Frances Frei

And he presented to us the MacBook Air as thin as an envelope.

Now, to do that, to be best in class at weight, which is what his ambition was, he had to be worst in class at physical features.

So to be the lightest weight laptop on the market, he couldn't have an internal CD-ROM drive.

Yes.

And I think that you just detailed two of the most important parts of strategy, which is what am I not going to do and what am I not going to do well, right?

It's much more difficult to do something poorly than to not do it at all.

Yeah, so in construction is where it's usually used, which is there is very famously cost, quality, speed, pick two.

Indeed.

And what it essentially means is that you can't beat the competition at all three of these.

And so if you're going to pick two, one of them has to give.

It's bad in the service of good.

It's sacrifice to make progress.

So if you want to speed up the project at the same quality, it's going to cost more.

So in the world of physical products, this in order to be great, you have to be bad is not a very emotional conversation.

Right.

And it's because physics applies.

Like if I make something that I can drop on my foot,

I can't pretend that there aren't trade-offs.

I can't pretend that I can be best in class at weight and best in class at physical features, right?

That they literally physically trade off against each other.