. His ultimate goal was to develop the technology required to rebuild Japan’s economy.


. He was obsessed with high quality products and marketing, and instead of looking to gain market share he decided to create markets for Sony’s products.


Morita fundamentally believed that the strength of a company was based on its 

. And that in a time of war, of famine, of sickness, it is those companies that are called upon to help serve fellow man.


Morita was driven to unite the total strength of his company towards the 

It is this mission driven approach and idea of a glorious death, that drove both Morita and Sony.

. He would always run his ideas through one or two people that he trusted for specific things. But he would not operate with a consensus driven form of leadership. The Japanese look to use consensus to make their decisions, but it takes a lot of time. And there are other considerations that often aren’t in the best interests of the customer.


 A big problem that many companies and people have is that their success brings a series of “yes men” into their camp. This makes them infallible over time and proud, and that represents the beginning of their downfall. Buffett created a solution to that by hiring Charlie Munger, who it a critical force that would keep him in check. Morita hired an art critic out of school to help with that, and over time he become the president of the company. When justifying the decision, he said that a ballet dancer needs a mirror to perfect her technique. So too does the leader of the company need a mirror.


 when it came to building Sony. He knew that Japan was a country that itself could not support the size of the business that he wanted to build. So he created products and sought to sell them in international markets. That’s why he went to New York, and he used those places to listen to what is on the street and make new products.

confident in himself and pretty arrogant.

 He needed that arrogance inorder to push the products that he had in his mind into the mainstream, even when the people in his own company thought they wouldn’t sell. His own company vetoed the Sony Walkman !


Business creation is at a 40 year low at the moment. Many people feel that they need so many things to get started. But I have always seen that it is

 best to err on the side of over confidence and over cockiness

 than under confidence and lack of self belief. You can please some of the people, some of the time but you can’t please everyone. Better to be criticised for being too confident than not being confident enough. We are sitting at a 40 year low in business creation; a 40 year low in self belief. We have a generation of kids who don’t believe in their ability to start generational companies. Be known as overly self confident and overly cocky and overcome self doubt. That’s how you make it.


, and Morita had confidence in himself even then. It was worse than a depression or a recession, his country had literally just been hit with an atomic bomb. Where there is a will, there is a way ! And supply chains then I guarantee were worse then supply chains now.

Morita wrote and documented things a lot. And that is why we have his story. We need more black people to do that. He knew his family tree back 300 years. How many of us know that ? Imagine how powerful and self confident we would be if we knew our history. Just think about that. Not the history that is taught to us, but our actual history !


. Of books, of trade magazines, and of immersing himself in what it is that he was doing. We call this the immersion thesis.


Morita studied the patterns of the transformational founders that came before them, because success leaves clues. And between 300 stories you get a pretty firm blueprint when you match that with my own intuition. It’s an intuition training exercise and a brilliant use of time !


Personally, he thought that Japanese products had a reputation for being crappy. He wanted to show the world that Japanese people can and do create the best products in the world.


After the war, nobody in Japan really had clothes. So 

 to bond workers together at Sony. Issey Miyake was commissioned to design the uniforms. Steve Jobs decided that he wanted the same kind of bonding at Apple, and so he did the same.

Sony knew that they wanted to make innovative products for themselves and sell them rather than simply being the manufacturer for someone else. Sony started out with radio and in shabby conditions. HP started in a garage. Sony started out in a bombed building that was so primitive that the general recommended they keep buckets of sand and water around in case of fire.

Sony responded to a government need post WW2. They had the tools to create the products.

 They did an incredible job with something small.

 Do an incredible job with that, and over time you will compound. Just maintain the container and the principles, and grow from there.


You must know and find your target customer. Sony started off by making a tape recorder. Morita had no experience in merchandising and salesmanship. Both he and Ibuka had originally thought that quality engineering was all that is needed. But that’s not enough to keep a business going. You have to 

 and show the potential buyer the real value of what you are selling. 

You have to be the merchandiser and sell the product !

