托尼·法德尔谈 iPhone 的构建与讲故事的重要性

Tony Fadell on Building the iPhone and the Importance of Storytelling

托尼·法德尔 Tony Fadell · Lenny 播客 · 2026-06-07 · 约 95 分钟 · 原视频 ↗

打开互动全文版(中英对照 + 朗读 + 问答)→

本期速览 · Overview

托尼·法德尔分享构建 iPhone 的见解、讲故事在产品开发中的作用,以及为什么需要人类参与其中。

Tony Fadell shares insights on building the iPhone, the role of storytelling in product development, and why you need humans in the loop.

要点 · TL;DR

核心观点 · Key points

反共识 · Contrarian takes

本期章节 · Chapters(共 39)

全文 · Full transcript(中英对照)

托尼·法德尔简介 Introduction of Tony Fadell

Host

今天的嘉宾是 Tony Fadell。Tony 不知道的是,自从我开始做这个播客以来,他一直是我最想邀请的嘉宾名单上的前几位。因为 Tony 正是大多数听众想要成为的那种人。他共同创造了历史上一些最具创新性、最美丽、最受欢迎的产品:iPod、iPhone、Nest 恒温器。他还因曾是 General Magic 传奇团队的一员而闻名。他共同拥有超过 300 项专利。他还写了一本对产品构建者来说最重要、最有价值、最鼓舞人心的书,叫做《Build》。Tony 目前与他的团队在 The Build Collective 活跃地投资和顾问深度科技初创公司。他最近被任命为 MIT Morning Academy of Design 的首任驻校设计师。这一集有太多精华了,我可以一直说下去。我就先到这里。在开始之前,别忘了访问 Lenny's Podcast dot com,获取一些全球最热门、最精心打造的 AI 产品的免费一年使用权,仅限 Lenny 的新闻通讯订阅者。那么,有请 Tony Fadell。Tony,非常感谢你来到这里,欢迎来到播客。

Today my guest is Tony Fadell. Tony doesn't know this, but ever since I started this podcast, he's been near the top of my wish list of people that I've dreamed to have on this podcast. And that's because Tony is the epitome of what most people listening to this podcast want to become. He co-created some of the most innovative and beautiful and popular products in history. The iPod, the iPhone, the Nest thermostat. He's also famous for being part of the legendary team at General Magic. He's co-authored over 300 patents. He also wrote one of the most important and valuable and inspiring books for builders called Build. Tony is currently an active investor and advisor to deep tech startups with his team at The Build Collective. He was recently named the inaugural designer in residence at the MIT Morning Academy of Design. There's so much gold in this episode. I could go on and on. I'm going to leave it there. Before we get into it, don't forget to check out Lenny's Podcast dot com for a free year of some of the hottest and most well-crafted AI products in the world available exclusively to Lenny's newsletter subscribers. With that, I bring you Tony Fadell. Tony, thank you so much for being here and welcome to the podcast.

Tony Fadell

谢谢邀请,我很感激。

Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

黑莓与iPhone键盘之争 The BlackBerry vs iPhone Keyboard Debate

Host

我有无数问题想问你。我觉得我可以跟你聊四个小时,把你脑子里的东西都掏出来。我想从黑莓开始。我最近刚看了黑莓的电影,讲述了黑莓创始人的历程和他们的故事。最后他们看到 iPhone 发布,说:“哦,iPhone 这东西发布了。”然后他们说:“不,这很蠢。没有键盘,不严肃,什么都做不了。”我一直好奇,站在另一边,在苹果内部打造 iPhone 时,你们到底有多怀疑:也许他们有点东西,也许我们需要加个键盘?

I have a bazillion questions I want to ask you. I feel like I could fill 4 hours of conversation with all the things that I want to get out of your head. I want to start with the BlackBerry. I was just watching the BlackBerry movie recently and it's kind of this journey of the BlackBerry founders and their story. And then at the end they're like, "Oh, and this iPhone thing launched." And they're like, "Nah, this is dumb. It's like no keyboard. This is not serious. Can't do anything with it." I've always wondered just being on the other side of this, being within Apple building the iPhone, how much did you guys actually doubt that, okay, maybe they have something, maybe we need to add a keyboard?

Tony Fadell

那是最激烈的争论,持续的时间也最长。有一种观点认为黑莓是我们想要进入并赢得的市场。但另一方面,当时只有 1% 或 2% 的手机用户拥有黑莓,知道黑莓是什么。那么其他 98% 的人呢?他们想要什么?他们需要什么?我们为什么要去争夺这个非常忠诚、热情的用户群,试图把他们从某样东西上拉走?所以,这基本上是显示键盘或虚拟键盘与物理键盘之间的正面竞争。我从 General Magic 时代,也就是 90 年代,就开始做虚拟键盘了。我知道手写和键盘在触摸屏上的表现。但我只是在单点触摸显示屏上做,电阻屏之类的。所以我知道这类东西的局限性。我当时想:“嗯,这真的很难。”而且,多点触控当时还只是在一个大乒乓球桌上,还没有缩小。所以它还不是一个可以真正进行用户测试的消费形态。于是我们设计了一系列测试:比如,我用这个打字能多快?在硬件键盘上能多快?然后在虚拟键盘上配合多点触控又能多快?这是一个硬件和软件集成的挑战,我们要让它工作。所以我们反复调整:哦,软件上不行;哦,硬件上需要改。这持续了几个月。硬件键盘在这里,取决于你用了多久,但如果有误差范围,我们就能真正理解。随着时间的推移,速度从很低开始,一点点变快。还有错误率——不只是速度,还有错误数量,以及如何纠正错误等等。最终,我让自己相信这不是硬件问题。我在某个时刻确信我们已经足够好了。我们和硬件键盘一样好吗?不。但我们足够好了吗?是的。然后其他人也得出了这个结论。但与此同时,也有其他人坚持必须要有硬件键盘,他们毫不妥协。所以这就像我在《Build》中说的,是数据与意见的经典对决。想想看,数据表明双方都有利弊。结果数据并不明确我们应该选哪个。然后 Steve 说:“我们走这条路。”足够多的人也说:“是的,这似乎是正确的做法。”

It was the most heated conversation and it dragged out the longest. There was one way of looking at the BlackBerry, which was that is the market we want to go after and we want to win. And then there's the other side, the flip side of that argument, which is only 1% or 2% of mobile phone users at the time had a BlackBerry, knew what a BlackBerry was. So, what about the other 98% of the people? What would they want? What would they need? Why are we going to go after winning this very loyal and incredibly passionate user base and try to pull them away from something. And so, there was this basically head-to-head competition between a display keyboard or virtual keyboard and a physical keyboard. I had been doing virtual keyboards for a while since General Magic and then in the '90s. And I knew what handwriting and keyboards were like on these touch screens. But I was only doing it on a single touch display, resistive or what have you. And so, I knew what the limitations were of those kinds of things. So, I was like, "Hmm, this is really going to be difficult." And we hadn't, you know, multi-touch was just on a big ping pong table. It hadn't been scaled down. So, it wasn't like something in a consumptive form where you could really do user test with it. And so, we set out a set of tests. Like, okay, how fast can I type this text? How can I do this on a hardware keyboard? And then, how can we do this on the virtual one with multi-touch? And it was a hardware-software integration challenge of how we could get this to work. So, we were going back and forth and back and forth. Oh, that doesn't quite work in the software. Oh, that we need to change this in the hardware. And so, this was over a set of months. Would the hardware keyboard be here? And it depends on how much you've been using it, but if there's this margin of error and we could really understand it. This over time was started way down here and then started to get a little faster and a little faster and a little faster. And how many errors? Not just how fast, but how many errors and how do you correct the errors and all of those things. And at the end of the day I was able to convince myself it wasn't going to be a hardware issue. And I was convinced at some point that we were good enough. Were we as good as a hardware keyboard? No. But were we good enough? Yes. And then other people came to that conclusion. But at the same time there were other people who were adamant that the hardware keyboard has to be there. And they were unrelenting. And so it came down to this was a classic, as I say in Build, the data versus opinion based decision. And if you think about it, you had data that said there were pros and cons on both sides. And what happened was the data was not clear that we should choose one over the other. And Steve said, "We are going this way." Enough other people kind of said, "Yeah, that seems like that's the right thing to do."

人机协同与长期构建 Humans in the Loop and Building for the Long Term

Host

你仍然需要人类参与其中。不要向机器投降。

You still need humans in the loop. Don't surrender to the machine.

Tony Fadell

我们可以使用机器,但不要在认知上投降。

We can use the machines, but don't cognitively surrender.

Host

因为构建变得如此容易,脱颖而出的东西是那些经过深思熟虑的。

Because it's so easy to build, the things that stand out are the things that are really well thought through.

Tony Fadell

今天在 AI 世界里,我只需要写个提示,东西就出来了。你是在一个非常脆弱的基础上构建。你获得的是短期收益,却带来非常非常长期的损失。如果你要建立一个真正的公司,它不能是昙花一现的。

Today in the AI world, I can just make a prompt and all of a sudden it gets spit out. You're building on a really crusty foundation. You're getting short-term gain for very, very long-term loss. If you're going to build a real company, it can't be throwaway.

Host

你的一位同事,Hermann Hauser,问他如何决定什么值得构建。

One of your colleagues, Hermann Hauser, that ask him how he decides what is worth building.

Tony Fadell

我总是从痛点出发。有没有新技术可以解决那个痛点?引入创新,带来革命,重新定义这个领域。

I always start from pain. Are there new technologies to solve that pain? Bring innovation in, revolution in, and redefine the space.

Host

阈值是什么?什么迹象表明这还不够大?

What's the threshold? What's the sign that this isn't big enough?

Tony Fadell

嗯,iPod 一开始也不够大。它经历了三代才成功。你得失败几次才能找到自己的路。

Well, the iPod wasn't big enough. It took three generations of the iPod before it became successful. You got to fail a few times till you find your way.

Host

你非常注重营销,这是很多产品构建者根本不考虑的部分。

You are so into marketing, that piece of building that I think a lot of builders don't think about at all.

Tony Fadell

技术是为客户服务的。不是我们要把技术硬塞给客户。客户只能通过营销的镜头看到他们看到的东西。

The technology's in service of the customer. Not we're going to jam the technology down the customer's throat. A customer only sees what they see through the lens of marketing.

Host

你经常回到产品构建者的价值叙事上。

You often come back to the value storytelling for product builders.

Tony Fadell

很多时候,当我们以技术为主导时,我们谈论的是“是什么”。我们不谈论“为什么”。“为什么”就是讲故事。当我观察 Steve 时,他每天都在打磨 iPhone 的故事。所以当你看到他上台时,那只是因为他已经练习了十万次。

Too many times when we're technology led, we talk about the what. We don't talk about the why. The why is storytelling. When I watched Steve, he was honing the story of the iPhone every day. And so when you saw him come on stage, it was just because he had done it a hundred thousand times.

1.0产品中的主观决策 Opinion-Based Decisions in 1.0 Products

Host

我想聊的一个方向是,你经常提到微观管理其实非常重要且强大。Twitter 上流传着一张图,不知道你见过没有。我描述一下,希望你能想象出来。它对比了功能正常的系统和功能失调的系统——基本上就是一家公司做得好与不好。图表显示,走向更功能正常的方向是“残酷的真相”,接着又一个“残酷的真相”,再一个“残酷的真相”,这样会构建出更功能正常的系统。而“善意的谎言”接“善意的谎言”再接“善意的谎言”,则会导致功能失调的系统。这是史蒂夫·乔布斯非常出名的一点。在你的书里,你谈到使命驱动……实际上你希望使命驱动……有些类型的使命驱动很棒。谈谈直接坦率对于打造伟大产品的重要性吧。

One direction I want to get into here is this idea that you talk a lot about micromanaging being actually really important and powerful. So, there's this image that's floating around Twitter that I don't know if you've seen. I'll show it on the screen as I'm describing it and hopefully you can visualize it. It's a functional system versus a dysfunctional system. Basically, a company that's doing great versus not great. And there's this chart that goes up to more functional that is basically unkind truth and then another unkind truth, another unkind truth creates more functional systems. Kind lie followed by kind lie followed by kind lie leads to dysfunctional systems. Something Steve Jobs is very famous for. Yeah, in your book you talk about mission-driven are actually really You want You want a mission-driven There's certain types of that are great. Talk about just the importance of somebody being very direct in what it takes to build great products.

Tony Fadell

当你在做任何产品的 1.0 版本时,如果它很重要,是一个新品类或世界从未见过的新设备,你几乎没有可用来做数据驱动决策的类比。因此,如果 1.0 的多数决策都将是基于观点的决策,你就需要一两个人或一个非常小的团队来负责做出这些基于观点的决策,并且能真正把你从一张白纸或白板带到实际的 1.0 规格。因为如果你全程试图用数据驱动决策,你要么做不出差异化产品(因为你从别处拿数据),要么只是得到数据而已,对吧?所以你必须想办法让基于观点的决策发生,这意味着你需要——用个不太恰当的词——品味创造者。这就是我们在做的。我们就是那个做出基于观点决策的人或团队。当然,有些人不会喜欢,他们会说:“抱歉,这是仁慈的独裁。事情就是这样,这就是愿景,在发布并从用户那里得到反馈之前,我们不知道我们不知道什么。”在 B2B 和 B2C 环境下做这件事非常不同。最难的环境是 B2C,因为你需要让这些决策完全暴露在消费者面前,而消费者不会自己看到全貌。他们必须通过营销、发现方式、关键功能集、产品使用体验等所有方面,才能形成喜欢或不喜欢的意见并做出评价。如果你做的是 1.0 且世界从未见过你,你永远无法从消费者那里得到这些。你必须发布产品,构建整个生态系统,让消费者看到全貌,这样当他们用自己的钱评估时,你才能得到真正的反馈。对于消费类硬件产品(无论是否附带服务),你必须构建并可视化整个产品,才能做出那些基于观点的决策。因此,你需要一个小团队,从营销角度、工程角度、销售角度等各方面审视,然后说:“好,我们就走这条路。”能做的选择有限,因为团队其他成员也看不到全貌。所以你必须非常清晰地阐述这个基于观点的决策是为了什么、为什么、它如何影响市场、你如何执行,并确保团队理解。如果团队完全反对,那也许不得不残酷。但希望如果你做得好,真正有见地的直觉并能清晰表达,你就能让所有人朝同一个方向前进,即使这有风险。你说得对,你必须知道要承担风险,因为其他职能的大多数人不想冒任何风险。所以必须有人成为靶子,对吧?如今在很多情况下,人们会去请顾问。他们会说:“我们做个用户研究吧”,但他们没有用户研究,也没有我描述的全貌。他们不去购买产品,也不做其他事情,然后得到数据。这是因为领导者或董事会说:“我们需要数据来确保这个 1.0 成功。”我在许多大公司见过太多次了。他们只是用数据来保护自己,而不是真正做艰难的工作,说:“我要做这个决定,我们选择这个,是的,我可能错了,或者我们这些基于观点的决策者错了,我们以后会修正,并为此承担责任。”

When you're doing a 1.0 of anything, when you're doing if you're doing anything that matters and it's a 1.0 and it's a new category or it's a new device the world hasn't seen before, you have very few analogs that you can use to make data-driven decisions. And so, if most of your decisions are going to be opinion-based decisions for a 1.0, you have to have one or two or a very, very small set of people who are in charge with making the opinion-based decisions and can actually get you from point A to from a a white paper a you know, a white blank blank sheet of white paper or whiteboard to an actual 1.0 spec. Because if you try to do data-driven decisions all the way along, you're you're either not doing a differentiated product because you're taking data from another thing or you're just getting just data. Right? So, you're going to have to figure out how to get opinion-based decisions to happen, and that means you have to have, you know, for lack of a better word, tastemakers. This is what we are doing. We are the the person or the team who is going to make those opinion-based decisions. Of course, some people aren't going to like it, and it's going to be like, "I'm sorry, this is a benevolent dictatorship. This is what's going to happen, and this is the vision, and we don't know what we don't know until we ship it and we get opinions from the, you know, the the the users." Now, it's very different when you do this on a in a B2B context versus a B2C context. And so, the hardest environment to work with it when when you have these opinion-based decisions is in a B2C context because you have to see these decisions in the full light, and you don't a consumer does. They have to see it in from the marketing, from how they discover it in the marketing, the key uh the key feature sets, the the ability to use the product, all of these different things for them to actually come up with an opinion of what they like and what they don't like and being able to critique it. And if you don't And if you're doing a 1.0 and the world hasn't seen you, you're not going to get that from consumers, ever. You have to ship it, and you have to build the entire kind of ecosystem so those consumers see it in the fullness so that when they do the evaluation and they spend their own money, then you're getting real feedback. When it comes to consumer hard atoms-based products with services or not, whatever it is, you have to build the entire thing and visualize the entire thing to be able to make those uh uh opinion-based decisions. And so, you need a small team who's looking at the marketing angles, the engineering angles, the the sales angles, all those different things to go, "Okay, that's the way we're going." And there's only so many ways you can do it because the rest of the team doesn't see this either. And so, you have to be very articulate about how uh what that opinion-based decision is made for, why, how it might affect market, how you do it, and make sure the team understands it. Now, if the team is just fully against it, well, then maybe it has to be unkind. But hopefully, if you've done a good job and you really, you know, have an informed gut and you can articulate that, you can get everybody moving in the same direction, even if it is and it's going to be risky. You're right, you got to know that you got to take risk, cuz most people in those other functions, they don't want to take any risks. And so, there's someone who's got to be the target, right? And today, you know, in many contexts, people go and hire consultants. Right? They go and hire, okay, we're going to do a user study, or we're going to do all this, and they don't have the user study, they don't have the full context like I was just describing. They don't go buy the product, and they don't what have you, and then they get data. And that's because the leader, or whoever's in there, or board maybe, it's like, we need data to make sure this 1.0 is going to be a success. And I saw this so many times at all these major corporations. So, they're just kind of covering their ass with data, and not really doing the hard work of saying, I'm going to make this decision, and we are going to select this, and yes, I might be wrong, or we as the opinion based decision makers are wrong, and we will correct it later. And we'll take the heat for that.

