A Creative Lesson From Steve Jobs

Within a few days, I’d be really so busy in officially launching my first product ever. And yes, for you who’ve known the soft-launch of it, it’ll be over soon.

What I’d like to talk right now is a vague idea called creativity. It’s so much abstract to tell you the truth (heck, even abstractness is called creativity), and what I’d want to do now is to translate it to something more tangible for you to use.

You see, creativity makes the difference. If you think hard work, or perseverance, or talent, or plain geniusness is enough- then you’ve totally forgot what your preschool teachers have told you.

You need to be creative, too.

Because, believe it or not, in this world, creativity, or the lack thereof, can make or break you. Steve Jobs knows. I took his example.

“Good Artists Copy, Great Artists Steal”

When I first heard this quote from Steve Jobs (the God of Apple), I automatically understood what he meant. In fact, it came to me as a sort of epiphany- something that I’ve been looking for and just felt glad to finally discover.

Nobody owns a single idea.

Sure, we have patents and the likes to protect ones own invention or trademark, but when it comes to ideas, all of us have equal rights to access them in any way we want.

The only catch perhaps is that it’s always better to be the first to conceptualize and use it.

But if the first one who though of it didn’t make things right (or you can make it better), then steve jobs gave us a golden rule to follow: “Good artists copy, great artists steal”.

Better Steal Than Copy, Says Steve Jobs

What’s the big difference between both you say?

People who copy create duplicates. They adjust a little, tweak a little, but overall, it’s just the same thing. If you where the buyer and given the choice between the original and the duplicate (or the copy version), who would you choose?

Of course, you’d still stick to the original. Even if the price difference would be a huge figure, the original would still be the winner. No one, and I mean no one, would like to settle for a ‘copy’.

People who steal are in to create a bigger game- their own game. Steve Jobs is not the first one to invent a laptop or even an operating system (say hi to Bill Gates). But he was creative. He saw where Microsoft Inc. fall short (in terms of the feel of their hardware and the massive vulnerability of their OS) and decided to make things even better.

Of course, that’s the time he founded Apple Inc.

If you think about it, Sergey Brin and Larry Page (founders of Google) weren’t the first one to make business with search engines too. Of course, there was msn (hi again Bill Gates) and altavista and they were truly big players at that time.

But Brin and Page thought something more could be done. And so they came to built the biggest, fastest, most widely used search engine ever in the planet. Google.

Creativity is About…

… looking for solutions. Always better, brighter solutions. Sometimes, it doesn’t have to be complex, and I quote Jobs again when he said....


... “simplicity is the ultimate innovation”.

UPDATE: The quote "good artists copy, great artists steal" is actually by Picasso. Looks like someone beat the great master at his own game. Quite ironic indeed! Thanks to Ben for the clarification.