Insanely Simple: The Obsession That Drives Apple's Success by Ken Segall.This book is an absolute for Steven's fans - it would be ridiculous to classify this book as a business book.
I was still surprised one day to get an email from the Apple lawyers concerning a newspaper ad that was going to run in just three days. The agency’s lawyers had already approved it. Steve Jobs had already approved it. Now, at the eleventh hour, Apple’s lawyers were saying that they had some problems with it.
The ad in question, coming before Apple made the transition to Intel processors, made the claim that the new Power Macintosh computers actually outperformed the fastest Intel-powered PCs, and offered some benchmark testing to prove it. The lawyers took issue with four points in the copy, fearing that we might face a legal challenge from Intel.
Doing my duty, I sent a note to Steve advising him that there was a wrench in the works— his own legal team. I succinctly described the four problem areas and asked for guidance. Fortunately, Steve wasn’t going to allow Complexity to do its dirty work. Just minutes after I hit the “send” button, his reply landed in my in-box. It wasn’t the most verbose email I’d ever received. But the first sentence so eloquently put things into perspective: "Fuck the lawyers."
In case you were wondering what consequences resulted from Steve’s decision to spurn his lawyers’ advice and run that anti-Intel ad unchanged, there were none. The ad ran as scheduled, Apple made its point, Intel got a bit steamed, and nobody went to jail. Steve was right again.
Wisdom of simplicity:
"When you first start off trying to solve a problem, the first solutions you come up with are very complex, and most people stop there. But if you keep going, and live with the problem and peel more layers of the onion off, you can oftentimes arrive at some very elegant and simple solutions."
- Steve Jobs
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