Jonathan Ive on Steve Jobs and the fragility of ideas | Hacker News Reader

Jonathan Ive on Steve Jobs and the fragility of ideas

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208 pointssinzone27 comments

Best section for me .. wow .. the contained, restrained way in which Mr.Ive speaks these chiseled words out is powerful / emotional .. strong / vulnerable in one go :

" Steve used to say to me -- and he used to say this a lot -- "Hey Jony, here's a dopey idea." And sometimes they were. Really dopey. Sometimes they were truly dreadful. But sometimes they took the air from the room and they left us both completely silent. Bold, crazy, magnificent ideas. Or quiet simple ones, which in their subtlety, their detail, they were utterly profound. And just as Steve loved ideas, and loved making stuff, he treated the process of creativity with a rare and a wonderful reverence. You see, I think he better than anyone understood that while ideas ultimately can be so powerful, they begin as fragile, barely formed thoughts, so easily missed, so easily compromised, so easily just squished. "

<edit> This segment made me literally tear up,, his entire speech.. it is clear that they were best friends. </edit>

Considering Ive seems to have as much of a way with words as design sense, I would like to see him on stage more at Apple keynotes. Out of all who spoke, Ive was the most interesting. He's the only one who has that aura similar to what Jobs had.

From what I've gathered he's supposedly quite shy, or at least not comfortable in the spotlight that way.

> <edit> This segment made me literally tear up,, his entire speech.. it is clear that they were best friends. </edit>

You were not alone. I teared up quite a few times during the whole thing. A tragic loss, not only for the things he invented/led others to invent, but by the example he set of perfectionism. Al Gore's words summed it pretty well "keep on insisting that good is not enough, that even great is not enough, keep insisting that Apple products truly be insanely great". I don't work for Apple (an iPod and its companion iMac, I don't even use their machines that much), but I can relate to that. I am nowhere near the perfectionist Jobs was, but I would gladly work with him (and I know it was hard) for the selfish reason I'd become a much better perfectionist myself.

Yes, his delivery was clear and considered. I was surprised he could hold it together during such an emotional moment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPUsuY8JZJI&t=2905 (48:23)

http://www.apple.com/celebrating-steve/ if you're on a mac. Same time stamp.

"Simple can be harder than complex. You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple." - Steve Jobs

Cryptic but so true.

I think part of the reason people revered Steve Jobs so much is that he took the time to talk about the vision and passion of making great things and why we'll love them.

There really is no Reality Distortion Field, just great products worth talking about.

Why do you think it's cryptic?

Just linguistically. The going back between hard and simple. There probably isn't a better way to articulate it oddly enough. :)

Rick Hickey recently gave a talk entitled "Simple Made Easy" (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3135185) where he contrasts simple and easy. Jobs' quote jumped out at me because I was thinking about this concept the other day while on a run, after watching Hickey's talk.

Simplicity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplicity) is the result of understanding. Einstein knew this. He spent the last 30 years of his life chasing a simple equation, "perhaps no more than one inch long," that would explain all physical phenomena.

"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough." - Einstein

Thanks, I'll check out the talk.

I saw that Einstein quote the other day. I probably don't understand enough to explain things that simply.

This seems similar to this classic quote:

I made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it short. --Blaise Pascal

Yeah. I thought Jony was remarkably sincere.

His words were really well written.. I read them before I heard them.

And then I watched his segment and it was so well delivered.. without revealing too much, he communicates how close they were and how well they worked together.

"we worked together for nearly 15 years and he still laughed at the way I said aluminium"

My brother in law is British, after five years I still laugh at the way he says 'aluminium' too.

Yeah, somehow Ive's account of sharing time with Steve felt more intimate and genuine. Really enjoyed his segment, both for content and for it's sentiment.

Ive's words paint an inspiring and vivid picture of the process of creativity and innovation. Its fascinating how he has been able to articulate such an abstract concept!

I hope Steve gave secret orders for Ive to become CEO at some point.

Ive is an extraordinarily well compensated industrial designer creating the most coveted products in the world and apparently there is no one in Apple who can boss him around. I doubt he has much need or desire to become CEO.

To further that point, I'm not sure he has the skills necessary to be a good CEO. As long as Tim Cook doesn't get in Ive's way, Ive will be able to do what he does best, and Apple will be the better for it. And Cook will do his thing too, what he does best. We shouldn't take people away from what they're good at doing. Jobs was a rare breed, being able to be involved in everything.

I've read time ago that he (Ive) wanted to go back home (UK), because his family is still there.

Exactly. Apparently Jobs himself gave Ive "more operation power" than anyone at Apple:

http://www.macrumors.com/2011/10/21/steve-jobs-organized-app...

I don't like the cult around Jobs that is being created.

Like it or no, I don't think it has changed much from when he was alive.

Wow! If only we could all have our own creative labs....

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