4 ms·

I've heard this story about Steve Jobs and both his communication style and attention to detail (it may be apocryphal): "Steve was in a meeting with several se

I've heard this story about Steve Jobs and both his communication style and attention to detail (it may be apocryphal): "Steve was in a meeting with several senior engineers at Apple and asked: 'Can we make the phone smaller?' The engineers responded 'No, it's as small as we can make it' Steve then picked up the phone and threw it into a fish tank. As everyone watched the phone sink into the tank, Steve turned and said 'I see air bubbles coming out of the phone. That would lead me to believe there is still unused space in the phone!' " I wonder if anyone at Apple these days has that intersection of: - attention to small details - able to communicate which details are the most important - has the sway to be able to do the above an make changes

vekatimest 2y ago
I think this originates from Isaacson's biography and was about the iPod?
layer8 2y ago
What’s most improbable about this anecdote is there happening to be an open fish tank in the meeting room. ;)
- creaturemachine 2y ago
  As a pescatarian maybe he liked his snacks fresh XD
- el_benhameen 2y ago
  Chekhov’s fish tank
- badc0ffee 2y ago
  Also that the bubbles were visible to the rest of the room, or that the tiny amount of air was able to overcome surface tension in the first place.
programmertote 2y ago
Not relevant to what you are discussing related to attention to detail (which I agree with). This is my imaginary scenario -- if Steve Jobs were to tell me in a meeting, "I see air bubbles coming out of the phone", I (as an engineer) would reply to him, "Dude, that air is carrying excess heat out of the phone via convection. If you don't leave any space in between hot electronic components, your phone will be a toaster or a clothes iron".
- basisword 2y ago
  It's fine to explain why it is the way it is, but at the end of the day that's still just an engineering problem you need to try and solve. Sometimes Apple made mis-steps in that size/heat scenario but they've done it a hell of a lot better than anyone else for a long time. Sometimes you need demanding product types to force you to put serious effort into an engineering challenge you don't deem worthwhile.
- wtallis 2y ago
  There aren't a lot of phones that have air vents, except for the ones that also have fans. Convection doesn't work at those sizes and power levels. Thermal design for phones is all about conduction, getting the heat out to the surface of the device and spread evenly enough that there's no hotspot that would be uncomfortable for the user holding the device.
  - unsupp0rted 2y ago
    Some phones have fans??
    - wtallis 2y ago
      There are phones made specifically for gaming, and some of them have fans.
    - badc0ffee 2y ago
      In an alternate world where your phone has a Core i7
viraptor 2y ago
I really hope it's not true, because that would just mean he doesn't understand how elements are placed on boards - there will always be some air unless you add extra filler. (and make everything run hotter)
- postalrat 2y ago
  I think you are imagining little tiny bubbles coming out.
- wtallis 2y ago
  > there will always be some air unless you add extra filler. (and make everything run hotter) Adding filler is how you make a passively-cooled device run cooler. Air that's not moving doesn't transport enough heat to be useful, and convection doesn't do anything in the narrow spaces between and above components on a circuit board. Thermal paste, graphite sheets, and vapor chambers are what phones these days do with volume that's not needed for circuitry or structural support.
  - viraptor 2y ago
    It depends on the filler and whether you want other things around to get warmer or not. Radios for example are normally kept away from too much heat, then any temperature difference is monitored/compensated in configuration. Anyway, what I mean is - that heat is going somewhere - any extra filler will change where / how quickly.
    - wtallis 2y ago
      In the context of how phones today are built, air gaps are pretty much never the right answer to a thermal concern. At best, an air gap is what you allow when the budget cannot accommodate a better solution. If you have a component you need to keep cool, it's probably because it puts out a fair bit of heat on its own, so you want to thermally couple it to its surroundings. If you have a component you don't mind getting warm, you use it as part of the path for heat to be conducted from the big heat generators out to the surface of the phone.
Spivak 2y ago
Do people really think stuff like this makes you look cool? It's super cringe. The only way you get away with being that stupid and that much of an asshole to a room of adults is by being the CEO. This isn't some insightful observation, if the phone was waterproof the demo would have just looked silly as it sank despite having available room. Why did you even ask the question if you already decided the answer? The engineers know that the phone isn't literally a solid brick of electronics and "can't be made smaller" is normal human speak for "can't be made smaller without time and money we don't have to do it." The smart thing would have been just saying he wanted the iPhone to be smaller, money and resources is no object and we're willing to dedicate time/people to this project to get proposals put together. Jobs was very good at his… uhh job but stuff like this isn't an example of it.
