Focusing is About Saying "No"

A remark from Steve Jobs's Q&A at the 1997 WWDC. Jobs goes on to say the result of “saying 'no'” is that Apple was going to unveil products where the “total is much greater than the sum of the parts.” Was that first, bondi-blue iMac in his mind at that point?

Whatever products he had in mind, this is one of the things that makes Apple Apple. While other companies have raced to add as many gee-whiz features to their products as possible, Apple clearly has spent a great deal of time saying “no” to ideas. Sometimes it frustrates people, but that's OK. This is the difference between a company driven by an engineering-marketing complex and one driven by a visionary-artist.

The former appeals only to our rational side; when done well, the visionary-artist products appeal not only to our rational side (as we admire the engineering of the product) but also to our creativity (as we take in the aesthetics). Too often technology does appeal to us only rationally and in doing so fails to take into account that we are creatures that were made to be creative.

I think this is a fundamental place people like RMS, who have been criticizing Jobs since his passing, are missing the boat. License agreements may be a form of “prison,” but so are products so ugly and uncreative that they prevent us from doing what we want to do or make it a displeasure to do.

Part of freedom is not just having free access to tools, but having tools that enable us to realize our aspirations.