You know, one of the things that really hurt Apple was after I left John Sculley got a very serious disease. And I’ve seen others get it too. It’s the disease of thinking that a really great idea is 90% of the work. And if you just tell all these other people “here’s this great idea,” then of course they can go off and make it happen.

And the problem with that is that there’s just a tremendous amount of craftsmanship in between a great idea and a great product. And as you evolve that great idea, it changes and grows. It never comes out like it starts because you learn a lot more as you get into the subtleties of it. And you also find there are tremendous tradeoffs that you have to make. There are just certain things you can’t make electrons do. There are certain things you can’t make plastic do. Or glass do. Or factories do. Or robots do.

Designing a product is keeping five thousand things in your brain and fitting them all together in new and different ways to get what you want. And every day you discover something new that is a new problem or a new opportunity to fit these things together a little differently.

And it’s that process that is the magic.

- Steve Jobs

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said the guy who thinks a tablet is a good idea

Huh? I love my iPad.

This is a great piece. In big companies, its easy to fall into a routine of process like six sigmas - processes alleviates people from ground zero to an average standard (which is great for sustenance of companies and most people are comfortable here) but it limits those who can go further and make remarkable differences. It must have taken a lot for someone running a big company like that to keep pushing for change and innovate - its that cycle of changes that makes a difference.