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Front door Quote by Walter Isaacson

“looking for people to design the graphical interface for Apple’s new operating system, Jobs got an email from a young man and invited him in. The applicant was nervous, and the meeting did not go well. Later that day Jobs bumped into him, dejected, sitting in the lobby. The guy asked if he could…” quote by Walter Isaacson
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““looking for people to design the graphical interface for Apple’s new operating system, Jobs got an email from a young man and invited him in. The applicant was nervous, and the meeting did not go well. Later that day Jobs bumped into him, dejected, sitting in the lobby. The guy asked if he could just show him one of his ideas, so Jobs looked over his shoulder and saw a little demo, using Adobe Director, of a way to fit more icons in the dock at the bottom of a screen. When the guy moved the cursor over the icons crammed into the dock, the cursor mimicked a magnifying glass and made each icon balloon bigger. “I said, ‘My God,’ and hired him on the spot,” Jobs recalled. The feature became a lovable part of Mac OSX, and the designer went on to design such things as inertial scrolling for multi-touch screens (the delightful feature that makes the screen keep gliding for a moment after you’ve finished swiping). Jobs’s experiences at NeXT had matured him, but they had not mellowed him much. He still had no license plate on his Mercedes, and he still parked in the handicapped spaces next to the front door, sometimes straddling two slots. It became a running””

Walter Isaacson

About This Quote

Source Book: Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, 2011

Spotting talent in unexpected moments can lead to breakthrough innovations; openness to ideas fuels progress.

In simple terms: Unexpected ideas can become big features.

Key Takeaway

Stay open to spontaneous creativity.

Themes

innovation talent discovery design serendipity

Mood

admiring inspired

Type

biographical motivational

When to use this quote

  • product development
  • team hiring
  • creative brainstorming
  • design reviews

Key Concepts

User experience icon design inertial scrolling mac os

Questions to Reflect On

  • How do you evaluate a sudden idea?
  • What processes ensure good ideas are not overlooked?
A Different Perspective

Not every spontaneous idea succeeds; discernment is needed.

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