
The Guts of a New Machine (2003) - baxtr
https://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/30/magazine/the-guts-of-a-new-machine.html
======
le-mark
Presumably this title is a riff on Gary Kidders pulitzer prize winning book
"Soul of a New Machine". Other than being about a new machine, ie the then new
ipod, this piece has very little in common with the book. The book is great, I
highly recommend it.

~~~
ljw1001
Kidder's book is awesome. This article reminded me of Steven Levy's iPod book:
It's also very good, not a classic but still worth a read:
[https://www.amazon.com/Perfect-Thing-Shuffles-Commerce-
Cooln...](https://www.amazon.com/Perfect-Thing-Shuffles-Commerce-
Coolness/dp/0743285239)

------
baxtr
My favorite part of the article:

 _After half an hour of this, my inquiries really did start to fall apart, so
I didn 't expect much when I resorted to asking, in so many words, whether he
thinks consciously about innovation.

''No,'' he said, peevishly. ''We consciously think about making great
products. We don't think, 'Let's be innovative!''' He waved his hands for
effect. '''Let's take a class! Here are the five rules of innovation, let's
put them up all over the company!'''

Well, I said defensively, there are people who do just that.

''Of course they do.'' I felt his annoyance shift elsewhere. ''And it's like .
. . somebody who's not cool trying to be cool. It's painful to watch. You know
what I mean?'' He looked at me for a while, and I started to think he was
trying to tell me something. Then he said, ''It's like . . . watching Michael
Dell try to dance.'' The P.R. minder guffawed. ''Painful,'' Jobs summarized._

