Tony Fadell: iPhone, iPod, Nest, Steve Jobs, Design, and Engineering | Lex Fridman Podcast #294

1. 0:00 – 1:18

   Introduction

   1. TFTony Fadell0:00

      It wasn't just a one-on-one. It could be Steve against the team, going, "We need glass instead of plastic on the front face of the iPhone, and we're going to do this." And we're like, "God dam-" you know? And so we did it, and he pushed us because he didn't know all the details, but he could see in our minds that we're like, "Yeah, we could probably... Yeah, we could probably," but man, it's really putting us in risk, and we- we laid out the risks for him. And he's like, "I'm willing to take those risks."

   2. LFLex Fridman0:29

      The following is a conversation with Tony Fadell, engineer and designer, co-creator of the iPod, the iPhone, and the Nest Thermostat. And he's the author of the new book, BUILD: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making. More than almost any human ever, he knows what it takes to create technology ideas, designs, products, and companies that revolutionize life for huge numbers of people in the world. So, it truly is an honor and pleasure to sit down with Tony for a time and look back at one heck of an amazing life. This is the Lex Fridman Podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description, and now, dear friends, here's Tony Fadell.

2. 1:18 – 8:14

   Memories

   1. LFLex Fridman1:18

      When did you first fall in love with computers? Or let's say computer engineering and design?

   2. TFTony Fadell1:23

      I first fell in love, um, with computers and programming, was at a summer school class in fifth grade in Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan. Um, it was a simple basic programming class, but the basic programming class was not like you might think it was. It was bubble cards, so literally it was, you know, uh, the- the cards to stack up cards, and you would use a number two pencil, and you would put in, um, your program line by line, and you'd have to make sure it was perfectly stacked, and no errors, and what have you. And you would take that set of cards and you'd put it on this reader, and it was zuh-zuh-zuh, and it would go off to an IBM microcomputer somewhere in the... uh, back then, the cloud. (laughs)

   3. LFLex Fridman2:11

      (laughs)

   4. TFTony Fadell2:12

      And then, uh, you would sit on a Texas Instruments paper terminal, and it would just... literally, I was just... I could write things, and it would... the- I could program this machine to do stuff, and it was, you know, it was nowhere near sexy. There was no graphics, right? (laughs) Oregon Trail was all in text, right? (laughs) The cards were so cumbersome that if you got one thing wrong or out of order, it- i- y- or a disaster, or you dropped one card, it would all fall apart. So, um, w- just doing that, you know, printf, or w- was it? I can't even remember what that was. It was, uh, you know, what the- what the basic commands were, but-

   5. LFLex Fridman2:48

      Oh, so when you say basic, you mean basic programming language?

   6. TFTony Fadell2:50

      Programming language.

   7. LFLex Fridman2:51

      Okay.

   8. TFTony Fadell2:52

      Basic programming.

   9. LFLex Fridman2:52

      So, you're- you're writing basic programming language on paper with cards?

   10. TFTony Fadell2:57

       On paper.

   11. LFLex Fridman2:58

       And you're calling it programming though? It's called programming.

   12. TFTony Fadell3:01

       Yeah, you're programming this computer in, you know, in- in a remote location, and it came back. So it was truly cloud computing in a way.

   13. LFLex Fridman3:08

       So-

   14. TFTony Fadell3:08

       It was really terminal-based computing, though.

   15. LFLex Fridman3:10

       Uh, and the input and the program are separate? So the input to the program, or they co- go together, like, um... or is no- there's no input to the program? It just runs and it gives you output?

   16. TFTony Fadell3:22

       Yeah, you- you- it goes in and says- it says Ready, and then you can say Run.

   17. LFLex Fridman3:26

       Yeah.

   18. TFTony Fadell3:26

       And then it would run, but to program it, it- you didn't type it 'cause it was a printer terminal. You would make the stack of cards, and that would get it into the- the computer's memory.

   19. LFLex Fridman3:35

       Okay, so where was the magic?

   20. TFTony Fadell3:38

       The magic was that you could create. You had a language, and you could create what you wanted to create, right? You could create a world or- or what have you, and have this interaction, and you could compute things. You could, you know, do numbers. You could... I was playing Oregon Trail, right? So, you were less, like-

   21. LFLex Fridman3:55

       So, you can play video games?

   22. TFTony Fadell3:56

       Well, uh, video. (laughs) That's wha- (laughs)

   23. LFLex Fridman3:58

       Right. Without video.

   24. TFTony Fadell3:59

       You could play text games, and then imagine 'em in your brain, right?

   25. LFLex Fridman4:04

       Oregon Trail. Uh, there's a- this meme I saw recently, "If you wanna feel bad about yourself as a programmer, realize that one person wrote Railroad Tycoon." I think that's the name of the game. It's this cool little builder game. One person wrote it in Assembly.

   26. TFTony Fadell4:23

       (laughs)

   27. LFLex Fridman4:23

       (laughs) So fr- like, from scratch, and i- for people who don't know, it kinda looks like a SimCity type game. It's a city-builder, but obviously centered on railroads, and there's a nice graphics. It's three dimensional, all that kinda stuff. All the things... all the rich, colorful things you would imagine for- for a three-dimensional video game, all written in Assembly, meaning the lowest level code next to binary.

