Mea Vita: Carpe Diem

You got to start with the customer experience and work backwards to the technology. You can't start with with the technology and try to figure out where you're going to try to sell it. And I've made this mistake probably more than anyone else in this room and I've got the scar tissue to prove it.

– Steve Jobs

Start With Customer the Experience

In 2006, the iPod was booming along with the third party ecosystem it created. In a meeting, Steve Jobs let it be known to us that, when he was at the Apple Online Store website, he wanted to be able to see any product within three clicks. How long and how many clicks it takes to find what you're looking for is a good base metric for usability.

The challenge with three clicks, back then, was that Apple sold about two hundred different types of headphones. Displaying all of the headphones that Apple carried, at once, on a single web page would overload our servers. (Back then, there was no cloud computing.) Alternatively, paginating the results into batches of 10 or 25 wouldn't satisfy Steve's customer experience requirement. So, what to do?

One of my coworkers came across a new UI solution, infinite scrolling. Infinite scrolling allows content to load continuously as the user scrolls down the page, below the fold, eliminating the need for pagination. We now take infinite scrolling for granted on account that it's ubiquitous on popular social media sites. But, back then, it was new and it turned out to be the perfect solution for Steve.

At Apple, the engineers are the talent. They're the ones who innovate. And, thanks to great designers, technology is turned from engineer-ugly into intuitive elegance. All the consumer facing products used to go through Steve. If you ate lunch, every day, at Caffè Macs you'd probably see Steve eat there once or twice a week.

Steve once sat one or two tables away from me with a developer. It surprised me how quiet Steve was. He simply asked the engineer questions and then listened, very closely. It was a one-on-one brain storming session about integrating services across different products. Steve would ask, "What if we did this?" or, "How would that look?" Steve focused on his conversation and was immune to the casually intense glances from passerbyers.

I worked as a software engineer at the Apple Online Store. We'd have an annual online store summit that lasted a couple days, usually in Apple's Town Hall auditorium. The high point was if and when Steve would speak to us and take our questions. Just before lunch, the last year I worked at Apple, we were told that Steve would be holding a Q&A session.

Excellent! This was spring of 2007 and the iPhone had just been announced but it wasn't yet shipping. The iPhone was on everyone's mind. When Tim Cook spoke to us at our summit he whipped out his iPhone, for a moment, and said, "This is so cool!" Our mouths watered.

Since Steve would be meeting with us, this was a perfect time for me to ask him about iPhone marketshare. He had forecast, during the Macworld Keynote, a few months earlier, that iPhone would sell 10 million units the first year. This seemed a bit high, to me, since it would only be available in the U.S. in 2007; and only on Cingular which had 58 million subscribers. To my ear, it sounded like Steve was expecting one out of six Cingular subscribers to shell out $499 or $599 for an iPhone.

One secret to corporate success is to never embarrass your boss. So, during lunch, I gave a heads up to my boss and the director of the Apple Online Store that I'd be asking Steve a question. We chatted about it, briefly, and it was a perfectly sensible question. So, I was cleared to ask away.

Just before Steve entered Town Hall we were told not to ask any questions about future products. We were also told that we'd have to give him a standing O when he was done with the Q&A. No problem. Steve walked in to the Town Hall. This was a rare time that I've seen Steve take the stage from the back of the room, rather than from backstage. He spoke for a little while and then it came time for questions.

One of my coworker engineers asked Steve a question that stumped him. Or, perhaps, he didn't want to answer it candidly. "Steve, what companies do you admire most?" Steve thought about it for a long, silent, half a minute.

"I don't know. I'd have to think about it," Steve answered.

I'd really like to know what he was thinking. Was it simply that he couldn't think of any companies he admired or was he worried that his answer would be made public?

Then it was my turn to ask Steve a question.

"Steve, you mentioned during your iPhone Keynote that Apple would sell 10 million iPhones the first year. That would mean one in six Cingular customers would be using an iPhone. That seems like a lot of marketshare for the first year," I said.

Steve simply clarified what he said during the Keynote. The 10 million unit statistic was at the end of the first full year of sales – in other words, at the end of 2008, not 2007 – and, by that time, Apple would be selling the iPhone in Asia, with other wireless carriers.

I doubt that his answer could have been any less climactic for me. Questioning Steve is easy when he's right.

Of course, Steve's 10 million iPhone estimate was a bit low. Better to under-promise and over-deliver. By the end of 2008, Apple sold more than 17 million iPhones – 70% more than his initial estimate.