微观管理作为领导工具 Micromanagement as a Leadership Tool

Host

所以,我在这里听到的是一种力量,尤其是在消费产品中,一个单一愿景、单一领导者的力量,它基本上依赖于他们的直觉、品味和经验。

So, what I'm hearing here is just the power, especially in a consumer product, of a singular vision of a singular leader that drives it, that is basically relies on their instinct and their taste and their experience.

Tony Fadell

他们还需要来自周围所有专家的许多明智判断,通过提问、改进、原型设计等方式来做出决策。所以,这不仅仅是某天早上醒来就说“我们要朝这个方向走”。不,要达到那个目标需要大量的工作。

They and a lot of informed judgment from all the experts around, asking questions, refining, prototyping, these kinds of things to then make a decision. So, it's not just like, I woke up one morning and, you know, this is, you know, now it's we're going this direction. No, it's there's a lot of work to get there.

Host

我想回到微观管理这个概念,很多人认为这个词是负面的。不要做微观管理者。你主张创造伟大产品需要真正的微观管理。你谈谈这个。你认为作为领导者,人们忽略了微观管理的重要性和力量吗?

I want to come back to the idea of micromanaging, which a lot of people like to a lot of people that word is a bad. Don't be a micromanager. You advocate for creating great products, you need to actually be really micromanaging. You just speak to that. What do you feel you think miss about the importance and power of micromanaging as a leader?

Tony Fadell

你知道,我们听过“注重细节”这个说法。这是对某些细节的微观管理。而其他细节则要放手。你必须真正理解哪些事情重要,哪些不重要。在我职业生涯早期,我认为每件事都重要。我让所有人都抓狂,也让自己抓狂,人们讨厌这样,结果变成了每个人都必须按我的方式做事。不,不,不。只有少数关键事项,主要是面向客户的,或者某些制造、成本方面的,需要非常明确或符合长期愿景。但其他事情你可以授权,不过某些部分你确实需要亲自处理。我所说的微观管理,是指微观管理决策,而不是执行操作。确保你获得数据,就像我们在 iPhone 键盘上做的那样,确保我们获得正确的数据,帮助我们做出基于直觉的明智决策。所以,这是对你需要的那些特定数据点的微观规范和交付。也许这也是为了摆脱危机。或者是一个系统层面的问题,你必须担心底层的变化会影响到这里和那里,就像“我们可以那样做,但前提是他们这样做”,然后你会说:“好了,各位,我们要一次性解决所有这些问题。”你必须进行微观管理,因为每个人都想找借口说他们做不到这个或那个。所以你必须多问为什么。这一切都是为了交付某个关键细节或创新。就像我说的键盘,我们必须做硬件、软件、过滤,以及屏幕上的图形处理。所以,所有这些层面都需要不断变化和调整,有时你必须微观管理,因为变量太多,必须有人充当这个由许多不同组件组成的庞大乐队的指挥,让一切和谐地融合在一起。

You know, we've heard the term sweat the details. It's micromanagement of certain details. And then there's the kind of hands-off of other details. You have to really understand the blend of which things really matter, which things don't. When I was early in my career, I thought everything mattered. And I drove everybody nuts, drove myself nuts, the people hated like you know, and it became my it became like everybody's got to do it the way I would do it. It's like no, no, no, no. There's only a few key things mostly for the customer or maybe some certain things for manufacturing or cost or something where it needs to really be very clear or a long-term vision. But then you can delegate other things, but certain pieces of it you really need to And when I mean micromanaging, it means micromanage the decision, not necessarily operations of doing it. Making sure you're getting the data like we did with the keyboard on the iPhone to make sure we're getting the right data to help us get the informed gut to make that opinion-based decision. And so it's the micro specification and delivery of those certain data pieces that you need. And maybe it's also to get out of a crisis. Or maybe it's a system level thing where you have to worry about this thing at the low level changing up here and here and like we could do that, but only if they do this and this is like, "Okay, guys, we're going to fix all of those things at once." And you have to micromanage it because everybody wants to find excuses why they can't do that or they can't do that. So you have to ask why a lot. So it's all in service of some really key detail that needs to get delivered or some innovation that needs to be delivered. Just like I said the keyboard, we had to do the hardware, we had to do the software, we had to do the filtering, you know, we had to do how the graphics were done on the screen. So, you had all of these layers that had to keep constantly changing and adjusting and sometimes you have to micromanage that because there's just too many variables and someone has to be the orchestrator of this huge orchestra of many different components to kind of make it all come together and be harmonious.

Nest产品与烟雾报警器 Nest Products and the Smoke Alarm

Host

我想换个方向。我想谈谈 Nest。

I want to go in a slightly different direction. I want to talk about the Nest.

Tony Fadell

恒温器,我猜。

The thermostat, I'm assuming.

Host

恒温器,是的。与鸟相比,鸟是许多其他 Nest 产品。

Thermostat, yeah. What versus what the bird a bird was many other Nest products.

Tony Fadell

对。好吧。嗯,烟雾报警器,顺便问一下,那个停产了吗?是的,我……你这是在两年前刺我的心吗?那是我和我们的团队、Nest 以及团队其他人一生中做过的最艰难的产品之一,因为做出那样的东西太难了,有太多限制。那是一个终极限制型产品,要创新非常困难。所以,是的,不幸的是它停产了。但它是十年来该领域最好的产品,没有人改变它,没有人投资它。这太疯狂了。这让我和每个人都感到痛苦。人们说:“它们在我身边过期了,我该怎么办?”我说:“我希望我能告诉你有什么更好的。”没有人用更好的东西取代它。真是难以置信,收入等各方面都排名第一的产品,你就这么扔掉了。

Right. All right. Yeah. Uh man, the smoke alarm is that discontinued, by the way, the smoke alarm? Yeah, I just Oh, you want to stab me in the heart like 2 years ago? That was one of the toughest products I and our team and Nest and other people who were on the team have ever made in their life cuz it's so hard to make something like that that's There's so many constraints. Like that's an ultimate constraint kind of product to actually innovate in. So, yes, it unfortunately is discontinued. But it was the best product in the space for a decade and no one changed it, no one invested in it. It is so crazy. It pains me and it pains everyone. People are like, "They're expiring around me. What do I do?" And I'm like, "I wish I could tell you there's something better." No one replaced it with something better. It's just mind-boggling that the number one product with revenue and everything, you're just going to toss it away.

Host

你认为为什么会这样?

Why do you think that's happening?

Tony Fadell

因为它是个孤儿。

Cuz it was an orphan.

Host

它是个孤儿。在谷歌内部,它不是一个足够大的业务,而且他们经历了那次合并。

It's an orphan. It's just not a big enough business within Google and they got that merger.

Tony Fadell

不,不。它是个继子。你真的需要投入大量的爱、大量的关注、大量的爱才能做出那样晶莹剔透的东西。它必须形态完美,但没有人真正愿意付出努力。所以,他们可能想:“谁想做这个?谁对它感兴趣?”可能没有人感兴趣,他们就说:“好吧,最终它没那么重要。”但如果投入资源,我认为它本可以成为下一代家庭 AI 助手中的关键部分。

No, no. It was a stepchild. You really had to pour a lot of love, a lot of attention, a lot of love to make something that was that crystalline. And it had to be well-formed and nobody really wanted to put in the effort. So, they probably like, "Who want to do this? Who's excited by it?" Nobody was probably excited and they just said, "Yeah, okay, we'll just it's not that big a deal in the end of the day where if it was invested in, I think it would have been a critical piece of the next generation AI assistant in your home.

Host

我想多听听这个。关于烟雾报警器,我最喜欢的一个功能是,有一次我在 Airbnb,它没有直接发出哔哔声,而是说:“我即将发出很大的噪音。”就像那样。

I want to hear more about that. And just on the smoke alarm point, I my favorite feature, I was at an Airbnb once and I just started instead of just straight to beeping, it was just like, "I'm about to make a loud noise." Like that.

Tony Fadell

我们称之为“提醒”。

We call it heads up.

Host

我非常喜欢这个功能。就像“马上就要很大声了”。你告诉我的。那太好了。

I love that feature so much. It's like, "It's about to get very loud." You were telling me. That was so good.

Tony Fadell

你知道,这是为了让你每次不会得创伤后应激障碍,因为当烟雾报警器响起时,你会说:“好了,大家冷静。我们现在要这样做了。”尤其是在我们做测试之类的时候。因为人们应该测试,或者它应该自我测试。就像:“大家保持冷静。会没事的,孩子们。我们只做这一件事。你们会挺过去的。别担心。”

You know, it's so that you don't get PTSD every time cuz you know when a smoke alarm go off, you're like, "Okay, everyone calm. We're going to do this now." Especially when we're doing tests and stuff. We're like, you know, when we're cuz the people are supposed to test or are supposed to test itself. Like, you know, like, "Everyone stay calm. It's going to be good, children. We just we're going to do this one thing. You'll get through it. Don't worry."

Host

太好了。我当时想:“非常感谢你告诉我。”

That's so good. I was like, "Thank you so much for telling me."

Tony Fadell

那个产品倾注了很多爱和关怀。

There was a lot of love and care poured in that thing.

Host

所以,我本来想具体问 Nest。比如,Nest 恒温器仍然是市面上最好的恒温器。我走到哪里都用。它是最好的。但应用没有进化。很长时间没有变化了。是你刚才描述的原因吗?它只是不是优先事项?

So, I was going to ask specifically about the Nest. Like, the Nest thermostat is still the best thermostat out there. I use it everywhere I go. It's just the best. The app hasn't evolved. Nothing's changed for a long time. Is it the same reason you just described? It's just not a priority?

Tony Fadell

绝对不是。是的,你知道,整个组织不知为何成了继子。存在文化不匹配。

It's definitely not. Yeah, it you know, the whole organization was a stepchild for whatever reason. You know, there was cultural mismatch.

AI需要上下文:Nest智能家居愿景 AI needs context: Nest's vision for smart home

Tony Fadell

可能存在业务上的错配。我认为如果 Nest 像当年那样活到今天,结合 Google 和 Gemini,以及昨天或前天刚结束的 Google IO,它会成为核心亮点之一,因为 AI 需要上下文。AI 需要大量上下文。在家庭中,你希望一切无缝衔接。获取最佳上下文的方式是在家中合理布置传感器,这些传感器不一定侵犯隐私,但能捕捉到人员的进出、房间里谁是谁、你的声音等等。我应该说音频,而不是语音。这样才能为 AI 提供上下文,让你拥有一个真正了解情况的随处可用的助手。

There was probably a business mismatch. I think if Nest was alive today like it was, it would have a whole different thing with Google and Gemini and Google IO, which was yesterday or the day before. It would have been one of the centerpieces of what you could do because AI needs context. AI needs a lot of context. In a home, you want to make everything seamless. The way you get best context is by having sensors properly placed around the home that don't necessarily invade privacy, but allow you to pick up comings and goings, who's who in the room, your voice, and these kinds of things. Audio, I should say, not voice. To be able to give AIs context so that you can have an anywhere assistant that really knows what's going on.

Host

你认为现在还有空间让某人推出新的 Nest 吗?

Is there space for someone to launch the new Nest, do you think?

Tony Fadell

哦,当然,当然。人们一直问我,‘我们为什么要做这个?’我说,不,绝对要做。现在就是时机,如果还没发生的话。我实际上收到了很多商业计划书,他们说,‘嘿,这个你感兴趣吗?想投资吗?想过来帮我们搭建吗?这就像 Nest 2.0。’所以 Ring 也在尝试类似的事情。我不认为它非常注重隐私,但那就是他们想做的。说实话,那从一开始就是我们的愿景。我们当时想,‘你在家里需要大量上下文。’因为我们记得,Nest 学习恒温器并不是 Nest AI 恒温器。它本可以那样命名,但我们在 2011 年不能那么叫,因为人们会吓坏。现在,你会叫它 Nest AI 恒温器,对吧?人们会买账的。所以我们知道 AI 是什么。从 2010 年开始,AI 就是公司的基石之一。正是这样我们才能做到很多事,但显然不是大语言模型,而是更小的东西。我们说,‘好吧,我们可以看到这个世界朝着 AI 助手的方向发展。’然后语音助手来了,接着是 Alexa 和 2013、14、15 年发生的那些事。我们说,‘好吧。’那是第一代,但我们能看到这种绽放。不幸的是,随着时间的推移,从 Nest 推出到那个愿景实现花了 15 年多的时间,但现在它就在那里。如果我们当时那样推销 Nest,我们只是太早了。

Oh, for sure. For sure. People keep asking me, 'Why are we going to do it?' It's like, no, absolutely. Now is the time if it isn't already happening. I'm actually getting business plans from people who are like, 'Hey, is this interesting to you? Want to invest? Want to come and help us build it? This is like Nest 2.0.' So they're trying to do stuff like that at Ring. I don't think it's very privacy-focused, but that's what they're trying to do. That was our vision in the beginning, to tell you the truth. That's how we were like, 'You're going to need lots of context in the home.' Because we remember, the Nest Learning Thermostat wasn't the Nest AI Thermostat. It could have been called that, but we couldn't call it that in 2011 because people would have freaked out. Now, you would have called it the Nest AI Thermostat, right? And people would have bought it. So, we knew what AI was. Since 2010, that was one of the foundational pieces of the company was AI. That's how we were able to do a lot of the things we did, but it was in much smaller stuff, obviously not LLMs. And we said, 'Okay, we can see this world growing into this AI assistant.' Then voice assistants came, then there was Alexa and all that stuff later on in 2013, 14, 15. It's like, 'Okay.' And that was Gen 1, but we could see this kind of blossoming. Unfortunately, in the fullness of time, it takes 15 years more from the time Nest launched for that vision to come to fruition, but it is there now. And if Nest was pitched that way, we were just too early.