   28. TFTony Fadell4:48

       Yup. Exactly.

   29. LFLex Fridman4:48

       Which is, uh, fascinating, and that's the- tha- you had to notice the magic at that low level at that time. You didn't have all the graphics. You didn't have all the, like, APIs, and all the-

   30. TFTony Fadell5:01

       No.
3. 8:14 – 16:52

   Apple II

   1. LFLex Fridman8:14

      uh... You mentioned Apple II. What was the first computer you fell in love with? Like, the, the product, the thing before you that was a personal computer.

   2. TFTony Fadell8:23

      It was the Apple II. So the Apple II was something I was just lusting over, you know? It was... I think it was, at the time, it was the, um, you know, the Person of the Year. Maybe it was that year? I don't remember what, but, uh-

   3. LFLex Fridman8:37

      What, Apple II was the Per- the Person of the Year?

   4. TFTony Fadell8:38

      Yeah, for-

   5. LFLex Fridman8:39

      Nice.

   6. TFTony Fadell8:39

      ... Time Magazine, back in, I don't remember when. But it was around that same time. I was so young. But I had... There was the Apple II, and I didn't know what it was, but I knew about tools, 'cause my grandfather taught me about tools and, uh, creating things, right? And I saw this thing and, and I had the, you know, that, that IBM experience, that terminal experience, and I'm like, "Oh, I could have that at home," right? And so I need to have that at home, and the only thing that was really talked about in, in ou- our circles was the Apple II, and I was just like, "That's it." So I went, jumped up and down. It was very expensive. "I have to have this." My parents are like, "What?"

   7. LFLex Fridman9:14

      (laughs)

   8. TFTony Fadell9:14

      You know, it was 20 fi- $2,500 back then.

   9. LFLex Fridman9:17

      Yeah.

   10. TFTony Fadell9:18

       W- in the 1981. It was like crazy, right? So I was like, "I'm gonna make as much money as I can this summer." And my grandfather said, 'cause he, he helped me learn all about tools and build things together, "I will match whatever you make so you can get this computer." So I worked very, very hard as a caddy, golf caddy.

   11. LFLex Fridman9:36

       Mm-hmm.

   12. TFTony Fadell9:36

       Caddying actually for the, you know, the, the families in, you know, the, at the country clubs in the, in the town, um, where we lived, and, uh, did whatever I could. And that, end of that summer was, got my Apple II. And I, you couldn't tear it away from me. It was my, my friend. It was everything.

   13. LFLex Fridman9:52

       From a product perspective, what do you remember that was brilliant? Um, th- the design choices, the ideas behind it? Or is it just that it exists? Or the very idea of a personal computer is the brilliant design choice?

   14. TFTony Fadell10:07

       Yeah, it was that I could actually have this kind of tool in my house, and I could use it anytime I wanted. I could program it anyways. There was no... You know, there was no internet connection. There (laughs) was no... It was all just you. You either loaded software that you got from someone, right? Um, or you created it yourself. And then there was a whole other thing which was started happening, which we were doing, and this was kinda like MP3s and stuff. We were sharing software, right? So you built this community of sharing stuff. You would, you, you would go and pirate.

   15. LFLex Fridman10:35

       Yeah.

   16. TFTony Fadell10:35

       That was what it was called. Pirate all this software. You'd never use it all, but it was just that fun thing of like, "I'm gonna get all this other stuff and then tear it apart and do disassembly on it and see behind the scenes." So you really had a, a sense this, this was your world and you owned it, right? And you could, like, literally go into every register. We didn't have all those security layers like we do now. Like, you could really touch-

   17. LFLex Fridman10:56

       (laughs)

   18. TFTony Fadell10:56

       ... bits, and you could poke bits, and you could-

   19. LFLex Fridman10:57

       Yeah.

   20. TFTony Fadell10:57

       ... make this light turn on, and... You know, and the geek inside me just lit up.

   21. LFLex Fridman11:01

       Oh.

   22. TFTony Fadell11:01

       Now, you c- there's... It's so abstract, you know, people don't even understand. Like, usually, you know, some programs don't even understand memory. They just think it's unlimited, right?

   23. LFLex Fridman11:10

       Yeah. And security, it's like now there's all this security that you should have, but it's like the adults all showed up to the, to the party, and now you can't have all the fun. (laughs)

   24. TFTony Fadell11:21

       (laughs) Right. It's like, "No, no." You know, this was the thing where if you... If, if the power went out-

   25. LFLex Fridman11:26

       Yeah.

   26. TFTony Fadell11:26

       ... you lost your whole program. You might've worked a whole day on it, and if you didn't press save at every other line-

   27. LFLex Fridman11:31

       Right.

   28. TFTony Fadell11:31

       ... and you would just save, save, save, and it would like ƒrrɑɑɑ, ƒɾɑɑ... The wh- the disc drive or the tape drive, ƒɾɑɑɑɑ. Like, it... Every single step was contemplated.

