Michelle: Alright, here’s a hot take for your next job interview: tell them your biggest strength is a spectacular, multi-million dollar failure. According to the guy who built the iPod and iPhone, that might be the best resume you could have. Mark: Wow, that’s a bold strategy. I can just see the hiring manager’s face now. Is this some kind of reverse psychology trick to get a higher salary? Michelle: It’s the kind of beautifully insane logic we're diving into today with Tony Fadell's book, Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making. Mark: The 'father of the iPod,' right? The guy who worked side-by-side with Steve Jobs. I’ve heard this book is a huge bestseller and highly rated, but also a bit… intense. Michelle: Exactly. And what makes this book so compelling is that it’s not some polished corporate theory. It’s a raw collection of lessons from over 30 years of building, and failing, in the trenches of Silicon Valley. He even calls one of his first big jobs, at a company called General Magic, his 'PhD in failure.' Mark: Okay, I have to ask. A 'PhD in failure'? That sounds like a very expensive degree. How on earth is failing at a startup better than, you know, succeeding?

Michelle: That’s the perfect question, because it gets to the heart of Fadell’s philosophy on building your career. He argues that your twenties, especially, are for learning, not just earning. And the best learning comes from tackling impossible problems. General Magic is the ultimate example. This was a secretive, hyped-up startup in the early 90s, spun out of Apple. Their goal was to create something called the 'Pocket Crystal.' Mark: The Pocket Crystal? Sounds like something from a fantasy novel. Michelle: It basically was. Imagine a beautiful, handheld touchscreen device that was your phone, your email, your entertainment center… all in one. It was the iPhone, but in 1991. The vision was breathtaking. They had the smartest people, the ex-Apple wizards who built the Mac. Fadell joined as a young engineer because he wanted to learn from his heroes. Mark: So what went wrong? It sounds like a sure thing. Michelle: Everything. The technology wasn't ready. The networks weren't there. The market wasn't there. They were, as you might say, building a spaceship before the invention of rocket fuel. They poured years and millions of dollars into it, and it completely imploded. They sold a few thousand devices, mostly to friends and family. It was a colossal, public failure. Mark: That sounds devastating. I can’t imagine putting my soul into something for years just to watch it crash and burn. Why would he call that a 'PhD'? Michelle: Because he learned more from that failure than he ever could have from a simple success. He learned that a great idea and a brilliant team aren't enough. He learned about timing, about marketing, about the brutal realities of manufacturing. He learned that you have to solve a problem people have today, not one they might have in a decade. He says that experience gave him the scars and the wisdom that eventually allowed him to build the iPod and the iPhone. It’s why he has this powerful quote: "The only failure in your twenties is inaction. The rest is trial and error." Mark: I can see that. It reframes failure not as an endpoint, but as data collection. You’re collecting experiences. But what's the actual lesson here for someone not in Silicon Valley? Just go work for a company that's likely to fail? Michelle: Not exactly. It’s about the mindset. When you're choosing a job early on, don't just look at the salary or the title. Look for the steepest learning curve. Look for the place where you'll be surrounded by 'heroes'—people you can learn from. Fadell got the job at General Magic because he was obsessed. He had built his own chips, his own software. He was knowledgeable. He argues that it's better to be an engineer at a revolutionary company that fails than a mid-level manager at a company that’s just making incremental improvements. The first path gives you a story and skills. The second just gives you a stable paycheck. Mark: That makes sense. You’re building your own toolkit, your own 'PhD,' even if the company itself doesn't make it. It’s a long-term investment in yourself. Michelle: Precisely. You're building yourself first. And that foundation of learning from hard, messy problems is what allows you to then build great products.

Mark: And that’s a perfect transition, because Fadell is famous for building some of the most iconic products of our time. But his approach seems to be less about the technology and more about… something else. Something intangible. Michelle: Yes! He has this fantastic concept of "making the intangible tangible." He argues that your product isn't just the physical device or the software. It's the entire customer journey. From the moment they first hear about it, to the ad they see, to the unboxing, to the customer support call they make a year later. And you have to prototype and design that whole journey. Mark: That sounds great in theory, but what does it look like in practice? Michelle: The best story he tells is about the Nest Thermostat. When they were designing it, they were obsessed with the hardware, the software, the learning algorithms. But during user testing, they found a huge problem. The installation was taking people over an hour. Mark: I can believe that. I've tried to install a 'smart' anything and it usually ends with me yelling at an instruction manual written in hieroglyphics. Michelle: Exactly. And the team dug into why it was taking so long. It wasn't because the steps were complicated. It was because people had to keep running to their garage or basement to find the right screwdriver. A Phillips head, a flathead… they were wasting 20-30 minutes just tool-hunting. The engineering team thought, "An hour install time? That's acceptable for a thermostat." Mark: But Fadell didn't. Michelle: Fadell said no. He understood that this frustrating, tool-hunting experience was the customer's first physical interaction with their brand. It was a moment of friction and annoyance, right at the beginning. So, what did they do? Mark: Let me guess. They wrote a clearer instruction manual? Michelle: Better. They designed a beautiful, custom, multi-headed screwdriver and put one in every single box. Mark: A screwdriver? That's the big marketing genius? It sounds so simple. Michelle: It is simple, but it's profound. That screwdriver solved an invisible problem. It turned a moment of frustration into a moment of delight. Customers would open the box and find this elegant, useful tool. It immediately told them the story of the Nest brand: we've thought of everything, we care about the details, we're here to make your life easier. That screwdriver got more press and word-of-mouth than any feature. It became a symbol for the entire experience. Mark: Wow. Okay, now I get it. The product wasn't the thermostat. The product was the feeling of being taken care of. He made the intangible feeling of 'a smooth installation' into a tangible object. Michelle: You've got it. And he applies that same logic to everything. He says you have to start with the "why." Why does this product need to exist? What pain is it solving? He learned that the hard way at General Magic, where they had the "what"—amazing tech—but no compelling "why" for customers in 1994. With the iPod, the "why" was "a thousand songs in your pocket." It wasn't about the gigabytes or the processor speed. It was about the freedom from clunky CD binders. Mark: It’s all about the story. The story you tell the customer, and the story the product itself tells through its design and experience. Michelle: Exactly. The story is everything. And that focus on the human element, the messy, emotional side of things, carries right over into how he thinks about building the business itself.

