The speaker discusses Steve Jobs' uncompromising standards for Apple (and possibly Pixar), emphasizing his philosophy of merging technology with art to create products that serve as personal expressions for consumers. Examples include the introduction of color to computers and the iPhone as an identity statement. The narrative also reframes failure, citing Jobs' dismissal from Apple as a perceived failure by leadership, but arguing that setbacks can stem from misaligned expectations or outdated instruction sets, and that redefining failure can drive innovation.
What is also interesting is that Steve Jobs was vehement about a standard for at least for Apple, I assume for Pixar too. But for Apple it was. How I define it is the blending of technology and art. Where every other organization, IBM, all these other companies that made technology, was about the best tech, so to speak, Steve Jobs said the most artful tech, and I'm not saying that was his words, but you can see the products it made became a representation of who you are as a consumer. The Apple phone is not just a phone, it's an expression of who I am. The first Mac I had had an orange kind of shell to it. Wherever the computer was off, white or black, he was the first to add color, figuratively and literally. I wonder if having this again beacon of where you head allows you to navigate failures. Next was a failure defined as it was not a sustainable company. Kudos to them. It was acquired by Apple. Steve Jobs was a failure according to the Apple leadership when he was first fired. But in the moment the were probably right, like based upon their rules and expectations and and all the stuff they had, he wasn't a fit. So a failure can simply be a setback. And it could be because the judgments around you are wrong. It could be because the instruction set you followed wrong. Or maybe it's just everyone's following the generic instruction set of make it a black or white computer and someone's got to be the first to say that is a failure the way we've been doing it and introduce something new.