如何决定构建什么:从痛点出发 How to decide what to build: starting from pain

Host

让我顺着这条线索,聊聊如何知道该构建什么以及如何产生想法。你给一群认识你的人发了邮件,问他们该问你什么。你的一位同事 Herman Hauser,他想让我问你:问他如何决定什么值得构建。

Let me follow this thread around how to know what to build and how you come up with ideas. So you emailed a bunch of people that know you, asked them what to ask you. One of your colleagues, Herman Hauser, his question he wanted me to ask you: ask him how he decides what is worth building.

Tony Fadell

好的。Herman 很棒。我从 1987 年就认识他了,可能比你大多数听众出生还早。但简单介绍一下,Herman 是 Acorn Computer 的创造者,那是 70 年代英国的 Apple II,然后他和他的团队创造了 ARM 处理器。所以 Acorn RISC 是——ARM 代表 Acorn RISC Machine,来自 Acorn Computer。他是 ARM 的创始人之一。我刚才在聊处理器。总之,Herman 和我交情很深。那么,如何判断什么值得构建、什么不值得呢?首先,我从痛点出发。有些人从其他方向开始,但我总是从痛点开始。这是我学到的:人们现在的痛点是什么,或者你能预见到他们在不久的将来会有的痛点。但如何解决那个痛点呢?通常这些痛点的产生是因为当初创建那些产品时,要么是无意的后果,要么是当时技术的局限,然后它们只是演进,从未自我革命。所以它们在同样的痛点中演进,但那个痛点给了你足够的止痛药,让你觉得忍受这个新痛点是值得的。所以我总是从‘我们当前的痛点在哪里,有没有新技术可以解决它’开始。以恒温器为例,Nest 是我们可以用 AI 来学习。它可以学习你何时在家、何时外出、你喜欢什么温度,这样你就不需要编程,从而节省能源。最大的痛点是要么舒适,要么省钱,因为 50% 的能源账单来自这个供暖和制冷设备,你讨厌它的界面,不知道它是什么,你只是付钱。所以从那个痛点出发,我们说,好吧,可编程恒温器没有创新,但也没人用。每个人都有,因为能源公司会给你返利,但没人知道怎么用,因为它太神秘了,就像编程录像机一样。所以我说,等等,如果它能学习你的模式呢?那就是 AI。那么现在让我们把它包装成一个更酷、更有吸引力的产品,价格是今天你买的东西的五到六倍。但那是一个疯狂的基于直觉的决定:好吧,是的,它要 249 美元,但每年能帮你节省 800 到 1200 美元。所以它一两年内就能回本。这就是大想法,AI 被用来解决那个老问题,希望能以新的方式解决它。所以它始于痛点,长期的痛点,也许是被习惯化而忽略的痛点,你需要去发现,然后新技术与之结合,带来创新和革命,从而重新定义这个领域,就像我们做的那样。不仅仅是产品,还有你如何安装它——以前总是由第三方安装,而不是你自己;你如何购买它——你通过安装商购买,而不是在 Best Buy 或其他地方。所以我们不得不重新发明拼图的许多不同部分,才能让 Nest 成为 Nest。它不仅仅是产品,而是所有其他东西。就像 iPod 不仅仅是 iPod,iPhone 不仅仅是 iPhone。它是 iPhone 加上 App Store、iTunes、iPod 加上 iTunes,然后是 iTunes Music Store。所以你必须考虑你试图构建的整个系统,而不仅仅是一个部分,即使你可能只记得那一个部分。你必须记住,你要用这个系统进行创新。

Okay. Well, Herman's great. I've known Herman since 1987, probably before most of your listeners were even born. But Herman, just for context, Herman was the creator of Acorn Computer, which was the Apple II of the UK back in the 70s, and then he created with his team the ARM processor. So Acorn RISC is — ARM means Acorn RISC Machine from Acorn Computer. So he was one of the founders of ARM. I was talking about processors. Anyway, so Herman and I go way back. So the thing is, how do you figure out what is worthy to be built and what's not? The first thing is I start from pain. Some people start from other directions. I always start from pain. That's what I learned: what are people's pain right now, or you can see it on the horizon they're going to have pain in not too far away. But how do you solve for that pain? Typically those pains were because when those products were created, either it was an unintentional consequence or a limitation of the technology at the time, and it kind of just evolved but never revolutionized itself. So it just evolved in that same pain kind of was there, but it gave you enough of a painkiller for the other problem that having this new pain was worth it. So I always start with, okay, where's our current pain and are there new technologies to solve that pain? In the thermostat case, Nest was we could use AI to learn. So it can learn when you're there, when you're away, what temperatures you like, so you don't have to program it, so you can save energy. The big pain was being either comfortable or saving money, because 50% of your energy bill was in this heating and cooling unit that you hated the interface, you didn't know what it was, you just paid the bill. So it started from that pain and said, okay, well, programmable thermostats weren't innovated, but they weren't used. Everyone had them because the energy company would give you rebates, but no one knew how to use it because it was arcane. It was programming a VCR. So what I said was, oh, wait a second, what if it could learn your patterns? And that was AI. So now let's put that together in a much cooler looking, attractive package that cost five to six times more than the things you're buying today. But that was the crazy opinion-based decision: okay, yes, it's going to cost $249, but it's going to save you $800 to $1,200 a year. So it could pay for itself within a year or two. So that was the big idea, and AI was brought to bear on that old problem, and hopefully solve it in a new way. So it starts with the pain, long-time pain, maybe habituated away pain that you have to discover, and new technology bonded with that to bring innovation in, revolution in, and then redefine the space in a way, which is what we did. Not just with the product, but how you installed it — it was always installed by third-party installers as opposed to yourself, how you bought it — you bought it through the installer, not in Best Buy or somewhere else. So we had to reinvent many different pieces of the puzzle to get Nest to be Nest. It wasn't just the product. It was all the other things. Just like the iPod wasn't the iPod, or the iPhone wasn't the iPhone. It was the iPhone plus the App Store, iTunes, iPod plus iTunes, and then the iTunes Music Store. So you have to think about the full thing you're trying to build, not just the one piece, even though that's what you might remember. You have to remember it's a system that you're going to innovate with.

两要素公式:痛点与新技术 The Two-Part Formula: Pain and New Technologies

Host

所以,你分享的这个关于痛苦和新技术的两部分公式,第二部分真的很有趣。本质上就是问“为什么是现在”?出现了什么新技术让我们现在能解决这个痛点?感觉这是核心。有意思的是,当你谈到 iPhone 键盘时,也是一个类似的故事:我们终于可以在历史上第一次做出虚拟键盘了。

So, these two-part kind of formula you shared here with pain and new technologies. The second part is really interesting. Essentially, it's like what's the why now? What's like the new tech that has emerged that now allows us to solve this pain? It feels like that's a core part of it. It's interesting because when you talked about the iPhone keyboard, it was a similar story of like okay, we can actually sort of do the virtual keyboard for the first time in history.

Tony Fadell

对,没错。关键是多点触控。就是这样,而且当时我们刚好有了足够快的处理器,对吧?我们刚好处于临界点。如果你看看 iPhone、Nest、iPhone 或 iPod,就能看到所有这些技术都刚刚崭露头角。在 iPod 上,就是便携式、电池供电的大容量存储。这就是关键,还有 MP3 或数字音乐。我们也是首批使用锂离子或锂聚合物电池的产品。所以,新电池技术、新便携大容量存储,以及新一代数字音乐,再加上 ARM 处理器,功耗非常低。所有这些必须结合在一起。而在 iPhone 上,是多点触控,但不仅如此,还有无处不在的 Wi-Fi。我们知道 3G 即将到来,当时只有 2.5G,速度很慢,但有 Wi-Fi。还有摄像头,数码相机,数码视频,当时还有 YouTube。所有这些都刚刚成熟,让 iPhone 与之前的黑莓截然不同,黑莓基本上只是个发短信的机器。

Right, exactly. It could be because of multi-touch. That's really what it was and then we were just on the verge of having fast enough processors, right? And we were just on the verge and so it wasn't you know, if you look at the iPhone or you look Nest iPhone or iPod, you can see where all these technologies were just coming to light. So, in the iPod it was just now mass storage that was portable and battery operated. That was really what it was and it was also MP3s or digital music, right? Those were kind of and we also had high-density we were the first products to have lithium-ion or lithium prismatic polymer cells. So, it was new battery technology, new mass storage portable mass storage, and this new generation of digital music. And we had ARM processors, right? And so and they're really, really low power. So, all of those things had to come together to do that. And then on the iPhone, it was multi-touch, but it wasn't just that, it was also the fact that now we had Wi-Fi everywhere. And we knew that 3G was coming. Because we were it was only 2 and a half G when that was and that was very slow, but we had Wi-Fi. And so, it was And we had cameras, right? Digital cameras. We had the digital camera. We had digital video, which was the we had YouTube at the time. So, it was all of those things just on the verge to say this is what's going to be very different than what just came before it like a BlackBerry, which was really just a texting machine and nothing else.

当创意不够好:成功阈值 When an Idea Isn't Good Enough: Threshold for Success

Host

我想回到你关于找到好主意的建议上。我很好奇另一面:什么时候还不够好?市面上有很多小工具解决了某种痛点,也许整合了新技术,但还不是大生意,不是真正的公司。门槛是什么?什么迹象表明这还不够大?

I'm going to close the loop on your advice on finding a great idea. I'm curious about the flip side of when it's still not good enough. So, there are so many gadgets out there that are solving some pain level. Maybe there's a new technology that they integrated, but they're still not a big business. It's not a real company. What's the threshold? What's a sign that this isn't big enough?

Tony Fadell

嗯,你知道吗,iPod 一开始也不够大。它花了三代才成功。任何记得 iPhone 之前 iPod 的人都知道,iPhone 像黑洞一样吞噬了一切。但第一代 iPod 只对 Mac 极客有吸引力,而 Mac 极客不到市场的 1%。第二代也是这样。我们第一季能卖的都卖了,然后销量就死了,因为只有 Mac 发烧友、忠实用户会来买。直到第三代,我们让它兼容 Windows,加上 iTunes 音乐商店,它才真正起飞。所以有时候你必须说,我们方向对了,但需要做些改变来启动市场。那是一个基于意见的决策。我领导的团队很清楚,我们必须从一开始就支持 Windows 连接,或者至少在第一代 iPod 发货后马上支持。但 Steve 说:“除非我死,绝不可能。这会帮助我们卖更多 Mac。”然后我们做第二代时,还是只支持 Mac,我们想只要修好一些问题,它就会火起来。但并没有。后来我们通过一个秘密项目最终实现了 Windows 连接,这是个很长的故事。我在触控笔上也做了同样的事。Steve 从不想在 iPhone 或 iPad 上要触控笔。他说:“手指就够了。如果我们不能用手指完成,那就算了。”我说:“但我们在 B2B 场景中需要填表、写字。”他说:“我不在乎,那会变成 Windows 笔。”他担心会像 Windows 笔那样,所有操作都得用笔,而不是手指。他希望以手指为主,而不是笔。但后来我们通过另一个秘密项目加入了触控笔,它最终成为产品的一大特色。不是每个人都用,但对某些专业人士、艺术家和爱好者来说很重要。所以有时候你需要这些秘密项目,即使意见领袖不喜欢,你也觉得那是对的,也许不是现在,但你能看到未来。所以你就继续做。就像我说的,iPhone 也不是一炮而红。它只在 AT&T 上工作,是 2.5G,只在美国能用。我们出了好几个版本才成功。在我的书里,我提到三代法则:一切都需要三代。我学到的是:先做产品,然后根据客户反馈修正产品,最后修正业务,也就是改善利润率。第一代 iPod 和 iPhone 都没赚钱。第二代开始数字好一点,功能也基本调好了。第三代,有了 Windows,利润率上来了,销量也上来了,可靠性也好了。所以你需要坚持你的想法,即使第一次不成功,除非有根本性的缺陷,否则你得重新开始,但有时候你得坚持下去。

Well, you know, the iPod wasn't big enough. It took three generations of the iPod before it became successful. Everyone you know, well, anyone who knows you know, if they remember iPod before iPhone because iPhone swallowed everything. It's like the black hole of everything. But, you know, iPod the first generation was only successful with the Mac geeks and the Mac geeks were less than 1% of the market. And then the second generation was also that way. So, when we we get we'd sell everything we'd sell everything we could for the most part in the first quarter and then it would die because it was just the Mac aficionados, the loyalists who'd come and buy everything. And it wasn't until the third generation where we made it work on Windows did it actually start we had the iTunes music store, did it actually start to take off? So sometimes you have to say we're on the right thing, but we need to make some changes to get this market going. And that was a real opinion-based decision. To you know, we the team at the team that I was running, we were really clear that we had to have Windows connectivity out of the gate. Or not out of the gate, but just after the first iPod shipped. And Steve said, "Over my dead body, no way. This is going to help us sell more Macs." So and then he and then you know, we're like, "Okay, we're making the second one. Oh, we're going to keep it with Mac only. We just got to fix a few of these things and then all of a sudden it'll take off." And it was like, it didn't take off. So then it was it's a long story about how that about how we finally got Windows connectivity, but there was always this skunk works thing project behind the scenes doing that. I did the same thing with stylus. Steve never wanted a stylus on the iPhone or the iPad. He never wanted He never wanted it. He's like, "Your finger is good enough. If we can't do it with the finger." It's like And I'm like, "But we're going to have a B2B context and we're going to have forms filling and people are going to write." And and he's like, "I don't care. Just That means we're going to get to like Windows pen." Cuz he thought it was going to be like Windows pen. Which was you had to use the pen for everything as opposed to using your finger. So it was like, I want it instead of pen dominant, I want it finger dominant. But it That's what he was saying. But then when we added the stylus, which was another skunk works project, all of a sudden it came out and was like, "Well, we had to have stylus, right?" And now it's a a big feature of the product. Not everyone uses it, but it is a big feature for certain professionals who who really want that. And artists and hobbyists and stuff. And so sometimes you have to have those skunk works things that even if the opinion-based leader doesn't like it, you're like, "That seems like the right thing. Maybe not right now, but it's going You can see it on the horizon." So you just keep working on those things. So but we had to like I said, the the iPhone wasn't a hit right away. It was kind of like a oh yeah, it worked on AT&T and it was 2 and a half G and it was this and that and you know, it did it only worked in the US. So, we had to get multiple versions till we got out and that's in my book, I have the and it's called a three I think it's three generations. Everything needs three generations as Bill there it is. Three generations. I've I've learned you make the product, you fix the product and then you fix the business. So, you have there's no I I've never seen anyone get it all right the first time. Like you want you would like to, but you get close, but make the product, fix the product after you get customer feedback and then make the business which means make the margins. Like on the first iPods we weren't making any money. First iPhones we weren't making any money. Right? The second iPhone or I say and second iPod, okay, we start getting a little bit better numbers. But we got more or less the features sort of dialed. Third one was like, okay, Windows, we got the margins, we're getting up the volume, we got all the right and like go. Right? Reliability, whatever else it had to be. So, you need to stick with your idea even if it's not necessarily going the first time unless there's something really severely your brain damaged about whatever it was. You have to restart, but sometimes you have to hang in there.

从失败与迭代中学习 Learning from failure and iteration

Tony Fadell

Nest 也是一样,我们坚持了两代烟雾报警器和几代恒温器,才让业务运转起来,对吧?不仅仅是让产品好用。

And same thing with Nest, we had to hang in there with two generations of the smoke detector and a few generations of the thermostat before we made the business work. Right? Not just make the product work.

Host

这里有很多方向可以聊。有意思的一点是,史蒂夫·乔布斯其实经常犯错。你有多少次不得不……

There's so many directions I can go here. One that's interesting is how often Steve Jobs was actually wrong. And how many times you had to...