   29. LFLex Fridman11:41

       (laughs)

   30. TFTony Fadell11:41

       Because if you didn't, you lost maybe a ton of work. (laughs)
4. 16:52 – 20:56

   First business

   1. LFLex Fridman16:52

      so when did you first start to dream about building your own things, designing your own products, designing your own systems, and software and hardware?

   2. TFTony Fadell17:05

      Well, in high school, there was a company that, um, a friend of mine founded, and I was the second employee. It was called Quality Computers. And it was a mail, mail order, mail order, 'cause there's no e-commerce then. There was no internet again.

   3. LFLex Fridman17:21

      (laughs) Yeah.

   4. TFTony Fadell17:21

      You either mailed in your little coupon and you said, "This is what I wanted to order." Or you wrote in to get a catalog and delivered to you, you know? Turnaround time on this stuff was like, from the time you want it to the time you bought it was maybe eight to 12 weeks. That was just the normal way of getting things. Um, so Quality Computers was a mail order, um, uh, uh, uh, for Apple II, and it was software and, and all kinds of accessories, so hardware accessories, so hardware plug-in cards, joysticks, all this stuff. And what, um, we noticed was, um, there were accelerator cards or memory cards-And to be able to use those cards, you had to actually go and change the software you used to access this new memory. So, you literally had to go and you took the program that you had, let's say it was AppleWorks, which was, like, an early Microsoft Office or something like that. And you had to literally change the code, and you would install these patches to then take advantage of the hardware. So, what we started creating was software on top of it to au- do the automatic installation of all of these patches.

   5. LFLex Fridman18:27

      Mm-hmm.

   6. TFTony Fadell18:27

      So, we made it much easier to take new hardware and then, and, and the existing software you have, and expand it into this new world. So, it was creating tools, and then really great customer support, and we, we started getting a lot of orders, 'cause we had the software to make it easier to install, to give them the superpower. And, at the same time, um, uh, you know, they, they would be able to change their software and, and have a new world that wasn't existing from the companies that were creating the initial products. And so it was more of that, and then that happened with, uh, uh, hard drives. So, I wrote a hard drive optimizer for the Apple II to, like, read, 'cause it, you could get really fragmented. So, I wrote that piece of software, and we sold that through the company along with the hard drives that we sold from third parties. So, that all happened in 12th grade of freshman year of college.

   7. LFLex Fridman19:19

      So, (laughs) you wrote a hard drive optimizer in 12th grade for the Apple II?

   8. TFTony Fadell19:23

      In ole'... Yeah, uh, between 12th and freshman year.

   9. LFLex Fridman19:26

      What, what programming language? Do you remember? Was it Assembly? Is this, was it-

   10. TFTony Fadell19:29

       It was, uh, there were, certain inner loops were Assembly, and other loops, actually they were really early Pascal, no, C, um, um, C, C, uh, compilers.

   11. LFLex Fridman19:39

       What was the motivation behind these? Is it to make people's lives easier? Is it to create a thing, experience that is simpler and simpler and simpler, thereby more accessible to a larger number of people? Like, what... Or did you just, like, like to tinker? (laughs)

   12. TFTony Fadell19:53

       No, no, no, it was two things, really.

   13. LFLex Fridman19:54

       Okay.

   14. TFTony Fadell19:54

       'Cause one, we wanted to sell more hardware and software, right?

   15. LFLex Fridman19:57

       Yes.

   16. TFTony Fadell19:57

       So, it was like, oh, make it easier for the user. And then the other thing was, because I was also manning the customer support line-

   17. LFLex Fridman20:04

       (laughs)

   18. TFTony Fadell20:04

       ... people would call in and go, "This doesn't work." And I'm like, "Oh, I gotta go fix the hardware and software," right?

   19. LFLex Fridman20:09

       Yeah.

   20. TFTony Fadell20:09

       Or I gotta fix the software to make the hardware and the installation process better. So, my whole world was out-of-box experience from when I was in high school.

   21. LFLex Fridman20:17

       (laughs)

   22. TFTony Fadell20:18

       'Cause I had to man the customer support line, pack the boxes, and write some of the code while we were doing, while Joe, Joe Gleason, who was the founder of Quality Computers, he was off doing the mark- the ads, placing the ads for the m- mail order, making sure we were running the credit cards, right?

   23. LFLex Fridman20:35

       Yeah.

   24. TFTony Fadell20:35

       (laughs) It was two of us, and then it turned into a third, and then we hired another person from high school to, like, pack boxes so I could stay on the customer support line or doing the software, right? And it was all in his parents' basement.

   25. LFLex Fridman20:46

       Yeah.

   26. TFTony Fadell20:46

       Right? (laughs)

   27. LFLex Fridman20:47

       As you were scaling exponentially.

   28. TFTony Fadell20:50

       (laughs) Scaling, right. Exactly.

   29. LFLex Fridman20:51

       Yeah.

   30. TFTony Fadell20:51

       Bootstrapping.
5. 20:56 – 44:58

   iPod

   1. LFLex Fridman20:56

      What were the ideas that gave birth to the iPod? If we jump forward. Uh, and how far back do those ideas stretch? Um, 'cause, you know, if you look at the history of technology, there is, I mean, not just the product, but the idea is, is truly revolutionary. Maybe it, its time has come, but just if you look at the arc of history, sort of music is so fundamental to who we are as a humanity.

