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Comment by jballanc | Hacker News Reader

This is probably the best summary of Jobs's style and leadership I've read anywhere.

I find that too many people don't understand a key component of what Jobs and Apple do. Simplicity is not a goal. I see products all the time that their creators tout as "beautiful in its simplicity". Most of them are crap and don't do anything useful. Perfection, likewise, is not a goal. You do, eventually, have to ship. (Apple was the first place I heard the aphorism "shoot the engineers and ship the damn thing!")

Simplicity and perfection is the goal. It is simple because being perfect limits your scope. Your scope is limited, because you want to make the best thing (and it had better be useful!).

Often, when thinking about Apple, and Jobs's style running Apple, I'm reminded of the quote:

> "In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's there are few."

...not surprisingly, from the famous zen master Shunryu Suzuki.

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> "In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's there are few."

As someone who likes to read quotes and examine the wisdom within (or at least I tell myself that), I see no wisdom here.

The only possible interpretation which I find makes sense, is that the priorities of the expert are much clearer then the beginners. The expert (through experience and intelligence) knows what matters, and what details are not critical. The beginner however, places great importance on things which are near-worthless.

If that is the more correct interpretation, then I find the wording clumsy. If this isn't then please enlighten me.

I first heard this quote in the context of learning the game of Go. If you're not familiar, Go has very very few rules, and the game starts off with a 19x19 grid. Two players alternate placing stones on the grid.

A beginner sees 361 positions to chose from at the start, 360 to choose from after the first move, 359 after the second and so on. An expert has a much, much narrower view of the board.

To reword the quote, tear it apart a bit more (ruin some of its beauty even): A beginner sees all possibilities because the beginner does not see past the first step; an expert sees a path even though the field is wide open because the expert knows where to step 100 steps from now.

Edit: I should add, if you find the style of the quote a bit obtuse, it is in keeping with much of how Zen is taught. A key point in Zen is the idea that the universe of knowledge can be split 3 ways: that which you know, that which you don't know, and that which you don't know that you don't know. The goal is to decrease the size of that third portion, but you cannot simply "show" someone this knowledge. Each person must discover it on their own.

> that which you know, that which you don't know, and that which you don't know that you don't know.

First time I heard this was in a press conference by Donald Rumsfeld. Love him or hate him, he was well read and got things done.

They were mainly the wrong things to do, of course, but damnit he got them done!

There is also a fourth kind of knowledge: unknown knowns (that which we intentionally refuse to acknowledge that we know) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unknown_knowns

That's the OPPOSITE of the beginner's mind. And the beginner's mind is the zen way.

Jobs didn't see his choice just because was the only one: it is that the other people had already discarded that option because they were "expert player"

And by the way, zen is not about knowledge is about leaving the words to the dogs to eat and being in touch with the present time.

The second interpretation of that quote is that beginners can also see/find things that experts would miss. Not surprisingly, that quote is from Suzuki's book "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind"[1]. I view both interpretations as valid.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoshin

Well said. Indeed (again in keeping with much of Zen), it is best to regard this quote as an observation without judgement.

And beautifully, both interpretations are applicable to Steve. His early success with Apple could be attributed to a beginner's mind. Later, his ability to come back and rescue the company could only be the work of an expert.

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