I stumbled upon this old interview from John Sculley with Cult of Mac. In it, he does what most CEOs won't do - admit defeat. Jobs was infamously known for this one-liner, "do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life?" when he convinced Sculley to jump ship from Pepsi to Apple.
But, the times and tides were against Jobs. A wary Board and a technically incompetent CEO made an exit slide for Jobs out of the plane wreck that was Apple in the 90s. There were always some details that were blurry to me, especially regarding Jobs' decision to hire Sculley, move to NeXT, and involvement with the Macintosh team and the Apple ecosystem in general. This interview pretty much clears the air on a lot of those things.
Of course, what I'd like to point out is that Apple (well, Jobs effectively) beats out the competition by doing less! At prima facie, it always looks like Apple has made a closed ecosystem for all its products. Congrats, you found the answer, they do! If you must take something away from this message, it's that Apple makes little snow globes of experience where everything inside the globe is very well protected away from outside turbulence. That snow globe analogy is true of the corporate culture that Jobs set at Apple and is also evident in the many ecosystems that Jobs has created. Just look at iTunes AND iPod. It was a success not because iPod was the most feature rich, but because it was the best experience. Apple succeeds because it controls the whole stack. No other company seems to get that in the tech realm. And that's why the Android numbers game is just plain pointless of a comparison to the number of iOS devices sold. Android has way too much turbulence in the marketplace and it's not the jewelry that Apple makes out of its iOS devices. Show me an Android phone on Verizon without a Verizon logo on it and I will quit preaching. Incidentally, the iPhone has only an Apple logo. That's the kind of control Apple demands from its supply chain.
The brilliance of Apple is that they don't sell electronics - they sell jewelry. When I grew up in India, our close family friends were jewelry makers. They were the finest in the city and because it requires extreme attention to minute details and craftsmanship, our friend X never expanded even though he could afford to. The most important thing was that they designed the whole thing from scratch - up to the very last flake of gold. Remember, people want to be seen in fine jewelry and fine jewelry is meant to be a final product that cannot be "hacked." True to that analogy, Apple products are very much like jewelry, they're not easily tampered and why yes, Apple goes to great lengths to make sure that people won't confuse iPod Touch with an iPhone by placing the headphones at different places and more recently, completely make both of the devices look different; face it, would a 7 series owner like it when you mistake their prized possession for a 3 series?
Not sold on the jewelry thing? Well, the first time I entered an Apple store, I noticed how much space each product received. I could've sworn there was some Feng Shui undertone to the store and the layout was seemingly so. Then, something caught my attention - the children's chair. The kid in me kicked in and I probably spent the most time sitting at the kiddie booth. Here's the kicker, that chair costs anywhere between a Mac Mini and a MacBook. For kids who aren't the final decision makers. But why? Because the complete experience matters. Sure, there are small kiddie benches or plastic chairs, but it just doesn't jive with the vibe of the store. The funny thing is most luxury stores don't even have chairs that are this expensive.
Like makers of fine jewelry and watches, Apple's team sizes are always small and rotate often, thereby getting a wider glimpse into the company's products. My favorite example is the iPhone Remote App (it was written by one guy by the way, which I found out from an another Apple Engineer's blog - http://sachin.posterous.com/apple-is-run-like-a-huge-startup). Likewise, the most amazing thing is that Apple is one of the very few companies that has a design driven development strategy that's so ingrained in their culture that I must refer you to this video:View In iTunes This is a video from the Stanford iOS class, where its former teacher and iPhone Senior Engineer talks about the success of his latest project, FlipBoard (an iPad magazine app that has content you like from the people you like). The most amazing thing is that he mentioned an important decision of the app's design would be to remove a feature per major release! That's amazing minimalism at its best.
Having said all that, I don't want you to walk away thinking that I am promoting a closed ecosystem. Au contraire! I love Open Source to death and I certainly believe Open Systems are better for the whole eco system. In the case of Apple, it's clear that their success lies in controlling the weather inside the snow globe by building a wall. At the end of the day, that abstraction makes for one smooth experience, but it's one closed hatch. So, to sum it up, if you want to build a company with die hard fans - build a design driven company in a niche where you can control most of the supply chain. And don't forget to remove features, it actually forces you to better leverage the ones you have. Of course, you should read the original interview here http://www.cultofmac.com/john-sculley-on-steve-jobs-the-full-interview-transcript/63295
