Sublime

last.” Markkula wrote his principles in a one-page paper titled “The Apple Marketing Philosophy” that stressed three points. The first was empathy, an intimate connection with the feelings of the customer: “We will truly understand their needs better than any other company.” The second was focus: “In order to do a good job of those things that we d

One of the new engineers interrupted and asked why it mattered. “The only thing that’s important is how well it works. Nobody is going to see the PC board.” Jobs reacted typically. “I want it to be as beautiful as possible, even if it’s inside the box. A great carpenter isn’t going to use lousy wood for the back of a cabinet, even though nobody’s g

5. Honesty is more important than style.

For the Mac we did a Picasso-like logo done by an artist in San Francisco named John Casado.

This push for simplicity had a purpose. Even though he was a high-tech CEO, Steve could put himself in the shoes of customers, people who cared nothing for the ins and outs of the software industry. He never wanted Apple software to overload people, especially when they might already be stretched by the bustle of their everyday lives.

Design expert Who designs the products your company makes?

Jobs had a genius for building group identity. He handed out distinctive T-shirts and offered such childish but effective incentives as buying pineapple pizza for everyone if they completed a particularly difficult task by a certain time. He shrouded their work in mystery, insisting that no outsider be told what they were up to. The Macintosh was t