Morita gained a lot of product insights by simply going out and observing people in the street.

 He wanted to see how they were acting. How they were dressing. What they were doing, how they operated. And then use that to inform his decisions.


Morita wanted to change the image of Japanese products as being poor quality. He wanted to change that narrative. He said that a Japanese company must export goods in order to survive. With no natural resources, Japan had no alternative, so they marketed abroad. To create high quality expensive products, you need an affluent market - which means a rich and sophisticated country.


Marketing really just means communicating. Morita decided to educate customers directly and set up his own outlets. 

Morita did not believe in market research

. He argued that the public does not know what they want, or what is possible.


In the beginning, competitors would take a cautious attitude before other companies would be convinced that the market would be a success. They made a lot of money having the market to themselves.

Sony set out a plan that 7% of their income would be reallocated to R&D

. They wanted to lead the public with new products rather than to ask the public what it wanted. No market research, they simply created the market by educating and communicating the public.


The accountants protested, but I persisted.

 It seems as though when Morita was looking to push the Walkman through, most of his team thought it was a bad idea. It took him having a level of arrogance to be able to to see his conviction through. He was so convicted about it, that he staked his reputation on the launch of that product. He said that if the Walkman failed, that he would resign from Sony.

The greatest gift to show people is that 

 And to do that you have to be a warrior. Having a clear mission makes it easier to ask what you need to do. My vision is to showcase the best of art and design, and to make the world feel like artists.


Sony decided that they would not produce radios under another name. 

That they wanted to own the relationship with the customer rather than operate behind the scenes. 

When they were told that they didn’t have the reputation yet, Morita said that in 50 years they would - and it is moments like this that will make that happen. That is why they did not manufacture for Bulova.


. He found honour in work itself. He was trained to be hard and disciplined. To wake up early in the morning and to sharpen the body and the mind in school, so that he would have the discipline to do what was necessary when he left. He stated that unless you have to use and stretch your mind, you will become mentally lazy - just as you will become physically lazy and unfit without bodily exercise.


who are enthusiastic. He said that it kept him young and inspired. This is the same thing that Francis Ford Coppola noticed too, which was to have that younger energy around. Likewise, I should have people who are 21, 22, 23 around me so that I too can feed off that energy to ascend to higher levels of greatness !


. It was focused on being functional and without frills. If Japanese people come into a startup’s office and it is too comfortable, then the management there often decides not to do business with them. This is because they are devoting too much thought, time and resources to the comfort of internal management and team - and not enough to product and marketing. This is what we saw with Elon too when it came to getting rid of staff lunches.


 Buffett argued that less than 1% of a company’s revenue should go towards its HQ. He stated that you have to be resourceful if you want to make these things work.


Morita thought that Japan created more engineers and less lawyers.

 And that that was a benefit to Japan and a detriment to the US. The UK produces more consultants than engineers too. So it’s the same problem.


Morita thought that the Japanese see their 

government as allies rather than adversaries. 

The UK and its media has decided to go to war against its government. But we can change those narratives.


Japan typically uses a more collective management structure, which 

Morita rejected in favour of the American style of leadership.

long term investment over short term profits

. It has less hierarchy, and it air conditions factories before offices. Japan focuses on the employment and the improvement of workers, and again believes that work is honourable in and of itself.


They believe that all things are a gift from the creator. We should be grateful for that gift and never waste anything. All things provided are only loaned to us to make use of. To waste something is to be regarded as a sin. It is shameful and a crime.


 What you learn in school only becomes useful when you add something to it and do it yourself. Velocity of innovation and invention is what helps a creative person thrive.

Spotlight and lessons from the cofounder of Sony, Akio Morita.

Akio Morita - Sony

His father was a tradesman who could build his own homes himself.



He had a sense of self reliance and resourcefulness, and inherited a love of hard physical work and the quality of fine tools from an early age.



Often in detention in high school. Said there is more in common with the juvenile delinquent and the company builder than most people would realise.



Learned at an early age that it was better to invent your own game, then you can always be the winner.



