“Simplicity is the keynote of all true elegance.” – Coco Chanel
Steve Jobs focus and simplicity allowed Apple to prioritize ruthlessly. Do fewer things—but do them extraordinarily well. Simplify your products, processes, and communication. That’s the Apple way, as Make Something Wonderful shows.
Steve Jobs’s approach was simple: focus on fewer things. That focus let his teams move faster and build higher-quality products.
Speaking at Macworld in 1998, Jobs said Apple had too many products—countless variations of each.
After a few weeks, Jobs realized his team couldn’t even explain Apple’s lineup—because they didn’t know which products to recommend.
He decided they needed to go back to basics and question their assumptions.
That realization made it clear that Apple only needed four great products.
With only four products, Apple could put its A team on every one—and build them in nine months instead of eighteen.
Focusing on just four meant Apple could develop the next generation while launching the current one.
So Jobs and Apple committed to focusing on four great products.
One of them became the iMac—Apple believed it would change how computers looked and should look.
As they cut the product line, Apple aimed to reduce complexity—stripping away fluff and shipping only the best.
Make Something Wonderful recounts another 1998 Macworld moment, when Jobs realized Apple had abandoned the consumer market.
He saw Apple lacked a compelling sub-$2,000 consumer product–and had for years.
So he set out to build the best consumer product they could imagine—and that became the iMac.
It had to be beautiful—and change how consumers saw computers.
Jobs had sharpened his instinct for cutting complexity during the lean years at NeXT and Pixar.
His second stint at Apple was a masterclass in focus.
Soon after returning, Jobs slashed Apple’s lineup from seventeen to four. “You’ve got to choose what you put your love into really carefully,” he said.
Simplicity beats bloat: fewer choices for customers, fewer distractions for teams.
He reminded Apple employees that people with passion can change the world for the better.
To rekindle that sense of purpose, Jobs introduced the “Think Different” ad campaign to a small group of Apple employees in 1997.
Jobs told employees the ad wasn’t meant to be pretentious. He wanted to go back to the basics—great products, marketing, distribution.
Jobs said Apple had pockets of greatness—but had drifted away from doing the basics well.
Much of what Apple was doing didn’t make sense. They were doing too much and lacked focus.
He wanted to cut 70% of the product roadmap. Even after weeks, Jobs couldn’t make sense of it.
When he asked customers, they couldn’t either.
Jobs decided it was time to make the product line much simpler. Make the products better.
As a result of this simplification strategy, Apple was able to focus on the 30% of the gems in its product portfolio as well as add new products that would take it in new directions.
Apple had to think differently about the products it wanted to build. The team was excited because it now understood where the company was going.
Company direction is outlined in another story in Make Something Wonderful, where Steve tells the team they’re going to make the product line much simpler, much better.
Jobs said Apple wasn’t smart enough to predict what customers want months ahead—”No one, not even Einstein, is that smart.”
Jobs decided they would get simple: shrink inventory pipelines and let customers tell them what they want. And then respond to customer preferences quickly.
He said Apple has to be clear about what it wants customers to know. Even great brands need care and investment to stay relevant.
Jobs believed Apple needed bold advertising to revive its brand.
He made an analogy to Nike, which doesn’t talk about its products in ads. Its ads honor great athletes. That’s who Nike is. That’s who Nike cares about.
He hired a new ad agency to help Apple rediscover who it was, what it stood for, and where it fit in the world—answers to their customers needed.
Apple could sell boxes to help people get their jobs done—and do that well. But Apple, according to Jobs, was more than that. Apple believed that people with passion can change the world for the better.
Apple believed that people crazy enough to think they can change the world for the better are the ones who actually do it.
Jobs wanted Apple to return to its core values. He told the team: products, distribution, and manufacturing may change—but core values never should.
The theme of the “Think Different” campaign was to honor people who move the world forward. That’s what Apple did. That’s what Apple wanted to be associated with, like Nike did by honoring great athletes.
Takeaway: Steve Jobs focus and simplicity saved Apple by saying no to nearly everything. Focus let Apple move faster, build excellence into every product, and create clarity for customers and employees.
