Building wonderful products with great care and love is a way of expressing our deep appreciation to the rest of our human species.
Book: Make Something Wonderful
From Steve Jobs:
“There’s lots of ways to be as a person, and some people express their deep appreciation in different ways, but one of the ways that I believe people express their appreciation to the rest of humanity is to make something wonderful and put it out there.
And you never meet the people, you never shake their hands, you never hear their story or tell yours, but somehow, in the act of making something with a great deal of care and love, something is transmitted there. And it’s a way of expressing to the rest of our species our deep appreciation. So, we need to be true to who we are and remember what’s really important to us. That's what's going to keep Apple Apple: is if we keep us us.”
I was reminded of this again when listening to this recent interview where Patrick Collison interviewed Jony Ive. This also reminds me of how humane Jobs is in the email he sent to himself a year before his passing:
I grow little of the food I eat, and of the little I do grow
I did not breed or perfect the seeds.
I do not make any of my own clothing.
I speak a language did not invent or refine
I did not discover the mathematics I use.
I am protected by freedoms and laws I did not conceive of or legislate, and do not enforce or adjudicate.
I am moved by music I did not create myself.
When I needed medical attention, I was helpless to help myself survive.
I did not invent the transistor, the microprocessor, object oriented programming, or most of the technology I work with,
I love and admire my species, living and dead, and am totally dependent on them for my life and well being.