Reflecting on talent and projects – Inspired by Andy Hertzfeld

I would like to share three brilliant quotes by Andy, he is one of the best developers in the world, and was part of the original Mac team:

1. “First and foremost, you are your own customer: You build stuff that you love yourself. What Woz did with the Apple II was he just filled it up with so much love — love because it was his lifelong dream… That’s the basic approach I learned, to work from your heart, and to really, really care.”

2. “We try to operate at the intersection of design and engineering. One of the reasons why things aren’t as good as they could be sometimes is that the engineers and the designers don’t work closely together enough” This quote repeats a fundamental idea of Steve Jobs, that he wanted Apple to operate at the intersection of Liberal Arts and Technology.

3. “The real breakthrough of the Macintosh was that we cared about UI… I learned in a formative experience that caring about UI matters, and if you do care about UI, you can make the world a better place.” Another core value of Apple, create an Experience no one else can match.

Andy is working now to make Google+ a success. His care for design and code shows all over Google now, and is evidence of how important is to have the right people in a team.

The connection between individual talent, and team goals are the reason behind every great success. People are extremely important, and caring about them makes better projects, better products, better services and ultimately a better world for us all.