- freeamz 2y ago
  Not sure if he did it, but from what I heard from friends who worked with him, wouldn't be surprised if he did. Really love the guy as someone who combined creativity and tech, but these kind of things is one of least things I liked about him. It is one these Trumpisuqe quality playing hard ball, etc. Very US business like tend to be very off putting.
  - rchaud 2y ago
    The Isaacson biography has a section where Jobs speaks to the CEO of Corning (glass screen vendor, CEO was a materials engineer) with absolute Trumpian ignorance ("You don't know what you're doing!"). Corning wanted the business and thus had to coddle him like a baby to get him to see reality. It's tragic that so many business leaders in the US see this kind of bloviating as something to emulate. Reminds me of Altman telling TSMC to gear up to spend $7tn on fabs and them just snickering about his cluelessness [0]. [0] https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/tsmc-execs-allegedly-dismissed-openai-ceo-sam-altman-as-podcasting-bro https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/tsmc-execs-allege...
    - kthomson 2y ago
      Except this led to Corning repurposing a Kentucky plant and ramping manufacturing to meet the original iPhone launch. And Weeks (Corning CEO) has publicly praised Steve for helping him better assess risk as a leader.
EGreg 2y ago
I can't believe I wrote this nearly a decade ago... and it still holds true: https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=234 https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=234 "If Steve Jobs still ran Apple"
dhx 2y ago
Obviously a made up scenario because systems engineering (as the discipline most likely to be involved in the provided scenario) is all about balancing competing requirements and dealing with design constraints such as available choice of materials, or acceptable cost to consumers, or any other number of criteria. Systems engineers would have responded by informing this hypothetical Steve Jobs that if he wanted to make the phone smaller by 20%, the phone would lose 10% processing power and lose 30% battery capacity, 9 months and $50m would need to be expended to retool the factories, and 12 months and $40m would need to be expended to redesign software UI for a smaller screen. And for an accurate answer, those systems engineers would have needed to have been able to consult with materials scientists, software engineers, engineers designing factory tools, and dozens of other different types of disciplines.
- scarface_74 2y ago
  He actually publicly did just this with the first iPhone. At introduction in January 2007 it had a plastic screen. He noticed the screen scratched easily in his pocket and they moved to a glass screen (and announced it) before it shipped in July.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
cloverich 2y ago
I heard a Steve story from a relation that was a high level exec during his tenure. They were running a meeting about failure rates of (Macbooks, phones, I can't remember which exactly). They knew their stats well, parts, how to source, costs, etc. They spent months on research. They presented it to him from an operations nature, e.g. the costs and such. His response was along the lines of: TV's are amazing technology, they've improved in every way, and are cheaper than ever. But when is the last time your TV broke? They don't break. They never break. And they always work. That's our strategy. Make it happen. Obviously it didn't quite work out that good (although I guess in my personal use cases, it has). But the point of telling me the story anyways, which I think matches here, is he had a way of pattern matching the average persons expectations based in reality, and applying it to their technology, and then aligning people towards ambitious goals that were on some level based in reality (i.e. people use TVs, they are similar technology, people don't expect them to break). I don't know how much credit is him or others and all. But I know from these kinds of stories, and from my own experience elsewhere, that some people just regularly and instantly "get it", and Steve Jobs seemed to be one of those people, and to also have the station to force others to go along. Here I think its pretty obvious Apple is both the worst performer in AI, and also the best positioned to capitalize on it. In that sense their current state is clearly demonstrative of some major failure. Its hard to imagine someone like Jobs being in the same position in today's rate. LLM's are phenomenal technology and their use cases are vast. And we've all got these devices ready to take advantage of them, ready to listen, to respond, to coordinate, etc. And here i am asking Siri to turn down the volume and it either turns it up, gets confused, or misinterprets and goes on some tangent. There's a wildly large gap in what Siri does now, and what we 100% know it could do based on the existing tech many of us are using every day.
- alexpotato 2y ago
  > But the point of telling me the story anyways, which I think matches here, is he had a way of pattern matching the average persons expectations based in reality, and applying it to their technology, and then aligning people towards ambitious goals that were on some level based in reality (i.e. people use TVs, they are similar technology, people don't expect them to break). Very well put!
- 2y ago
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

vekatimest 2y ago

I think this originates from Isaacson's biography and was about the iPod?

