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Tony, welcome to Giant Ideas.
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We're going to talk much more about the lessons you learned working with Steve Jobs and also the lessons you've learned about careers more broadly, starting with what you learned working with Steve Jobs, who is this kind of godlike figure.
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And so, just to maybe demystify Steve Jobs a little bit, [snorts] what was he, if you distill it down, what was he truly truly unbelievably good at?
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And then also, what was he less good at?
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What I learned was he really understood the power of no.
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Saying no a lot means when you say yes, it's really meaningful. So that was a big thing.
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So editing and really not trying to do everything but doing a few things really really right and being dogged about that. >> Okay.
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>> Okay. Um I think customer journey was another thing was really smart about he he would try to anticipate the issues not just in the product but before a person would purchase the product um how they would consider it after they would
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after they purchased it what would they have to what's the interaction with the company I think the other one was and it was listening and anticipating questions and concerns about the products either just before or just after launch to then get right back at it and and revise it. So
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So within hours after the first iPod shipped and we had shown it to the press and I not shipped, excuse me, launched.
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We hadn't shipped we shipped it, you know, another week later, press got their hands on it and he heard all kinds of questions. What is it? And he was already back.
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He said, "Tony convened us and said, okay."
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>> He already started going, "I need you guys to fix these things in the next generation iPod, which we were already working on.
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We hadn't sh well sort of.
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We hadn't shipped even the one we were working on, the first one, but he's like, we got to get these right."
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So, he was already tuned in to go, >> okay, let's work on the next thing.
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So, I think those were the things that I I really learned.
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And I I saw that you took a lot of that sort of obsession with listening to customers through to Nest where you were kind of obsessive about the customer reviews and the customer support pages and >> I think we took it to a different level even further than Apple did.
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Um because I believe marketing while there is creative and don't get me wrong there's creative just like there's creative in product.
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There's a lot of engineering in marketing >> and if you engineer it properly >> Yeah.
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um you can get and and and that means with metrics and everything else, you can do incredible things in marketing and customer experience and customer journey.
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And so we took an engineering mindset for all the things and made sure the creative wasn't driven by engineering for sure, but we made sure that we we gave it metrics and things and tracked it to make sure we knew how we could get better so that um so we could really accelerate the business.
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What was Steve less good at?
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>> Steve had a real hard time giving people credit. >> Okay. So, that was one thing.
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So, you know, um, and something that I made sure to avoid because I was a I was a I suffered from that and our team suffered from that and many people around Apple suffered from that. Okay.
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And so you have to understand that the best you get the best work out of people is when even if it's your idea and many things weren't Steve Steve's idea, but when when um it's it's a person on the team or a set of people, reward them and and even if it's your idea, tell them that it's their idea.
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like great, make it better and go and make it better.
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Come back to me with other ways so that you get everybody really wanting to work together to um to make a better whatever it is you're doing.
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>> We've had some elite athletes on the show and they talk a lot about a kind of the the the way that the great New Zealand All Black Rugby team put it is no [ __ ] You have a no [ __ ] policy. >> Yeah, sure. Right.
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>> No [ __ ] >> No [ __ ] You you've written about there's two types of [ __ ] Uh there's a few types but yeah I wrote about two specific types but yes in my book build I have a chapter called [ __ ] and you know there's [ __ ] [ __ ] who are just you they're not
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they're they have no value and then there are ego-driven [ __ ] [clears throat] and missiondriven [ __ ] and people just like whenever somebody's difficult to work with they call them blanket [ __ ] but you really have to understand their motivations. Mhm. [clears throat] And so Mhm.
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[clears throat] And so an ego-driven one is one about themselves.
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They put other people's down.
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They have to take credit.
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They have to whatever the case may be.
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They It's all about them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them them.
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And they'll put you through the ringer on details and everything because they know best.
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Then there's missiondriven ones who are like, I'm doing the best thing I can for the customer and we're all going to do it and I'm going to hold you accountable to the things that we have to deliver to the customer and I am going to be an [ __ ] about it. Okay.
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But it's for the right purpose. >> Yeah.
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>> And so you have to really know the difference.
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Now if a missiondriven [ __ ] is still criticizing you and saying you suck as opposed to, you know, this work could be better. >> Yeah.
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>> That is still an ego-driven [ __ ] like you still have to understand that you know uh or they just say this is the only way and they don't explain why we're going to choose a decision this way or what have you then to me that's still they're tending more to the ego one and they're not being missiondriven enough and bringing the team along.
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So you have to understand those those two specific ones.
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>> Let's give some advice to to listeners and watchers on their own careers.
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So you've written about career in in very compelling ways.
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There's so many lessons that we're going to try and get through in about 10 minutes. [snorts] >> Okay.