He became an entrepreneur at 19 because he didn’t think the quality of the products on the market were good enough.



Chouinard made creating "the best product” the cornerstone of Patagonia’s business philosophy.



Every company needs a North Star. Being the best company in the world. Being the most innovative or most influential. Putting a dent in the universe etc.



Does not believe in building undifferentiated commodity products and competing on price, promotion, advertising or distribution.



According to him, it’s better to design and sell products that are so good and so unique that they have no competition.



He had a philosophy, a point of view and a personality and he injected it into his company.



At first, he saw the business not as an ends in itself, but as a way to pay for his climbing. He started with equipment, but then made clothes in order to pay for the gear. And his clothing was inspired by his climbing. Says that the best clothing is functional. Ferrari is built for speed. It’s design is such that its form follows its function. There is something beautiful in that.



If you want to get in contact with someone, don’t just call or email 2 or 3 times. Do it 20 times. Space it out once a week ! And over the course of 6 months people are likely to get back to you. (Be reasonable in how you reach out of course) !



Yvon’s goal was to have no debt in his company, no investors, and to always have cash in the bank. A company with free cash flow will not need to have to look for investors. It is able to act fast and take advantage of different opportunities.



It is easier to be the best small company than the best big company. So he aimed at first to keep things small and high quality, and then scale up over time while maintaining that sense of quality. Rather than starting huge and trying to figure it out from 30,000 feet in the air.



You have to choose a mission for your company that is bigger than your company. It has to be a standard bearer for a value. For Patagonia, the mission is as big as the world.



Their mission statement says nothing about making a profit. Of course the company must be profitable to stay in business. But if you manage the top line of your company - your customers, products and strategy, then the bottom line will follow (profits).



On the flip, If you manage the bottom line, meaning finance first, then you will hit the wall because you will take your eyes off the prize (customers, products, strategy).



If you have a high quality product and control your costs your business will do well. A company that does not take quality seriously will maximise profits by cost cutting and increasing sales by creating artificial demand for goods. Quality, not price has the highest correlation with business success.



We want to build companies that last 100 years, but we don’t have 100 years to get there. A big lesson we have is to instigate change. A healthy environment is one that involves a commitment to change.


The more you know, the less you need. The mastery of product is to work towards simplification.



He is obsessed with simplicity and quality.



He used his own products when he was climbing mountains. If a tool failed, it would kill someone and since he was his own best customer - it could be him. Upped the ante and made sure that he made the best products in the category.



The more you know, the less you need. Keep your product lineup limited. Too much choice brings unhappiness. You have the time to make decisions. Part of the value you provide is to make the decision for your customer.



Whenever faced with a serious business decision the answer is always to increase the quality of the products.


He taught himself blacksmithing, and refers to himself as a blacksmith. His trade and his craft was blacksmithing and got into clothing in order to be profitable and make more equipment.



He’s very well read. At the time all climbing gear was European and the soft iron pitons were left in position. He had a philosophical difference to the European attitude towards mountain climbing. The American climbers instead were there to climb the mountain and visit the wilderness but leave no trace of having been there. The reason you do something affects every decision that comes after.



Learns a lot of lessons from nature and intentionally puts Patagonia through stress because you need stress to grow. He said it was like a wild species living on the edge of an ecosystem.



His guiding principle in design stemmed from a book called The Little Prince. In products, perfection is attained not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing more to take away. When a body has been stripped down to its nakedness.



Studying Zen taught him to simplify. To simplify yields a greater result. His tools stood out because they had the cleanest lines. When other designers would look to improve performance by adding on, he would take away by reducing material while increasing strength.



Chouinard gets tonnes of his lessons on running business by reading books that aren’t even about business. He reads books about insects and draws lessons to business.



People will always pay for quality. His product is 7x more expensive than the rest of the competition. But people had to have his gear if they wanted to do the state of the art climbs that he was doing. He was living his life going rock climbing, and just started out selling his products out of his trunk. He would support himself by selling his equipment from the back of his car.



