iPod & iPhone Inventor, Tony Fadell: Why Saying No Was Steve Jobs' Biggest Skill

0:00Being a founder CEO is absolutely the loneliest thing. Your board gets scared. Your venture investors get scared. Everyone gets scared. You have to keep trudging on. And it's, oh my God. Tony, welcome to Giant Ideas. We're going to talk much more about the lessons you learned working with Steve Jobs and also the lessons you've learned about careers more broadly. Starting with what you learned working with Steve Jobs, who is this kind of godlike figure. And so just to maybe demystify Steve Jobs a little bit. What was he, if you distill it down, what was he truly, truly unbelievably good at? And then also, what was he less good at?

0:36What I learned was he really understood the power of no. Saying no a lot means when you say yes, it's really meaningful. So that was a big thing. So editing and really not trying to do everything, but doing a few things really, really right and being dogged about that. I think customer journey was another thing he was really smart about. He would try to anticipate the issues, not just in the product, but before a person would purchase the product, how they would consider it. After they purchased it, what would they have to do? What's the interaction with the company? I think the other one was, and it was listening and anticipating questions and concerns about the products either just before or just after launch to then get right back at it and revise it.

1:30So within hours after the first iPod shipped and we had shown it to the press, not shipped, excuse me, launched. We shipped it another week later. Press got their hands on it and he heard all kinds of questions. What is it? And he was already back. He said, Tony convened us and said, okay. He already started going, I need you guys to fix these things in the next generation iPod, which we were already working on. We hadn't, well, sort of. We hadn't shipped even the one we were working on the first one, but he's like, we got to get these right. So he was already tuned in to go, okay, let's work on the next thing.

2:07So I think those were the things that I really learned. And I saw that you took a lot of that sort of obsession with listening to customers through to Nest, where you were kind of obsessive about the customer reviews and the customer support pages. I think we took it to a different level, even further than Apple did. Right. Um, because I believe marketing, while there is creative and don't get me wrong, there's creative, just like there's creative in product. There's a lot of engineering and marketing. And if you engineer it properly, um, you can get, and, and, and that means with metrics and everything else, you can do incredible things in marketing and customer experience and customer journey.

2:46And so we took an engineering mindset for all the things and made sure the creative It wasn't driven by engineering for sure, but we made sure that we, we gave it metrics and things and tracked it to make sure we knew how we could get better so that, um, so we could really accelerate the business. What was Steve Lesk it up? Steve had a real hard time giving people credit. Okay. So that was one thing. So, you know, um, and something that I made sure to avoid because I was a, I was a, I suffered from that and our team suffered from that. And many people are on Apple software from that. OK. And so you have to understand that the best you get the best work out of people is when even if it's your idea and many things weren't Steve Steve's idea.

3:33But when when it's it's a person on the team or a set of people reward them. And and even if it's your idea, tell them that it's their idea. Like, great, make it better and go and make it better. Come back to me with other ways so that you get everybody really wanting to work together to make a better whatever it is you're doing. We've had some elite athletes on the show and they talk a lot about the way that the great New Zealand All Black Rugby team put it is no dickheads. Even no dickheads policy. Yeah, sure. Right. No assholes. No assholes. You've written about there's two types of assholes.

4:13There's a few types. But yeah, I wrote about two specific types. But yes, in my book, Build, I have a chapter called Assholes. And, you know, there's asshole assholes who are just they're not there. They have no value. And then there are ego driven assholes and mission driven assholes. And people just like whatever somebody is difficult to work with, they call them blanket assholes. But you really have to understand their motivations. And so an ego driven one is one about themselves. else they put other people's down they have to take credit they have to whatever the case may be it's all about them them them them them them them them and they'll put you through the ringer on details and everything because they know best then there's mission driven ones who are like i'm doing the best thing i can for the customer and we're all going to do it and i'm going to hold you accountable to the things that we have to deliver to the customer and i am going to be an asshole about it.

5:14Okay. But it's for the right purpose. Yeah. And so you have to really know the difference. Now, if a mission driven asshole is still criticizing you and saying you suck, as opposed to, you know, this work could be better. Yeah. That is still an ego driven asshole. Like you still have to understand that, you know, or they just say, this is the only way. And they don't explain why we're going to choose a decision this way or what have you. Then to me, that's still, they're tending more to the ego one and they're not being mission driven enough and bringing the team along so you have to understand those those two specific ways let's give some advice to to listeners and watchers on their own careers so you've written about career in very compelling ways there's so many lessons that we're going to try and get through in about 10 minutes okay a couple together is i would describe as sort of a hustle and be this idea of chasing heroes so just tell us a story about how you hustled your way into general magic was this group of ex apple people and how you found out about them and how you hustled your way into that.