   2. TFTony Fadell21:30

      Right.

   3. LFLex Fridman21:30

      And to be able to put that in your pocket, make it truly portable, is, is fascinating in, in a, in a way-

   4. TFTony Fadell21:37

      Right.

   5. LFLex Fridman21:38

      ... that's truly portable. So, it's digital, uh, as opposed to sort of, uh, like, a Walkman or something like that. So, w- what were the ideas that gave birth to the iPod?

   6. TFTony Fadell21:49

      You know, I've, I was in love with music since I was a kid. L- just loved music from, I think, second grade when I got my first albums and stuff like that.

   7. LFLex Fridman21:58

      What kind of music are we talking about there?

   8. TFTony Fadell21:59

      So, this was, um, this was, uh, Led Zeppelin. This was The Stones, Hendrix, uh, Aerosmith, uh, uh, Cheap Trick, Styx, Ted Nugent, you know, just the real-

   9. LFLex Fridman22:15

      Yeah, yeah.

   10. TFTony Fadell22:15

       ... you know, the real American r- and s- and British rock and roll.

   11. LFLex Fridman22:19

       There's, there's a bunch of people listening right now, "Who? Ten... Who is that?"

   12. TFTony Fadell22:21

       "Who, who's that?"

   13. LFLex Fridman22:22

       "Led Zeppelin? What is that? Is that some kind-"

   14. TFTony Fadell22:25

       Oh, yeah. (laughs)

   15. LFLex Fridman22:27

       Um-

   16. TFTony Fadell22:27

       It drove my parents crazy.

   17. LFLex Fridman22:29

       Yeah.

   18. TFTony Fadell22:29

       Yeah.

   19. LFLex Fridman22:30

       You just blasted loud-

   20. TFTony Fadell22:31

       Loud, just rah. And this was second, third grade, fourth year, I just, I fell in love. And then, uh, we, um, we moved back to Detroit, and I loved listening to the radio station, 'cause there was all kinds of crazy music, 'cause you'd have a, a, um, amalgam of rock and then funk and R&B, and I loved to listen at night, so I had a clock radio. But if I had the clock radio on, everyone would, like, the parents would go, "Go to sleep! Stop that! Turn that stuff off!" So, I hacked the clock radio and put a headphone jack in it.

   21. LFLex Fridman23:02

       Nice.

   22. TFTony Fadell23:03

       Right? So I t- I said, "Oh, they're ƒwah!" Like, "Okay, wha-kiss-kiss." And then, and then I could listen to it all night, and no one could hear me, right? And I could just sit there and r- r- you know-

   23. LFLex Fridman23:12

       Just huddling around the radio, just-

   24. TFTony Fadell23:13

       Groove out.

   25. LFLex Fridman23:14

       ... just listening to Zeppelin.

   26. TFTony Fadell23:16

       (laughs)

   27. LFLex Fridman23:16

       Stairway to Heaven.

   28. TFTony Fadell23:18

       (laughs)

   29. LFLex Fridman23:18

       What's, what would you say is the greatest, uh, rock, uh, classic rock song of all time?

   30. TFTony Fadell23:23

       Greatest classic rock song of all time? Oh my God.
6. 44:58 – 49:10

   Ideas

   1. LFLex Fridman44:58

      What wisdom do you draw from that whole process about spotting an idea? This is something you talk about in your book Build. How do you know that an idea is brilliant? At which stage? When did you know it was a good idea? Um... (laughs)

   2. TFTony Fadell45:17

      (laughs)

   3. LFLex Fridman45:17

      And ma- maybe is there, like, some phase shifts?

   4. TFTony Fadell45:22

      Mm-hmm.

   5. LFLex Fridman45:22

      First, you have complete doubt, then maybe, "Hmm." And then maybe it becomes more than a hmm and becomes, like, a little more confidence, that kinda stuff. And also, wisdom about who to talk to-

   6. TFTony Fadell45:34

      Right.

   7. LFLex Fridman45:35

      ... uh...

   8. TFTony Fadell45:35

      Right.

   9. LFLex Fridman45:35

      ... so they don't trample the idea in the early stages, that kinda stuff. Any- any- any thoughts about this?

   10. TFTony Fadell45:40

       Sure. We could go on. Again, how long do you wanna go? (laughs)

   11. LFLex Fridman45:43

       (laughs) 20... This is a Netflix series, I told you. Multi-season.

   12. TFTony Fadell45:47

       So, uh, a lot of lessons learned, uh, over those years of failure and, and success. But the first thing it starts with, um, there's a whole chapter called Great Ideas Chase You. And so it kinda goes into... In Build, and you can go... And it goes through kinda chapter and verse about all of those, how Nest became into being. But let's talk about it specifically for iPod, right? So for me, I always had pain, the pain of carrying these CDs everywhere, right? And I had the joy of music, right? If you could say all of a sudden I could get the music I love all the time in a portable package, and I can have all the music I love all the time, I was solving a pain which was, for me it was thousands of CDs, other people it might be 10 or 15 CDs, right? And then I can have the joy of all this music uninterrupted. That was, that was taking the pain, making a painkiller for it, and then at the end was a superpower, an emotional superpower that said, "Oh my, this is something different." So when you can actually s- focus on a pain, not a v- not a- and, and get a painkiller for it, not a vitamin. So the difference between a painkiller and a vitamin is very clear. One, you need.

