From choosing a sofa to designing the motherboard for the first Mac, Steve Jobs It showed that for him each decision was crucial, because he believed that they were talking about you and were part of a whole. His obsession with detail reached extraordinary levels, making perfectionism a recognized characteristic of his personality.
As he recalls a report from ApplesferaFor Jobs, even choosing the shade of gray for the restroom signs at Apple retail stores was a task that required time and painstaking attention. While for most directors this decision would take just a few minutes, Jobs took more than thirty minutes, reveals biographer Walter Isaacson.
The journalist Kara Swisher observed that, in many of the interviews with Steve Jobs, he always appeared standing or leaning on tables. This peculiarity was not a whim, but a consequence of reality in his home: they didn’t have a single sofasomething that affected him as an adult when choosing one for his home.
Jobs’ problems choosing a sofa
Laurene Powell, Jobs’s widow, recalls the battle they lived through for years to choose a sofa or chairs: “People made fun of us because in our house we couldn’t agree on choosing a sofa or chairs. For many, many years we had neither, mainly because there were so many details we had to agree on. And we finally did it but i think it took about eight years”.
These obsessions with details manifested themselves in notable anecdotes, such as the occasion when, in the middle of a job interview, Jobs mentioned that “the piano in the living room needs to be moved”.
Thirty years after that anecdote, Steve Jobs would repeat his perfectionist approach while developing the board for the first Mac. He told the engineer in charge: “I want it to be as beautiful as possible, even if it’s inside the box”. The designer replied that the only important thing was that it work, since no one would look at a PC board.
Jobs, remembering the teachings of his adoptive father, stated: “A great carpenter will not use lousy wood for the back of a cabinet, even if no one sees it.”.