Mark: Right, which brings us to the part of the book that probably gets the most attention. He has a whole chapter just called "Assholes." That's not something you see in most business books from the airport bookstore. Michelle: It's definitely provocative, and it's one of his most controversial ideas. He argues that you have to distinguish between two types of difficult people. First, there are the "political assholes." These are the toxic, backstabbing, credit-stealing people who are only out for themselves. His advice there is simple: get them out of your company as fast as possible. They're poison. Mark: Okay, that I can get behind. No one likes a political operator. But what's the other type? Michelle: This is where it gets interesting. He calls them "mission-driven assholes." These are people who can be incredibly difficult, abrasive, and demanding. They push, they challenge, they don't accept "good enough." But their motivation is entirely focused on making the product or the customer experience better. They're not doing it for personal gain; they're doing it for the mission. Mark: Come on, that sounds like a convenient excuse for powerful people to be jerks. "Oh, I'm not a bad person, I'm just mission-driven." How does he defend that? Michelle: He uses Steve Jobs as the classic example. Jobs was notoriously difficult. He could be brutal. But Fadell argues that his intensity was almost always in service of the product and the customer. When Jobs was yelling about a pixel being in the wrong place, it wasn't about his ego; it was about his obsession with perfection. Fadell's point is that you need people like that who are willing to challenge the status quo and fight for excellence. The key is their underlying motive. A political asshole tears the team down to build themselves up. A mission-driven asshole might be tough on the team, but it's in service of building the product up. Mark: I'm still skeptical. It feels like a very fine line to walk. But it does force you to think beyond just "nice" and "not nice." It’s about impact and intent. What about his other big, provocative idea? The one about perks? The chapter is literally titled "Fuck Massages." Michelle: (Laughs) Yes. This is another great example of his "unorthodox" advice. He argues that companies, especially in tech, have become obsessed with perks—free food, on-site massages, lavish parties. He calls this stuff "frosting." It's nice, but it's not the cake. The "cake" is the real benefits: great healthcare, parental leave, a 401(k), a supportive work environment. Mark: But people love perks! Is he really saying free lunch is a bad thing? Michelle: He says it creates a culture of entitlement. He tells a story about how when Nest was acquired by Google, they got access to Google's famous free food cafes. But soon, employees started complaining if their favorite yogurt brand was missing. They started taking food home for their families. The perk became an expectation, and when it wasn't perfect, it became a source of resentment. His point is that the mission should be the reason people come to work, not the free sushi. The perks should be a rare, delightful surprise, not a daily entitlement. Mark: So the CEO's job isn't to make everyone happy with perks, but to keep them focused on the mission. Michelle: That's the core of it. He says the CEO's job is to "give a shit. To care. About everything." From the customer support articles to the font on the packaging to the company's financial health. They set the tone. And if the CEO cares about the mission above all else, the team will too.

Mark: It’s fascinating. When you put it all together, it feels like his whole philosophy is about embracing the messy, difficult parts of building things. Nothing is clean or easy. Michelle: That’s it exactly. The core of our podcast today is really an exploration of how building something truly great—whether it's a career, a product, or a company—is a messy, human, and often counter-intuitive process that requires embracing failure, telling powerful stories, and caring about the details others ignore. Mark: It feels like the big lesson is to stop looking for a perfect, clean formula for success. The real work is in the messy details, the difficult conversations, and the willingness to get your hands dirty, whether that's learning from a failed startup or redesigning a screwdriver. Michelle: Absolutely. And it leaves us with a great question to ponder: What's a small, annoying problem in your own life that everyone else has just gotten used to? Because according to Tony Fadell, that might be where the next great idea is hiding. Michelle: This is Aibrary, signing off.