layer8 2y ago

What’s most improbable about this anecdote is there happening to be an open fish tank in the meeting room. ;)

creaturemachine 2y ago
As a pescatarian maybe he liked his snacks fresh XD
el_benhameen 2y ago
Chekhov’s fish tank
badc0ffee 2y ago
Also that the bubbles were visible to the rest of the room, or that the tiny amount of air was able to overcome surface tension in the first place.

programmertote 2y ago

Not relevant to what you are discussing related to attention to detail (which I agree with). This is my imaginary scenario -- if Steve Jobs were to tell me in a meeting, "I see air bubbles coming out of the phone", I (as an engineer) would reply to him, "Dude, that air is carrying excess heat out of the phone via convection. If you don't leave any space in between hot electronic components, your phone will be a toaster or a clothes iron".

basisword 2y ago
It's fine to explain why it is the way it is, but at the end of the day that's still just an engineering problem you need to try and solve. Sometimes Apple made mis-steps in that size/heat scenario but they've done it a hell of a lot better than anyone else for a long time. Sometimes you need demanding product types to force you to put serious effort into an engineering challenge you don't deem worthwhile.
wtallis 2y ago
There aren't a lot of phones that have air vents, except for the ones that also have fans. Convection doesn't work at those sizes and power levels. Thermal design for phones is all about conduction, getting the heat out to the surface of the device and spread evenly enough that there's no hotspot that would be uncomfortable for the user holding the device.
- unsupp0rted 2y ago
  Some phones have fans??
  - wtallis 2y ago
    There are phones made specifically for gaming, and some of them have fans.
  - badc0ffee 2y ago
    In an alternate world where your phone has a Core i7

viraptor 2y ago

I really hope it's not true, because that would just mean he doesn't understand how elements are placed on boards - there will always be some air unless you add extra filler. (and make everything run hotter)

postalrat 2y ago
I think you are imagining little tiny bubbles coming out.
wtallis 2y ago
> there will always be some air unless you add extra filler. (and make everything run hotter) Adding filler is how you make a passively-cooled device run cooler. Air that's not moving doesn't transport enough heat to be useful, and convection doesn't do anything in the narrow spaces between and above components on a circuit board. Thermal paste, graphite sheets, and vapor chambers are what phones these days do with volume that's not needed for circuitry or structural support.
- viraptor 2y ago
  It depends on the filler and whether you want other things around to get warmer or not. Radios for example are normally kept away from too much heat, then any temperature difference is monitored/compensated in configuration. Anyway, what I mean is - that heat is going somewhere - any extra filler will change where / how quickly.
  - wtallis 2y ago
    In the context of how phones today are built, air gaps are pretty much never the right answer to a thermal concern. At best, an air gap is what you allow when the budget cannot accommodate a better solution. If you have a component you need to keep cool, it's probably because it puts out a fair bit of heat on its own, so you want to thermally couple it to its surroundings. If you have a component you don't mind getting warm, you use it as part of the path for heat to be conducted from the big heat generators out to the surface of the phone.

Spivak 2y ago

Do people really think stuff like this makes you look cool? It's super cringe. The only way you get away with being that stupid and that much of an asshole to a room of adults is by being the CEO. This isn't some insightful observation, if the phone was waterproof the demo would have just looked silly as it sank despite having available room. Why did you even ask the question if you already decided the answer? The engineers know that the phone isn't literally a solid brick of electronics and "can't be made smaller" is normal human speak for "can't be made smaller without time and money we don't have to do it." The smart thing would have been just saying he wanted the iPhone to be smaller, money and resources is no object and we're willing to dedicate time/people to this project to get proposals put together. Jobs was very good at his… uhh job but stuff like this isn't an example of it.