High quality people want specialisation. It’s like there are no Michelin star buffet restaurants. By having a little bit of this and that, lots of stores end up developing into non-specialty stores. But in most cases the consumer has outgrown the capabilities of average stores. High quality people want specialisation.



People like Yvon argue that well designed and well marketed products and can and should command the same market share and margins as luxury automobiles.



People will always pay for first class products with high margins, so that the money can be spent to develop even better first class products.



Chinouard believes in a concept he label an MBA (Management By Absence). He would hire CEOs and they would each average 5 to 7 years, and he would go and travel and get inspiration and not run the company’s day to day operations. He would live his life and focus on product and marketing for the company. According to him, “asking for help is a superpower”.



The founder is the first customer ! Hire a CEO to do the finances so that you can focus daily on product development and marketing.



A company needs someone to go out and get the temperature of the world. Someone who can come back with new ideas for products, new markers and new materials.



Change does not happen without stress. It can happen quickly ! Just as doing risk sports will create stresses that will lead to a bettering of oneself, so too a company will create stress in order to grow.



The founder’s and management team’s role is to create stress even if there isn’t in order to guard against complacency and to grow. For Yvon, that meant keeping his team alert, hungry but not weak, and ready to hunt.



He made sure that he had a small circle of people close to him who had an understanding of product, so that he could make decisions based on good taste and personal experience as opposed to deep analytics.



He created a technology company by accident. He basically doesn’t use any technology for its own sake, but people within his company would build systems to help the company better deliver its services - and as a result Patagonia has a range of technology solutions.



He used his personal taste to release products, like a musician. If you take the conservative scientific route and test everything super analytically then you can end up taking so long that the competition will get there first.


Chouinard started out just rock climbing and living like a normal person. He wore rugby shirts to help him climb because he liked the material and the how rigid the shirts were. People around him kept asking where he got them from and saying that they wanted it. So he figured out how to make and sell them.



He believes in teaching everything you know. Go into deep detail about what you sell, and people who read it but what they sell. As a result, Patagonia became the first company to teach the outdoor community about layering and outdoor wear.



He also learned the philosophy of his company by teaching it. Instead of just reciting it, he would teach all of his early employees the Patagonia way, and they would then teach the rest.



If you teach your customers, sales will take care of themselves. Look at Ogilvy as an example.



Selling a philosophy and a way of living is equally important to selling a product.



Patagonia catalogues have printed field reports, essays about the outdoors. Documentaries and short films, educating and entertaining writers and friends.



Most people’s approach to creating awareness is aggressive. Advertising ranks last as credible source of information. If you teach, inform and inspire and do so relentlessly and the sales will follow.



When it comes down to it, he believes in non-fiction marketing. People crave authenticity, so Patagonia’s branding efforts are simple. They tell people who they are and show their world and their life. Writing fiction is harder than non fiction. Do dope things and share them.



Formulas actually destroy images. Authenticity is not formulaic. Without a formula, the only way to sustain an image is to live up to it.



Our image is a direct relation of who we are and what we believe.



If your brand is authentic, then your customers want to help you. Patagonia came up with this idea of collecting photos of their customers wearing the clothes doing real things rather than super stylised editorial shots, and it worked.


A man who is a master of the art of living has no distinction between his work and his play, his labour and leisure, his mind and body, education and recreation, he hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of success through whatever he is doing and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself, he always appears to be doing both.



If you want to die the richest man, then just stay sharp. Keep investing, keep saving, doing spend anything, don’t have a good time, don’t get to know yourself. Die as rich as you can. But you can’t take it to the grave with you, there’s no pocket on that last shirt.


Free game from the founder of Patagonia, Yvon Chouinard.

Yvon Chouinard - Patagonia

 He fulfilled every task he was given like as if it was his last, because he saw every activity as an embodiment of his way of life. That meant total commitment, intensity, and consistency in the small circle of things that he was interested in doing.