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a couple together is I would describe as sort of a hustle and b this idea of chasing heroes.
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So just tell us a story about how you hustled your way into general magic which this group of exapp people and how you found out about them and how you hustled your way into that. >> Sure.
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I Well, I hustled I was a hustler already to begin with.
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I already had a um um I already had a couple of startups before then.
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I was doing whatever it takes.
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Just you had to hustle because there was no internet.
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Back in the 80s, there was no internet.
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So, you had to read magazines.
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You had to send letters, right?
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You'd pick up the phone and call people and hope somebody's on the other line.
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So, you had to work really hard to get the information you need to try to pull yourself up because I was just a kid. Yeah. Right.
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And who's going to talk to a kid?
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Like, I had to write letters and Right.
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And so, so, so I had to hustle the whole time.
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And so when General Magic, so I was reading all these magazines and I had always been tracking my heroes which were like when I read about them, they were in Rolling Stone magazine, Steven Levy's very very famous article about the Macintosh. Okay.
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And it went pulled the cover behind the scenes and said, "These are the rock stars.
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These are the ones in the band."
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And Steve was in there obviously, but then here and then I was like, "Those they I want to be like them."
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And so I would track them and read all the gossip columns and all the other stuff because there again there was no internet, there was no social media.
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So I'm just like and so when I heard that this there was a company called General Magic, I was like I got to go there.
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I don't know what they were doing.
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They were super secret whatever.
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But I just knocked down that knocked on their door and I I was relentless for six, seven months to get in there and I was like look look here's my experience. Here's this whatever.
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And I took and and after six months they finally gave me a job.
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like we don't this kid [laughter] whoever he is he's got passion we got to give him that and I had enough experience cuz I had made chips and I had made software and all kinds of other stuff they're like okay we gave him a try.
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>> Do you think people should sort of chase specific heroes or or role models in their early career more than they do you know companies or brands?
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Well, look, companies are only built by the people behind them, right?
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And there are people there are certain people you're going to hear a lot in the press about.
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The what was interesting to me is you got to see the people behind the figureheads and those are the ones that to me cuz I know not everyone could do everything.
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It's like, oh, those are the people.
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So maybe I'm not Steve Jobs quality, but I definitely could like probably convince one of these people who are more like me than like him to, you know, that I could work and give bring value to them.
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And so I think it's it's important to find out the people behind the people. >> Yeah.
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>> Because um because that's not one person can do everything.
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A lot of people do a lot of things >> and people early in their career.
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Am I right in thinking that you're a big believer in in basically the priority is just to learn early over, you know, the title, the money, the prestige?
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>> You you should be learning all the time.
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There's no such thing as not learning.
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You don't stop learning, especially now in the world's moving faster than ever when it comes to technology.
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You have to learn every day.
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I'm I'm devouring and I still can't even keep up on all the things going on in the in the in the technology world.
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But yeah, you you you need to go in and say, you know, I don't know if that's the case now, but back in the day it was like, I got my, you know, Cambridge degree and I got my Stanford or my, you know, Harvard degree and so I am so and so.
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>> It's like, no, you just got a degree.
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A lot of other people got a degree.
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Sure, you made it in there and you got you got, you know, got some lucky roll of the dice, all those kinds of things.
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And you got to keep learning.
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You got to keep being passionate.
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You got to keep saying, I can provide value, not and I want to learn. >> Yeah.
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>> I want to learn what I don't know so that you you can be humble.
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And that's the thing that's really important.
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And even when you're even if you're you top in your field, you should always still try to stay humble and you try to say, "Okay, there's a lot of things you don't know." Yeah.
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And a lot of things you can learn.
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And people rather work with people like that than somebody who's a know-it-all. Yeah.
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You know, >> the best example we had of that on the show was Nick Kle talking about arriving in Silicon Valley, getting this job at Meta.
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And you know, he' been like the deputy prime minister of this country, run the country in a coalition, and he was just like they could not care less.
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[laughter] >> Could care less.
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>> Could care less. you got country taken out by the knees like you dude you don't nothing's going to nothing's going to impress us here you know and you're going to find that with your kids you know when they get older they be like my
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kids keep me very well aggressive >> the Nick example is another example though of of sort of you know I think the way I've heard you talk about it is like be careful of when you become an expert and plateauing and learning when it's time to kind of move on and challenge yourself again. >> Yeah, for sure. I I remember here's a >> Yeah, for sure.
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I I remember here's a perfect a perfect perfect story.
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So iPod, we're working day and night iPod and this is about six weeks before the iPod's going to ship.
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And so I designed something really funky on how to use the hard drive and and kind of connect it and all these different things.
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And so I was using it in a little quasi weird way, but it worked.
