#178 Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple's Greatest Products

**David Senra** (0:00)
I want to tell you about a one time only limited event that I don't think you're going to want to miss. I am doing a live show with Patrick O'Shaughnessy from the Invest Like the Best podcast in New York City on October 19th. Patrick has interviewed over 300 of the world's best investors and founders for his podcast. I've read over 300 biographies of history's greatest entrepreneurs for my podcast. We'll be talking about what we learned from seven years of podcasting, sharing our favorite ideas and stories, and doing a live Q&A. There will also be special event-only swag. If you live in New York City, I think it's a no-brainer. But if not, I think it's a great excuse to fly in. I've already heard from a bunch of people that bought tickets. They're flying in from other cities. Some people are flying in from other countries. That's setting the bar really high, so I will have at least four shots of espresso or four energy drinks before or during the show so we can make it a night that you'll never forget. If you're interested in attending this unique live event, I will leave a link down below. I highly recommend you get your tickets today, and I hope I get to see you in New York on October 19th. I just wanted a sound bite, but he launched into a passionate 20-minute soliloquy about his latest work.
I could barely get a word in edgewise.
He couldn't help himself.
Design is his passion.
This one was really hard, he said. He began telling me how keeping things simple was the overall design philosophy for the machine.
We wanted to get rid of anything other than what was absolutely essential, but you don't see that effort. We kept going back to the beginning again and again. Do we need that part? Can we get it to perform the function of the other four parts?
It became an exercise to reduce and reduce, but it makes it easier to build and easier for people to work with.
Reduce and simplify. This wasn't typical tech industry happy talk. In releasing new products, companies tended to add more bells and whistles, not take them away.
But here was Jony saying the opposite.
Not that simplifying was a new approach, it's Design School 101, but it didn't seem like the real world in 2003
Only later did I realize that on that June morning in San Francisco, Jony Ive handed me a gigantic clue to the secret of Apple's innovation, to the underlying philosophy that would enable the company to achieve its breakthroughs and become one of the world's dominant corporations.
Content to stand aside as Steve Jobs sold the public on their collaborations, including the iconic iMac, iPod, iPhone and iPad, Ive's way of thinking and design has led to immense breakthroughs.
As Senior Vice President of Industrial Design at Apple, he has become an unequaled force in shaping our information-based society, redefining the ways in which we work, entertain ourselves and communicate with one another.
So how did an English art school grad with dyslexia become the world's leading technology innovator?
In the pages that follow, we'll meet a brilliant but unassuming man, obsessed with design, whose immense and influential insights have, no doubt, altered the pattern of your life.
That was the introduction from this absolutely wonderful little book that I hold in my hand, Jony Ive, The Genius Behind Apple's Greatest Products, and it was written by Leander Kahney. And this is another example of a book that I didn't even know existed. It was actually recommended to me by two misfits, Sager and Sid. So thank you very much for the recommendation. I actually love the book. On the back cover of the book, there's a headline that says exactly why this book is worth studying or reading. And it says, if you want to understand Apple, you have to understand Jony Ive. And that's exactly what we're going to do today. Okay, so I want to start in his early life. He becomes obsessed with design at a very young age. And a lot of it has to do with the really positive influence of his father, Mike. And so in a lot of these biographies that we're studying, there's unfortunately more, I would say it's more common to have bad parenting, examples of bad parenting than good parenting. So I want to spend some time talking about how Mike influenced his son's life in a very positive fashion. I think he's got a lot of good ideas that we can use. So it says, as a young boy, Johnny exhibited a curiosity about the workings of things. He became fascinated by how objects were put together, carefully dismantling radios and cassette recorders intrigued with how they were assembled and how the pieces fit.