

John Gruber on the “Auteur Theory of Design” from Macworld 2009 - anderzole
http://www.edibleapple.com/john-gruber-on-the-auteur-theory-of-design-from-macworld-2009/

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aditya
So, then the question becomes... how do you develop good taste?

Is it even something that's developable at all? And, also there's a gap
between having good taste and being able to make products that reflect it.

Ira Glass touches upon it here: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hidvElQ0xE>

And so does _why, <http://favstar.fm/users/_why/status/881768089>

So, perhaps the answer (translated to web products) is, just keep releasing a
bunch of work, keep trying to understand your market and keep learning from
the work you're putting out to make future work better. Not quite sure this is
the right answer, though.

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Groxx
Ack. All real content is in a 16-minute video from MacWorld 2009, and no
transcription. I don't typically want to wade through that much time to get to
the meat of what's said.

Anyone know of a transcript?

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cookingrobot
Watched it - it was ok. Nice relaxing tone/pace.

He basically argues that if one person is in charge (has final cut), the
product will be as good as their taste. If no one is in charge and decisions
are made by consensus / bureaucracy, then the result will be as bad as the
worst persons taste. The test for whether you really have final cut is whether
you'd get to release something that is crazy and no one else agrees with. Ex.
the ending of the Sopranos. His advice is that if you don't have official
final cut, but you know that you're right about something, you can "take"
final cut by making your way the only viable option. Ex. Hitchcock planned
meticulously and only filmed enough footage to make exactly the movie he
wanted, with nothing extra that the studio could use to edit it and make it
worse.