freeamz 2y ago
Not sure if he did it, but from what I heard from friends who worked with him, wouldn't be surprised if he did. Really love the guy as someone who combined creativity and tech, but these kind of things is one of least things I liked about him. It is one these Trumpisuqe quality playing hard ball, etc. Very US business like tend to be very off putting.
- rchaud 2y ago
  The Isaacson biography has a section where Jobs speaks to the CEO of Corning (glass screen vendor, CEO was a materials engineer) with absolute Trumpian ignorance ("You don't know what you're doing!"). Corning wanted the business and thus had to coddle him like a baby to get him to see reality. It's tragic that so many business leaders in the US see this kind of bloviating as something to emulate. Reminds me of Altman telling TSMC to gear up to spend $7tn on fabs and them just snickering about his cluelessness [0]. [0] https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/tsmc-execs-allegedly-dismissed-openai-ceo-sam-altman-as-podcasting-bro https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/tsmc-execs-allege...
  - kthomson 2y ago
    Except this led to Corning repurposing a Kentucky plant and ramping manufacturing to meet the original iPhone launch. And Weeks (Corning CEO) has publicly praised Steve for helping him better assess risk as a leader.

EGreg 2y ago

I can't believe I wrote this nearly a decade ago... and it still holds true: https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=234 https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=234 "If Steve Jobs still ran Apple"

dhx 2y ago

Obviously a made up scenario because systems engineering (as the discipline most likely to be involved in the provided scenario) is all about balancing competing requirements and dealing with design constraints such as available choice of materials, or acceptable cost to consumers, or any other number of criteria. Systems engineers would have responded by informing this hypothetical Steve Jobs that if he wanted to make the phone smaller by 20%, the phone would lose 10% processing power and lose 30% battery capacity, 9 months and $50m would need to be expended to retool the factories, and 12 months and $40m would need to be expended to redesign software UI for a smaller screen. And for an accurate answer, those systems engineers would have needed to have been able to consult with materials scientists, software engineers, engineers designing factory tools, and dozens of other different types of disciplines.

scarface_74 2y ago
He actually publicly did just this with the first iPhone. At introduction in January 2007 it had a plastic screen. He noticed the screen scratched easily in his pocket and they moved to a glass screen (and announced it) before it shipped in July.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

cloverich 2y ago

I heard a Steve story from a relation that was a high level exec during his tenure. They were running a meeting about failure rates of (Macbooks, phones, I can't remember which exactly). They knew their stats well, parts, how to source, costs, etc. They spent months on research. They presented it to him from an operations nature, e.g. the costs and such. His response was along the lines of: TV's are amazing technology, they've improved in every way, and are cheaper than ever. But when is the last time your TV broke? They don't break. They never break. And they always work. That's our strategy. Make it happen. Obviously it didn't quite work out that good (although I guess in my personal use cases, it has). But the point of telling me the story anyways, which I think matches here, is he had a way of pattern matching the average persons expectations based in reality, and applying it to their technology, and then aligning people towards ambitious goals that were on some level based in reality (i.e. people use TVs, they are similar technology, people don't expect them to break). I don't know how much credit is him or others and all. But I know from these kinds of stories, and from my own experience elsewhere, that some people just regularly and instantly "get it", and Steve Jobs seemed to be one of those people, and to also have the station to force others to go along. Here I think its pretty obvious Apple is both the worst performer in AI, and also the best positioned to capitalize on it. In that sense their current state is clearly demonstrative of some major failure. Its hard to imagine someone like Jobs being in the same position in today's rate. LLM's are phenomenal technology and their use cases are vast. And we've all got these devices ready to take advantage of them, ready to listen, to respond, to coordinate, etc. And here i am asking Siri to turn down the volume and it either turns it up, gets confused, or misinterprets and goes on some tangent. There's a wildly large gap in what Siri does now, and what we 100% know it could do based on the existing tech many of us are using every day.

alexpotato 2y ago
> But the point of telling me the story anyways, which I think matches here, is he had a way of pattern matching the average persons expectations based in reality, and applying it to their technology, and then aligning people towards ambitious goals that were on some level based in reality (i.e. people use TVs, they are similar technology, people don't expect them to break). Very well put!
2y ago

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]