How Steve Jobs Kept Things Simple
Staying focused with small teams, being direct, leaving meetings and mastering storytelling will help you win.
David Senra's podcast on Steve Jobs highlights his focus on simplicity. David’s research is deep - here are my thoughts on the key points.
Focus and Perfection
Steve famously said to John Ivy, “what have you said no to lately”. There are so many potential distractions in any company, and its hard to say no, because everything at a startup is “an opportunity”. He says that being focused is saying no to something even though you wake up every day completely obsessing over it. Ask yourself the same question: how many things have you said no to lately?
The founder of gmail also believes that to “win”, every product needs to have only 3 killer features; for them, it was storage, search, and speed. Its the same with Revolut, they hyper focus on low fees and speed of transactions. As it is with Superhuman, focusing on navigation speed, reducing cognitive load and email composing speed.
I’m starting to think of a product like a communal garden that grows with functionality. The more you add to it, the more it grows, and the more maintenance it needs. Large gardens also need lots of gardeners (employees).
Steve valued simplicity. When his team presented an overly complex way to burn movies to a DVD on the iMac - with countless options and formats - he cut them off. Walking to the whiteboard, he drew a box with a single button labeled "Burn" and said, "Make it that." Then he left, leaving the team wondering why they hadn’t seen it before. Once he drew it, it was obvious.
Its so hard to make something simple, its so easy to make it complicated. At TryHackMe we have weekly PDR (product design review) calls, and I’m constantly thinking about how we can make design and functionality as simple as possible; what can we take away, can TryHackMe do any of the heavy lifting for the user, how do we get the user not to think, how do we turn this into a delightful moment.
"Perfection is attained not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing more to take away."
~ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Some of my favourite recent moments that beautifully capture simplicity are:
Login with Touch ID - logging into apps, especially email, is usually slow and painful. Apple fixed this with a Chrome integration - tap Touch ID, and you're in.
2FA Code in Text on Keyboard - 2FA codes add friction, but Apple streamlines the process by detecting, and copying the code, then offers you the ability to instantly paste it. It turns an annoyance into a seamless experience.
Both of these could have easily been complicated experiences, and designers at Apple probably iterated a lot before getting to these delightfully simple solutions.
Team Size <100
Steve’s teams were small, and very focused. 100 people built the first Macintosh, and he wouldn’t let the team be any larger. If someone wanted to hire someone new, you’d have to replace someone less important/efficient.
At TryHackMe, we’re keeping our hierarchical structure as flat as possible for as long as possible; layers slow you down, communication get lost and it weakens accountability. Big companies with millions in funding can outspend, outmarket, and attract top talent. The only way to compete is by being really focused, doing a few things incredibly well and out-executing everyone else.
This is why I love how we structure our product, design and engineering teams into focused squads. Small teams of between 4-7 people (product manager, designers, and engineers) that have one focus with a clear outcome (KPI). We even go a step further, and to ensure we remove as many distractions from these squads as possible, we have a seperate platform squad that picks up bugs, and ad hoc requests.
Being Direct
Being direct in communication was a form of simplicity for Steve. If he thought your work could be better, he could tell you straight up. This does sometimes come at the cost of being polite, but is that a problem? No time is wasted, feedback is clear and not left open to interpretation.
I also prefer being direct. At times, it might come across as blunt, but those who know me understand that I prioritize speed. I respond to >50 msgs/emails daily, and on top of everything else, it doesn’t give me much time to add pleasantries; a cost of being so in the details. I find different cultures understand this differently - people from Poland/Germany are usually more direct, whereas the British are more polite.
We could all be more direct. Its faster, and clearer. Thats why machines can communicate faster - sending the least amount of info without losing clarity.
You can read more of Steve Jobs emails here.
Normalising leaving meetings
There was a story of Steve saying to someone in a meeting that wasn’t paying attention “if you’re ever not paying attention again, you won’t work for Apple“. It reminded me of Elon Musks meeting rule: if you were in a meeting, and not adding or providing value, you were expected to leave - it was rude not to.
Why isn’t this normalised? I find most people don’t leave because of FOMO or “there might be 1 thing important later on” (usually not the case), or just laziness. Everyone should be more comfortable saying no to more, and leaving meetings if they’re not adding value.
Storytelling
Steve spent over 90 hours rehearsing for his presentations, obsessing over every detail - from each word on a slide to the stage lighting.
He kept his language simple, always clear and easy to understand. He was a master at framing things for impact - when Apple sold 4 million iPhones in a year, he didn’t just state this number. Instead, he rephrased it: “We sold more than 20,000 phones a day” making the same data far more powerful.
Another example of this was when a reporter asked Steve how he felt knowing he only had 5% of the mobile market. He responded by comparing it to other industries, saying “We have more market share in mobile devices, than BMW and Mercedes have of automotive industry”. A totally brilliant new way of looking at it.
You can say anything in 1,000 words, but Steve used the fewest to paint the best picture. David Senra discussed this on his podcast, and I completely agree: you have to train your brain to strip away unnecessary words for maximum impact.
Other points I found interesting:
Steve never had a wordy slide, he preferred simple pictures
His presentation philosophy was simple: the audience would only remember three key points.
He personally approved every Apple ad, even calling his team at 2am to debate a single word.
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Next article: Inspired by Elena Verna, my top 10 growth hacking learnings scaling TryHackMe to >4 million users.
Bonus - “Steve Jobs and Nice CEOs” - X link