Apple has been different since its beginnings. Its computers didn’t look like the ones we were familiar with. Â Its software was incompatible with the programs we were accustomed to. Its CEO was WAY different than the suit & ties of that time. Â Today it’s still different.
Each day I read countless articles by people trying to figure out what kind of company Apple is. Â Is it a hardware company like Dell & HP? Â Or is it a software company like Microsoft? Â Maybe it’s a retailer like JC Penny? I heard a talking head this morning throw out the name Atari. Â I believe she wanted to try out a new vocabulary word “rapid obsolescence.” WTF. Most likely in another 30 years people will still be asking the same questions.
Jony Ive was chosen as one of  TIME’s 100 most influential people in the world.  Unless you follow Apple closely you may have never heard of Jony Ive, but he has been driving force behind the look and feel of many of Apple’s products. The following quote is from that article. I have placed emphasis on a line that I can’t get out of my head.
Jony Ive is himself classic Apple. Brushed steel, polished glass hardware, complicated software honed to simplicity. His genius is not just his ability to see what others cannot but also how he applies it. To watch him with his workmates in the holy of holies, Apple’s design lab, or on a night out is to observe a very rare esprit de corps. They love their boss, and he loves them. What the competitors don’t seem to understand is you cannot get people this smart to work this hard just for money. Jony is Obi-Wan. His team are Jedi whose nobility depends on the pursuit of greatness over profit, believing the latter will always follow the former, stubbornly passing up near-term good opportunities to pursue great ones in the distance. Jony’s values happen to add value — emotional and financial. It takes a unique alchemy of form and function for millions of people to feel so passionately about the robot in their pocket.
Wow! What the competitors don’t seem to understand is you cannot get people this smart to work this hard just for money.Â
Wall Street has been in a tizzy, because Samsung is making phones with larger screen sizes and the phones are quite popular. Â Since Apple hasn’t released an equivalent device, the Street is convinced that Apple has fallen behind the innovation curve. Tim Cook, CEO, says to create a larger screen phone the company would have to make technolgical tradeoffs that would impact the phone’s overall experience. Â The company is not willing to make those compromises. Â In other words, he is willing to sacrifice short term profits for a longer term gain.
Obviously it’s easy for Tim Cook or Jony Ive take that position with many millions in the bank. Â However, as an aspiring or struggling entrepreneur where do you stand? Are you willing to take a short term hit? Â Is it all about the money? Â These are questions that we must contemplate as entrepreneurs.