This is a summary of a hybrid šāāļø narrative + šæ tree book on Apple's software development process. You should read the original book in addition to this summary as narrative books are not easily summarised (and narrative is a huge part of Creative Selection!) Read more about book classifications here.
@cedric I just read this, and agree itās an outstanding book, and a thoroughly enjoyable read.
For me, operating at the intersection of technology and the liberal arts was the most interesting section, and the biggest idea, in the book.
At the heart of this intersection is the notion of craft, taste and āhaving a point of viewā.
E.g. Ken ridicules the notion you would decide on a colour through an A/B test, as he had heard Google doing.
āHowever, itās crucial to make the right call about whether to use an algorithm or a heuristic in a specific situation. This is why the Google experiment with forty-one shades of blue seems so foreign to me, accustomed as I am to the Apple approach. Google used an A/B test to make a color choice. It used a single predetermined value criterion and defined it like so: The best shade of blue is the one that people clicked most often in the test. This is an algorithm. At Apple, we never considered the notion of an algorithmically correct color. We used demos to pick colors and animation timings, and we put our faith in our sense of taste.ā
At Apple, we never would have dreamed of doing that, and we never staged any A/B tests for any of the software on the iPhone. When it came to choosing a color, we picked one. We used our good tasteāand our knowledge of how to make software accessible to people with visual difficulties related to color perceptionāand we moved on.
What was fascinating for me was that not only were you expected to have a refined sense of taste and high degree of craft expertise at Apple but the quality of your opinion, or ability to articulate it, was the currency that fuelled your progression, and access to senior leaders. You highlighted this section in your review but I just want to zoom inā¦
When Scott chose to bring me, and not just my demo, to the review with Steve, it was his way of saying that my word on the iPad keyboard counted as much as my work on it. He widened this circle around Steve only with care. From what I could tell, Steve judged him in part on whom he chose to bring.
Can you not only deliver great work, but talk about why it works? Can you think critically and articulate it to others? Thatās what gets you status, and seniority, in the business. At least at the time.
Obviously this needs a final arbiter of what good taste looks like, which they had in Jobs, but itās fascinating to me how this seeped into everyone and everything. The demos were necessary because it was the only real way to consistently operate at āthe intersectionā, and explore where the limits of technology (the algorithms) rubbed up against great design (the heuristics).
And it begs the question, are there any companies today successfully operating at this intersection of technology the liberal arts? Or more accurately, combining technology with a coherent and refined sense of taste and design sensibility?
There arenāt many that spring to mind for me.
And yet, it feels increasingly important. If in the near future it is going easier than ever to build software, then design, experience, the elegance of the whole thing, will become increasingly important.
We can see a very basic example of its utter absence in the shitshow that is LLM naming conventions for their product lines. Itās confusing and seemingly random.
And more significantly in the recent Siri disasters over at Apple.
So who is successfully operating at this intersection?
I havenāt reread my summary of Creative Selection in years, but I actually highly recommend pairing it with Creativity Inc and Becoming Steve Jobs, and in that order (but the ordering actually doesnāt matter as much, all three books lean on each other).
The basic idea is this:
You may have read either book, but to answer your question: Pixar is the other company that does this. The problem, of course, is similar to Appleās challenge: if you donāt replenish the people in the reviews, the output of the company eventually deteriorates.
Great thanks for the recommendations. I bought Creativity Inc when it was first published but donāt think I ever finished it. Will give it another go, and have ordered Becoming Steve Jobs.
One other question: would you agree that the process Ken outlines - creative selection - was a form of Process Power for Apple at the time?
I.e. it was hard to copy, it was embedded in the culture/norms/rituals and formal processes in the business, and seemed to provide a significant and pretty durable advantage for a time.
Well, Hamilton Helmer argues that Pixar is a Cornered Resource Power ā and that if and when the brain trust retires, we should see differentiated returns vanish from Pixar. His analysis seems to have aged well, since that is exactly what has happened over the past few years.
No, itās definitely not Process Power. One of the things I want to get into this year ā if I have the resources ā is to do a short deep dive into Process Power. A lot of things get called Process Power, but in reality very few things actually are. Helmer himself says that itās extremely rare, and I will say that I donāt think Iāve seen a non-manufacturing company with Process Power.
(Apple does have Process Power, by the way ā its Days Inventory Outstanding is a crazy nine days, and this feat is attributable mostly to Tim Cook, who is a supply chain savant. In fact the book I recommend the most to understand Process Power ā Competing Against Time ā is reported to be Cookās favourite book, and was assigned reading during his time as COO of Apple).
The Creative Selection process is more a Counter-Positioning advantage. Thereās a Commoncog essay on exactly this: Cultural Advantage is Counter Positioning - Commoncog Itās not that hard to copy ā it just takes extreme will. Whereas a Process Power advantage takes a decade, minimum, to copy, which means extreme will and constancy of purpose for that entire duration. I believe a decade is about how long it took for Cook to get Appleās supply chain management to that point.
ah, I hadnāt appreciated that nuance thank you.
I was familiar with the Cook-inspired Process Power wrt supply chains, probably via commoncog!