The Good Is an Enemy to the Best

In 1997, Apple’s sales fell incredibly. In the same year, Apple decided to acquire NeXT and get Steve Jobs back to the company.
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Here’s an extract from Jobs’s interview after he came back: “We examined the future product roadmap … and what we found was that 30 percent of them were incredibly good. And about 70 percent of them were either pretty good, or things that we didn’t really need to be doing. And so, we’ve pared a lot of that back, so we could focus the same amount of original resource even more on what was remaining — and add a few new things in. So, the resources that we’re investing are equal or greater than we have been, but it’s on fewer things so we’re going to do a better job at them I think.”
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As we all know, the ability to focus on fewer brilliant points let Apple get out of the cradle and become the most expensive company of the world.
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If we do too much things, they would hardly be perfect. 70% of those things are just good and useful. Of course, you may keep doing this. But would you become the most expensive startup on the market, or the most valuable person of your niche?
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An old proverb goes that the best is the enemy to the good. It’s time to think it over and say “the good is an enemy to the best”.
⠀
Well, it’s time to analyze what you do and understand what good things you do — what prevents you from making the better things the best.
⠀
In 1997, Apple’s sales fell incredibly. In the same year, Apple decided to acquire NeXT and get Steve Jobs back to the company.
⠀
Here’s an extract from Jobs’s interview after he came back: “We examined the future product roadmap … and what we found was that 30 percent of them were incredibly good. And about 70 percent of them were either pretty good, or things that we didn’t really need to be doing. And so, we’ve pared a lot of that back, so we could focus the same amount of original resource even more on what was remaining — and add a few new things in. So, the resources that we’re investing are equal or greater than we have been, but it’s on fewer things so we’re going to do a better job at them I think.”
⠀
As we all know, the ability to focus on fewer brilliant points let Apple get out of the cradle and become the most expensive company of the world.
⠀
If we do too much things, they would hardly be perfect. 70% of those things are just good and useful. Of course, you may keep doing this. But would you become the most expensive startup on the market, or the most valuable person of your niche?
⠀
An old proverb goes that the best is the enemy to the good. It’s time to think it over and say “the good is an enemy to the best”.
⠀
Well, it’s time to analyze what you do and understand what good things you do — what prevents you from making the better things the best.