Steve Jobs on Technology in Search of a Customer
What Jobs talks about
Jobs argues that many companies build technology because it is possible, not because anyone actually wants it. In his view, the real challenge is finding what people truly care about and will choose to buy.
He uses the iPod to show how customer behavior should shape product decisions. Most users, he says, did not want a built-in radio because they preferred to control their own music and playlists.
The point is simple but central to Jobs’s thinking: it is far easier to invent features than to make something people genuinely want. That idea helps explain his focus on product judgment and customer experience.
Jobs speaks throughout.
In his words
“There's a lot of technology in search of a customer.”
“Nobody cares, nobody wants to buy them.”
“What people really want to do.”
“They want to determine it themselves.”
“It's a lot easier to come up with technology that people don't want than it is to come up with technology that people do want.”
Key points
- A lot of technology is built in search of a customer.
- Technical possibility is not the same as customer desire.
- The hard part is figuring out what people really want.
- Most iPod customers cared more about controlling their own music than about having a built-in radio.
- People bought iPods to make their own playlists, not to let a radio DJ choose for them.
- It is easier to create unwanted technology than wanted technology.
Full transcript
There's a lot of technology in search of a customer. In other words, a lot of companies do things because it's technically possible, but in the end, nobody cares, nobody wants to buy them. So we see a lot of that, technology in search of a customer. I think the hard thing is to figure out what can be done, but also what people really want to do. So what we found as an example in iPods is most of our customers don't care about having a radio built into their iPod. As a matter of fact, the reason they got an iPod is because they don't want some DJ at a radio station determining the music they listen to. They want to determine it themselves. They want to build their own playlists. And so that's why they buy an iPod.
So we have a radio feature that you can attach to your iPod now, but most customers don't buy it because they want their own playlists. So it's a lot easier to come up with technology that people don't want than it is to come up with technology that people do want.
Transcribed from the audio with OpenAI Whisper. Timestamps link to the video above. Errors are possible.