HackerTube

Steve Jobs Content vs Process

Bo Manton3 HN recommenders · recommended in 3 months, 2021–2026
YouTube
interview · general · evergreen · 2021–2026 on HN

A three-minute clip of Steve Jobs arguing that great products come from people who care about content rather than process. He says process-focused people take over and cause decline, citing IBM as an example.

Quoted whenever HN discusses process-heavy management and companies losing their product focus.

9 comments from Hacker News

@colund2024-01 · in “27 years ago, Steve Jobs said the best employees focus on content, not process”

Jobs talks about this in ▶ this video . I wish more leaders understood this. I interpret his words that people who do, understand and care are more valuable than those who only focus on process and politics. Steve Jobs has great points again. I love to hear him talk about what really matters for success of great tech companies.

Strongly recommends View on HN
@edelans2022-03 · in “Low process culture, high process culture”

there is also this gold nugget from Steve jobs (there is no date, late 80s ?): ▶ this video >"Companies get confused. When they start getting bigger, they wanna replicate their initial success, and a lot of them think somehow there is some magic in the process of how that success was created. So they try to institutionalize process accross the company, and before very long, people get very confused that the process is the content. And that's ultimately the downfall of IBM : IBM has the best process people in the world, they just forgot about the content." [...] >"In my career, I found that the best people are the ones really understanding the content, and they are a pain in the butt to manage, but you put up with it bc they are so great at the content. And that's what makes great product : it's not process, it's content."

Recommends View on HN
@KajMagnus2021-03 · in “Fuckin' user interface design, I swear”

Intereting talk :- ) "Steve Jobs: Content vs Process", ▶ this video 3 minutes. I'd guess that it'd work better with a better-than-good-enough Benevolent Dictator who gets to improve the user interface however s/he wants, than to go looking for the "magic" UX improvement process

Recommends View on HN
@duxup2026-02 · in “An Update on Heroku”

> people more concerned with process than results Sounds like something Steve Jobs observed at apple ▶ this video

@Imustaskforhelp2026-02 · in “An Update on Heroku”

I feel as if youtube itself might still contain some tracking. People recommend invidious and piped but they are starting to have issues. This video is archived on wayback machine (archive.org) and I feel as if that might be the best way to watch this video right now. ▶ this video Edit: I have also uploaded it on preservetube when I got interested in what are some wayback machine alternatives (given that wayback machine suggests to not upload videos given storage constraints unless absolutely necessary) So I found preservetube which is sort of intended for this and uploaded this video on it ▶ this video