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'Systems architects'

Great design and user experience must obey a system. 

Alan Kay:

People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware.

Steve Jobs, on Apple’s Q4 2010 Analyst Conference Call:

[Q: Why do you think you have an advantage on the price point for iPad versus PC manufacturers?]

I think part of it is because we engineer so much of it ourselves. The A4 chip inside it is an Apple creation. Everything from the battery chemistry to the enclosures. And we’ve learned a lot from the miniaturization we’ve done on iPods and iPhones, and we’re a very high-volume consumer electronics manufacturer. So I think we’ve learned a lot, we’ve developed a lot of our own components where others have to buy them on the market with middlemen, you know, getting their cut of things. And I think we’re systems architects and know how to build systems in a very efficient way. So I think this is a product we’ve been training for for the last decade.

Apple is really serious.

Simon Sinek on leadership

Sinek starts with “Why?”:

Because there are leaders and there are those who lead. Leaders hold a position of power or authority. But those who lead inspire us. Whether they’re individuals or organizations, we follow those who lead, not because we have to, but because we want to. We follow those who lead, not for them, but for ourselves. And it’s those who start with “why” that have the ability to inspire those around them or find others who inspire them.

Brilliant talk. Hat tip to my pal Mauricio Ventura.