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And so I just like [ __ ] I don't know, maybe I've screwed up something.
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So, I'm going to ask an expert from the hard drive team and the interface team from Apple to come over.
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So, this was the expert, the person who knew a hard drive.
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And then, so I go on the whiteboard and I explain him, "This is what we're doing.
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We're going to build it like this and we're using these commands and this order."
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He's like, "Oh, that'll never work, right?"
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And I'm like, "Well, no, what do you mean?" I'm like, I explain.
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He's like, "It won't work."
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I'm like, "It's working right here on this desk.
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It's been working for days."
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And he just got up and stormed off. >> Yeah.
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And obviously we shipped it and it worked just fine and everything else, but when somebody says it and claims they're the expert just it's just like come on like out out of my way.
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Like I I just that's like ego-driven. >> A giant.
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We do due diligence calls with experts.
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People have been in this industry for like you know for decades, right?
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And by definition the experts who've been there for a really long time look at something which is kind of outlandish and trying to be the future and almost all the time they go will never work. >> Yeah. Right.
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And when you listen to them, cuz it's quite tempting to listen to them because they really know way more than we do about semiconductors or whatever it is.
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But then you >> but then they dig themselves into a hole and they're like that that's it's never going to change versus what that expert could have done when we were next to iPod which was >> it does work.
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Tell me how try did you and and then they can advance their knowledge as well.
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But no, when they just want to put their head in the sand like n going to work like okay yeah I I'm done with you moving on.
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You've had some amazing bosses and mentors.
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You work with I think Bill Campbell, the great coach of all the great Silicon Valley founders who by the way I think was very interested in rugby as well which is a great passion of our as a giant.
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Um am I right that just sort of reading about that a little bit that the kind of conclusion there was that some of the the best managers, the best leaders, the best mentors are not necessarily the nicest ones, right?
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There's a kind of division there and you just have to be real about that.
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that some people might be extremely good for you as a mentor or a leader or a manager even if they're not particularly nice or sort of, you know, warm and fuzzy.
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[snorts] >> No, no, no, no, no. You want realists. >> Yeah.
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>> You want realists, but realists who are again not saying that they're experts. >> Yeah.
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>> So, the great thing about Bill Campbell was [snorts] >> the guy didn't know technology at all.
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>> He didn't know anything about technology, how to build anything, design. He didn't know anything. What he knew was people.
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He knew people in and out.
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And so, and he was a mentor to Steve Jobs, to Larry, Larry and Sergey.
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He was mentor to uh I countless countless people in Silicon Valley. Okay.
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And these were people who like really understood technology. Yeah. Right.
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>> Or whatever it is they were experiencing.
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But he could walk into a room and in five minutes in like because he'd walk into a room and go, I want to just sit in one of your team meetings and within five minutes he could diagnose exactly what was going on there and and and the symptoms and probably the root causes and and so he would had such a human he was grounded so much in human nature. Yeah.
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>> That he could help you see clearly what was going on to help you make better strategic moves or what have you.
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And so usually the person who's the best mentor for a person, any person, is not somebody who's the technical expert who's going to tell you your job and how to do that better.
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No, it's going to tell you about your team, about your relationships with your part, your partners, you know, in the or your competitors or whatever to to give you a overview of what the real dynamics are happening.
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If you have a mentor who's going to tell you how to get this done or that done technically, they don't know because they're not in it every day, you're you're the right person.
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Now, the other thing a mentor is really good at, and this is what I've always found myself at, is most people who are in these roles got there for a reason because they really kind of understand what they understand and make good decisions.
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What happens is is these leaders though they get to decisions that are well beyond their experience and they're going to take big bold risks.
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The mentor is there to say okay tell me about that you want to take that risk okay tell me about why and this and like asking lots of questions and then it's said okay so how are you going to solve that and you want to take the strategy okay typically all they need to do is validate the person and saying yeah I you sound like you're doing the right
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thing it seems like all right I would maybe caution you on this or this and pay attention to that but keep going you're on the right thing they just need validation because you're in such rare air as a leader >> and you're hanging your ass well out there going I'm going to take this huge ass risk is this going to be the right thing and everybody else around you is basically scared. You're the leader. That's what You're the leader.
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That's what it means to lead.
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You're leading that expedition up Everest for the first time that no one's ever done before. You don't have any data. You don't know anything.
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And you just have to have other people who've been in that kind of situation where they've hung their ass out and they've taken huge risks that the world's never seen before and go, "Yeah, you're thinking about it, right?"
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You know, right be and just keep going, right? Or modify a little bit.
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But that's what most of great great leaders need is they just need validation and a sounding board to so that they can go, okay, I'll take that next risk.
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>> That is basically what I see my job as now.