   13. LFLex Fridman47:01

       Mm-hmm.

   14. TFTony Fadell47:01

       I gotta get rid of this pain. A vitamin, maybe it works, maybe it doesn't, maybe somebody needs it, maybe not. It's all marketing story, right? So you start with the pain, give them a painkiller, and hopefully if you can do it in the right way, you give them a superpower, an emotional superpower. That is always... And that's the way to, to, to know that you're hitting on something that's really powerful.

   15. LFLex Fridman47:23

       The pain and the joy.

   16. TFTony Fadell47:25

       Exactly.

   17. LFLex Fridman47:26

       Um, are you always aware of the pain?

   18. TFTony Fadell47:30

       Mm...

   19. LFLex Fridman47:31

       So it seems like a lot of great products, it's like we do a lot of painful things and we just kind of assume that's the way it's supposed to be. Like with merchant autonomous vehicles, we all assume we're supposed to be driving.

   20. TFTony Fadell47:45

       Right.

   21. LFLex Fridman47:46

       Like, and it doesn't... You don't think of it as a pain. (laughs)

   22. TFTony Fadell47:50

       Right. Well, you've, you've habituated it away.

   23. LFLex Fridman47:53

       Yeah.

   24. TFTony Fadell47:54

       You've habituated it away. It... For me, you know, when I go, uh, to other places, l- uh, living in Bali or living in Paris or whatever, and I'm not driving, I'm walking or I'm using a scooter or what have you, different thing. And you go, "Oh my God." When you've left that environment because everyone else is driving all the time, you're like, "That's what you do." And you find out there's other ways of living and there's freedom when you get rid of that, you're like, "Oh my God, I didn't know that this was so much better." So there's, there's something in the book that's called out, and I, I, I deemed it the virus of doubt. And what the virus of doubt is, is when there's pain and it's been habituated away, you use the right marketing messages to r- to bring people back to that initial experience they had or the initial experiences they had of that pain. "Do you remember when the first time you did blah, and it felt like this?"...right? And then you reawaken that habituated pain. And people g- and it get, becomes visceral, and then y- they're like, "Oh, yes, I hate that."

   25. LFLex Fridman49:01

       (laughs)

   26. TFTony Fadell49:01

       And then you go, "Now I have the painkiller and the joy for you."

   27. LFLex Fridman49:05

       Yes.

   28. TFTony Fadell49:05

       That's when it all comes together and it goes (snaps fingers)

   29. LFLex Fridman49:09

       (laughs)

7. 49:10 – 59:27

   Marketing

   1. LFLex Fridman49:10

      Let me, on this, on the pain and the joy-

   2. TFTony Fadell49:12

      (laughs)

   3. LFLex Fridman49:12

      ...that's brilliantly put, uh, you mentioned, um, selling and marketing.

   4. TFTony Fadell49:18

      Right.

   5. LFLex Fridman49:19

      Marketing dollars. Uh, I have a love-hate relationship with marketing, like with a lot of things that require artistic genius. To me, the best marketing, I suppose, is the product itself and then word of mouth. So, like create a thing that people love. And-

   6. TFTony Fadell49:40

      Oh, absolutely, that's fundamental.

   7. LFLex Fridman49:42

      Yeah. But, so any other marketing requires genius to be any extra thing 'cause, uh, every... Uh, uh, to me, I don't... It, it, yeah, uh, maybe you can, uh, by way of question 'cause you're... (laughs)

   8. TFTony Fadell49:56

      (laughs)

   9. LFLex Fridman49:56

      You're s- I'm, I'm just speaking off the top of my head as a consumer, uh, what is great marketing? What does it take to, to, to reveal the, the pain and the joy of a thing?

   10. TFTony Fadell50:08

       Okay. (laughs) It all starts at the beginning. And let me give you... I'm gonna give you a couple of different ways of looking at it, okay? And it, again, we're gonna... might go a little long here. So, um, just stay tuned in.

   11. LFLex Fridman50:22

       (laughs) Yeah.

   12. TFTony Fadell50:22

       So, the first thing is-

   13. LFLex Fridman50:23

       Start at the beginning, right?

   14. TFTony Fadell50:23

       ...let's start at the beginning. In the early part of my career, you know, like General Magic and Philips and what have you, I... and especially when I was, you know, a teenager, when I was like doing, making my own chips and stuff like that, I really worried about just putting cool things together. I'm like, "That... When I put those two cool things together as an engineer," you go, "that's cool."

   15. LFLex Fridman50:48

       Mm-hmm.

   16. TFTony Fadell50:48

       And then I would talk to my other friends who might be geeks too, and they go, "Yeah, that's cool."

   17. LFLex Fridman50:52

       Mm-hmm.

