“That’s why he made it”

August 5, 2015

I recently read Becoming Steve Jobs by Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli (which I found much more of a compelling and deeper read than Walter Isaacson's biography), and followed up on a piece in the book where Jobs and Gates meet for a Fortune interview. Jobs at the time is struggling with success at NeXT while Gates and Microsoft have come to dominate the market and have been hailed the kings of the PC era. It's a fascinating interview, with a slightly humbler Jobs, and I found the quote below to be an interesting peek into Jobs' mindset with regards to focus and drive:

“My experience has been that creating a compelling new technology is so much harder than you think it will be that you’re almost dead when you get to the other shore. That’s why, when you take big leaps, like the Mac, or object-oriented programming, or handwriting recognition, you have to leave old technology behind. When Lindbergh was going to fly from New York to Paris, he had to decide what to take with him. There were a lot of demands. They fell into two categories — things that would make his journey safer or more comfortable, and things that would increase his chances of making it to Paris. Weight was a real problem. He could take more gas, which would increase his safety, or he could take a compass, which would increase his chances of getting to Paris. Every time he came down on the side of increasing his chances of getting to Paris at the sacrifice of safety or comfort. That’s why he made it. ”