Y Combinator Startup Podcast
00:40:39 · Susan Kare
So these are some logos that he did and you can kind of get the idea that Morningstar has a rising sun and IBM is pinstriped and businesslike, and I love that UPS logo. And he said when he was doing it, he showed it to his six year old daughter and said, Catherine, what is this? And reportedly, she said, It's a present, daddy. And he thought that that was such great justification that it was understandable, but really it had a shield and a package and sadly, they modernized it because I'm sure there were people sitting around a table who said, Well, we're not just about packages anymore, but I keep hoping they'll bring it back. And this is a futurist named Paul Saffo, and I just loved this quote that he mentioned one day, and I kind of get this in a metaphorical way. And I mean, I know I always think I can do this in an hour when really nothing takes an hour. And so many projects I've worked on, you optimistically think you know exactly what you want to do, but it's still allow extra time. This is my dad, who was the director of the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia, which studied taste and smell. And I introduced my dad to Paul Rand, and he made that logo for Manel, which I felt pretty happy about and they got along really well. But my dad, I think, always had good advice. It wasn't the most cheerful advice, but it was realistic. And he had to raise a lot of money for the Science Center, so he knew what he was talking about. And I try to remember that because I get depressed when I hear no. And he also said this, which I think is like a really realistic way to think about things and not be kidding yourself. This is Daniel Nord, who was born in Sweden, now lives in Portugal, and worked in London for the mayor. He's an architect, and he told me how they used to just sit around tables and have endless discussions about things. And this is how he said, Make it visual. I mean, I guess this is a metaphor too, but do the drawing, really show, don't tell, I think is what he meant. And this is a guy, maybe well known in some circles, Jean Pigozzi, who I met through Steve Jobs. He was kind of an Apple fan. He maybe invented the selfie, but had a lot of celebrity friends and his father, he was Italian and his father started the Simca car company, that, you know, he said, so that I could like spend my life doing whatever I wanted.
00:44:26 · Susan Kare
And he collects African art and he said, and this amused me, because it just... It does seem like a long time ago and a lot of fun that we worked on the Macintosh. And he also said this, which I think, like, I try to do. I think it's good advice. And this is Andy Hertzfeld on the left, Bill Atkinson, Bud Tribble, and Steve Jobs, and Alan Kay on the right who's in his 80s now, unbelievably accomplished computer scientist. And this is Bud quoting Alan Kay as a kind of tenet about user interface and maybe not having everything at the same level and nesting things so that things can just appear that ease of use seems possible. And I always try and think about that. And Alan Kay said this to me, and I thought that was, I took great joy hearing that because he just said, Yeah, it's like, who knew proportionally spaced funds can actually look pretty good. And this guy, pretty well known, he's sitting in my cubicle at Apple, and he did say in the 80s, like, appreciate what you have right now. And the first off-site I went to, he put up these three goals. And because of the second goal, a programmer named Steve Capps and I, Steve Capps sewed a black flag and I painted a skull and crossbones on it and put a striped apple as the eye patch. And we went to work in the middle of the night and climbed up on the roof because obviously security was a lot more lax back then. And we flew that flag and it was really just as a rejoinder to this, that we were the pirates. And this too, I remember we used to show the Mac to lots of people and I still think of this now because obviously you say, like some people can figure out how to use this, but not everybody. And then there was great joy because they could feel smart or they wouldn't feel dumb if you said it was easy and they still had trouble with it. This is the only piece of really bad advice I got from Steve Jobs. He said, If Apple... And I thought, Well, I'm not gonna buy my stock if he's not buying his, he would know. And he also said, Susan, you can twiddle bits and never make more than $20,000 or it's better to be a creative director. He was talking about Next, and I was a creative director, and I got to work with Paul Rand. That was fantastic, but ultimately, I was a bit twiddler at heart and I went back to it. And maybe not always bits, but...
00:48:09 · Susan Kare
And I think this is debatable, but he took lots of visiting executives to see this movie. And I liked it because it had Welder in it. Jay Chiat started the ad agency that Apple used, Chiat/Day. And this was kind of the, it was not work life balance at the time, and everybody I worked with in the software group had a sleeping bag in their cube. And I think this is really good to remember. I know a couple companies I've worked for, we kind of decided that 15 people, you could still have consensus hiring and everybody in a room and be on the same page and then you start to get more people and there's a plus and an upside and a downside. And Andy said this, he gave me this advice showing stuff to Steve. He's like, don't show him one thing because he'll say he doesn't like it because it maybe forces you to go try and do it again and be better. But if you show a few things, then he can be involved and say that something is terrible, but still pick something. And this is advice from my mom, and I think it's very good advice. This is Evan Sharp and Ben Silberman who started Pinterest, and they had a lot of good ideas, but Evan used to say this. This is Dennis Wang, who started working at Google when he was an undergrad at Stanford, and he's a terrific computer scientist and artist. And he told me this, that was the prevailing wisdom at Google, and I would probably preach the same thing, like don't mess around with the logo and put it in a different color and put it on a crazy background until people know it so well that you can play with it. But obviously they did, Dennis made these, they did pretty well with this. And this is something a friend's dad told me. This is not political. It's just a fun picture I found with an accordion. And you know this guy, he has a lot of truly good advice, including this. But I don't think it means be discouraged and quit trying. It just means, oh, maybe it's time to go on to the next idea. And thank you, but also really thank you to Y Combinator. I kinda had an amazing day today and everything ran so smoothly and everyone was so gracious, and it just seemed like I felt envious of everybody taking part in this event because it just seemed so cool. Thank you.