Cortland Langworthy

Guitars, UX, design, ideas, creativity, motion graphics, flyfishin', motion graphics, music, mountains, snow and fresh air.

[Cortland Langworthy @cvliv]

@k2cyobro @JimboHart I think it caused me to find the wrong things important than they should be and the right things were always put off till tomorrow.

[Cortland Langworthy @cvliv]

@Tesla @elonmusk Been waiting two months for a windscreen for my Model3. NBD except it is sitting in the repair shop waiting on your part. Accurate information helps people and repair shops make decisions. Without it... I pay the note on a car I can't drive. #MassiveBrandDamage

[Billy Oppenheimer @bpoppenheimer]

Shortly after Steve Jobs returned as the CEO of Apple in 1997, he met with Jony Ive, Apple’s Senior VP of industrial design.

Apple had 40 products on the market.

“Jony, how many things have you said no to?” Jobs asked.

Ive was confused.

“You have to understand,” Jobs said,

“There are measures of focus, and one of them is how often you say no.”

“What focus means,” Jobs taught Ive, “is saying no to something that you—with every bone in your body—think is a phenomenal idea, and you wake up thinking about it, but you say no to it because you're focusing on something else.”

Jobs walked up to a whiteboard and drew a 2 x 2 grid. On top, he wrote “Consumer” and “Professional.” Down the side, “Portable” and “Desktop.”

Four products—meet Apple’s new radically focused product line, Jobs said.

After that meeting, over the next two decades, Jobs and Ive—focused on making a few high-quality products while saying no to everything else—transformed a dying, near-bankrupt company into one of the most valuable companies in the world, worth over $2.9 trillion.

Takeaway 1:

The philosopher Marcus Aurelius pointed out that the focus of doing less “brings a double satisfaction.”

You get the satisfaction of having fewer things to do. And…you get the satisfaction of doing those fewer things at a higher level.

You get “to do less, better.”

During Steve Jobs’ first visit to Jony Ive’s design studio, he looked around, and then he said, “Fuck, you’ve not been very effective, have you?”

It was clear to Jobs that Ive was full of ideas and potential he wasn’t able to execute or fulfill under Apple’s previous leadership.

In the Jobs era of “doing less, better,” Ive was very effective.

Some products he designed include: iMac, iPod, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and AirPods.

Takeaway 2:

Even though he slashed the product line down to four products, Jobs loved to have and hear ideas.

“Steve used to say to me,” Ive said, “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.”

It made me think of what Jerry Seinfeld identifies as the ultimate skill of the artist: “taste and discernment.”

“It’s one thing to create,” Seinfeld says. It’s one thing to have ideas.

“The other is you have to choose. ‘What are we going to do, and what are we not going to do?’” What are we going to add to the product line, and what are we not going to add?

“This is a gigantic aspect of [artistic] survival,” Seinfeld continues.

“It’s kind of unseen—what’s picked and what is discarded—but mastering that is how you stay alive.”

- - -

“Everything just got simpler. That’s been one of my mantras—focus and simplicity.” — Steve Jobs

Follow @bpoppenheimer for more content like this!

[Cortland Langworthy @cvliv]

@0xDesigner It's sad that this is a revelation to some.

[Cortland Langworthy @cvliv]

@bensage @MichelleSanchez @0xDesigner conceptually yes... functionally ... no

[Ethan Decker @ehdecker]

Still true.
Restraint is the the hardest thing.

[Cortland Langworthy @cvliv]

Thanks @Durrymusic for spending 373 minutes with me in 2022. I couldn’t stop listening to Losers Club. #SpotifyWrapped https://t.co/jwph1jWP15

[Cortland Langworthy @cvliv]

@Uber_Support will do...

[Cortland Langworthy @cvliv]

@Uber how long did it take you to create the worst customer service and issue resolution possible. It seems if you were just bad at your job that it would be better than what you have now. You must have really had to try to avoid accountability / piss off customers / waste time.

[Cortland Langworthy @cvliv]

@ehdecker @adidas If he stood in the middle of 5th avenue and shot somebody would Addidas drop him?

[Spencer Noon 🕛 @spencernoon]

i don't care about ur crypto, boy
not at all not even 1 bit, coin

[Cortland Langworthy @cvliv]

@Google Who's a good boy?

[Cortland Langworthy @cvliv]

@ehdecker @AdContrarian Click farms are people too...

[Cortland Langworthy @cvliv]

@JuicyJones VERY COOL!

[Cortland Langworthy @cvliv]

@SadlerVaden But clearly there are still massive douchebags.....

[Cortland Langworthy @cvliv]

@JasonIsbell He is just trying to make people dumber... and succeeding.

[Cortland Langworthy @cvliv]

@ehdecker Politics too!

[Cortland Langworthy @cvliv]

@ThatOldWolf For a laugh.... post that you have extra Trump Pence signs if anyone needs one.

[Cortland Langworthy @cvliv]

@ehdecker The creatives said... "hey... its 9:45 on a Friday, we're on round 37, and I want a weekend. Just use the exact words they used in the brief and I'll bet it will get approved. We can all see our kids and briefly enjoy life. Till Sunday - 11am... you'll need to be back in here."

[Cortland Langworthy @cvliv]

@JasonIsbell All you need is love.