I appreciated this:<p>"Even when you look at software, the best designers like Bill Atkinson, Andy Hertzfeld, Steve Capps, were called software designers, not software engineers because they were designing in software. It wasn’t just that their code worked. It had to be beautiful code. People would go in and admire it. It’s like a writer. People would look at someone’s style. They would look at their code writing style and they were considered just beautiful geniuses at the way they wrote code or the way they designed hardware."<p>Nice to see a non-technologist with such an appreciation for outstanding code.
Link to the shorter version, if anyone is interested:
<a href="http://www.cultofmac.com/john-sculley-the-secrets-of-steve-jobs-success-exclusive-interview/21572" rel="nofollow">http://www.cultofmac.com/john-sculley-the-secrets-of-steve-j...</a><p>HN discussion of shorter version: <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1790566" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1790566</a>
> It’s hard to conceive how he was able to accomplish so much with so little in those days. So for someone to build consumer products in the 1980s beyond what we did with the first Mac was literally impossible.<p>Hmm. I guess that Amiga 1000 we bought in 1985 ran on magic until the 90s.
Apple's design is well known and impressive, but even more impressive IMO is their ability deliver it with such incredible operational efficiency. My favorite insight from this article was that Sony was the production role model for Steve.