   18. TFTony Fadell50:54

       Because we knew the bits, so we put them together, and that's a new way of doing it, and you're like, "Wow." That's all what. It's not why. Why are you doing this? We know what we're doing, but we don't know why we're doing it 'cause we're not articulating it for ourselves 'cause it's just something we're like putting it together and like, "Yeah, that's cool," because, because we think we're solving some problem we have, but we're not really articulating it. So, what normally happens, and this happens, uh, 'cause we invest in so many companies around the world, you have these brilliant engineers, designers, scientists, researchers. They put together these, these whats, and then they develop it, develop it, develop it, and then at the end, they call in marketing and say, "Now, tell a story about this, and let's get it out to the world," okay? What happens then is marketing's like, "Well, why do w- why do people need this? Tell us why people need it." And so they create a story around this product, but the product was born out of whats, not whys. And so they start tell... marketing starts telling a story, and it turns out to be a fictional story usually. They say, "Oh, this is going to do these things." The product comes and is delivered, and it falls flat on its face because the marketing doesn't match the product because they weren't both created at the beginning together, right? There are whats when you create a product, but there's a lot more whys, and the whys help inform the whats, and the whys also inform the marketing.

   19. LFLex Fridman52:27

       So, at the, at the... That's what you mean deeply at, we should start at the beginning, so it... the designer should be also the marketer, the engineer should be the marketer.

   20. TFTony Fadell52:38

       Exactly. Stop impressing the geek next to you, what is the superpower you're bringing, or the pain you're killing for the, your, your, the end customer, right? Now, let's get... let's contrast that. Think about a movie. A movie starts with a treatment. It has an audience. This has the audience, here's the characters, here's the storyline, the plot, here's the, here's the, here's the arc of the story, right? It pulls that all out. Then there's a script that's cr-... written, and that script is then produced, and then you add all the flourishes and what have you, music and graphics, and what have you, right? And then it comes out, and then there's the marketing of the movie, and that story was created at the beginning. What you need to do, if you're gonna do a great product, is create that treatment for your product, and I call that the press release. Do the press release, like the treatment, who's the audience? What, what features do you have? What pains are you solving for peop-... Have the virus of doubt there to remind them what pains they have and why you're solving them, the price, all of those things, and you use that as the bar, the measuring stick for what you do during development because what happens at... along the route, you know this, "Oh, we're not gonna be able to get that feature done on time. Throw that one overboard, we gotta hit the... we have to hit the date. Oh, we're not sure this product's right yet. Add another feature. Add another fea-... Feature creep."

   21. LFLex Fridman54:04

       Yeah.

   22. TFTony Fadell54:04

       Right? If you don't have that story you know you're gonna tell at the beginning, you don't have that bar, right? And then at the end, you don't know when you're done if you don't have that story. So, you can actually look at that p- press release, you might, you might mod... you know, you, you change it over time, um, that draft. But then when you're done, you know, the whats and the whys, you have all the thi... uh, the audience and everything, and then you can give that to marketing and say... Well, and marketing's been along the way, be- let's be clear, but then everybody's in sync, and that's when you can tell a cohesive non-fictional story about... and the product delivers on that story or hopefully over-delivers on that story.

   23. LFLex Fridman54:42

       So, in the drafting from the beginning to the end of the press release, what does a successful team look like? Who is part of the draft? Is it engineers, designers? What, what, what's the purpose of a marketing department in a company, small, let's say small company, but more than two people?

   24. TFTony Fadell55:02

       Okay.

   25. LFLex Fridman55:02

       So-... uh, from where does the why come from? Should it always come from the designer or should there be a marketing person that, yeah-

   26. TFTony Fadell55:11

       Okay.

   27. LFLex Fridman55:11

       ... steps in and asks the question?

   28. TFTony Fadell55:13

       Okay.

   29. LFLex Fridman55:13

       So I'll just keep asking random questions, so.

   30. TFTony Fadell55:16

       (laughs) No, these are great questions.
8. 59:27 – 1:09:07

   PR and Comms

   1. LFLex Fridman59:27

      why, or do the comms and PR folks sometimes kill the heart and soul of, of, uh, uh, of the magic that makes a company? Or is that, is that wrong to say?

   2. TFTony Fadell59:44

      Uh, give me an example.

   3. LFLex Fridman59:46

      I will say the spirit of the example which is, um, it feels like often the jobs of communications is to provide caution.

   4. TFTony Fadell59:57

      Mm-hmm.

   5. LFLex Fridman59:58

      It almost, it almost works together with legal to say-

   6. TFTony Fadell1:00:01

      A shield.

   7. LFLex Fridman1:00:02

      Yeah, "We should, probably should not say this."

   8. TFTony Fadell1:00:05

      Mm-hmm.

   9. LFLex Fridman1:00:05

      "We're prob- let's be careful, let's be careful." Now, that makes sense except in this modern world, um, authenticity-

   10. TFTony Fadell1:00:17

       Mm-hmm.

   11. LFLex Fridman1:00:18

       ... uh, is extremely valuable and revealing the beauty that is in the engineering, the beauty of the, the ideas, the chaos of the ideas I think requires throwing caution to the wind to some degree.

   12. TFTony Fadell1:00:34

       I agree.

   13. LFLex Fridman1:00:35

       And I just find that, boy, I mean, it's a really, so to, to push back on myself, I think it's an extremely difficult job because people hold you responsible if you're doing communications when, (laughs) when you take risks.