Tony Fadell

你会觉得花了一年时间,终于……我们都有犯错的时候,但你知道,当你大获成功、做对了的时候,那些成功会盖过其他一切。但这就是你必须尝试和迭代的方式。杰夫·贝佐斯也这么说。我也相信这一点。你得失败几次才能找到方向。只有停下来才算失败。如果你不断迭代、继续前进,那就不叫失败,那叫学习。

You're like takes a year still like, okay, finally... We all were wrong at certain times, but you know, it's when you hit it big, when you get the right ones, they overshadow all the other stuff. But that's how you have to try and iterate. Jeff Bezos says the same thing. I believe in the same thing. You got to fail a few times till you find your way. And you only fail if you stop. If you keep iterating and keep going, well, then that's not failure. That's called learning.

iPod拯救苹果的角色 The iPod's role in saving Apple

Host

你刚才分享的故事里另一个有趣的部分,其实是我在你书中最喜欢的故事之一。你暗示了一点,但基本上第一代 iPod 必须用 Mac 才能使用。当时的想法是,这会带动 Mac 的销售,这是一种让人们购买 Mac 的方式。但按你的说法,这最终拯救了苹果——不是靠卖 Mac,而是人们买 iPod。这成了业务的主要部分。

The other interesting part of the story you just shared is one of my favorite stories in your book, actually. The fact you implied this, but basically the first iPod was you had to have a Mac to use it. And the idea was it would sell Macs. This is a way to get people to buy Macs. And the way you tell it, this ended up saving Apple eventually. Not selling Macs, but people buying iPods. And that became the big part of the business.

Tony Fadell

是的,当时的信条是:史蒂夫,如果我们不支持 Windows,iPod 就不是 349 美元,而是 3000 美元,因为你得买一台 Mac,还得把整个数字生活迁移过去。人们不会为了一个濒临破产的公司冒 3000 美元的风险。那我们该怎么办?好吧,确保它只要 349 美元,让他们能试试。一旦他们尝试了这个品牌,就会觉得:“哦,这挺有意思的。也许我应该试试这家公司的其他产品,给他们一个机会。”因为那是一种非常美妙的体验。一切就这样改变了。iPhone 之所以能诞生,是因为没有 iPod,我敢肯定就不会有 iPhone。可能连苹果都不存在了,因为它当时濒临破产。

Yeah, the mantra was, Steve, if we don't have Windows connectivity, the iPod doesn't cost $349. It costs $3,000 because you got to buy a Mac. And you got to move all your digital life over to it. People are not about to take a risk on this company that's almost bankrupt for $3,000. So, how are we going to do that? Like, okay, let's make sure it is only $349 and that they can try it. And once they try the brand, they go, "Ooh, that's pretty interesting. Maybe I should try other products from this company and give them a shot." Because that was just such a sublime experience. And that's how it all changed. And that's how iPhone was able to be created, because without the iPod, I'm pretty sure there would have been no iPhone. There would probably have been no Apple. Because it was close to bankruptcy.

Host

哇,真疯狂,如果这些决定中有些走错了方向,它离破产就那么近。

Wow. That's crazy how close it was to that if some of these decisions went the wrong way.

Tony Fadell

是的,非常接近。记住,当时没有零售店,没有苹果零售店,什么都没有。大多数人不知道 2001 年的苹果有多么岌岌可危。

Yeah, very close. Remember there was no retail back then, Apple retailers, none of that stuff. Most people don't know how on the ropes Apple was back in 2001.

超越产品的客户旅程与营销 Customer journey and marketing beyond product

Host

故事很多,但我想回到你提到的客户旅程这条线索,我认为这对收听本播客的听众来说非常重要。你在书中一再强调这一点,而且你有一张很棒的图,我们会展示整个客户旅程。你的观点是,很多产品构建者只关注打造产品,认为做出最好的产品就能赢。而你有一个非常重要的建议:远不止如此。请特别谈谈营销部分。谈谈你认为构建者即使多次听到这个建议,也未必真正理解的地方。

So many stories, but I want to come back to the customer journey thread that you touched on, which I think is really important for people listening to this podcast to hear. Something that you reinforce again and again in the book, and you have this awesome image that we're going to show of the entire customer journey. Your point is that so many product builders focus on building the product and think build the best product and we're going to win. And you have this very important advice that there's so much more to it. Talk about especially the marketing piece. Talk about what you think builders don't really get even though they hear this advice in many ways.

Tony Fadell

当我们构建产品时,我们在定义产品。我们对定义时的背景有很好的感知。我们活在那个世界里。所以我们会想:“哦,我们就是这样,这些是我们的问题,这就是我们。”也许你会套用人物画像。我们会提炼出目标客户及其画像。是带孩子的单亲妈妈,还是双收入无子女家庭,还是老年人,等等。我们会想出这些画像,并在思考产品时设身处地。但你也必须记住,这些人并不活在那个背景里。他们活在自己的背景中,但在他们的背景里,他们并不知道你的产品。所以你必须把产品带到他们面前,在他们所在的地方与他们相遇。你的营销、网站、Instagram 广告、你的赢取和自有媒体,你真的需要把产品放在他们的背景中,让视觉和文字对他们产生共鸣。否则,他们不会理解。很多时候我们只说:“只要我们做出完美的产品就行了。”不,你必须把所有东西都放进去,特别是对于消费品,对 B2B 产品也非常好。确保你理解你的客户。当你说出正确的话时,他们会想:“哦,他们懂我。我想多听听他们的。”这发生在他们拿到产品之前。你需要让他们以某种方式转化,他们需要听到你已经考虑过他们的问题,或者你设身处地为他们着想,然后他们会说:“是的。是的。是的,再多来点。”这是情感点还是理性点?你在编织一幅画卷,引导他们进行某种试用、购买或转化。最好的方式是通过口碑,由其他早期采用者来传播。但你也需要对那些其他人信任的早期采用者做同样的事,因为很多后期采用者知道:“哦,那是古怪的乔治,他什么都试。”但如果某某人试过了,“哦,那我该注意了。”你要做的是确保你理解客户的孕育过程以及他们所处的位置。我还在书中更新了《跨越鸿沟》的图表,说明我们在产品开发中如何做到这一点。你真的必须思考你的目标用户群是什么,以及基于你产品的版本和如何获得越来越高的销量,你的目标营销是什么。这实际上意味着要讲背景。也许当你首次发布时,你可以对早期采用者说话,用足够的话让他们转化。但到了产品的第二个版本,你面对的是后期采用者,你必须用他们的语言说话。而第三批采用者,真正的落后者,你必须真正对他们说话。这可能完全不同。这是一个非常有趣的故事,深深印在我的脑海里。

When we build products, we define products when we build them. We have a good sense of the context when we are defining those things. We're living in that world. And so we're like, "Oh, we're like this and these are our issues and this is who we are." Maybe you put on personas. We would strip out and figure out who our target customers were with their personas. Is it a single mom with kids, or a dual income no kid family, or senior citizens, or whatever. We would come up with these personas and kind of live inside them as we're thinking about the product. But you have to also remember that these people don't live in that context. They live in their context, but they're not aware of your product in their context. So you have to bring it home to them and meet them where they are. Your marketing, your website, your Instagram ads, your earned and owned media, you really need to put your product in their context and make the visuals and the words sing to them. If not, they're not going to get it. Too many times we just say, "Only if we just make the perfect product." No, you have to put all, for a consumer thing specifically, and it's also really good for a B2B product as well. Make sure you understand your customer. When you say the right words, they go, "Oh, they get me. I want to listen to these more." This is before they ever got the product. You need to get them to convert in some way, and they need to hear that you've already thought about their issues, or you're living in their shoes, and they're like, "Yes. Yes. Yes, more of that." Is this an emotional point? Is this a rational point? You're weaving this tapestry to get them to come to some kind of trial or purchase or conversion. The best way to do that is word of mouth, by other early adopters. But you got to do the same thing for the early adopters who other people trust to talk to, because a lot of other people who are late adopters, they know, "Oh, that's wacky George. He tries everything." But if so-and-so's tried it, "Oh, I should take notice." What you want to do is make sure you understand the gestation of your customer and where they are. I also updated the Crossing the Chasm graphic in the book, saying how we go about this in our product developments. You really have to think about who your target user set is and your target marketing based on the version of product you're in and how you're going to get those higher and higher volumes. It really means speaking the context. Maybe when you first ship, you can speak to those early adopters, and you can put it in enough words that they're going to convert. But then the second version of the product, you're getting these later adopters, and you've got to speak in their language. And the third set of adopters, who are really laggards, you've got to really speak to them. It could be totally different. This was a very interesting story that was so emblazoned in my mind.

新市场的营销适应 Marketing Adaptation for New Markets

Tony Fadell

回到 2001 年到 2003 年,苹果在美国以外还没有任何存在。苹果真的只在美国、加拿大和日本销售。但仅此而已,而且那是 Mac。所以我们把 iPod 卖到这些地区。我们有早期采用者,然后我们有一些其他语言,到第三或第四代 iPod 时,我们为那些晚期采用者准备了非常精炼的语言。所以我们说:“我们要回去,向欧洲推进。”因为 iPod 在欧洲还没有流行起来。所以我们打算把 iPod 推向欧洲。我们当时大概是第四代产品。那么我们在欧洲做了什么?我们在欧洲使用了和美国一样的营销策略。结果它没有引起早期采用者的共鸣,也没有引起晚期采用者的共鸣,因为我们的信息不同。我们针对的是不同的人群。我们意识到:“叮叮叮,销售不奏效。”我们说:“我们必须改变营销策略。我们必须迎合欧洲人的现状,因为他们采用技术的速度较慢,而在美国,技术是从沿海向内陆扩散的,对吧?”所以我们想:“哦,我们必须做出改变。”有时候当你进入新领域时,你必须重新思考该领域的营销策略,并记住要迎合他们的现状。如果没有口碑基础,你就得启动口碑传播。所以要和那些人合作来推动它。现在,所有软件产品和许多产品都可以立即全球化,但营销仍然需要讲故事。这提醒我,尽管我们可能压缩了采用拼图中某些部分的时间,因为我们可以更快地分发,但这并不意味着认知度可以加速,也不意味着如果我们只是重复那些可能已经了解产品三年的人的话,就能让人们更快地智能理解这个产品。

Back in 2001 to 2003, Apple still had no presence outside the US. Apple was really selling in the US, some Canada, and some Japan. But that was it, and that was the Macs. So we were selling iPods into those areas. We had the early adopters, and then we had some other language, and by the third or fourth version of iPod, we had some really refined language for those late adopters. So we said, "We're going to go back and get a push into Europe." Because iPod hadn't taken off in Europe. So we were going to push iPod into Europe. We were on the fourth generation or something like that. So what did we do in Europe? We ran the same marketing as we were doing in the US in Europe. And it didn't resonate with the early adopters. It didn't resonate with the later adopters because we didn't have the same messages. We were going for a different set of people. And we were like, "Ding ding ding, sales aren't working." We said, "We got to change the marketing. We got to meet those Europeans where they're at because they're slower to adopt technology versus it starts with the coast and goes inward in the US, right?" So we were like, "Oh, we got to change things up." Sometimes when you get to new areas, you have to rethink your marketing for that area and remember to meet them where they're at. If it doesn't have an installed base for word of mouth, you're going to have to get that word of mouth started. So work with those people to get that going. Now it's different with all software products and many products can go global right away, but marketing you still got to tell a story. It just reminds me that even though we may compress the time for some pieces of the adoption puzzle because we can distribute faster, it doesn't mean the awareness can get accelerated and that we can get people to intelligently understand this product faster if we just say the words of somebody who might have known about the product for three years.

“口袋里的1000首歌”背后的故事 The Story Behind '1000 Songs in Your Pocket'

Host

我必须问一下,也许是有史以来最著名的产品发布标语:“一千首歌装进口袋。”这背后有什么故事吗?

I got to ask about maybe the most famous tagline of all time when a product was launched: "A thousand songs in your pocket." Is there a story behind that?

Tony Fadell

在苹果的早期,我想现在可能已经变了,但在史蒂夫时代,苹果有不同的职能部门。因为公司只有四五千人,而且已经在做 Mac 和其他所有产品,每个部门都非常专业化。所以营销部门不接触工程和设计人员。它们是分开的。史蒂夫是中心,他把它们整合在一起,就像我说的,他是基于意见的决策者。所以当我们第一次听到这个标语时,我想:“这太天才了。”那么,它是怎么来的,幕后发生了什么?我们只是一个小团队,在 10 个月内完成了这件事。所以每个人都在拼命工作,对吧?相比之下,iPhone 的开发历时两年半,我们有过一些讨论:应该叫它 iPod phone 还是 iPhone,因为思科当时有 iPhone,存在版权和商标问题。所以我们陷入了这些讨论,因为这是押上全部身家,而且我们要蚕食 iPod,对吧?所以讨论要多得多。但在“一千首歌”的早期,每个人都在奔跑。实际上,不到 9 个月,真的只有 5 到 6 个月就完成了所有事情,因为我们实际上是在 4 月份开始的,10 月底就发货了。

Back in the day at Apple, and I think it's still that maybe it's changed now, but back in the Steve days, there were different functions of Apple. Because they were all lean, because the company was only 4,000 or 5,000 people, and it was already doing Macs and everything, each function was very functional. So the marketing didn't get into the engineering and the design folks. It was separate. Steve was the hub, and he was in each of them putting them together, like I said, the opinion-based decision-maker. So when we heard the tagline for the first time, I was like, "That's genius." Now, how that happened, what was behind the scenes? We were just a tiny team getting this done in 10 months. So everybody was just running for it, right? Versus iPhone, which was a two-and-a-half-year development, and we were in some discussions: should we call it the iPod phone or should we call it the iPhone, because Cisco had the iPhone back in the day and there were copyright and trademark issues. So we were into that because it was betting the farm and we were going to cannibalize iPod, right? So there was a lot more discussions. But in those early days of "1000 songs," it was everybody running. Literally, it was less than 9, really 5 to 6 months everything got done, because we really started it in April and it shipped at the end of October.

完美产品的营销缺口 Marketing as a Gap for Perfect Products

Host

所以我认为你分享的一个核心要点是,即使你可能有完美的产品,营销可能是差距所在,如果某件事不奏效,那可能是营销的问题。

So I think one of the core takeaways from what you shared here is even if you may have the perfect product, the marketing may be the gap that if something isn't working, it may be marketing.