The central thread through Lucas’ work was maintaining a sense of control. He hated people telling him what to do, and so he would not allow that to happen. He achieved this through

, sot hat he could then spend on whatever he wanted in the long run. This is what separated him from Francis Ford Coppola. And if he wanted something that was actually better but he could not afford to purchase it, he would set about 

. He said that he knew how good he was, and that the success of his first movie American Graffiti came because it came entirely from his head. It was his concept and he had control over its execution.

invested in what he believed in the most, himself

. And he advocated that those around him do the same.


. Where he would be able to finance his pictures, make them his way, release them when he wants to release them, and express himself. That is hard to do in business. In the West, the only thing that speaks is money. You have to have the money in order to have the power to be free.

used the profits from Star Wars as collateral 

for a bank loan, while Fox would be tasked with the distribution of his company. This changed the tables for Fox, and it gave Lucas final cut. It ensured that the studio stopped meddling with production and changed merchandising rights. The result is that Lucas ended up taking

. As such, what Lucas really bought was his creative freedom.


 and the studio executives with their arbitrary and fear based control.


Lucas generated $100m in profits, and then proceeded to roll it back into the business. And what’s more, Lucas film makes 3x more on toys than it does on films. Win after win there.


Lucas liked to learn from older people in his and adjacent fields.

 People like Francis Ford Coppola, Wexler etc. Lucas did not like the film industry. He did not like the fact that people felt they had control of him and could tell him what to do. He was his own man.


 and around his colleague the the time. I’m interested in creating a mafia with the kids at the RCA, CSM and the like. I’ll branch out across divisions and recruit the best talent from the college to work together on projects. And I’ll create a tight knit core group of people all of whom want to be successful and have the talent to be successful.


Lucas shrugged off all of the rules that he was given in the courses that he undertook. 

He took it seriously like it was real work

, not a silly little assignment. Whenever he broke the rules, he made a great film. This is the approach with which one has to take any academic environment after undergraduate if they want to get results from it.


Lucas would learn about film from other film makers.

 He went to film school, but he also would study and analyse the great films every day. He would sometimes watch them 20 or 30 times. He would learn to understand how they were constructed, why they worked, and then he added those insights into his own films.


Lucas would ask a series of questions to 

learn about the business model of every industry.

 Whenever he would meet someone from the studio world, he would ask about the financial aspects of the business. How did the studio make money ? What was the percentage fee etc. He learned that the studio would take a 35% distribution fee on borrowed money, and went about cutting them out of the process and borrowing the money himself.


While he was creating his movies and his scripts, Lucas had total confidence in himself and was 

. He did not go to parties on the weekends. Instead, he locked himself in his studio and worked for at least 12 hours a day, seven days a week.


. He thought that there was a difference between good taste, which is about humanity, and opulence, which is about being overly ostentatious and showy and society minded without the hard graft of work.


. Lucas knew he was going to be a big deal. He made sure that everyone else knew this too.


 He was professional and preferred shutting himself in the top floor bedroom of his house, sketching ideas and drawing star troopers. 

Lucas was incensed at the democratic nature of film making.

 He was into making it a competition. He was in to knowing who could do something the first, and the best. He hated poor standards. 

 did not limit the use of his studio to just weekdays

 like everyone else. He broke into school to work on the weekends too, which is insane.


 during and after his studies. This included working with Francis Ford Coppola, Scott Hanson and more. He was incredibly professional, and had certain quirks. He had his uniform and his standard attire. He was on time and he was disciplined, and he was committed. And this extended beyond simple tasks.


 so that he could focus. He didn’t work in the common studio because it was too noisy. Instead, he lived in Mill Valley with his wife, and developed the core products and stories alone. He worked in his attic, needed no distractions while he worked, and had a complete focus and commitment to what he was making. All of his attention was on his art. If he went out, it was not just to hang out - it was for his art. These are often referred to as “the dark years” of an artist. That is what I am in now.


Francis Ford Coppola could sell ice to Eskimos. 

He’s a brilliant salesman and a storyteller. 

