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Founders

#178 Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple's Greatest Products

Founders

David Senra

History, Entrepreneurship, Business, Technology

4.82.4K Ratings

🗓️ 3 May 2021

⏱️ 89 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

What I learned from reading Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple's Greatest Products by Leander Kahney. ---- [4:43] Mike Ive influence on his son’s talent was purely nurturing. They were constantly keeping up a conversation about made-objects and hw they could be made better. [6:39] I came to realize that what was really important was the care that was put into it. What I really despise is when I sense some carelessness in a product. [9:24] Take big chances. Pursue a passion. Respect the work. [11:47] His designs were incredibly simple and elegant. They were usually rather surprising but made complete sense once you saw them. You wondered why we had never seen such a product like that before. [15:52] Grind it out. You can make something look like magic by going further than most reasonable people would go. [17:34] The more I learned about this cheeky, almost rebellious company (Apple) the more it appealed to me, as it unapologetically pointed to an alternative in a complacent and creatively bankrupt industry. Apple stood for something and had a reason for being that wasn’t just about making money. [24:06] He was completely interested in humanizing technology. What something should be was always the starting point for his designs. [33:29] Jony was very serious about his work. He had a ferocious intensity about it. [41:52] It is very easy to be different, but very difficult to be better. [51:38] Jobs didn't want to compete in the broader market for personal computers. These companies competed on price, not features or ease of use. Jobs figured theirs was a race to the bottom. Instead, he argued, there was no reason that well-designed, well-made computers couldn’t command the same market share ad margins as a luxury automobile. A BMW might get you to where you are going in the same way a Chevy that costs half the price, but there will always be those who will pay for the better ride in the sexier car. Why not make only first class-products with high margins so that Apple could continue to develop even better first-class products? [1:19:25] A great prompt for your thinking: What is your product better than? Are you just making a cheap laptop? Or are you making an iPad? Netbooks accounted for 20% of the laptop market. But Apple never seriously considered making one. “Netbooks aren’t better than anything,” Steve Jobs said at the time. “They’re just cheap laptops.” Jony proposed that the tablets in his lab could be Apple’s answer to the netbook. [1:20:32] It’s great if you can find what you love to do. Finding it is one thing but then to be able to practice that and be preoccupied with it is another. ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work.  Get access to Founders Notes here.  ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast

Transcript

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0:00.0

All the way back in 2019 I received a message that changed the direction of this podcast forever.

0:04.6

It was from Tristan who is one of the co-founders of Reed Wise.

0:08.0

He said, hey, I love the podcast and he told me about the Reed Wise product.

0:12.4

I responded, thanks Tristan, love the idea behind Reed Wise. and he told me about the Reed-Wise product.

0:12.5

I responded, thanks Tristan, love the idea behind Reed-Wise,

0:15.2

I will definitely check it out.

0:16.3

I had no idea that I would become a super user of his product.

0:20.8

And so over the years, I've added my highlights and notes for over 300

0:23.7

books I have over 20,000 highlights and notes for the books that I read for the

0:28.3

podcast and because I can search every single thing I've ever done I use ReedWise every day. I never

0:36.1

close the browser tab. The tab on ReedWise is always open because as I'm

0:40.5

reading, as I'm thinking, as I'm researching researching I'm constantly going in

0:44.7

and re-reading all my notes and highlights.

0:47.3

And you might already know this because every other podcast I go on I talk about

0:49.5

Reedwise, I tweet about it, I post about it

0:51.6

constantly, I've been saying for years it is the best

0:53.9

app that I pay for. And because I go around shouting about how great it is from the mountaintops,

0:58.8

I get a bunch of messages. Nearly every day people have asked me, hey is there a possibility that I can actually get access to your readwise?

1:05.6

And this happened so much for so long. And I thought it was like a superpower of mine.

1:09.3

So I was like, no, no, no, no. And then I started thinking, it was like, well, why is everybody

1:12.3

want this? Like like why do they keep

1:13.7

asking for this and I thought about it's like well if you think about this is like has anybody else in the world

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