He never lost sight of the fact that at the end of the day, technology is about people: what stirs their imaginations, what keeps them satisfied, and what makes them smile.

I had planned to first recap the strategy, so Steve could appreciate how each ad took a slightly different approach to fulfilling it. I was proud of the work and anxious to share. I only got about three sentences into my preamble when Steve jumped on me. In the blink of an eye, he went from focused to irritated. “Just show me the ads!” he said.

Being competitive without being arrogant is a difficult thing.

The quality of work resulting from a project increases in direct proportion to the degree of involvement by the ultimate decision maker.

Mike’s team had been charged with developing a simple way to turn a home movie into a DVD, an app that would later show up as iDVD (one of the iLife apps). He and a partner worked hard to develop their ideas for an interface that would be user-friendly enough for Steve, and prepared to share their work with him by creating all kinds of sample

This is part of the challenge that we non-Steves must face. Most of us aren’t comfortable with the idea of turning into coldhearted control freaks, but we also know that we sometimes need to be tough to keep projects on track.

two Steves—the merciless, controlling, unrelenting Steve and the inspiring, charming, and deeply human Steve. It was this combination that made him so fascinating, and it’s what made so many people devote their energy, and much of their lives, to his vision.

So, can Simplicity help you build the next Apple? Not unless you have a few thousand of the industry’s best people on call. Can Simplicity help you achieve spectacular results for your business? Absolutely. That’s because Simplicity is not the goal—it’s the guiding light that can help a business achieve its goals.

Simplicity is the love child of two of the most powerful forces in business: Brains and Common Sense.