[Note: totally self-congratulatory post.]
Did I say that Steve Jobs was a craftsman or did I not? He uses the word at least two times in excerpts from The Lost Interview, as reviewed by Time.
- “there’s a tremendous amount of craftsmanship between a great idea and a great product.”
- “The product genius that led to that monopolistic position is rotted out by people who have no conception of good products vs. bad products – the craftsmanship required.”
Of course, I didn’t know anything about this until today. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw it. Then I started to suspect that maybe I did hear about this somewhere and then it seemed like it was my original thought. Although I usually remember if someone else said something, even if I don’t remember who exactly.
So I searched for “Steve Jobs craftsmanship” on Google to see what else is there and if it rings any bell. The only other thing along these lines that came up at the top of the search results was a blog post from August this year, titled Steve Jobs’ reverence for craftsmanship. So, OK, someone else stumbled upon this before me, but prompted by another Jobs quote:
“When you’re a carpenter making a beautiful chest of drawers, you’re not going to use a piece of plywood on the back, even though it faces the wall and nobody will ever see it.”
This other quote offers me even more validation of how smart I am (ha ha!): Jobs uses carpentry as an example of craftsmanship, which is what I did. Sure, that’s a very obvious example to pick, but I thought of Jobs as a craftsman after I had actually visited the shop of a guy who was both a carpenter and an electrician, who makes custom electric guitars.
Iz smart.
