Father of the iPod and iPhone on building taste, judgment, and creativity in the AI era | Tony Fadell

You still need humans in the loop. Don't surrender to the machine. We can use the machines, but don't cognitively surrender. Because it's so easy to build, the things that stand out are the things that are really well thought through. Today in the AI world, I can just make a prompt and all of a sudden it gets spit out. You're building on a really crusty foundation. You're getting short term gain for very, very long term laws. If you're gonna build a real company, can't be throwaway. When your colleague Herman Hauser that ask him how he decides what is worth building. I always start from pain. Are there new technologies to solve that pain. Bring innovation in, revolution in, and redefine the space. What's the threshold? What's a sign of K this isn't big enough. So the iPod wasn't big enough. It took three generations the iPod before it became successful. You gotta fail a few times till you find your way. You are so into marketing, that piece of building that I think a lot of builders don't think about at all. The technology is in service of the customer. Not we're gonna jam the technology down the customer's throat. A customer only sees what they see through the lens of marketing. You often come back to the value of storytelling for product builders. Too many times when we're technology led, we talk about the what. We don't talk about the why. The why is storytelling. When I watched Steve, he was honing the story of the iPhone every day. And so when you saw him come on stage, it was just

Cause he had done it a hundred thousand times. Today my guest is Tony Fidel. Tony doesn't know this. But ever since I started this podcast, he's been near the top of my wish list of people that I've dreamed to have on this podcast. And that's because Tony is the epitome of what most people listening to this podcast want to become.

He ko created some of the most innovative and beautiful and popular product in history. The iPod, the iPhone, the NES thermostat. He's also famous for being part of the legendary team at General Magic. He's co-authored over 300 patents. He also wrote one of the most important and valuable and inspiring books for builders called Build. Tony is currently an active investor and advisor to deep tech startups with his team at the Build Collective. He was recently named the inaugural designer in residence at the MIT Morning Academy of Design.

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