   14. TFTony Fadell1:00:51

       Right.

   15. LFLex Fridman1:00:52

       Um, uh, and especially when they fail, so, like, the, it's, it's a difficult job, so I understand why people become cautious, but to me, communications is about taking big risks and throwing caution to the wind at its best-

   16. TFTony Fadell1:01:06

       Me too.

   17. LFLex Fridman1:01:06

       ... because your job is to communicate...... in the long term, communicate the genius, the- the joy, the- (laughs) the- the genius of the product.

   18. TFTony Fadell1:01:19

       Right.

   19. LFLex Fridman1:01:19

       So, and that-

   20. TFTony Fadell1:01:20

       Right.

   21. LFLex Fridman1:01:20

       ... sometimes is a tension with caution. Sorry. So I- I, uh, because I've gotten a chance to meet a lot of very interesting people and-

   22. TFTony Fadell1:01:28

       Right.

   23. LFLex Fridman1:01:29

       ... interesting engineering teams and so on, I look at what they're doing and I look at what's being communicated, and it's just there's a mismatch because the communication is a lot more boring. It's like there's something very, like, just straight up boring about the way they're communicating because of caution.

   24. TFTony Fadell1:01:49

       Okay.

   25. LFLex Fridman1:01:50

       And you think-

   26. TFTony Fadell1:01:51

       You have just teed me up for another diatribe.

   27. LFLex Fridman1:01:54

       (laughs) .

   28. TFTony Fadell1:01:54

       Okay? I'm gonna get on my, I'm gonna get on my podium here.

   29. LFLex Fridman1:01:58

       Yes, please.

   30. TFTony Fadell1:01:59

       Uh...
9. 1:09:07 – 1:14:04

   Design

   1. LFLex Fridman1:09:07

      thing, what can you say about what it takes to do a great design, or maybe what makes a great design?

   2. TFTony Fadell1:09:20

      Well, we talked about, you know, a painkiller, and we talked about the- we talked about that, you know, joy that comes from it. But then there's the behind the scenes, there's the team. There's everyone who brings it to life, brings that story to life. If you have a great story and you know the why, then you can communicate it to those people who are working on it, and then they bring their own thing into it, right? It becomes emotional for them too. It's not just a job, it's a mission. And so many of the details that c- are born out of these early prototypes, these things that you still haven't given full form to. They're maybe 80% done or maybe even 60% done, but you can see enough in there. Then you take those great ideas and you give the whys to the team and so that they feel it, they can understand it. Then they bring their best and their ideas to the table, and then you can select from those and you can then start to, um, you know... It- it could be just a pixel change, it could be a slight change on how you do the audio for the feedback, or maybe a curve on the mechanics or something like that, of how it feels, because everybody brings themselves trying to f- you know, feel this thing. They're not just doing something that someone told them to do. If you can instill that mission and that why into that team, it doesn't have to be big, you get, I feel, a 10x. Everyone comes together in a special way and, um, and the magic is created. You put the love into it, the customer feels the love on the other side.

   3. LFLex Fridman1:11:02

      So the (laughs) making the team, like taking 'em in, onto the vision, onto the why-

   4. TFTony Fadell1:11:12

      Ownership.

   5. LFLex Fridman1:11:12

      ... now they feel the... All the little details we think of, uh, the original, uh, iPod and all the many generations after, all those little details are in them as the emotion of the engineers and the designers. That-

   6. TFTony Fadell1:11:29

      It's their baby. It's like a-

   7. LFLex Fridman1:11:31

      Working nights, struggling, this isn't right. Like you said, changing little pixels here and there. Changing- changing the shape of things-

   8. TFTony Fadell1:11:39

      Mm-hmm.

   9. LFLex Fridman1:11:40

      ... changing the feel of things, like, uh, the materials, the... I don't know, just everything on the software part of the packaging.

   10. TFTony Fadell1:11:49

       Packaging. The- the words on the packaging.

   11. LFLex Fridman1:11:51

       Just everything, yeah.

   12. TFTony Fadell1:11:52

       The words on the website.

   13. LFLex Fridman1:11:53

       And always jumping from the very specific detail problem to the big picture, how the thing feels, the overall feel, yeah.

   14. TFTony Fadell1:12:00

       Always jumping back and forth. What does it look like to the customer? How are we gonna implement it in the most, um, you know, efficient way? 'Cause, you know, a lot of the stuff you don't s- know is some of that stuff is hacked in, maybe hacked in at the end. It might- it- it- it may or may not be the most beautiful architecture that a geek would look at and go, "Oh my God, that's so beautiful." 'Cause we can look at and visualize this incredible software stack or hardware stack. Some of it could just be hacked in. You make it better over time, but it was that brilliant thing and we gotta get that in because that's the way you do it now, and we'll make it more efficient later.

   15. LFLex Fridman1:12:35

       Maybe this is a good moment to- to draw a distinction between design and engineering, and does such a distinction even exist? Are- are these distinct disciplines or no?

   16. TFTony Fadell1:12:46

       I don't think they're dis- distinct. I think they're different types of design. I think there's... You know, there's always this, you know, this idea of this, ooh, on the mount designer, and it all comes down and it all flows down like some magic.