6:14Sure. Well, I hustled. I was a hustler already to begin with. I already had a couple of startups before then. I was doing whatever it takes. Just you had to hustle because there was no internet. Back in the 80s, there was no internet. So you had to read magazines. You had to send letters, right? You pick up the phone and call people and hope somebody's on the other line. So you had to work really hard to get the information you need to try to pull yourself up because I was just a kid. Yeah. Right. And who's going to talk to a kid? Like I had to write letters and. Right. And so so so I had to hustle the whole time.

6:52And so when General Magic. So I was reading all these magazines and I had always been tracking my heroes, which were like when I read about them, they were in Rolling Stone magazine. Stephen Levy's very, very famous article about the Macintosh. okay and it went pulled the cover behind the scenes and said these are the rock stars these are the ones in the band and steve was in there obviously but then here and then i was like those they i want to be like them and so i would track them and read all the gossip columns and all the other stuff because again there was no internet there's no social media so i'm just like and so when i heard that there's there was a company called general magic i was like i gotta go there i don't know what they were doing they were super secret whatever but i just knocked down that docked on their door and I was relentless for six, seven months to get in there.

7:40And I was like, look, look, here's my experience. Here's this, whatever. And I took, and after six months, they finally gave me a job. Like we don't, this kid, whoever he is, he's got passion. We got to give him that. And I had enough experience because I had made chips and I had made software and all kinds of other stuff. They're like, okay, well, give me a try. Do you think people should chase specific heroes or role models in their early career more than they do, you know, companies or brands? Well, look, companies are only built by the people behind them, right? And there are people, there are certain people you're going to hear a lot in the press about.

8:16What was interesting to me is you got to see the people behind the figureheads. And those are the ones that to me, because I know not everyone could do everything. It's like, oh, those are the people. So maybe I'm not Steve Jobs quality, but I definitely could like probably convince one of these people who are more like me than like him to, you know, that I could work and give, bring value to them. And so I think it's, it's important to find out the people behind the people because, um, because that's not one person can do everything. A lot of people do a lot of things. And people early in their career, am I right in thinking that you're a big believer in, in basically the priority is just to learn early over, you know, the title, the money, the prestige.

9:01you are you should be learning all the time there's no such thing as not like you don't stop learning especially now in the world's moving faster than ever and when it comes to technology so you have to learn every day i'm i'm devouring and i still can't even keep up on all the things going on in the in the in the technology world but yeah you you you need to go in and say you know i don't know if that's the case now but back in the day it was like i got my you know Cambridge degree and I got my Stanford or my, you know, Harvard degree. And so I am so-and-so. It's like, no, you just got a degree.

9:38A lot of other people got a degree. Sure. You made it in there and you got, you got, you know, got some lucky roll of the dice, all those kinds of things. And you got to keep learning. You got to keep being passionate. You got to keep saying, I can provide value, not, and I want to learn. Yeah. I want to learn what I don't know. And so that you can be humble. And that's the thing that's really important. And even if you're top in your field, you should always still try to stay humble and you try to say, okay, there's a lot of things you don't know and a lot of things you can learn. And people rather work with people like that than somebody who's a know-it-all.

10:13The best example we had of that on the show was Nick Clegg talking about arriving in Silicon Valley, getting this job at Meta. And he'd been like the deputy prime minister of this country, run the country in a coalition. and he was just like they could not care less could care less it's you got which country taken out by the knees like you dude you know nothing's gonna nothing's gonna impress us here you know and you're gonna find that with your kids you know when they get older they'll be like my kids keep me very well grown the nickname example is another example though of sort of you know i think the way i've heard you talk about it is like be careful of when you become an expert and plateauing and learning when it's time to kind of move on and challenge yourself again.

10:55Yeah, for sure. I remember, here's a perfect, perfect story. So iPod, we're working day and night iPod, and this is about six weeks before the iPod's going to ship. And so I designed something really funky on how to use the hard drive and kind of connect it and all these different things. And so I was using it in a little quasi weird way, but it worked. And so I just like, shit, I don't know. Maybe I've screwed up something. So I'm going to ask an expert from the hard drive team and the interface team from Apple to come over. So this was the expert, the person who knew hard. And then, so I go on the whiteboard and I explain them, this is what we're doing.