So Lucas partnered with him, since Lucas was less sociable. And that was what created such an impactful team early on. Eventually they disagreed over how to spend money, but until then it had been a profitable partnership.

who looked to control his films. Even if they made the smallest 4 minute scene edit. It was typically an unnecessary edit and so created great anger from Lucas. From there he decided he would find a way to finance the films himself.


He doesn’t borrow it. He is careful to control and be protective over the things that he makes.

 This is what ended up coming in between him and Francis Ford Coppola. Lucas was tight with a dollar, while Coppola would spend and spend and spend gleefully on exotic equipment and expensive invitations.

Lucas determined that now studio would ever force him to compromise his creative vision again. 

So he started a production company called “Never Mind, I’ll Do It Myself” Productions.

Lucas knew that he was not the best writer, so 

 Unfortunately, that writer was also not particularly good. So Lucas decided to reallocate the task to himself. He soon set about writing for 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. He would write from 

 He called it “bleeding on the page” because it wasn’t fun. He had no money, and he was focused through that struggle.


Lucas was turning down the work that he didn’t want to do even though he was in debt to his parents, Francis Ford Coppola and his agent. He was so far in debt by the age of 25 that he thought he would never get out. But then he set about creating a project that would result in that being solved by the time he was 28.


Lucas is methodically planned and detailed.

 He always works out in his head what may happen in a year or two, and works out how to handle them. He is very good at capitalising on all of his options.


Lucas would sit on his desk for 12 hours a day no matter what.

 He would work in his studio. Work would start at 8am, and end at 8pm. Many days he wouldn’t write anything. He wouldn’t go out or any of that at least until 5 or 5:30pm. It’s the only way he could force himself to work.


Much like one does with their gym routine,

 and mark it off with a big X. That is how he put in the reps and sets to create his own destiny.


Often, he wouldn’t be able to fill the pages and that made him angry. But he got there eventually. After more than 2 years of writing, he knew he was getting it right - but his friends didn’t understand and thought it wasn’t worth his talent.


It took him 3 years to follow his vision.

 Suffering through rejection at the hands of 2 studios, the skepticism of his friends, the depletion of his resources and savings and an almost lethal lack of faith from Fox.

recruited Ed Catmull from the New York Institute of Technology

 to head LucasFilm’s Computer Division. This was a group charged with developing state of the art computer technology for the film industry. Lucas wanted a digital film editing system, a digital sound editing system, a laser film printer, and further exploration of computer graphics.


So that he would have total control over his films and not be under some MBA studio executive who himself had never written, directed or edited a film from the ground up, 

Lucas thinks that some people are entrepreneurial because of money and their love of it. Some others are entrepreneurial because of their need for control. That can be control over their own lives, control over the work that they do, control over how they do it. But the primary driver is control. 

Lucas was entrepreneurial by nature of his desire for control.

 by not having any other shareholders in Lucasfilm other than his wife (5%).


That was Lucas’ philosophy when it came to his movies. He was not a patient bystander, he would watch multi million dollar movies being made. It was mind boggling to him how much money was being spent. He had been making movies on small budgets and found it a waste.


Lucas was coming off the success of American Graffiti, so his friends and his agent were convinced that they could negotiate a fee of £500k. Lucas however did not want money. He wanted control. He would end up negotiating a normal fee on the front end, but he ensured that he would get merchandise rights and sequel rights. 

Those are normally considered to be under the brush.

 He would also insist that the Star Wars would be produced by Lucas Film, so that he could keep an eye on the bottom line. He was very careful to say that he did not want money, but he did want the right to make sequels.


George Lucas - Lucas Film

Jony Ive is a famously private and rarely heard from individual, and yet he is one of the most paid and important designers in modern history. His work speaks for itself. He is known to have a lot of warmth and intelligence to his friends. He is a humanist and cares about people and the extraordinary things that people have designed.

Jony describes himself as a toolmaker. He makes tools which feel more like natural compliments to the busy loives that we lead. He mostly speaks once a year or so at a high profile conference relating to his work.