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I used to be a founder and now an investor is just being the kind of shoulder to cry on and a bit of validation for the loneliest job in the world which is founder CEO.
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>> Oh absolutely lonely CEO.
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It's being a founder CEO is absolutely the loneliest thing because even when your board gets scared, your venture investors get scared, everyone gets scared, you have to keep trudging on and it's oh my god.
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Yeah, that's also you asked me if I'd ever go back into it again.
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There's also another thing is I've been through that [laughter] enough times I'm like I'll help other people and support them through that journey.
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That's a lot of emotion and a lot of effort and you know been there done that many times.
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>> Don't [laughter] don't need that roller coaster ride again. >> I get that. That's fair. You've you've done it.
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Um let's end a little bit just by uh trying to give listeners I guess a feel of you the the person the man behind the ideas.
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We're sitting here in King's Cross near the Euro Star.
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You you moved to Europe to Paris.
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Um, [snorts] give us a flavor of you and and tell us if you can. We ask our guests this.
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If you had to kind of define your life and the wisdom you've acred along the way in three photographs of three snapshots. >> Three snapshots. >> Yeah.
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Ideally real but could be imaginary.
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What were those kind of three photographs that would define Tony Fidel? >> Three photographs. >> Yeah.
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I think it's one photograph is just a question mark. >> Okay.
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>> Which is always being curious and being questioning. >> Yeah.
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>> Yeah. and always asking and asking like I think I drive people nuts because I'm like a three-year-old you know this why dad why why you know oh that's cool why why I keep doing that and I think that would be one
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of the biggest one is stay curious stay absolutely curious just ask questions stay beginner like >> just always be open to that kind of stuff so I think that would be one I think the other one would be you know a photo would be uh standing on the ground. Don't ever lose touch with
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Don't ever lose touch with reality.
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Don't ever lose touch with the ground.
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>> That means don't lose yourself. >> Yeah.
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>> Don't lose your relationship to the rest of the world.
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Don't lo lose your relationship to your customer or your friends or whatever. Stay grounded.
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I think that was that's another thing. >> Has that been hard?
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I mean, you literally invented the iPod and the iPhone.
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Has it been hard at times not to kind of believe your own hype? >> Okay.
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So, at General Magic, and it's clear in the movie, I started to believe our hype and I crashed really, really hard and had a huge, >> huge episode when I was 25 and I basically had my >> 24 25 midlife crisis at that age because I started to believe the hype because everybody said we're going to best Microsoft.
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We were making this thing that the world never seemed everyone's going to need it.
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And that and then I set then that crashed me and I stayed grounded because I had Phillips after that which was was a critical success but a business failure for multiple reasons.
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Then there was my startup blah blah blah.
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So I had learned how to become tempered >> okay >> along the way.
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And so that was that that was it.
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But I think everybody has to go through that that um that that experience >> um to remind themselves that they're human and everything else.
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I I hope >> you know I hope it doesn't happen to all these AI companies, but it looks like somebody's detached from reality. >> Yeah.
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What what goes up must eventually come down.
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Uh what [snorts] would be your final snapshot? >> Lots of faces. Takes a team. >> Yeah. >> Lots of great people.
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really smart people, good people, well-intentioned people, well-meaning people, hardworking people who are passionate.
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Um because as a leader, that's what you want.
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You need somebody, you need people to really realize your vision.
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And so for me, and that and your vision, but also outside of it to help you with your life outside and you help them with your life.
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It's just it's about people.
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And um and that's the most rewarding thing because now at General Magic I saw babies being born at General Magic and then they came and interned with me at Nest and now they have their own startups doing and then now they have their own families. Yeah.
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And so if you look and you know being in Silicon Valley 26 years and being related to the valley almost Jesus almost going on over 35 years you know you watch this arc of people and careers and families and groups of friends and people competing and this and they're all to me that is the magic and that tapestry we weave >> and um and that really really helps to know what what it is we are on this planet to do You know, Tony, it's funny.
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All these amazing lessons from Apple and Steve Jobs and all this and actually the thing I think I'll take away from this more than anything is the thing he didn't do of giving credit to other people and and I think actually in my experience that is that makes people miserable makes leaders miserable when
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they kind of so desperate to take the credit and it's one of the most joyous things in the world with your team and your co-founders or your you know whoever to be like no no no it was she did that or he did that and that that actually brings way more joy in the long term doesn't it? Thank you so much for
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Thank you so much for for coming along and sharing your giant ideas.
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Really really appreciate it. >> Thanks Tommy. This is great.
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>> If you like this episode, don't forget to like and subscribe.
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There are plenty more episodes wherever you get your podcasts, including the episode with Nick Kle, which we talked a lot about with Tony.