Tony Fadell

绝对如此。而且问题是,我认为我们开始看到它的裂缝了。现在可能不仅仅是裂缝了。以 OpenAI 为例,它是什么?就像,“哦,它是你的答录机。”随便吧,你会想,“它为我做了什么?现在我还得继续付钱给你?”就像演示很有趣,但我每天用它做什么?然后 Claude,它做 Claude Code,它写代码。然后呢?OpenAI 说,“哦,我们现在有 Codex 了。”但然后他们又有 Sora,他们又有这个那个,“我们要做色情聊天。”就像,你到底是什么?所以就像,“哦,是的,你是伟大的先行者。”就像 Netscape,每个人都出去买了 Netscape Navigator。然后突然它就消失了。就像,“嗯,我用互联网做什么?”我有工具上网,但我每天用它做什么?它必须发展。所以 OpenAI 现在正在转变,比如,“哦,我们必须组建产品团队,我们必须开始做产品营销。”所以对我来说,这就是营销。但如果你开始思考营销,你就已经开始思考产品了。事情是这样的:当你只考虑产品时,它实际上只是一个病毒式传播的技术演示。他们就像,“哦,是的。”他们仍然在这方面获胜。他们从来没有把产品放进去,直到为时已晚。现在,Anthropic 处于他们的位置,估值更高,收入更高,以及其他一切。所以即使它只是一个纯软件产品,是的,还有很多硬件和服务器等等。你需要整体思考,你需要考虑整个客户旅程:营销、销售环节、分销环节、产品定义信息、早期目标市场。你不能把它留到以后,然后再反向计算。这就是为什么我说你应该在或多或少开始项目之前就写好新闻稿。

Absolutely. And the thing is, I think we're starting to see the cracks of it. It might be more than cracks now. With OpenAI, what is it? It's like, "Oh, it's your answering machine." Whatever, you're like, "Well, what does it do for me? And now I got to keep paying you?" Like it was fun as a demo, but what am I using it for every day? And then Claude, it does Claude Code and it does code. And then what happens? OpenAI is like, "Oh, we have Codex now." But then they were Sora, and they were this and that, "We're going to do sex chat." Like, what are you? And so it's like, "Oh yeah, you're the great first." Like Netscape, everyone went out and bought Netscape Navigator. And then all of a sudden it evaporated. Like, "Well, what do I use the net for?" I got the tool to get onto it, but what do I use it for daily? And it had to develop. And so OpenAI is now shifting like, "Oh, we got to get product teams and we got to start about product marketing." So to me, that's marketing. But if you start thinking about the marketing, you're already going to start thinking about the product. And that's the thing: when you're just thinking about the product, it was really just a technology demo that went viral. And they're like, "Oh, yeah." And they still keep winning on that. They never put product in till it was too late. Now, Anthropic is where they are, valued more and higher revenue and all that other stuff. So even if it's a software-only product, yes, there's lots of hardware and servers and all that other stuff. You need to think holistically, and you need to think about the entire customer journey: the marketing, the sales pieces, the distribution pieces, the product definition messaging, the target markets early on. You can't leave it till later and then back-calculate it. And that's why I say you should really make the press release before you more or less start the project.

逆向工作法与新闻稿方法 Working Backwards and the Press Release Approach

Host

是的,有一整章讲这个。我们发现亚马逊也以此闻名。有一整本关于逆向工作的书,深入探讨了这种方法。

Yeah, there's a whole chapter on that. We had found the Amazon is also very famous for that. There's a whole book on working backwards that goes really deep on this approach.

Tony Fadell

但奇怪的是,这是逆向工作。你看,说“逆向工作”——电影会这样创作吗?当你说“我要写一个剧本,我要做处理,我要真正知道它是什么。我要知道我的角色是什么,以及我如何进行角色发展”时,这能叫逆向工作吗?

But the weird thing is it's working backwards. See, saying "working backwards" — would a movie be created that way? Is it called working backwards when you say, "I'm going to make a script and I'm making the treatment and I'm going to really know what it is. I'm going to know what my characters are and how I do character development."

从客户需求逆向工作 Working backwards from customer needs

Host

这真的是逆向工作吗?听起来像是反着来的。其实不是,这才是正确的方式。只是因为太技术驱动了,我 20 岁时也这么想:是啊,我们现在听起来像是反的。但实际上,不,那太疯狂了。这不是逆向工作,那是一种疯狂的工作方式。拜托,我们好好想想。

Like, is that really working backwards? It sounds like it's backwards. It's like, no, that's the way you do it. It's just because it's so technology led and technology and this is what I thought when I was 20. It was like, yeah, we're you know, now it sounds backwards. It's actually, no, that's actually insane. It's not working backwards. It's just an insane way of working. Like, come on. Let's really think through this.

Tony Fadell

这很说明问题:你作为最成功、最有洞察力的构建者之一,却如此痴迷营销。我认为这对人们来说是一个非常重要的启示——你对构建中这一环节的执着,很多构建者根本不会去想。

It says so much that you as one of the I don't know, most successful insightful builders are so into marketing. I think that's a really important takeaway for people. Just how obsessed you are with that piece of building that I think a lot of builders don't think about at all.

Host

当你身处那个世界,当你站在客户的角度,你就必须透过营销和销售的镜头来看问题,因为客户只看到这些。所以你得设身处地地想:当我写新闻稿时,我只能列出三四个关键特性,再多客户就听不懂了。于是你会想:好,那三四个是什么?那就是我们要聚焦的。所以,不,我们不会再加五个特性,那不会让产品更好卖,对吧?或者,哦不,我们要砍掉这两个特性然后发货。那等等,我们砍掉了三个核心支柱中的两个,那还怎么卖?所以这是整体设计。不是因为我们觉得技术很牛,就把技术硬塞给客户,让他们自己琢磨怎么用。噪音太多了。你必须让它无摩擦,融入他们的世界,从他们的视角看问题。然后客户会说:哦,这就是我需要的。General Magic 就是完美的例子。你的观众一定要看《General Magic》那部电影,因为……

Well, when you live in that world and you live in the customer cuz you're coming from a customer point of view. So, you have to see the lens and the customer only sees what they see through the lens of marketing and sales, right? And so, you have to be in their shoes and you go, "Okay, like when I do the when I do the press release, I can only have three or four key features. After that, it becomes gobbledygook for a customer. So, you're like, "Okay, what are those three or four things? Okay, what is that? That's what we're going to focus on." And so, no, we're not going to add five more features. That's not going to make it sell better. Right? Or oh, no, we're going to cut these two features and ship it. It's like, "Well, wait a second, we cut out two of our three key tentpole features. How are we going to sell that anymore?" So, it's it's it's a holistic design. It's not you know, like because we think the technology the technology's in service of the customer. Not we're going to jam the technology down the customer's throat and they're going to figure out how to use it. There's too much noise. You got to make it frictionless and you got to fit it in their world and see from their point of view. You go, "Oh, that's what I need." General Magic was the perfect story for that. You know, I don't know. Your your viewers should definitely watch the movie General Magic cuz

Tony Fadell

绝对。

Absolutely.

Host

我们早了 15 年做出了 iPhone,那是一个经典案例:我们只做很酷的东西,但没人需要它。

we made the iPhone 15 years too early and that was a classic case where we were just making the things that were really cool, but nobody needed it.

Tony Fadell

是的,那部纪录片太棒了。我喜欢里面那个非常年轻的你。

Yeah, that documentary is incredible. It's like such a I like the very young version of you.

Host

是啊,完全不一样,可能人们都认不出我。

Yeah, very different. They're probably people won't recognize me.

Tony Fadell

对,你在书里专门有一章讲不要过度工作,就是基于那段经历。

Yeah, you have a whole chapter about just like not overworking in your in your career based on that experience.

Host

General Magic 对我来说就是那样。

Magic was for me, yeah.

Tony Fadell

嗯。

Yeah.

赞助消息:Vanta Sponsor message: Vanta

Host

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产品管理与构建者角色的演变 Evolution of product management and the builder role

Host

我想谈谈产品管理角色在构建者中的演变。很有意思的是,这有点偏离方向,但都是相通的。我觉得你在这个观点上非常超前:我们是构建者,而不是产品经理、工程师、设计师。我手边就有你的书,叫《Build》。现在大家都开始把产品团队的人称为构建者。我很好奇你怎么看这种角色的融合。你觉得每个人都会变成构建者,不再有设计师、工程师、产品经理吗?还是这些职能会继续存在,但更加融合?我不知道。你具体在产品管理这个学科上看到了什么?

I want to talk about something else around the evolution of the product management role in builders. What's really interesting, this is kind of going in a different direction, but it's all connected. Uh I feel like you were so ahead on this idea that we are builders versus product managers, engineers, design. Like, I have your book right here. It's called Build. And this is what everyone's starting to call product managers, people on product teams. Uh I'm curious just what you're seeing with that, this kind of converging of these roles. Do you feel like everyone just becomes a builder and there's no more designer, engineer, product manager? Do you think they'll continue being these functions with but more merged? I don't know. What are you seeing with the with the product the discipline of product management specifically?

Tony Fadell

产品管理这个学科位于所有这些职能角色之间——无论是营销、销售、分销,有时还有制造(取决于产品是什么),当然还有工程和客户支持。当你身处所有这些职能之间时,这些角色可能会发生变化,尤其取决于你在构建什么。但你必须解读它们之间的动态,把它们缝合在一起,让整个产品奏出美妙的乐章。现在有人说,在 AI 世界里,我只要写个提示词,东西就出来了,你根本不知道那些小功能是什么。但即使是在 AI 世界,如果你不了解每个功能,它们对客户来说都有非常明确的定义和视角,你必须考虑它们。说这些都会被冲走,AI 会搞定一切,这让我想起今天用 Claude 写代码的方式。大概一个月前,Claude 的源代码泄露了,对吧?Claude 的源代码泄露了。每个人都惊呼:天哪,泄露了!当时 Dario 说,我们 90% 到 100% 的代码都是由 Claude 写的,我们只是监控和审查。然后代码泄露了。任何一个真正的软件架构师或工程师看到那些代码都会吐。他们会说:这写的是什么?这东西太脆弱了。工程师们看着它,觉得应该分成四五个,实际上是 12 或 15 个不同的子函数。这是 Claude 的主循环——Anthropic 的 Claude 的主循环,不是别的什么边角料。人们会问:你怎么能这样写?这看起来太脆弱了,而且根本不可读。

Well, the discipline of product management sits between all of these functional roles. Okay, whether that's marketing, sales, uh distribution, yeah, sometimes manufacturing, depends on what the product is. Um engineering, obviously. Um and so uh customer support. So, when you sit between all of these things, you know, maybe those roles shift or change, especially depending on what it is you're building and and that kind of thing. But, you have to interpret, you know, what's going on between all of them and stitch them all together to make this this thing sing. And what we're saying and you know, is oh, I can just today in the AI world, I can just make a prompt and all of a sudden it gets spit out and you don't know what all those little functions are. If you are not aware of each of those functions even in AI world of what those things are, they are very clear definitions of certain points of view for the customer and you have to consider them. And to say that they're going to get washed away and an AI is going to come up with it. It reminds me a lot of how software coding is getting done with um, like something like Claude today. You know, if I don't know, maybe it was a month ago when the Claude source code leaked. Right? Claude source code leaked. And everyone was like, oh my god, it leaked. And then if you and and at the time and I'm sure and maybe I don't know, maybe they changed it, maybe they didn't, but at the time Dario was saying, you know, 90 to 100% of all our code is written by, you know, our, you know, Claude. And you know, we just monitor it and watch it. We're like, oh, well, that's really interesting. And then the code leaks. And then if you looked at the code, anybody who looked at the code, who's a real software architect and engineer, threw up. They were like, it made what? They're like, this stuff is brittle. Engineers were looking at it like, like this should be layered in four or five, you know, actually 12 or 15 different sub functions. This is the main loop of Claude of of of of of Anthropic's Claude. The main loop. Not not just something off in the This is the main loop and people are like, how can you do this? This looks brittle. There's like it's unreadable.

AI代码生成与技术债务 AI code generation and technical debt

Tony Fadell

嗯……他们就会说:“AI 知道怎么做。”但当你仔细想想,你需要维护它,你可以让智能体帮你写代码,它可能能运行、能测试,但它安全吗?可维护吗?如果出了问题,你能回滚并理解发生了什么吗?编写代码和交付产品还有很多其他方面,仍然需要人类参与。所以当我想到产品设计时,我想到的是带 AI 的软件代码。当你审视 AI,如果它没有做架构设计、没有做细分、没有像我说的那样审视每个部分——有软件架构师、软件优化师、普通程序员,还有安全审查——如果你没有这些专家组合围绕代码进行结构化,让后续迭代越来越好,它就会退化成一堆你不知道的东西。你是在用短期收益换取长期损失,这就是软件债务,对吧?技术债务。每个人都讨厌技术债务。所以你也许在修复某些东西,但很可能是在增加更多技术债务,尤其是在高层。那么,这如何映射到产品管理呢?如果你是一个产品经理,你输入一些东西得到结果,但你没有一个好的市场人员、好的营销传播人员、好的架构师、好的制造经理——所有这些不同角色——人们会想:“我的 AI 会更聪明。”但并没有证据证明这一点。真正被证明的是,如果你恰当地架构,让 Co-Pilot 代码进入某些子领域,或者让 Co-Pilot 帮你构建架构,你修改、完善、锁定它,然后说只在这几个有限范围内工作,那么是的,你可以让它工作。我认为这就是我们在产品管理能力中考虑如何使用这些工具的方式。如果说一切都抽象掉了,一切都会更好,当你提出具体问题、想在营销方面修复某个东西时,他们会说:“AI 应该也能搞定。”那你放弃得太多了。当然你可以写代码,但就像 H&M 和奢侈品牌的区别。你可以买到看起来像的东西和仿制品,但它洗一次或一季就坏了,然后扔掉,很便宜。或者你去买奢侈品,花更多钱,它是精心制作的、手工打造的,能用很久。这就是一种二分法:快速和一次性。所以,有了快时尚,我们也有了快软件。但如果你要建立一家真正的公司,软件不能是一次性的。也许可以,但我认为不行,因为你会积累技术债务,然后不得不重来。所以你必须真正理解如何使用这些工具。这些 AI 编码器、智能体编码器能做很多事情,可以帮你做出不可思议的原型。多做原型,多做这些事情,帮助你获得那种有依据的直觉,说我们往这个方向走,架构好,然后在下面的子领域工作,以及每个领域需要的所有专家系统。

It's un... And they're like, "Well, the AI knows it." But when you think about it and you have to maintain it, you can have an agent make code for you and it could work and it could test, but is it secure? Is it maintainable? If there's something going wrong, can you roll things back and understand what's going on? There are so many other aspects to writing code and delivering a product that you still need humans in the loop. So when I think of product design, I think of software code with AI. And when you look at AI, if it's not architecting things and not segmenting things and looking at each of those things like I was saying, there are software architects, software optimizers, and just general coders. And then there are security reviews. If you don't have that mixture of experts around the code structuring it so that subsequent generations can get better and better, it just devolves into a mass of things you don't know. You're getting short-term gain for very long-term loss, and that's called software debt, right? Technical debt. And everybody hates technical debt. So you might be fixing something, but it most likely is giving more technical debt, especially at the high level. So now, how does that map to product management? If you're a product manager and you type this in and get some result, but you don't have a really good marketer, a really good marketing communications person, a really good architect, a really good manufacturing manager—all these different things in this thing you're getting—foundation and people think, "Well, my AI's going to be smarter." It's not proven to do that. What's proven is if you properly architect it and have co-pilot code go into certain subsegments or have co-pilot help you build the architecture, you modify, refine it, lock it in, and say just work on these few things, on these more limited scope things, yeah, you can make that work. I think that's the way we have to consider how we use these tools in product management capabilities as well. To just say it's all abstracted away, it's all going to be better, and when you ask specific pointed questions and you want this thing fixed in your marketing thing or whatever, and they're going to be like, "Well, the AI should just figure that out too." It's like you have given up so much. Sure you can write code, but there's going to be the difference between H&M and a luxury brand. You can get certain things that look like that and copies, but it doesn't last more than one washing or one season, and you throw it away, it's cheap. Or you go to the luxury thing and pay more, it's crafted, handcrafted, and it's going to be around for a while. There is this dichotomy: fast and throwaway. So, what's called fast fashion, we have fast software. But software, if you're going to build a real company, can't be throwaway. Maybe it can, but I don't think it can be, because you get technical debt and you have to start over again. So you've got to really understand how you're using these tools. A lot of these things that these AI coders can do, agent coders can do, can make you incredible prototypes. Do more prototypes. Do more of those things to help you get that informed gut to say we're going this direction, architect that in, and then work on the subsegments below it and all the expert systems that you need in each of those domains.

Host

是的,我认为你在这里可能也在说一个非常重要的事情:因为构建变得如此容易,人们可以随意添加各种功能和附加项,而价值在于构建出真正棒的东西,产品思维变得更加重要,帮助把这些东西从粗制滥造的每个功能、每个复选框,变成人们真正使用的出色产品。

Yeah, and I think what you may also be saying here, which I think is really important, is that because it's so easy to build, people can just build all these features and additions, and the value accrues to build something awesome, and the product mind becomes more important to help push this stuff from just a sloppy every feature, every checkbox to something awesome that people actually use.

