A great article. I have seen a lot about what Steve is talking about at corporations I've worked at. Plainly stated it is true that marketing makes money! - But incentive reveals motive. There are a lot of words we use instead of 'greed' like 'good business sense' - but if a companies primary motivation is greed it will fail, and if its secondary motivation is survival, it will just resemble the stages of grief. I have worked in technology a lot - and people in management will always say to me "I don't care how you get it done ... just get it done." That is ok for other industries, for the automotive, and carpentry industries a manager can get by with that attitude, but what if your 8th grade math teacher told you the same thing? - Would you really learn anything about math? And that's what we need to take from this story, it takes SOMEONE with intellectual fortitude to 'bring it all together' like Steve so pointedly stated.
Greed isn't necessarily bad. If it means figuring out what service millions of people will pay money for, then yes, you're making money. but you're also creating a useful service. The two often go hand in hand.
Creating a good product because your greed says it will get you more money is ok, but I think the point is that if you flip it round - create a good product because you want your product to be good - you get a better product and potentially more money.
"Because the purpose of business is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two--and only two--basic functions: marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs. - Peter Drucker. As Steve seems to points out - Apple lost site of one of those while he wasn't there now they have it back.
"It's because when you buy our products, and three months later you get stuck on something, you quickly figure out [how to get past it]. And you think, "Wow, someone over there at Apple actually thought of this!" And then three months later you try to do something you hadn't tried before, and it works, and you think "Hey, they thought of that, too." And then six months later it happens again. There's almost no product in the world that you have that experience with, but you have it with a Mac. And you have it with an iPod."
He (Jobs) has a real feel for where to put his finger. I'd flip it. With products, you (I) run into little walls where I think "how could I possibly be the only one to bang his knee on this?"
I like their products, and buy them, but the above is not my experience (great to aim at; very hard to do): Apple's LCD display had a really annoying design (splayed supports, where I want to move my mouse; no connection to a PC - to be fair, they fixed both issues in the next version). ITunes on Windows is awful. My iPod headphones are really annoying.
But I have had the above experience every time with another product: vim (the editor). Whenever I'd think of a cool feature, it would already be implemented, with lots of associated features that I hadn't thought of yet. Impressive. OTOH, hard to find the damn features, unless you already have the idea for them (like google). So, vim could be better designed in that sense (no, I don't know how one would do that).
Has the Business Week site been cleaned up from its recent compromise (that was Business Week, wasn't it?)? I've been avoiding the site until I hear the "all clear".
