The “Disease”

I re-watched “Steve Jobs, the Lost Interview” a few nights ago on Netflix while I was cutting a little code. About half way through my interest piqued when Steve was asked about product development at Apple. His answer summarizes a position I’ve long held but until now have not been able to fully articulate. And I was fortunate enough to find a Fortune article about his answer to this particular question.

The beginning of Steve’s answer goes like this:

“You know, one of the things that really hurt Apple was after I left John Sculley got a very serious disease. It’s the disease of thinking that a really great idea is 90% of the work. And if you just tell all these other people “here’s this great idea,” then of course they can go off and make it happen.

And the problem with that is that there’s just a tremendous amount of craftsmanship in between a great idea and a great product. And as you evolve that great idea, it changes and grows. It never comes out like it starts because you learn a lot more as you get into the subtleties of it. And you also find there are tremendous tradeoffs that you have to make. There are just certain things you can’t make electrons do. There are certain things you can’t make plastic do. Or glass do. Or factories do. Or robots do.”

You can read his full answer at http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/11/11/steve-jobs-the-parable-of-the-stones/.

I’ve worked at companies that suffer from this “disease” before but could never put a finger on what it was that bothered me about them. Now it’s clear to me. In general terms, mediocrity occurs when companies lose focus on craftsmanship. I’ve talked with many high-level executives in the past who think they can pick up an engineer on the street to implement an idea. All it takes is a few code monkeys, right? This kind of mindset is indicative of the “disease”, as Steve describes it.

Go get your shots.