Tony Fadell

因为归根结底,如果你是给自己做的,那随便玩。但如果你要做出来并卖出去,而且只需要三个关键功能就能卖给某人,那就必须精简。必须想清楚,因为你仍然是在卖给需要理解它的人。那么,你觉得你能用 vibe coding 做出 Flighty 吗?

Because at the end of the day, if you're building it for yourself, whatever, go have fun. But if you're going to build it and you want to sell it, and you only need three key features to sell it to someone, it's going to have to be boiled down. It's going to have to be figured out because you're still selling it to a human who needs to understand it. Now, do you think you could vibe code Flighty?

Host

嗯。可能吧。

Mhm. Probably.

Tony Fadell

也许现在 Flighty 已经存在了,你可以。

Maybe now that Flighty exists, you could.

Host

复制它。

Copy that.

Tony Fadell

比如,你可以做 Flighty 的第二版,也许用 vibe coding,因为你说“看看 Flighty”。但最初的 Flighty?那是奢侈品软件。对吧?它知道像素是怎么做的。所以你要记住,是版本一还是版本二、三、四?因为对于高度创新、差异化的东西,基于观点的东西,它没有模型。里面没有那些东西。你仍然需要做出第一个版本。所以也许你可以用这些东西做原型。我可以讲上几个小时,但这只是一个老家伙的观点。

Like, you could do version two of Flighty, maybe vibe code it because you say, "Look at Flighty." But the original Flighty? That's luxury software. Right? It was understood how the pixels are done. So, you've got to remember, is it version one or is it version two, three, four? Because an opinion-based thing on highly innovative, differentiated stuff, it doesn't have a model for that. There's not that stuff in there. You still need the very version one to be done. So maybe you can prototype with these things. I could go on for hours, but that's just one old guy's point of view.

Host

我认为这个洞察非常重要:随着构建变得更容易,脱颖而出的东西是那些经过深思熟虑、出色且奢侈的,几乎就像你描述的那样。

I think it's really important this insight that as it becomes easier to build, the things that stand out are the things that are really well thought through and great and luxury, almost as you described.

Tony Fadell

你能感觉到,对吧?你会说:“天哪。”我是最推崇告诉别人“Flighty,Flighty”的人之一。因为我圈子里的人都在飞。我会问:“你试过吗?太疯狂了。”所以口碑传播,事情就火了,因为那种程度的用心和工艺。也许 Flighty 的很多子功能可以用 Co-Pilot 代码或其他工具构建,但整体和架构,我不这么认为。

And you can feel it, right? And you go, "Oh my god." I'm one of the biggest proponents of telling them, "Flighty, Flighty." Because all the people in my sphere, they're all flying. I'm like, "Have you tried it? It's insane." So you get word of mouth and things take off because there has been that level of care and craft. And maybe a lot of the sub functions of Flighty could be built from co-pilot code or whatever, but the whole thing and the architecture, I don't think so.

Host

如果有人还没试过 Flighty,赶紧下载玩玩。我很喜欢这个作为出色产品的例子。那真是一个很酷的产品。

And if someone hasn't tried Flighty, clearly download it and play with it. I love that this is the example of an amazing product. That's a really cool product.

Tony Fadell

所有软件。都是软件。

All software. It's all software.

产品构建中讲故事的力量 The power of storytelling in product building

Host

是的。顺着这个思路。听你说话,显然你是一个了不起的故事讲述者。在你的书里,你经常回到讲故事的力量,讲故事对产品构建者的价值。我想,第一是你认为为什么它如此重要?第二是你有什么建议可以让人们更好地讲故事?

Yeah. Something along these lines. As people hear you talk, clearly you are an amazing storyteller. And in your book, you often come back to the power of storytelling, the value of storytelling for product builders. What's, I guess one is just why is that so important, do you think? And two is what's like one tip you could give people to get better at storytelling?

Tony Fadell

讲故事,这是我们传递信息或让人们承诺做某事的方式。

Storytelling, that's how we passed information down or got people to commit to doing something.

讲故事的力量 The Power of Storytelling

Tony Fadell

故事就是我们本身。我们去看电影是为了故事,我们有书,有所有这些。故事对我们来说至关重要,因为我们喜欢被带入一段旅程。我们希望,当你购买产品、授权或订阅时,你踏上的旅程能符合甚至超越你的预期。它远超预期。所以,戴夫·查普尔,在喜剧和讲故事方面,他编织故事的方式,用 20 分钟铺垫一个笑点,而你完全沉浸其中,对吧?我就喜欢他的喜剧,而不是那些只讲短笑话的人。这是我们天性中的一部分,人性。我们小时候听故事,读同一本书或看同一部电影上百遍。被带入一段旅程的感觉让我们着迷。人们也喜欢通过这种方式学习,对吧?你最好的大学教授、高中老师,他们教你为什么应该喜欢数学或物理,带你踏上探索其重要性的旅程,然后你恍然大悟,哦,现在我懂了。你可以学习如何做某事的基础知识,但那并不能将其与有意义的东西联系起来。所以当你把它与人性联系起来时,它才变得易于理解和 relatable。这时它才能适用于任何事物,伟大的营销和销售才会发生。通过产品设计讲好故事甚至更好,对吧?因为那不是在劣质产品上喷香水,然后说“试试吧”,结果达不到预期。但当产品本身就能打动人心时,就像你提到的 Nest Protect、恒温器或烟雾报警器。当我们做到那一点,人们能感受到其中的关爱和用心时,他们就会说,哦,我喜欢这个,我想要更多来自这个品牌、公司或团队的东西。这就是他们想要的。为了做得更好,我学会了这一点,因为我观察我父亲,他做销售。我看他如何卖 Levi's。他并不总是为了卖而卖。有时他会说服顾客不要买某样东西,因为那不是最好的产品。他会说“买这个吧”,甚至建议去街对面的竞争对手那里,因为他是在建立关系和故事时间,因为这些人热爱它。所以有时不仅仅是设定预期和讲故事,还要说“嘿,也许我不适合你”。那是真相。那也是真相。就像史蒂夫常说的,“最好的营销就是讲真话。”现在,可能会用漂亮的词句和创意来包装,但本质是讲真话。所以,当我看到史蒂夫为 iPhone 做准备时,就像我说的,我们花了两年半时间,他每天都在打磨 iPhone 的故事。他没有交给营销部门。他知道那是什么以及关键功能是什么,就像我们讨论过的,他亲自管理这些功能,因为他知道这些是世界会注意到的。他会不断打磨故事,然后讲给其他人听,比如那些非常聪明的朋友,说“我要给你做演示”。然后他不断打磨、打磨、再打磨。所以当你看到他上台时,那是因为他已经练习了 10 万次,至少 1 万次,对吧?他烂熟于心,一气呵成。所以我观察并学习。这就是我们为 Nest Learning Thermostat 所做的。我们为每个产品都这样做了。就是反复讲同一个故事。它有什么意义?为什么重要?为什么重要?因为很多时候,当我们以技术为主导时,我们谈论的是“是什么”,而不是“为什么”。而“为什么”才是讲故事的核心。因为你希望踏上这段旅程,了解它为什么对你重要。如果你只谈“是什么”,那你只是在和另一个极客对话。我爱极客,没问题,我也是其中一员。但大多数非技术领域的人,他们想要一个故事,想要一些能触动他们的东西。

Stories are so who we are. We go to the movies for stories. We have books. We have all this stuff. And it's just so essential to who we are because we like to be taken on a journey. We like to, and hopefully when you're buying a product or licensing one or subscribing, you're taking on a journey that meets your expectations or is better than what the expectations were set. It's much outsized that. So, Dave Chappelle, when it comes to comedy and storytelling, the way he weaves a story for 20 minutes to get to the punchline and you're just in it, right? I just love his comedy as opposed to the punchline guys who are extremely short. It's something in our nature, human nature. We were told stories when we were a kid, we read the same or watched the same movies a hundred times when we were kids. There's something about being taken on that journey that we love. And people love to be educated that way. Right? Your best college professors, high school teachers, they taught you why you should love certain math or certain physics and took you on a journey of why it mattered and then you're like, oh, now I get it. You can learn all the basics of how to do something. But that doesn't really tie it into something that's meaningful. So when you tie it to something that's human, that's when it becomes accessible for humans and it's relatable. That's when it goes and it can be for anything. And that's when great marketing, great sales happens. And great storytelling through the product design, that's even better, right? Because it wasn't just perfume on a pig and you put some on this bad product and you can say, oh yeah, try it and then it doesn't meet the expectations. But when it sings from the depths of the product, like you were bringing up with the Nest Protect, the thermostat or the smoke detectors. When we had all that and you could feel the love and care, that's when people go, oh, I love this and I want more from that brand or from that company or that team. That's what they want. So to get better at it, I've learned it because I watched my dad, he was in sales. I watched how he would sell Levi's. And he wasn't always selling to sell. Sometimes he was convincing them not to buy something because that wasn't the best product they had. Buy this one instead. And actually go to my competitor down the street because he was building a relationship and story time because these people loved what it was. So sometimes it's not just setting expectations and telling a story, but it's also saying, "Hey, maybe I'm not for you." And that's truth. That's also truth. So, like Steve always said, "The best marketing just tells the truth." Now, might put nice words around it, nice creative and everything, but it's telling the truth. So, when I watched Steve prepare for the iPhone, like I said, we did the 2 and a half years with the iPhone, he was honing the story of the iPhone every day. He didn't give it to marketing. He knew what that thing was and what those key features were, like we talked about, and micromanage those features because he knew those were the things the world was going to take notice of. And he would refine the story and then tell other people who were unwatched by, like friends who are really smart, and say, "I'm going to give you the pitch." And he would refine, refine, refine. So when you saw him come on stage, it was just because he had done it 100,000 times or at least 10,000 times, right? And he knew it like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. It just came off. So I watched and I learned from that. And that's what we did for the Nest Learning Thermostat. That's what we learned, we did for each of those things. It was just that same storytelling over and over. What does it matter? Why does it matter? Why does it matter? Because too many times when we're technology-led, we talk about the what. We don't talk about the why. And the why is where the storytelling is. Because you want to take the journey of why it matters to you. And if you're talking about the what, you're just talking to another geek. Love geeks, no problem. I'm one of them. But most people who are not in the technology world, they want a story and they want something that touches them in some way.

Host

我从你刚才的描述中学到的一点是,反复讲述故事并不断打磨,才能产生最好的东西。而不是“我刚想到这个,它一定会很棒”。

One of the lessons I'm hearing from what you just described is telling the story over and over and over and refining it over time is where the best stuff comes from. Not just, here's I just came up with this and it's going to be amazing.

Tony Fadell

是的,完全正确。因为你需要讲给不了解的人听,看看是否能引起共鸣。我记得在 Nest 发布之前,我讲了多少次 Nest 的故事,因为我想,“这个恒温器太疯狂了。”我说,“好吧,让我先种下怀疑的种子:你知道你每年在取暖和制冷上花多少钱吗?你难道不讨厌你的恒温器吗?”现在,还有另一种讲故事的方式。我把这个写进了书里。哦,我不知道有没有写进去。我们都看过电视购物广告,对吧?那些在深夜电视上拖沓半小时、一小时的广告,在某个随机频道上。他们就坐在那里,从各个角度给你讲故事。他们给你种下怀疑的种子。他们会说,“哦,这是一个奶酪刨丝器。当你用这个糟糕的奶酪刨丝器时,你的指关节会流血,而且很难清洗,”他们夸大一切,展示所有痛点。然后展示他们卖的东西多么好用、多么简单。然后购买方便、退货容易,而且非常夸张。我们都知道这就像摔跤,全是表演。但这在某种程度上也是讲故事。不是说你应该那样做,因为他们过度炒作预期,但可以看看他们使用的技巧,心理技巧和情感技巧。

Yeah, oh absolutely. Because you need to tell it to other people who don't know to see if it resonates. I remember the number of times I told the Nest story before Nest came out because I was like, "This is crazy, this thermostat thing." I'm like, "Okay, let me set up the virus of doubt which was: Do you know how much you spend on your energy bill every year for your heating and cooling? Don't you hate your thing?" Now, there's another way to look at the story. And I put this in the book. Oh, I don't know if I put this in the book. We all have seen infomercials. Right? Those that drag on for half an hour, an hour on late night TV, on some random channel. And they just sit there and tell you the story from all different directions. They give you the virus of doubt. They're like, "Oh, here's this cheese grater. And when you have this bad cheese grater, your knuckles bleed and it's hard to clean," and they over exaggerate everything and show you all the pain points. And then they show how wonderful and easy it is to use this whatever they're selling. And then it's easy to buy and easy to return and it's overly dramatic. And we all know it's like wrestling. It's all an act. But it is storytelling in a way. And not that you should do that because they overhype the expectations, but look at the techniques that are used, the psychological techniques, the emotional techniques to get there.

营销作为真相的夸张 Marketing as caricature of truth

Tony Fadell

然后往回拉,说:“好吧,我要那样做,但要真实。”这时候事情就开始噼里啪啦地爆发了。至少我观察到的是这样。所以我一直把它当作另一个衡量标准。而且这不只是反复讲同一个故事,而是你讲的是什么故事。所以我也会考虑这一点。当然不是那种滑稽、俗气之类的,但它是做好营销的一种夸张表现。

And then dial it back and go, "Okay, I'm going to do that but with truth." And that's when things start to go pop pop pop pop. Or at least that's what I've seen. And so I always use that as another metric. And it's not just telling the story over and over, it's what story you are telling. And so I try to think of that as well. But not I obviously clowny and cheesy and everything else, but it is a caricature of doing good marketing.

Host

我觉得这是一个非常有趣的视角,先写新闻稿或者逆向思维,先做电视购物广告,然后做到极致。

I feel like this is a really interesting lens into the press release first or working backwards ideas, create the infomercial first and just go to extreme.

Tony Fadell

当然可以。

Sure, you could.

Host

天哪。

Oh my god.

Tony Fadell

不,你肯定不想那样做。

No, what you don't want to do for sure.

Host

但这就像一个很酷的视角,先走得很远,然后把最好的部分拉回来,让它变得诚实。我觉得我们刚刚想到了一个很好的主意。

But it's like a cool lens to go really far and then kind of pull back the best parts and make it honest. I think we just came up with a really good idea here.

下一代AI iPhone的愿景 Vision for the next iPhone with AI

Host

我想回到 iPhone 的话题。我觉得它差不多已经问世 20 年了,对吧?大概是 2007 年发布的。

I want to come back to the iPhone. So I think it came out like 20 years ago almost at this point, right? It launched 2007 something like that.

Host

疯狂的是,人们还在试图打造下一个 iPhone,尤其是在 AI 方面。每个人都在想,我们一直有这个设备,到底怎么回事?难道什么都没变吗?我很好奇。我想人们会问你这个问题。我很好奇,你觉得 AI 加持的下一个 iPhone 会是什么样子?你认为随着时间的推移会出现什么样的设备?你有愿景吗?

So what's crazy is people are still trying to build the next iPhone, especially with the AI. Everyone's just like, what's We've had this thing forever. What the hell? Like hasn't anything changed? I'm curious. I imagine people ask you this question. I'm curious just like what do you think the next iPhone may look like with AI? What's like the device that you think emerges over time? Do you have a vision?

