than words. Again, he's trying to make things as simple as possible. So he would, there's many examples in the book, and I'll talk about this more and how he gave presentations too. He would just like jump up, he'd have the conversation, and he would draw out the idea. If there wasn't a demo of like the software or the product there or an image of it, he would draw on the whiteboard as a way to illustrate his point. And there's a fascinating line in the book that said that Steve acted as his own slideshow. He did not want to see a slideshow with a bunch of bullet points. He would tell you converse with people rather than

present to them. There is one exception to that rule, and that's when Steve did the new product presentation for Apple's new products. That was not a casual conversation. That was a presentation. That presentation was painstakingly choreographed. He was relentless about rehearsing it. He had backup plans for everything. The thing that was the same about the internal conversations and the external presentations was that he loved using images, demos, simple language, and then ideas stripped down to its essence. I'm not going to spend too much time here because the next episode, I read an entire book on how Steve Jobs prepared for presentations that I think is going to be very valuable

to you and I because business is sales. We're selling customers. We're selling employees in the company mission. We're selling recruits on why you want to join the company. And I think the book that I'm going to talk about in the next episode is really a blueprint from a super salesman, a master salesman that Steve Jobs was. And the last thing I want to talk to you about is a way to find a simple path forward. And I actually call this the Hearst principle.

I came up with that name myself. It's from this biography of William Randolph Hearst that I read many years ago. And there's an idea in it that I think can be applied to whatever industry that you're working in. So I want to get to one of the most important things that I ever read. And it took me rereading it multiple times for it to actually sink in and have a fundamental understanding of what it actually meant. There's a line in Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs that says, one of Jobs' talents was spotting markets that were filled with second-rate products. And when you analyze Steve Jobs' career through that lens, that one of his greatest talents was spotting markets that were filled with second-rate

products. You see it over and over again. He did this with computers. He did this with MP3 players. He did this with phones. He did this with tablets. And one of the hallmarks of a second-rate product is the fact that it's too complex. I'm going to read from the book because I think this is so important. This is describing because remember, this is the focus on really the turnaround of Apple. The iPod really was the product that helped Apple turn the corner. believed that the music player category needed most was simplicity, and whichever company delivered it would soon be running this planet. That is a quote from Steve Jobs. Whichever company delivered it would soon be running this planet. It turned out that one key insight allowed Apple to leap ahead of the other companies. Steve explained in a 2006 interview. Now, this is Steve's words. We had the hardware expertise, the industrial design expertise, and the software expertise, including iTunes. One of the biggest insights we had was that we decided not to try to manage your music library on the iPod,

but to manage it in iTunes. Other companies tried to do everything on the device itself and made it so complicated that it was useless. In other words, we analyzed everything that our competitors were doing, and in focusing on what they were not doing, we found a simple path forward. So why do I call that the Hearst principle? William Randolph Hearst built a media empire that would be worth like $30 billion in today's dollars. And it started out with a single newspaper in San Francisco that his father gave to him. And so at the time, there was a bunch of other newspapers,

competitors, serving the same city, right? They're all in San Francisco. Their newspapers are very similar. There's very little differentiation. And their distribution, the way they are selling, there's no differentiation. They would sell, they'd hire these things, these little kids called newsies. They're like little boys. They're like nine, 10, 12 years old. And they'd roam around the streets selling the newspaper, you know, for a penny or two pennies. And so William Randolph Hearst is looking at this, right? And he's like, well, I want to build a media empire. I have one newspaper I want to expand. I have little product differentiation. I have no distribution differentiation. What should I do? And he realizes like, well, the people in San Francisco are not unique. They're like people everywhere.

They read the newspaper because they want to know what's going on in the world, what's going on in the country, what's going on in sports and business and everything else that newspapers read about. And yet me and all my competitors are just focused about the residents in San Francisco. Is there something that my competitors are not doing? Are there markets that my competitors are ignoring that I can attack? And so what he did was he put his newspapers on trains and started sending them to all the communities that might be 100 miles from San Francisco, 200 miles from San Francisco. He's like, well, they don't live in San Francisco, but they're the same kind of people and they're probably interested in the same things. So instead of fighting what might have been a losing battle, just kind of like cutting prices and doing the exact same thing as his competitors,

he put his newspapers on trains and drastically expanded the market. This immediately works. He starts making much more money than his competitors, and then he uses that extra money to start buying up his competitors, and he expands to other cities. That is the beginning of what turns into this giant multi tens of billions of dollars empire. All of that from a relatively simple idea. So the Hearst principle is very simple. You write down on a piece of paper everything that your competitors are doing, whether in the product design or their distribution. Then you draw a giant X across it.