11:35We're going to build it like this. And we're using these commands. And then it's order. He's like, oh, that'll never work. Right. And I'm like, well, no, What do you mean? I'm like, I explained. He's like, it won't work. I'm like, it's working right here on this desk. It's been working for days. And he just got up and stormed off. Yeah. And obviously we shipped it and it worked just fine and everything else. But when somebody says it claims they're the expert, it's just like, come on, like out of my way. Like I just that's like ego driven. A giant. We do due diligence calls with experts. People have been in this industry for like, you know, for decades.

12:08Right. And by definition, the experts have been there for a really long time, look at something which is kind of outlandish and trying to be the future. And almost all the time, it will never work. Yeah, right. And when you listen to them, because it's quite tempting to listen to them because they really know way more than we do about semiconductors or whatever it is. But then you... But then they dig themselves into a hole and they're like, it's never going to change. Yes. Versus what that expert could have done when we were next to iPod, which was, it does work? Yeah. Tell me how. Yeah. And then they can advance their knowledge as well.

12:38But no, when they just want to put their head in the sand, like, nah, they're going to work. Like, OK, yeah, I'm done with you. Moving on. You've had some amazing bosses and mentors that you work with. I think Bill Campbell, the great coach, the great Silicon Valley founders, who, by the way, I think was very interested in rugby as well, which is a very passionate about the giant. Am I right that just sort of reading about that a little bit, that the kind of conclusion there was that some of the best managers, the best leaders, the best mentors are not necessarily the nicest ones, right? There's a kind of division there and you just have to be real about that, that some people might be extremely good for you as a mentor or a leader or a manager, even if they're not particularly nice or sort of, you know, warm and fuzzy.

13:18No, no, no, no, no. You want realists. Yeah. You want realists, but realists who are, again, not saying that they're experts. Yeah. So the great thing about Bill Campbell was the guy didn't know technology at all. he didn't know anything about technology how to build anything design he didn't know anything what he knew was people he knew people in and out and so and he was a mentor to steve jobs to larry larry and sergey he was mentored to uh countless countless people in silicon valley okay And these were people who like really understood technology. Yeah. Right. Or whatever it is they were experiencing.

14:02But he could walk into a room and in five minutes, like because he'd walk into a room and go, I want to just sit in one of your team meetings. And within five minutes, he could diagnose exactly what was going on there and the symptoms and probably the root causes. And so he had such a human, he was grounded so much in human nature that he could help you see clearly what was going on to help you make better strategic moves or what have you. And so usually the person who's the best mentor for a person, any person, is not somebody who's the technical expert who's going to tell you your job and how to do that better.

14:41No, it's going to tell you about your team, about your relationships with your partners or your competitors or whatever, to give you an overview of what the real dynamics are happening. If you have a mentor who's going to tell you how to get this done or that done technically, they don't know because they're not in it every day. You're the right person. Now, the other thing a mentor is really good at, and this is what I've always found myself at, is most people who are in these roles got there for a reason because they really kind of understand what they understand and make good decisions. What happens is, is these leaders, though, they get to decisions that are well beyond their experience and they're going to take big, bold risks.

15:27The mentor is there to say, OK, tell me about that. You want to take that risk. OK, tell me about why and this and asking lots of questions. And then it's like, OK, so how are you going to solve that? and you want to take the strategy. Okay. Typically, all they need to do is validate the person and say, yeah, you sound like you're doing the right thing. It seems like, all right. I would maybe caution you on this or this and pay attention to that, but keep going. You're on the right thing. They just need validation because you're in such rare air as a leader and you're hanging your ass well out there going, I'm going to take this huge ass risk.

16:07Is this going to be the right thing? and everybody else around you is basically scared. You're the leader. That's what it means to lead. You're leading that expedition up Everest for the first time that no one's ever done before. You don't have any data. You don't know anything. And you just have to have other people who've been in that kind of situation where they've hung their ass out and they've taken huge risks that the world's never seen before and go, yeah, you're thinking about it right, you know, right? And just keep going, right? Or modify a little bit. But that's what most great, great leaders need is they just need validation and a sounding board so that they can go, OK, I'll take that next risk.