   17. LFLex Fridman1:13:01

       (laughs)

   18. TFTony Fadell1:13:01

       It's not... There are electrical designer, there's AI designers, there is data scientist designers. Everybody has design. And there's a chapter in the book all about that actually. That it's not just...... you go to the mount and it comes down, and you're enlightened.

   19. LFLex Fridman1:13:17

       Mm-hmm.

   20. TFTony Fadell1:13:17

       It's each person brings their f- their form of design and their craft 'cause what, if they're really good, they're artists in their own right. They're not just engineers, they're not just design, they're artists. They're empathetic. They really wanna bring their best. A lot of the best engineers I have are not the technical, or that I've worked with, are not the technical, gotta get it exactly right. They're the artists. They came from music or they came from other things, and they s- they see that, right? When you work with very rigid engineers, "This is the way, the only way," la la la, those are not the engineers I wanna work with.

   21. LFLex Fridman1:13:52

       They're all, like, a bit artists at heart.

   22. TFTony Fadell1:13:54

       Right. They, they, they understand the practical practicalness.

   23. LFLex Fridman1:13:59

       Mm-hmm.

   24. TFTony Fadell1:13:59

       They, they don't have to have the rigidity of, "This is the way it's done." You know, like,

10. 1:14:04 – 1:20:06

    Experts

    1. TFTony Fadell1:14:04

       mm-mm. Where if you're building something new, all new and revolutionary, none of us are experts at it. And if you come with that expert mindset, just tell me, and I can give you a story. I should probably give you that story, um-

    2. LFLex Fridman1:14:17

       (laughs)

    3. TFTony Fadell1:14:18

       ... about that if you come with the expert and I'm the expert, when you're doing something no one's ever done before, I don't want you on the team.

    4. LFLex Fridman1:14:25

       Hmm.

    5. TFTony Fadell1:14:25

       Because we all are learning about something that has never been in existence before, and we have to bring that level of vulnerability and openness to new ideas and new ways of doing things throughout the team.

    6. LFLex Fridman1:14:39

       So, you want people that are able to have, like, beginner's mind or whatever, like-

    7. TFTony Fadell1:14:44

       Beginner's mind.

    8. LFLex Fridman1:14:44

       ... don't, don't come in as an expert. What's the story?

    9. TFTony Fadell1:14:47

       Okay, here's a story.

    10. LFLex Fridman1:14:47

        You're not allowed the... Okay, all right.

    11. TFTony Fadell1:14:48

        No, I, I can tell it, for sure.

    12. LFLex Fridman1:14:49

        All right.

    13. TFTony Fadell1:14:51

        So, (laughs) so, you know, you asked what were these risks, you know, like on the early iPod, and there's o- there was, there was a few big risks. Like, one, and this, this doesn't go in the story, but, like, putting rotating media in your pocket and it could drop at any time-

    14. LFLex Fridman1:15:05

        Mm-hmm.

    15. TFTony Fadell1:15:06

        ... what happens there? And, like, you can damage, 'cause the heads and the hard drive media are so close, it smacks, the... It's dead, right?

    16. LFLex Fridman1:15:13

        Yeah.

    17. TFTony Fadell1:15:13

        So, that was one big one, like, is, holy shit, right?

    18. LFLex Fridman1:15:16

        (laughs)

    19. TFTony Fadell1:15:16

        So that was something we, and we had to design special tests and everything and special software on that. But then there was another one which was, at the early days, the way the first generations of iPods, I had to hack the, I had to hack the IDE interface to the hard drives.

    20. LFLex Fridman1:15:32

        Mm-hmm.

    21. TFTony Fadell1:15:33

        So I was like, "Okay, what we're gonna use is we're gonna use this chip for hard drive, um, um, hard drive..." To make a hard drive, you had to have a chip that did FireWire to a hard drive.

    22. LFLex Fridman1:15:43

        Mm-hmm.

    23. TFTony Fadell1:15:43

        Okay? And then that would become a portable hard drive. Well, then there... We had a, a, uh, um, we had the MP3 player and, and the user interface and everything. So, there was times when it was just this hard drive, and there was times when it was a MP3 player, and I had to hot switch between-

    24. LFLex Fridman1:16:00

        (laughs)

    25. TFTony Fadell1:16:00

        ... wi- w- what the hard drive thinks it was talking to.

    26. LFLex Fridman1:16:03

        Yeah.

    27. TFTony Fadell1:16:03

        Right? So, designed this thing, tore it apart, da-da, all this stuff, and I was like, "You know, maybe I'm gonna screw up IDE. I'm, there's something, there's some holes I'm gonna see."

    28. LFLex Fridman1:16:12

        Mm-hmm.

    29. TFTony Fadell1:16:13

        So, I go, "Who's the expert at Apple who understands IDE and everything?" So, this person comes over, the mass storage specialist comes over, and I put on the whiteboard and said, "Here's how we're gonna do this thing, and here's the commands, and da da, and this is how it hot switches and everything." He's like, "That's never gonna work."

    30. LFLex Fridman1:16:30

        Yeah.

Episode duration: 2:46:25