Jony spoke about how Steve would only work with A Players. Pixar was a company full of A Players. The best companies are organised more like sports teams than charity shops. They hire people not to give them employment and work, but to achieve a set objective. It may not be the most altruistic, but in reality - the altrusim comes in giving the world a product that it loves and is useful. It takes time to find and recruit A players into your company, but it's worth it because the dynamic impact of one A player can outsize the impact of say 10 mediocre ones. A team of 8 A players can achieve more than a team of 50 mediocre ones. A lesson never to forget ! 

Customer obsession, not competitor obsession, is the hallmark of great companies.

Secrecy can be used to build anticipation. Jony would cover up mockups to create tehse kinds of effects.

When discussing a product or an internal project, powerpoints are useless. They can be useful in demo'ing a product to an external audience like investors or the public, to help create a show. But internally, there should either be prep material that people read and debate in real time. Or there should be product demo's that people debate in real time. All debates should be in person where you can get full commitment and attention from everyone in the room, with full intensity. And where ideas can be debated in their truest form, without any lipstick on.

"Search all the parks in your cities. There are no statues for committes. You can't innovate by committee. You can't have leadership by committee. Just look at our politics". Leadership and innovation has to be done in small, highly motivated teams.

Long story short, consensus driven companies FAIL, because they are slow and bureaucratic. A lack of speed makes talent leave. You have to move fast or you will lose good people. Steve only released his best work for 15 years, and that included the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad, the iMac, the Apple Store, iTunes and more. That is an astounding pace of new products !

In life, we have to stop trying to be all things to all people. Instead, we have to focus on the small set of practices that we are really great at, and build teams around us to help us achieve the breadth and extent of our dreams. Focus on being the most extreme version of yourself, and others will adjust and proceed accordingly. Listen to intuition and act out of it at all times.

Jony told stories of how Steve Jobs would use people's own sense of self to motivate them to do better work. For instance, when he would look at a design for packaging, he would say "I know you. I know that you are better than this. Don't you owe it to yourself to put out better work than this. This is for all of humanity what you're making here, it's about your sense of professional pride. I believe you can do better than this, and know you will."

Another way to do that, is that when people said that something was not possible, he would say "Don't be afraid. Get your mind around it. You can do it !". This kind of mirroring is highly motivating.

Sharing inspirations and learning in real time and outsourcing for those of you who are lucky enough to find yourself here while this building process is in play.

Free game from one of the best designers and inventors of all time.

Jony Ive - Apple's Hidden Hand

TODAY I'M HIGHLIGHTING A REALLY DOPE HOTELIER. HIS NAME IS CÉSAR RITZ. HE CREATED THE IDEA OF THE "GRAND HOTEL", AND PARTNERED WITH HIS CO-FOUNDER AUGUSTE ESCOFFIER TO CREATE THE BLUEPRINT FOR HOW MODERN RESTAURANTS RUN.

RITZ WAS A TOTAL PERFECTIONIST. HE ONLY TRUSTED ESCOFFIER. TO GET HIS START IN CONSTRUCTION, HE SOLD TWO EARLIER HOTELS IN BADEN BADEN AND HOTEL DE PROVENCE. HE TRADED THEM IN TO CREATE THE GRAND-HOTEL WHICH WOULD BE THE FIRST HOTEL IN THE WORLD TO HAVE A PRIVATE BATHROOM IN EVERY ROOM.

WHEN ON HIS WAY UP, RITZ GAINED THE CONFIDENCE OF MANY OF AMERICA'S WEALTHIEST. JP MORGAN, JAY GOULD, VANDERBILT, WANAMAKER, GOELETS AND MORE. HE ADVISED THEM ON THE WAYS OF EUROPEAN SOCIETY AND THEY REVEALED THE SECRETS OF HIS SUCCESS.

The Nothingness.

Akio Morita - Sony

Yvon Chouinard - Patagonia

George Lucas - Lucas Film

Jony Ive - Apple's Hidden Hand

Cesare Ritz - The Ritz

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