Tony Fadell

好吧,有长期可能的样子,也有近期可能的样子。很多人说:“长期来看,当我们能信任模型,当它们有记忆,能做这些事情时,我们仍然需要一块屏幕,因为抱歉,除非我们把东西插进大脑,比如脑机接口,或者有某种激光投射到视网膜上,否则我们需要一块屏幕。”所以排除这些技术,我们还需要屏幕。而我们最好的屏幕就是类似智能手机的东西,对吧?它不会是很小的东西。我们看到了 Humane 和其他类似产品的下场。所以你会需要某种小方块,也许是像现在这样的折叠屏,这样你就能访问信息。很多事情你不需要屏幕,但很多事情你仍然需要,对吧?因为你可能不需要点触和滑动之类的操作。所以我的观点是,长期来看,如果你看今天设备的层次,很多设备,尤其是 iPhone 开创的,就是点触和滑动,对吧?那是第一层,你用你的手指。然后是键盘。再之后是语音输入。我们需要翻转这个顺序,彻底翻转。我们必须说,这也是我在 Nest 一直想做的,我想去掉屏幕,让语音成为首要功能,围绕语音构建。然后如果需要键盘,再然后是点触和滑动。应该完全反过来。问题在于,我们大多数人不会对着手机说话,我们在汽车上也看到了这一点:有物理按钮,然后有触摸屏,然后也加入了语音,但除了无障碍场景,几乎没人用语音,对吧?因为语音总是最后添加的,它只是勉强能用,是个小玩意儿,就像 Alexa 1.0 或 Siri 那样。但当我们真正拥有非常好的语音输入时,不仅像 WhisperFlow 那样能理解,而且背后有智能、有记忆等等,那时我们才能开始更具体地使用它,并逐步淘汰其他交互方式。但我们一直需要把它们作为语音的拐杖,因为语音从未真正可靠过。所以这是长期的情况。它会有某种屏幕,但语音会是首要的,其他是次要和第三位的。在中期或不久的将来,它看起来会很像智能手机,因为我们不会很快摆脱全应用界面。我们会移动一些东西,但我们还不信任它。需要一段时间才能信任。我们实际上是把很多控制权交给这个可信的东西,对吧?因为点触和滑动,我们基本知道那是什么。我们知道点触和键盘输入时我们可以信任自己。但这个东西我们不知道。所以需要很长时间。这让我想起 General Magic,我们需要大众信任它。我们已经看到编码智能体之类的情况,比如“哦,他们删了我的源代码”。我不是在说它行不通,它当然在某些事情上可行。我是说对于消费者日常想要的东西,而且它要足够便宜。今天人们说:“我要试试 ChatGPT,每月 20 美元或 200 美元。”如果认为消费者会付这个钱,那是不可持续的。除非它非常出色。但他们不会,你明白吗?他们试了,然后很多人觉得这就像 Siri 1.0。我付了钱,但它并没有那么好。就像全自动驾驶,我付了全自动驾驶的钱,15 年过去了,我还在等。所以我认为我们再次理解了我们以为自己想要什么,但技术现状、社会采用和需要建立的社会信任,都需要很长时间和很多迭代才能实现。尤其是如果你还得为此付费。

Okay, there's the what it could look like long-term and there's what it could look like soon. And so a lot of people like, "Okay, there's the long-term thing and when we can trust the models and when they have memory and when they do this stuff, then we're still going to need a display cuz sorry people, unless we're plugging it into our brain like a BCI brain computer or there's some laser thing going into our retina, we're going to need a display. So barring those kinds of technologies, we're going to need a display. And so the best display that we have is a smartphone-like thing, okay? It's not going to be this tiny thing. We saw what happened with Humane and all that other stuff. So you're going to have some kind of cuz the best way to visualize visual information is with a display, right? So, we're going to have some kind of small slab, maybe it's foldable like we see today, whatever, so that you can access it. You maybe many things you don't need a display for, but a lot of things you still do, right? Because you might not be tapping and swiping and all that stuff. So, I am of the opinion that long term, if you look at how a device is layered today, and this is many, many devices, and iPhone specifically started this, which was, you know, tapping and swiping. Right? That was the first thing is, you know, you use your finger. Then after that was keyboard. And then after that, the tertiary thing was a voice input. We need to flip it. We need to absolutely flip it, and we have to say, and this is what I always wanted to do with Nest, which is I want to remove displays, and we need to have voice as the number one primary feature, and you build around voice. Then we have keyboard if necessary, and then we have tapping and swiping. Okay? It should go exactly the opposite. And the problem why we know most of us don't go around talking to our phones and everything, and we saw this also happen with cars, there was tactile buttons, and then there was the touch screens, and then they also added the voice in, but nobody really uses voice in the car unless it's some accessibility thing, right? Because voice was always added at the end because it was always like, well, it sort of works, and it's a gizmo, but it's, you know, it's like like Alexa was for person 1.0 or Siri was, whatever. But when we actually have really good voice input with not just it understands just like whisper flow or something cuz that's great. And what I'm saying is the intelligence behind it with memory and everything else. So, it's then we can start to say and we can start to use that much more specifically and then deprecate those other things. But, we've always have to have them there as a crutch for voice because voice has never been able to deliver. So, that's the long-term thing. So, it'll have some kind of display, but it's going to be much more voice primary and then you're going to have the other things as secondary and tertiary. In the middle now or sometime soon, it's going to look much much like the smartphone is because we're not going to get away from their all app interface anytime soon. We're not going to get, you know, we're going to we'll move some things, but we don't trust it yet. It's going to take a while till we trust it. And we are literally turning over a lot to this trusted thing. Right? Because tapping and swiping, we know what that is for the most part. We know that we can trust ourselves when we're tapping and keyboarding or whatever. This other thing we don't know. And so, it's going to take a lot of time. Reminds me of kind of General Magic in a way for us to be able to get en masse to trust it. And we're already seeing this with coding agents and everything else, you know, oh, they deleted my source code. And I again, I'm not trying to be an old guy who's saying it's not going to work. Sure, it's going to work in certain things. I'm saying for consumers every day in the things they want. And it's cheap enough so it doesn't cost them a lot. Right? Today, people are like, "Yeah, I'm going to try ChatGPT or whatever it is $20 a month or $200 a month." That is unsustainable for if you think consumers are going to pay that. There's just no way. Unless it's incredible. But, they're not going to you know what I mean? Like, they tried it and now they're getting kind of their Siri a lot of them are getting their Siri 1.0 with this. like I paid for it, but it's really not all that yet. And it's like full self-driving. Like I paid for full self-driving. It's 15 years later. I'm still waiting for full self-driving. So, I think we again understand what we think we want, but where the technology is and the social adoption and the social trust that needs to be created around that is going to take a lot of time and it's going to take a lot of iterations to get there. Especially if you're going to have to pay for it.

屏幕的长期需求 Long-term need for a screen

Host

听你说长期仍然需要屏幕,真的很有意思。因为我觉得很多人正试图走向像 AirPod 或某种神奇的 AI 设备。

It's really interesting to hear you say that long-term even will get a need a screen. I cuz I think a lot of people are trying to go to just just like an airpod or some kind of magical AI device.

Tony Fadell

当然,如果你想看地图,你怎么看?你就在车里听语音导航,永远不看车上的地图,然后说:“哦,200 英尺后左转。100 英尺后左转。”你会说:“闭嘴,我听不下去了。”我宁愿瞥一眼。

Surely and like how are you going to look at a map if you want to look at a map? You're going to just you're going to listen like put on the voice stuff in your car and never look at the map on your car and say, "Oh, turn left in 200 ft. Turn left in 100 ft." You're like, "Shut up. I can't hear you anymore." I like I just want to glance over.

对脑机接口与屏幕替代的怀疑 Skepticism about brain-computer interfaces and screen replacement

Tony Fadell

所以我不买账。除非你在大脑或眼睛里插了个接口,或者通过其他方式直接进入你的皮层。

So I don't buy it. Unless you have a jack in your brain or in your eye or some other way it's getting into your cortex.

Host

这太有意思了。而且我觉得你也不喜欢 Humane 的做法,就是那种在手上投影作为屏幕替代的方案,对吧?这是其中的一部分吗?

That is so interesting. And you're not a fan of the Humane approach, I think, which was like a little projection on your hand as a screen replacement, right? Was that part of it?

Tony Fadell

对,为什么?

Yeah, why?

Host

什么?

What?

Tony Fadell

它只是不同,并非更好。

It's just different, not better.

Host

嗯。真有趣。我想它的优势显然在于它是一个小巧的设备,可以放在某个地方,而不是一块屏幕,但确实。

Mhm. So funny. I guess the advantage obviously is it's like a small little device you could just put somewhere versus like a screen, but yeah.

Tony Fadell

对,你会想,“哦,这就像《星球大战》里的全息投影之类的。”然后你会说,“是啊,很酷,但你仍然需要一块屏幕或什么东西来投射。”所以归根结底它还是一块屏幕。你仍然需要把它投射到某个东西上。

Yeah, and you're like, "Oh, it's like the hologram projections of Star Wars or something." You're like, "Yeah, that's cool, but you still need a screen or something to project on." So it is a screen at the end of the day. You still have to project it onto something.

Host

是啊,因为大家总在说,“最终理想的产品怎么可能是一块我们盯着看的玻璃?”而你在这里分享的正是,那可能确实是理想形态。

Yeah, because everyone keeps saying, "How is it possible that the end ideal product is a piece of glass that we look at?" And what you're sharing here is just that's actually maybe the ideal.

Tony Fadell

对,就像我说的,你可以把它折叠起来,放进你的包里,然后展开什么的。但我仍然认为会有那种东西。如果你看《她》那部电影,里面就有玻璃。某些场景里是有玻璃的。

Yeah, and like I said, you fold it up, you put it in your thing and it rolls out or whatever else. But I still think there's going to be that thing. If you look at the movie Her, they had glass. There was glass there for certain things.

Host

哇。我完全不记得了。

Wow. I completely don't remember that.

Tony Fadell

回去看看那部电影。它就在那里。

Go back and watch the movie. It's there.

Host

天哪,那部电影。

Oh my god, that movie.

Tony Fadell

等等,我说中了。

Wait, I nailed it.

Host

哦,天哪。

Oh, man.

Tony Fadell

斯派克真行。

Go Spike.

Host

嗯。是斯派克·琼斯,对吧?

Mhm. It's Spike Jonze, right?

Tony Fadell

对。

Yep.

硬件与软件创新的周期 Cycles of hardware and software innovation

Host

我也不知道。我还想问,有趣的是现在基本上每个人都在做硬件。你已经在 AI 硬件领域深耕了这么久,而现在这成了最热门的事。每个人都在造硬件。真有意思。你怎么看?我不知道。你感觉如何?

I don't even know. I wanted to ask also, it's interesting that basically everyone is getting into hardware now. Like, you've been at this for so long building hardware in AI, and now it's just like the hottest thing. Everyone is building hardware. So funny. Thoughts? I don't know. How does that feel?

Tony Fadell

听着,我在 1995 年和 1996 年硬件还不流行的时候就开始做硬件了。每个人都觉得,“托尼,你疯了。现在都是互联网的天下,我们不需要任何硬件。”然后 iPod 来了。我在 99 年和 2000 年推销新业务时,他们都说,“这真是有史以来最蠢的主意。”然后 iPod 发布了。“托尼,你想离开苹果去创业做硬件吗?”然后我就说,“好啊,没问题。”接着又全是软件移动端的东西了。就像,“好吧,我们什么都不需要,因为如果我们不做下一代的硬件,就无法达到下一代的软件水平。”革命必须彻底发生。比如,你必须拥有移动网络和移动网络软件,移动网络才能工作。你必须拥有 MP3 播放器和 MP3 格式的比特流才能让它工作。我们看到 AI 也是如此,我们必须拥有 AI 加上所有的数据中心和边缘计算才能让它工作。所以随着时间的推移,硬件会变得更平凡。就像,“好吧,它变化没那么大了。”但所有的软件就开始……你知道的。所以我一直持续做我喜欢的事情,并且在全栈层面做事,因为那里才是创新的所在。我们在 Nest 就必须这样做。我们必须在软件层面、硬件层面、网络层面进行创新,才能推出第一款恒温器,然后是 Nest Protect 等等。现在再看,人们会说,“如果你是一家 SaaS 公司或纯软件公司,你的软件公司一文不值,因为任何人都可以用 vibe coding 把它做出来。”现在他们又说,“我们只投资那些商业计划中包含硬件和软件的公司。”我就想,“废话。”你们之前都去哪儿了?所以看着这些周期循环往复真的很有趣。就像,“好吧,你们可以去追自己的尾巴了。我继续做这些全系统类的产品和业务。”是的,它们更难,成本更高,需要更长时间来扩展和采用,等等等等,但它们有持久的生命力,对吧?而且它们带来了如果你只做软件永远无法实现的新功能,因为你需要,尤其是在机器人领域,新的传感器等等,对吧?看看 Waymo。它是一辆电动汽车,带有大量传感器和一切。它是一个硬件平台。也许它看起来不像智能手机那样流线型,但它是一个令人难以置信的硬件平台,配有一个令人难以置信的软件平台,我们将在其上进行创新,而且我确信它会成为其他东西的平台。比如配送或其他什么。

Look, I was building hardware when it wasn't in vogue in 1995 and 96. Everyone was like, "Tony, you're crazy. It's all about the internet. We don't need any hardware." And then the iPod comes. I was pitching new businesses in '99 and 2000. They're like, "Well, that's the stupidest idea ever." Then the iPod comes out. "Tony, you want to leave Apple and start that business you wanted to do with hardware?" You know, and then it was like, "Yeah, okay." And then it was all software mobile stuff again. Like, "Okay, we don't need anything because we can't get to the next level of software if we don't make the next level of hardware." And the revolution has to happen completely. Like, you have to have the mobile network and the mobile network software for the mobile network to work. You had to have the MP3 player and the MP3 format bits to make that work. We're seeing with AI, we have to have AI plus all the data centers and edge compute to make that work. So over time, the hardware becomes more mundane. Like, "Okay, it doesn't change as much." But all the software starts to then, you know. So I've always just been continually going through the things that I love to do and doing things at the full stack level because that's where innovation is. That's what we had to do at Nest. We had to innovate at the software level, the hardware level, the network level to get the first thermostat out and then the Nest Protect and all that stuff. If we look now, people are like, "If you're a SaaS company or a software-only company, your software company's worthless because anyone can vibe code it into the thing." And now they're like, "We're only funding companies that have atoms in their business plan with software." I'm like, "Duh." Like, where have you guys been? So it's just funny to watch these cycles go and happen. It's like, "Okay, all right, you guys can go chase your tails. I'm going to just keep doing these full system kind of products and businesses." Yes, they're a lot harder and yes, they cost more money and yes, they're going to take longer to scale and adopt and blah blah blah, but they have staying power for years, right? And they bring new features that you could have never had if you just did software only, because you need, especially in robotics, new sensors and this and that, what have you, right? Look at Waymo. It's an electric car with tons of sensors and everything. It was a hardware platform. Maybe it doesn't look as streamlined as a smartphone, but it's an incredible hardware platform with an incredible software platform, and that is something that we're going to be able to innovate on, and it'll become a platform for something else, I'm sure. You know, delivery or whatever else.

Host

当 Snapchat 创始人埃文·斯皮格尔上播客时,他说的正是这个。这就是为什么他们在这些眼镜上花了这么多钱,他说,“现在在软件领域生存的唯一方式就是拥有硬件组件。”

When Evan Spiegel was on the podcast, Snapchat founder, he said exactly this. This is why they've spent so much money on these specs, and he's just like, "This is the only way to survive in software is you need to have a hardware component now."

Tony Fadell

是啊,非常有趣。所有旧事物又焕然一新了。你知道,我在这行已经干了 35、40 年了。我亲眼目睹了这一切。你会想,“好吧,我在 99 年市场崩盘时就在那里。”AI 是不同的,但有很多相似之处。而且你知道,我们会有第一代公司、第二代公司。当人们真正理解产品,而不是销售那些需要用户自己琢磨的技术平台时,就会这样。所以看着这一切很有趣。这是一场游戏。

Yeah, very interesting. Everything old is new again. And you know, I've been in this game 35, 40 years. I just see it. You're like, "Okay, I was there in '99 when the bottom fell out." And you know, AI is different, but there are a lot of similarities. And you know, we're going to have the Gen 1 companies, the Gen 2 companies. And you know, when people really understand product instead of selling technology platforms that people have to figure out for themselves. So it's fun to watch. It's a game.

