#349 How Steve Jobs Kept Things Simple | Founders

Okay, so the book I'm going to talk to you about today is insanely simple.

The obsession that drives Apple's success and is 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 client that

he had was that Steve, 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

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 tenth 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 over complicating

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.

One 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 over complicate 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 time frame that we're talking about.

Most of the book is about the time where Steve comes back to Apple.

Apple is losing money.

Their product line sucks.

They either had to turn it around or die.

So I think one of the things that Steve realized and a lot of other history's gay touch

managers realized 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 his autobiography multiple times, the last time I made an episode on it was

episode 234.

But he is aligned 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.

It's source.

There's a great line in Sam Walton's autobiography that's by Wal-Mart 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 give you an example to draw 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 price

correctly.

There is 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 were complicated things.

And it's the leader's job, the constant 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, justcribe 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 out 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's that direct with you, you know immediately

what you need to do.

And knew immediately what he needed to do.

Oh, okay.

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's 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 Koseyanda.

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 Koseyanda 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 had a double underlined it, highlighted it, it's so important.

He was always easy to understand.

He would either prove a demo or he'd 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, in

other words, 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 then he moved the entire company from Boston to Cupertino and he worked with Steve

Jobs.

And he's describing this byproduct of the clear communication that Steve had with him

and everybody else around him.

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.

And he 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 with 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 high end executives.

I think there's like four to six of Steve's top team in the room and Andy's there.

And Andy's daydreaming is 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 we asked him a question related to what they were talking about.

And he's like, okay, 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, okay, if I ever noticed that again, you won't be in the room and you won't be

at Apple.

Think about that.

Do you think at the end of that exchange was Andy left like, I wonder, I wonder what,

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 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 of 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 they're 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 a 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 of thinking about Ken Seagulls 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 most fascinating is Michael updates the book.

I think somewhere in maybe 2008, 2009, something like that.

And he, the updated version is a 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 a leader of the bulls, just like Steve Jobs was a leader of Apple.

And this is what Mike Moritz said on the unparalleled story of Apple.

This is why 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 times a year.

Because this is what Mike Moritz said, 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 so rudely rejected

to engineer a turnaround as complete and spectacular as apples?

Well, turnaround 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 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 the shareholder's, 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 do not run.

He was from conflict from blunt communication.

And I think what Steve and Jeff both share in common.

And again, Jeff, I've done what, I don't know, seven episodes on Jeff.

Steve and Jeff had one thing in common where 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 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 conversation, love your TV work, your print work is shit.

Ken knows the media.

Let's do now an email.

He's saying, fuck the lawyers.

What do you think like 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 businesses.

It was little time to waste.

I told his story when he was 19 year olds working for Nolan Bushnell.

Nolan Bushnell was 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 your pledge 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 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 on 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 very early days.

I'll give you an example of when he was building the Macintosh when he's 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 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, the ultimate decision, if the ultimate decision maker is involved in every step of

the way Steve would see 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.

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're

analyzed, what's actually taking place in all of these books that you and I are reading

and talking about is that actions express party.

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 and 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 to have in the world to have an 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 a 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 in this, I think this is episode

204.

It's a long time ago, you know, many, many years ago.

And I remember the note I left myself that I was trying to like 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 is 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.

Another way that was very fascinating is think about if you've ever been in these meetings,

they like pitch their idea to you.

You 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 by 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 to be organized like a startup.

He just wanted these small groups of smart people.

I'll dedicated to a single thing, have one top priorities.

Stephen 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 would 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 you hear 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 Mac and I, she'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 act, 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 Disney.

I didn't understand the first time throughout 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 as a masterpiece

which is Disney.

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 processes 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 that have 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 idea where Walt just walking around and making suggestions.

If you read all these books on Steve Jobs, it's very similar.

There's 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 Siegel, 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 Macman.

One of Steve's heroes was the founder of Sony, Akiumarita.

And one of the most successful Sony products of all time are the Walkman or was the Walkman.

And so Steve's like, oh, okay, we can call ours the Macman.

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.

It 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 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 changes mine.

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 then over time.

Our products will improve.

Okay, so I'm going 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 ever forgot about, and

this is 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, 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, it's getting Lee clout.

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 he 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 him 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 make sure 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 at 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 Cloud 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 to further you get away from one the more complex 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.

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 at the time they're trying

to figure out, okay, you have this file on your computer from iMovie, you have this

home movie you want to put into physical form, you want to make it into like a DVD.

So his team comes up with like this, 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 want 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 I gave this great interview with Vanity Fair and he says

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 Steve would even do this when he would, the device he'd give are 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 were 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.

And so he's like, well, he's like, well, he's like, well, he's like, well, he's like,