You tell yourself you cannot do it the way they're doing it. And you force yourself to think about new ways and new solutions. It's the exact same thing. He probably didn't write it on a piece of paper, certainly didn't call it the Hearst principle. But if you think about what Steve Jobs is telling us, he's analyzed what his wallets competitors were doing. He attacked a market full of second rate products. He says, if I can't do that, I'm forced to find a new way. And he found a new and better way. And that changed the trajectory of Apple forever. And I think this quote from Steve Jobs is a perfect place to close.

Simple can be harder than complex. You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple, but it's worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains. And that is where I'll leave it. Highly recommend buying the book, reading the book, keeping it close to you. It's a great resource. If you buy the book using the link that's in the show notes on your podcast player or available at founderspodcast.com. You'll be supporting the podcast at the same time. That is 349 books down, 1,000 to go. And I'll talk to you again soon. I have just two quick things to tell you about before you go. Number one, I am hosting another Founders Conference. This one will be on July 29th

through the 31st. It is in a private venue deep in the California Redwoods. This place is gorgeous. It is actually in Scotts Valley, California. And the idea to do these two-day conferences was actually pulled out of me by people that listen to Founders. So one of the most common requests that I've received over the years is this desire for, David, can you introduce me to other people that listen to founders and I didn't do anything with that information because I didn't know how to do it

and I actually think I stumbled upon a great way to do it and I'll tell you about that in a minute but I was thinking about I just listened to this entire episode back to the same one that you just listened to and if you really think about one of the main ideas like hey your goal really should be that you have a single idea that's expressed clearly. So I would heard that multiple times, I reread that part of around that part. And I thought about, okay, what is the single idea expressed clearly? Like, why do these founders conferences, these founder events, why do they need to exist, and they need to exist. And the reason the North Star that these events exist is to help you build relationships with other founders, investors, executives, and high-value people. And it wasn't until after I had this idea, and it wasn't until after I did the first Founders Conference, which was held back in March in Austin, that I realized, oh, I accidentally stumbled.

I had this idea, and that was a test of that hypothesis. But I realized, oh, I actually stumbled on a great way to help other people build relationships with high value people. And you do it really quickly. And there's a couple ways that these events are structured that I think serve this goal, right? What is that single idea expressed clearly, I want to help high value people build relationships with each other. And so what I did at the event back in March, and I'm also doing at this event on July 29th to the 31st, is I ran out the entire venue. That means that if you attend, every single person you see there is there for the same reason and has the same interest as you.

Number two, if you just heard what Steve Jobs, one of Steve Jobs' main principles, like just make it his, one of his biggest concerns was making it as easy as possible for other people. And what I decided to do is like, I want to make these all inclusive, which means that if you get your, all you have to do is get yourself there, right? And I take care of the rest. Your lodging, your food, access to every single part of the event is all taken care of. And then the third most important point that I think helped facilitate a lot of these relationships so quickly at the last event is these are intentionally smaller events. This event in Scotts Valley, California, on July 29th to the 31st, that I highly encourage you to attend, is only going to be around 120

to 130 people. And it is the end result. Why I think I stumbled onto something is because the amount of friendships, investments, deals, customer leads, partnerships, and other opportunities that have happened, that came out as a result, a direct result of the last event is staggering. I frankly was shocked by it. And that leads me to believe that I'm onto something because again, the single idea expressed clearly, the reason this event exists is to build relationships. So even the way that the event is scheduled, there is a lot of unstructured time to talk to other attendees. I will be there the entire time. There will be a lot of smaller breakout sessions around specific topics.

So if you attend and you want to lead a breakout session around a topic that you happen to be an expert in, just reply back to your confirmation email after you apply, and then my events team will handle everything else. I am doing this event in partnership with Rick Burnham and Paul Busser. They're the founders of Seder Grove, which is a $500 million holding company. And one of the breakout sessions will be about how they started and structured their company. I met Rick and Paul and built a relationship with them through the podcast. They were listeners of the podcast, and my friend Patrick knew them and introduced them to me. And they also taught, in addition to running this, they run a podcast called The Art of Investing.

They run their holding company, but they also teach at Notre Dame. And they actually invited me to speak at their Art of Investing. They run their holding company, but they also teach at Notre Dame and they actually invited me to speak at their Art of Investing class. And that relationship led to this partnership, which is a great illustration of, again, the single idea expressed clearly. Why does this exist? This exists to help you build relationships

with other high value people. And that opens up opportunities in the future that you can never possibly predict. So to come to the event and to build relationships with other high value people, the first thing you need to do is go to founderspodcast.com forward slash events and apply. The second quick thing I have to tell you about

is another example of something being pulled out of me. And one of the benefits of that you just heard. So let me explain. So for years, people knew, because I'd go around talking about the fact that since 2018, I have been catalog talking about the fact that since 2018, I have been cataloging all the research that I do for this podcast. And I was putting all of my notes and highlights in this app called Readwise.

