#421 Jony Ive

**David Senra** (0:00)
I just wanted a soundbite, but he launched into a passionate, 20-minute description about his latest work. I could barely get a word in edgewise. He couldn't help himself. Design is his passion. He began telling me how keeping things simple was the overall design philosophy for the machine.
He said, 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 and again. Do we need this part? Can we get that part to perform the function of these other four parts? It became an exercise to reduce and reduce and reduce. But it makes it easier to build and easier for people to work with. In releasing new products, companies tended to add more bells and whistles, not take them away. But here, Jony was saying the opposite. The purpose of this book is to answer the question, how did an English art school grad with dyslexia become the world's leading technology designer?
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 is an excerpt from the book that I'm going to talk to you about today, and the one I've read for the second time, which is called Jony Ive, The Genius Behind Apple's Greatest Products, and it's written by Leander Kahney. I decided to reread this book. The first time I read this book was probably five years ago, and I wanted to read this book because I think it perfectly follows what you and I discussed last week where we just talked about Steve Jobs' time at Next. And so last week's book and last week's episode ended when Jobs comes back to Apple. And when Jobs comes back to Apple, that is when he meets Jony Ive. And here's this great quote from Steve Jobs about Jony I. He says, he understands what we do at our core better than anyone. If I had a spiritual partner at Apple, it's Jony. And Jony is a great example of this maxim that repeats throughout these biographies, that true interest is revealed early. And so this book says, as a young boy, Jony exhibited a curiosity about the workings of things. He became fascinated by how objects were put together, carefully dismantling radios and consent recorders, intrigued with how they were assembled and how the pieces fit together. Jony's father, Mike, plays a massive role in Jony's life. From a very young age, his father is encouraging his son's interest, and he would constantly have conversations about design. And one of the best things that could have ever happened for Jony's future career is the fact that his dad was actually hired to develop the standards for design education throughout the UK. And so this book says, Mike was among the most distinguished teachers plucked from daily teaching by the education ministry and given the grand title of Her Majesty's Inspector. He assumed responsibility for monitoring the quality of teaching at schools in his district, focusing specifically on design and technology. Mike Ive took what became to be called design technology to a new level, establishing a place for the discipline as part of a core curriculum in UK schools. Mike helped transform what was basically a goof off class into a design tutorial, and in doing so laid the groundwork for a generation of gifted British designers. His son would be among them. And then what I really loved is this book talks about the relationship and then his approach to how he fathered and really raised his son. He was not a pushy stage dad. Mike's influence on his son's talent was purely nurturing.
He was constantly talking to Jonathan about design. If they were walking down the street together, Mike might point out different types of streetlamps in various locations, and ask Jonathan why he thought they were different. They were constantly keeping up a conversation about made objects, and how they could be made better. Mike was relentlessly good at his job. He was a very gentle character, very knowledgeable, very generous, and courteous. He was a classic English gentleman. These traits, of course, have also been ascribed to Jony. Now, this is what Jony said about his relationship and the influence that his father had. My father was a very good craftsman. He had an incredible gift in terms of how you can make something yourself. Mike gave Jony unfettered access to his workshop. Jony could do anything he wanted with his father's support. This is what Jony said, I've always understood the beauty of things made by hand. I came to realize that what was really important was the care that was put into it. What I really despise is when I sense some carelessness in a product. Mike was a strong advocate for teaching empirically, making and testing, and of intuitive designing, get on and make it and then refine as you go. He described the act of drawing and sketching and talking and discussing as critical in the creative process.