Tesla CEO Elon Musk shared an old video interview of Steve Jobs from 1995 where the Apple co-founder talked about ideas and the importance of working with the right people. Elon Musk had earlier said that he wished he could have worked with Steve Jobs.
In the interview, Steve Jobs said, “One of the things that really hurt Apple was after I left, John Sculley got a very serious disease, and that disease… I’ve seen other people get it, too. It’s the disease of thinking that a really great idea is 90% of the work, and that if you just tell all these other people, “Here is this great idea,” then, of course, they can go off and make it happen.”
Sharing the video, Elon Musk used just one word in the post: ‘Precisely’
Steve Jobs on ideas
Steve Jobs also said that the problem with that notion is that “there is just a tremendous amount of craftsmanship in between a great idea and a great product. And as you evolve that great idea, it changes and grows because you learn a lot more as you get into the subtleties of it, and you also find there is tremendous tradeoffs that you have to make.”
Watch the video below
Process is magic, Steve Jobs said
Elon Musk said that it is the process that is the “magic”. He said, “Every day you discover something new, that is a new problem or a new opportunity to fit these things together a little differently. And it’s that process that is the magic.”
Steve Jobs on importance of team
In the interview, Steve Jobs also talked about the importance of a team of people doing something they really believe in. He cited an example of an 80-year-old man who he met as a young kid who took some rocks and water, filled the canister and let it whirl.
He said, “The next day, we discovered stunning polished stones. This is a metaphor for a team working really hard on something they’re passionate about is that it’s through the team, through that group of incredibly talented people, bumping up against each other, having arguments, having fights sometimes, making some noise, and working together, they polish each other and they polish the ideas, and what comes out are these really beautiful stones.”
