Binary Bonsai

My feeling was (and is): You don’t adopt the mannerisms of big, successful companies when you’re small, because those mannerisms aren’t what made the companies successful.

They’re actually symptoms of what is killing the company, because it’s become too big. It’s like if you meet an really old, really rich guy covered in liver spots and breathing with an oxygen tank, and you say, “I want to be rich, too, so I’m going to start walking with a cane and I’m going to act crotchety and I’m going to get liver disease.”

The really important thing to remember is that what worked once won’t necessarily work again, and in fact is less likely to work again because it’s been done.

For example, the lesson from the iPod should be, “keep doing good designs and exploring new markets and providing integrated solutions until you hit on something people love,” not, “come out with an MP3 player with a scroll-wheel and you’ll make a zillion dollars.” Because, as we’ve seen, companies that have done the latter have really flopped.

[…]

[red: unrelated to the above] This latter point is huge; I must know 100 people who’ve said they’d switch to Mac except for games. Heck, I caved in and bought the littlest Intel box I could find (“Shuttle” case) so I could play Half-Life 2; and yes it’s nice for games but it’s still three times as big as the two Mac Minis that run my entire company, and twice as loud. #

From an interview with Wil Shipley from Delicious Monster