That's just from the business perspective. From the consumer perspective revenue does not matter at all.
The art of business is to make the greatest product you can without revenue _detracting_ from it.
The Steve Jobs mindset here is that if you just disregard the revenue all together and just focus on building the most absolute great product you can imagine people will use it and love it.
Making a revenue of that is not 'product' it is business, and it seems perfectly reasonable to hire a businessman for that (and not let him influence you too much, and try not to get fired for that like Steve did..).
> The Steve Jobs mindset here is that if you just disregard the revenue all together and just focus on building the most absolute great product you can imagine people will use it and love it.
That's not what Steve Jobs did at all. He first and foremost saw Apple as a business opportunity - who pushed Woz to actually make revenue.
Apple had a revenue model built in from the start.
Their revenue was selling the product at more than its cost price. He pushed Woz to build a great product. I think it was Woz himself who was obsessed with also making it cheap to manufacture.
I am not saying that Steve Jobs did not intend to have profit, I'm saying that reasoning about revenue was not a limiting part of the product establishment.
If it was, how do you explain the launch of the iPod?
With Apple, the revenue model is always clear - even with the iPod - Steve Jobs just knew he could create something that people would buy. He didn't launch the iPod and then worry about how he was going to make money off of it - it was always very clear to him - he was going to sell a ton of them.
Tumblr still hasn't figured out a revenue model. They still have to fit that into their product. Being able to do so & do it successfully is integral to their product - otherwise it's just a cool tool that they're letting millions of people use for free.
The art of business is to make the greatest product you can without revenue _detracting_ from it.
The Steve Jobs mindset here is that if you just disregard the revenue all together and just focus on building the most absolute great product you can imagine people will use it and love it.
Making a revenue of that is not 'product' it is business, and it seems perfectly reasonable to hire a businessman for that (and not let him influence you too much, and try not to get fired for that like Steve did..).