Apple's late CEO Steve Jobs is known for transforming the world by designing revolutionary technology.

His speeches and interviews are full of lessons for people going through the creative process and its’ challenges

A lost 1995 interview was aired in 2012, in which he was asked:

What is important to you in the development of a product?

After taking about 13 seconds to reflect, Jobs said that he has observed many creatives get the “Great Idea Disease” 😷.

They think that a great idea is 90% of the product. They will tell their team about it, and they will make it happen.

The problem with the great idea disease is that it ignores the reality that the journey from an idea to a product takes tremendous craftsmanship and iteration.

So the best way to know if an idea is good is to execute it and let it transform through the process. You will have to make a lot of tradeoffs based on limitations with knowledge, technology, materials, labour, etc.

But, through this process, the idea of the product will evolve along with the 5000 things you want your design to do. You will discover new problems and opportunities and make hundreds of versions of the same idea to get to one product that looks nothing like your idea but gives you the product you need.

The process is magic 🪄