Steve Jobs frequently referred to personal computers as a bicycle for the mind.

When Steve was about 12 years old, he read a study that measured the locomotion efficiency of different species. At the very top of the list was the condor, who expended the least amount of calories to travel. Humans, on the other hand, came in an unimpressive third of the way down the list.

Steve points out that someone at Scientific American took a look at the efficiency of locomotion of a human on a bicycle which blew away all other forms of animal powered locomotion. After all, the bicycle is the most efficient human powered machine for locomotion.

It's an interesting metaphor since it seems so accurate – it's the amplification of human ability.

I just watched a video that was recorded last Tuesday of Harry McCracken moderating a discussion with Ken Segall. Segall worked very closely with Steve Jobs, for many years, at Apple's ad agency.

Segall raises a great point about the key difference between Apple and other big tech companies which was originally stated by Jony Ive: Apple doesn't set out to make a profit, rather, the company sets out to make great products and if they do that well, profit ensues.

Ok, so what? That's no secret, is it?

Segall goes on, in the video, to contrast Apple's attitude with Dell's where the latter focuses on measuring clicks throughs.

Apple's key focus, since Steve Jobs' returned in 1997, was simply to provide the best possible user experience.
So, why do so many companies not "get it?" It's not what Apple does, it's how.

A big part of it is that many big companies misprioritize their focus. Specifically, the CEO works for the board of directors and they, in turn, answer to the shareholders. The company's focus is on maximizing shareholder value every quarter.

But, ultimately - in the long term - it's the customer who decides the profitability of any company. If you have something the customer is eager to pay for then you're golden.

Trust me when I say that your customers aren't going to pay you because you increased click throughs on your website by 10%.

Steve had the luxury of answering to a very friendly board of directors and he simply paid lip service to the shareholder's short term desires. It's not easy to amass this much power. When Steve returned to Apple, he fired nearly the entire board.

How many people, other than Steve Jobs, were concurrently the CEO of two multibillion dollar companies for years? I cannot think of a single person.

Yep, it's true that Steve Jobs used to drive around without a license plate. I've seen it, touched it, and photographed it.

But I think the license plate loophole theory is wrong. Otherwise Steve would have had temporary paper tags on his car (or, perhaps, he just didn't display the tags). Steve may have just driven around without ever registering his car - or, maybe, he simply didn't attach the license plates to his car. I doubt that he was getting a new car every six months. But, that's what's being reported – so, maybe it's true. I just find it hard to believe.

Thanks, Steve.

When Steve Jobs took his most recent medical leave, in January 2011, we knew that he wasn't coming back. This was obvious from the letter that he sent to Apple's employees. Unlike a tweet, that's casually written, his medical leave message was very carefully worded. The key was in the last paragraph:
"I love Apple so much and hope to be back as soon as I can."

If Steve had any realistic expectations of returning, that sentence would have read, I love Apple so much and I'll be back as soon as I can.

Hope is a dirty word for people like Steve Jobs.

It's very sad to think that, even though the end may not be days or weeks away for Steve, it's clearly very near. If there was a reasonable chance of his return then his resignation wouldn't have been effective immediately. Another tell is the fact that he mentions life in last week's resignation letter:
"I have made some of the best friends of my life at Apple."

End of life issues are never easy to confront. It changes how you perceive reality.

End of Life
When I was young, I used to look at the elderly and think, "Don't you wish that you were young so that you could see what the future holds many decades from now?" Then, I was diagnosed with late stage, wide spread cancer which had metastasized. My perception of the elderly immediately changed to, "If only I could have a chance to experience life for as long as you have." My insight into life was a complete paradigm shift.

When facing your own end of life issues, you think about some things that you never considered such as where, when, or how you want to die. For me, it was on a hill overlooking the San Clemente Pier at sunset.
Some end of life thoughts are strikingly odd. For example, when looking at a bug on a bush in the backyard I was struck by the realization that these "lower" forms of life could outlive me.

Revelation
One epiphany that gave me some relief was the fact that everything in the universe has a life cycle. Death, as final as it is, is completely normal on an absolute level. It doesn't matter if you're religious or atheist – you can simply look at everything – living and non-living – from plants and animals to the stars and planets and realize that at some point in the future they will no longer be around. It's simply the way of the universe.

Fortunately, for me, my story ends, literally, with a cure for cancer. But, as robust as life is, Steve Jobs reminds us that "life is fragile."

Carpe diem.