16:46That is basically what I see my job as now. I used to be a founder, now an investor is just being the kind of shoulder to cry on and a bit of validation for the loneliest job in the world, which is founder CEO. Oh, absolutely lonely CEO. Being a founder CEO is absolutely the loneliest thing. because even when your board gets scared, your venture investors get scared, everyone gets scared. You have to keep trudging on. And it's, oh my God. Yeah. That's also, you asked me if I'd ever go back into it again. There's also another thing is I've been through that enough times. I'm like, I'll help other people and support them through that journey.

17:21That's a lot of emotion and a lot of effort. And, you know, been there, done that many times. Yeah, yeah. Don't need that rollercoaster ride again. I get that. That's fair. You've done it. Let's end a little bit just by trying to give listeners, I guess, a feel of you, the person, the man behind the ideas. We're sitting here in King's Cross near the Eurostar. You moved to Europe, to Paris. Give us a flavor of you and tell us if you can. We ask, I guess this, if you had to kind of define your life and the wisdom you've accrued along the way in three photographs or three snapshots. Three snaps. Yeah.

17:55Ideally real, but could be imaginary what were those kind of three photographs that would define tony fidel three photographs yeah i think it's one photograph is just a question mark okay which is always being curious and being questioning yeah and always asking and asking like i think i drive people nuts because i'm like a three-year-old you know this why dad why why why why you know all that's cool why why I keep doing that. And I think that would be one of the biggest ones. Stay curious. Stay absolutely curious. Just ask questions. Stay beginner. Just always be open to that kind of stuff. So I think that would be one.

18:35I think the other one would be, you know, a photo would be standing on the ground. Don't ever lose touch with reality. Don't ever lose touch with the ground. That means don't lose yourself. Yeah. Don't lose your relationship to the rest of the world. Don't lose your relationship to your customer or your friends or whatever. Stay grounded. I think that's another thing. Has that been hard? I mean, you literally invented the iPod and the iPhone. Has it been hard at times not to kind of believe your own hype? Okay. So at General Magic, and it's clear in the movie, I started to believe our hype and I crashed really, really hard.

19:13It had a huge, huge episode when I was 25. And I basically had my 24, 25 midlife crisis at that age, because I started to believe the hype because everybody said we're going to best Microsoft. We were making this thing that the world never seemed, everyone's going to need it. And that, and then I said, then that crashed me and I stayed grounded because I had Phillips after that, which was, was a critical success, but a business failure for multiple reasons. Then there was my startup, blah, blah, blah. So I had learned how to become tempered along the way. And so that was it. But I think everybody has to go through that experience to remind themselves that they're human and everything else.

19:59I hope it doesn't happen to all these AI companies, but it looks like somebody's detached from reality. Yeah, what goes up must eventually come down. What would be your final snapshot? Lots of faces. It takes a team. Lots of great people, really smart people, good people, well-intentioned people, well-meaning people, hardworking people who are passionate. Because as a leader, that's what you want. You need somebody, you need people to really realize your vision. And so for me and that and your vision, but also outside of it to help you with your life outside and you help them with your life. It's just it's about people.

20:45And and that's the most rewarding thing, because now at General Magic, I saw babies being born at General Magic. And then they came and interned with me at Nest. And now they have their own startups. Yeah. And then now they have their own families. Yeah. And so if you look and, you know, being in Silicon Valley, 26 years and being related to the value. almost jesus almost going over 35 years yeah you know you watch this arc of people and careers and families and groups of friends and people competing and this and they're all for to me that is the magic and that tapestry we weave and um and that really really helps to know what what it is we are on this planet to do you know tony it's funny all these amazing lessons from apple and steve jobs and all this.

21:32And actually the thing I think I'll take away from this more than anything is the thing he didn't do of giving credit to other people. And I think actually in my experience, that makes people miserable, makes leaders miserable when they're kind of so desperate to take the credit. And it's one of the most joyous things in the world with your team and your co-founders or your, you know, whoever. It's like, no, no, no. It was, she did that or he did that. And that actually brings way more joy in the long term, doesn't it? Thank you so much for coming along and sharing your giant ideas. Really, really appreciate it.

22:01Thanks, Tommy. I mean, this is great. If you like this episode, don't forget to subscribe. There are plenty more episodes wherever you get your podcasts, including the episode with Nick Clegg, which we talked a lot about with Tony.