"But I think Steve's main contribution besides just the pure leadership is his passion for excellence. He's a perfectionist. Good enough isn't good enough. And also his creative spirit. You know he really, really wants to do something great"
About this Quote
There’s a kind of loving pressure in Hertzfeld’s praise: he isn’t describing a nice boss, he’s describing a force of nature. By separating “pure leadership” from “passion for excellence,” Hertzfeld quietly reframes what made Steve Jobs consequential. Leadership is the visible part - the keynote glow, the internal mythology. Excellence is the engine: a perfectionism so intense that “good enough isn’t good enough” becomes less a slogan than a management weather system everyone has to live inside.
The intent is both testimonial and calibration. Hertzfeld, an early Mac engineer, is speaking from the shop floor of one of Silicon Valley’s founding legends, and he’s careful to ground charisma in craft. The repetition and plain phrasing (“really, really”) signal something important: this isn’t PR language. It’s the voice of someone still slightly stunned by the seriousness of Jobs’s desire, the way it made normal standards feel embarrassing.
The subtext carries a double edge. “Perfectionist” reads as admiration, but it also hints at the costs: the endless revisions, the emotional intensity, the bruised egos that often trail behind uncompromising taste. Hertzfeld softens that potential indictment by pairing it with “creative spirit,” a reminder that this wasn’t pedantry for its own sake. The point wasn’t flawlessness; it was greatness - a word that dodges metrics and lands in the realm of cultural impact.
Context matters: Hertzfeld helped build the original Macintosh, where design, interface, and storytelling were fused into a consumer religion. In that world, “good enough” isn’t just laziness. It’s a missed chance to make a machine feel inevitable.
The intent is both testimonial and calibration. Hertzfeld, an early Mac engineer, is speaking from the shop floor of one of Silicon Valley’s founding legends, and he’s careful to ground charisma in craft. The repetition and plain phrasing (“really, really”) signal something important: this isn’t PR language. It’s the voice of someone still slightly stunned by the seriousness of Jobs’s desire, the way it made normal standards feel embarrassing.
The subtext carries a double edge. “Perfectionist” reads as admiration, but it also hints at the costs: the endless revisions, the emotional intensity, the bruised egos that often trail behind uncompromising taste. Hertzfeld softens that potential indictment by pairing it with “creative spirit,” a reminder that this wasn’t pedantry for its own sake. The point wasn’t flawlessness; it was greatness - a word that dodges metrics and lands in the realm of cultural impact.
Context matters: Hertzfeld helped build the original Macintosh, where design, interface, and storytelling were fused into a consumer religion. In that world, “good enough” isn’t just laziness. It’s a missed chance to make a machine feel inevitable.
Quote Details
| Topic | Leadership |
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