I'd go around talking about how great it is, how I couldn't make the podcast without it. You just heard me use what is now called Founders Notes. So foundersnotes.com to sign up for this. But what this is, is my own internal tool that I use to catalog the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs so I can pull it up on demand. And you just heard that because when I'm quoting Sam Walton, when I'm quoting Michael Moritz, when I'm quoting Walt Disney, Herb Kelleher, James Dyson, all these other ideas from past Steve Jobs podcasts, I was doing that by searching this giant database

that contains all my notes, all my highlights, all my transcripts, and now this AI assistant that'll do all this reading and research for you called Sage that I also built into Founders Notes. And the reason I say this was pulled out of me, this idea to build this product in partnership with ReadWise, and again, this is the power of relationships

because I found out about Readwise because one of the founders, Tristan, sent me an email in 2018. And he's like, hey, you obviously read a lot. You might think this app is valuable. I didn't know it existed until then. And then it wasn't until five years later that I then sent, I had talked to Tristan

and I had sent Tristan emails like, hey, there's actually an opportunity for us to partner here because I keep getting these emails, these DMs, these requests that, hey, how can I have access to this giant second brain you have? I would argue it's the most valuable database in the world when it comes to learning from history's greatest entrepreneurs. And so the initial idea I came to Tristan, I was like, hey, I would like people to be able to see what I see. And then since then, we've added so many more features and just made it so much better that this is now a tool that I use nearly every single day. And if we go back to

that idea, the same idea that that was important to Steve Jobs, hey, we need a single idea expressed clearly. One of my favorite lines that I've ever heard. This is why there's so many, there's such a high amount of people that you and I study that were obsessed with learning from history, that had read hundreds of biographies throughout their career because they understood what Charlie Munger so eloquently said, that learning from history is a form of leverage. Learning from history is a form of leverage. Founders Notes gives you the superpower to do this on demand. The podcast is a great tool to learn from history, but it is pushed to you. Founders Notes gives you the ability

to control it. It gives you the ability to tap into that collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs and use it when you need it. And so there's two main ways that you can search Founders Notes. One is a keyword search. If you listen to the last episode I just did on Michael Jordan, the last 20 minutes of that podcast is me going through because I was asked the question, how did history's greatest entrepreneurs think about hiring? All I did was type in hiring into the keyword search in Founders Notes and then went through, you know, there's probably like, I don't know, 10 or 15 different examples. The second thing, if you don't have a keyword search, I just ran into a friend of mine who has access to Sage.

Sage is the AI assistant that operates on top of Founders Notes. And that idea also came, was pulled, I guess not pulled out of me. It was given to me by somebody that was beta testing Sage for me. And this person after using it said, hey, you know, you had all these other names for it.

I think I was gonna call it like Founders GPT or the names were terrible. And I take solace that Steve Jobs also came up with bad names, the Mac man, for God's sake. So anyways, he's like, this is, after using this, this is not the right name. So you should call it Sage. And he sent these two definitions. And he said, because Sage is a profoundly wise person, it refers to someone with a deep understanding of life, accumulated knowledge, and sound judgment. That is every single person you and I study on the podcast. They've had a deep understanding of life, accumulated knowledge because they spent 50 years on their career.

And then somebody put all the highlights or the main lessons into a book and sound judgment. And the second one definition was that a Sage is a wise, wise, discerning or prudent person. It describes someone who shows good judgment and makes well-considered decisions. So a friend of mine was like, hey, I was on a way to a board meeting. I needed some information about leadership. I was asking sage for how history's greatest entrepreneurs thought about leadership. And it gave me a bunch of good quotes that I used in the board meeting. That is what I meant. Founders Notes gives you the superpower

to now access the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand when you need it. Another subscriber just sent me this note that Founders Notes is giving him a compounding tactical advantage over his competition. If you are going to spend hours and hours invested in listening to different Founders episodes,

I would encourage you heavily to invest into a subscription for Founders Notes. It makes the lessons that you're learning on the podcast even more powerful. And again, it gives you the superpower to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. And you can do so easily by going to foundersnotes.com. That is founders with an S, just like the podcast, foundersnotes.com. Thank you very much for the support. Thank you very much for listening. And I'll talk to you again soon.