Do Not Cut Corners

Steve Jobs famously mandated that the inside of his machines looked as good as the outside. A meticulousness inherited from his adoptive father, Paul Jobs, as explained in a conversation with his biographer, Walter Issacson.

 “He loved doing things right. He even cared about the look of the parts you couldn’t see.” Jobs continued, “for you to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through.” - Steve Jobs

Paul and Steve Jobs, 1952

Tony Fadell, the founder of Nest, adapted a similar ethos to Paul and Steve Jobs.

“Even if you have constrained resources, do not cut corners. People will feel it.” - Tony Fadell, Inside Apple.

Some may think this obsession with invisible quality madness - after all, why waste precious resources on things no one will see? I might even agree with you if maniacal attention to detail was common practice, but it’s not.

The more pervasive practice is not caring enough about the things people do see. These are the fundamentals many teams skip. They move from feature to feature, barely ‘finishing’ one thing before rushing to the next. An inedible recipe for bloat and experience rot.

Do a few things really, really well. Find those important things, focus on them more than is reasonable, and ignore the rest. Do not cut corners.

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