Chesky had walked up to one of the designers he’d most revered to tell him about this new business idea, only to have him immediately dismiss it as ridiculous (“I hope that’s not the only idea you’re working on” were his words).


“The third worry of the pointy-haired boss, the difficulty of hiring programmers, I think is a red herring. How many hackers do you need to hire, after all? Surely by now we all know that software is best developed by teams of less than ten people. And you shouldn’t have trouble hiring hackers on that scale for any language anyone has ever heard of. If you can’t find ten Lisp hackers, then your company is probably based in the wrong city for developing software. In fact, choosing a more powerful language probably decreases the size of the team you need, because (a) if you use a more powerful language, you probably won’t need as many hackers, and (b) hackers who work in more advanced languages are likely to be smarter.”
― Hackers and Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age
― Hackers and Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age

“Over time, I came to the conclusion that designing an excellent user experience was as much about preventing negative experiences as facilitating positive ones.”
― Creative Selection: Inside Apple's Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs
― Creative Selection: Inside Apple's Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs

“Alan was slow to learn that indistinct line that separated initiative from disobedience.”
― The Innovators: How a Group of Inventors, Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution
― The Innovators: How a Group of Inventors, Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution

“Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it [a product] looks like. People think it’s this veneer—that the designers are handed this box and told, “Make it look good!” That’s not what we think design is. It’s not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”
― Creative Selection: Inside Apple's Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs
― Creative Selection: Inside Apple's Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs

“fundamentally, experience precedes technical knowledge. We”
― The Inner Game of Tennis: The Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance
― The Inner Game of Tennis: The Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance
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