令人兴奋的新兴硬件与AI应用 Exciting emerging hardware and AI applications

Host

好的,在进入非常激动人心的快速问答环节之前,也许再问一个问题。在新兴的小工具或硬件技术方面,你最近最兴奋的是什么?有没有什么东西让你觉得,“哦,注意了。”

Okay, maybe one more question before we get to our very exciting lightning round. What are you most excited about these days in terms of gadgets or hardware technology that's emerging? Is there anything you're like, "Oh, pay attention."

Tony Fadell

我现在一直在做 AI 加硬件的事情,不仅在 Nest,还在我们通过 Build 投资的许多初创公司中。比如 Simbe Robotics 这样的公司。我们很早以前就开始做机器人了。它不是人形机器人,但它做零售店的库存盘点。我们已经做了,我不知道,八年了,七年了。现在它刚刚开始腾飞,对吧?它确实有 AI 和一个机器人平台,而且它真正解决了零售商在库存方面的痛点。工人们讨厌做库存盘点,清点每个货架上的所有东西等等。所以它真的有效。我喜欢看到这样的东西。我们在 Great Parrot 也在用 AI 和回收做同样的事情。

I've been doing this AI plus hardware thing now, not just at Nest, but in many of the startup companies that we funded at Build. So a company like Simbe Robotics. We were doing robotics way back. Now it's not a humanoid, but it does inventory of retail stores. And we've been at it, I don't know, eight years now, seven years. And now it's just taking off, right? And it does have AI and it has a robotic platform, and it really solves real pain points for the retailers of inventory. The workers hate doing inventory, counting everything on every shelf and all that stuff. So it really works. And I love seeing that stuff. We're doing the same thing at Great Parrot with AI and recycling.

AI在回收、纺织与药物设计中的应用 AI in Recycling, Textiles, and Drug Design

Tony Fadell

这其实就是用摄像头快速识别哪些东西该放进哪个回收箱,我们做这个已经好几年了。还有 AI 加纺织品:大多数纺织品都有织造瑕疵、色差、缺陷之类的问题。人们生产出这些产品,最后却因为没能及早发现质量问题而不得不焚烧掉。我们用 AI 加摄像头来检测所有这些问题。另外,我们在 Recursion 做 AI 药物设计已经 10 年了,现在也起飞了。所以我真正感兴趣的不仅仅是这些前沿模型,而是真正可靠、范围恰当、能每天解决实际问题的 AI,而不是 AGI 的白日梦。你们可以去解决那个,我要去打造现在真正重要的企业。我们终于开始获得 traction,因为人们喜欢 AI 和机器人,现在我们突然流行起来了。我们一直在努力实现产品市场契合、做营销、开发设备的 3.0 版本,人们正在采用它们。看到这些真是太棒了。所以我对这一切感到兴奋。

It's literally figuring out what things should go in this recycling bin versus that and doing it really fast with cameras and all this stuff. We've been at that for a few years. And we have AI plus textiles. Most textiles have weaving errors, color errors, defects, and things like that. People still make all these products, but then they have to incinerate them because they're not perfect at the end, since they don't catch the quality problems early enough in the product. We're doing AI plus cameras to spot all the stuff. And another thing: we've been doing AI in drug design now for 10 years at Recursion, and that's taking off. So I'm really interested in not just these frontier models, but really good AI that you can trust, scope correctly, and solve real problems every day, as opposed to a pipe dream AGI. You can go solve that; I'm going to go build all these businesses that really matter right now. We're finally getting traction because people like AI and robotics, and now all of a sudden we're in vogue. We've been here really working on our product-market fit, working on our marketing, working on version 3.0 of the device, and people are adopting them. That's what's wonderful to see. So I'm excited by all that.

AI在农业与长期押注中的应用 AI in Agriculture and Long-Term Bets

Tony Fadell

我们还有另一个项目,比如 AI 注入,以及终于用软件处理大量化学反应。现在我们有一家农业清洁燃料和油品公司,正在清理中美洲各地的农场。所以我们在某种程度上几乎全是原子加软件。坐在这里知道我们很久以前就下了这些赌注,现在正在实现,感觉真好。我很早就投资了 Grok,因为当时它很便宜,那是正确的方向。我的朋友在 Cerebras,我也投了。但这些都是长期布局,终于开始结果了。我们不是在炒作时投资的;我们是在独角兽估值还是几十亿美元的时候做的。今天,如果你没有融到 5 亿美元,你什么都不是。从风投角度看,这行不通。你永远得不到风投回报。你不能在估值已经九位数或十位数的时候投资,还指望获得小投资组合。那不是我想玩的游戏。所以我很高兴我们很好地定位在这些公司中,它们有真正的产品市场契合、合理的估值,我们能够真正帮助并带来巨大改变,提供止痛药。让其他人去玩吧。这才是我兴奋的地方。

We have another one like AI infusion, and finally doing tons of software with chemical reactions. Now we have an agricultural clean fuel and oils company that is cleaning up farms all around Central America. So we're almost all atoms plus software in some way. It's nice to be sitting here knowing that we made these bets a long time ago and we're doing it now. I was early on in Grok, because it was cheap then, and that was the right way to go. My friends were in Cerebras, and I got into that. But these are long-term plays, and they're finally coming to fruition. We invested not when it was hyped; we were doing it back when unicorn valuations were billions of dollars. Today, if you don't have a $5 round raised, you're nothing. That doesn't work from a venture perspective. You never get the venture returns. You can't invest in things when valuations are already nine or ten digits and think you're going to get a small portfolio. That's not the kind of game I want to play. So I'm glad we are well positioned in all these companies that have real good product-market fit, came in at the right valuations, and that we can really help and make big change and deliver painkillers. We'll let everybody else over there play. That's what's exciting to me.

技术融合与坚持 Convergence of Technologies and Persistence

Host

圣经里有句话:你生来就是为了这样的时刻。感觉所有事情都围绕着你长期在做的事情汇聚,技术终于如描述的那样变得真正神奇。

There's this quote from the Bible that you were made for a time like this. It feels like all the things are converging around the things that you have been doing for so long, and the technology is finally getting exactly as described to actually something amazing.

Tony Fadell

同样的事情也发生在 General Magic 身上,对吧?General Magic 的 iPhone 概念太早了,然后我不断添加、添加,最后做出了 iPhone。所以你要坚持。太多人追逐尾巴,追逐最热门的东西。当它已经热门时,再进入已经太晚了。

The same thing happened to General Magic, right? General Magic iPhone too early, and then I just kept adding and adding, and then doing the iPhone. So you just stick with it. There are too many people who chase their tail and chase whatever the hottest thing is. When it's already hot, it's already too late to be in it.

托尼·法德尔在Build的工作 What Tony Fadell Does at Build

Host

对于不了解你最近在做什么的人,你谈到了你合作的所有这些公司。请帮助人们理解你把时间花在什么地方,以防他们可能想和你合作。

For people that don't know what you do these days, you talked about all these companies you work with. Help people understand what it is you spend your time on, in case they may want to try to work with you on this stuff.

Tony Fadell

首先要知道的是,我们投资于深度技术。可能是硬件、软件、软硬件结合、化学,各种不同的东西。但记得我们之前谈到的:痛点是什么?有没有新技术以新方式解决这个痛点?我学到的是,我投资那些能够颠覆现有企业的深度技术,因为它们会以如此戏剧性的方式改变市场或产品,以至于客户会选择它。所以我们不只是靠功能或更好的营销竞争。我们从根本上是一个不同的产品。市场转向它可能需要更长时间,但它是根本不同的。就像我提到的 Grok 和 Cerebras。它们是根本不同的。所以在 Build,我们投资那些能够成为颠覆种子的科技公司。也许它们能走完全程,或者它们是让另一家初创公司走完全程的关键使能技术。这就是我们投资的。我们在环境、社会效益和健康效益方面这样做。这是我们的重点。有时我们的投资组合有超过 200 家公司。但我们不只是投资。当我们参与时,很多公司我们会提供建议。我们帮助他们进行产品管理、运营、融资、组织发展、营销和传播。讲故事非常重要。很多深度技术人才是出色的工程师、科学家、研究员,但他们不一定知道如何围绕技术形成产品,或者围绕产品形成营销,或者让营销指导产品,反之亦然。所以我们试图整合这些,真正发挥作用,这样他们就不必等到第四个版本才成功。他们努力在第一或第二个版本就接近目标,从而进入三个版本的周期,最终成为一家公司。这就是我们做的。我们玩得很开心。我们在健康、医药、药物、机器人、芯片等各种领域玩耍。这让我们感到美妙,就像孩子进了糖果店,与所有这些聪明绝顶的企业家合作。所以这是我在做的一件事。另一件事是我是 MIT 的驻校设计师。

The first thing to know is that we invest in deep technology. That could be hardware, software, software plus hardware, chemical, all kinds of different stuff. But remember we talked earlier about what's the pain? And is there new technology that comes out to solve that pain in a new way? I've learned that I invest in the deep technologies that are going to unseat the incumbents because they will change the market or the product in such a dramatic way that customers will choose this. So we're not just competing on features or better marketing. We're fundamentally a different product. It might take longer to get the market to shift to it, but it's fundamentally different. Just like I brought up Grok and Cerebras. It's fundamentally different. So at Build, we invest in those technology companies that can be that seed that can unseat things. Maybe they go the distance, or maybe they are the key enabling tech that allows another startup to go the distance. That's what we invest in. And we do it in the environment, societal benefits, and health benefits. That's where we focus. At times we've had a portfolio of over 200 companies. But we don't just invest. When we get involved, many of the companies we advise. We come in, help them with product management, operations, financing, org development, marketing and communications. Storytelling is really important. A lot of deep technology people are incredible engineers, scientists, researchers, but they don't necessarily know how to form the product around it or form the marketing around the product they're building, or help the marketing to inform the product and vice versa. So we try to encapsulate that and really bring it to bear so they don't hit it on the fourth version. They try to get very close to the first or second version so they can get on that three-version cycle to get to a company. That's what we do. We get to have a lot of fun. We get to play in all these different spaces: health, medicine, drugs, robotics, chips, these kinds of things. That's what's wonderful to us, to be kids in the candy store and work with all these incredible smart entrepreneurs. So that's one thing I do. The other thing I do is I'm a designer at residence at MIT.

在MIT媒体实验室教学 Teaching at MIT Media Lab

Tony Fadell

所以,我刚在 MIT 媒体实验室完成了第一年的工作,涉及建筑与设计,做讲座,并与学生一起工作。他们都是非常聪明、拥有出色技术的学生,但我帮助他们关注客户旅程。我努力确保他们在职业生涯早期就理解这些,而不是十年后才恍然大悟:‘等等,我到底在建造什么?为谁而建?不仅是我在建造什么,还有为什么建造?为谁?’所以我们正努力将这些理念灌输给一些高年级本科生和研究生,这样我们就能看到他们更快地改变世界。

So, I just finished up my first year there at the MIT Media Lab, working with architecture and design, giving lectures, and working with students. They are amazing, smart students with great technology, but I help them with the customer journey. I try to make sure they see this stuff early in their career, not after 10 years when they finally understand, 'Oh wait, what am I really building? Who is it for? Not just what am I building, but why am I building it? And for whom?' So we're trying to get that into some of the later undergraduate and graduate students so we can watch them change the world more quickly.

Host

太棒了。我喜欢你帮助他人的各种方式:投资、这本书、MIT、这些对话。

Incredible. I love all the levels of ways you are helping people. There's the investing, this book, MIT, these conversations.

Tony Fadell

很有趣。真的非常有趣。

It's fun. It's just so much fun.

Host

我喜欢你如此享受。还有什么我们没聊到你想分享的吗?

I love how much fun you're having. Is there anything else you wanted to share that we didn't cover?

产品设计中的伦理与道德 Ethics and Morals in Product Design

Tony Fadell

我们真该谈谈伦理道德以及你对此的看法。作为产品经理或产品设计师,你必须认真考虑这些。我知道关于 AI 有很多大问题——它会对下一代和社会造成灾难吗?但我认为你在设计时需要有坚实的根基和真正的原则,不要偏离轨道。就像你不会容忍糟糕的用户界面一样。确保你不要试图让用户上瘾。如果有人这样做,总有其他工作和更好的公司。不要为了钱而撕裂社会结构。显然会有创新和变革。但当你这样做时,如果你看到自己在试图让人上瘾,或者想‘我能获得更多多巴胺’,那就是你必须真正审视的时候了。很多时候人们年轻,觉得‘那很棒,那就是我想要的’。但当你有了孩子和家庭,你看到自己不再只是为自己——你不再像成长时那样只想脱离家庭,想着‘我是独立的,我想要什么就要什么’——你真的需要系统性地思考你给整个社会带来的益处,而不仅仅是你的业务和收入。因为最终用户会感受到,我认为他们会奖励这一点,就像我们在苹果的隐私政策上看到的。人们说‘哦,他们因为太注重隐私而落后了’,但这是一把双刃剑。我记得在 iTunes 音乐商店转向视频时,我们有过一次非常尖锐的讨论。每个人都觉得‘这太棒了。我们要做电影、电视节目,赚大钱。制片厂都支持。’然后有人说‘是啊,我们当然也应该有成人内容。’史蒂夫说:‘什么?这就是你想让下一代成长的世界吗?这就是苹果代表的东西吗?这就是我们想做的吗?’然后非常明确地被否决了。我们需要这样的领导者——非常清晰的领导者,而不是为所有人提供色情聊天机器人的大型服务。我认为当你开始将这些正常化,并告诉其他代际这是一种价值时——我理解每个人都有自己的对错标准,而我又成了那个老家伙——我认为我们可能走得太远了。我支持个人权利,但当大公司以某些行为为幌子,将人际连接变成 AI 聊天机器人的产品,让它们退化社交互动到因为世界太混乱而宁愿与机器完美互动时,我们为了利益失去了人性。所以我希望产品设计师们能真正铭记这一点。不是说我们要像白莲花一样每周去教堂敲圣经。我完全不是那个意思。我不是 MAGA。只是说,嘿,想一想。

We should really talk about ethics and morals and your point of view on that. As a product manager, as a product designer, you need to really consider these things. I understand we have lots of big questions about AI — is it going to be a disaster for the next generation and for our societies? But I think you really need to be well-grounded and have real principles when designing something, and don't let those things go astray. Just like you wouldn't go astray with a bad user interface. Make sure you're not trying to addict your users. And if anybody is, there are always other jobs and better companies. Don't chase the money for tearing apart the fabric of society. Obviously there will be innovation and change. But when you're doing it and you can see you're trying to get people hooked, or you're like, 'Ah, I can get more dopamine,' that's when you have to start really looking at things. A lot of times people are young and they think, 'Oh, that's great, that's what I want.' But when you start to have kids and families, and you see that you're not just about yourself — you're not trying to just get out of your family when you were growing up, thinking 'I'm an individual and I want what I want' — you really need to start thinking systemically about the benefit you're bringing to society as a whole, not just to your business and revenue. Because at the end of the day, users will feel that, and I think they will reward that, as we see with Apple with privacy. People say, 'Oh, they're behind because they're so private,' but it's a double-edged sword. I remember when we had a very pointed discussion during the iTunes music store and when it was turning into video. Everyone was like, 'This is going to be great. We're going to do movies, TV shows, make a lot of money. The studios are behind it.' Then somebody said, 'Yeah, we should have porn, of course.' Steve was like, 'What? Is that the kind of world you want your kids to grow up in? Is that what Apple is about? Is that what we want to do?' And it was very clear it was shut down. We need leaders like that — leaders who are very clear, as opposed to making a huge service for everyone with sex chatbots. I think when you start normalizing those things and telling other generations that's a value — and I understand everyone has their own right and wrong, and here I am the old guy again — I think we can go a little too far. I'm for individual rights, but when major companies do this in the guise of certain behaviors, when we're turning personal connection into a product with AI chatbots and making them really devolve social interaction to the point where I'm going to have a perfect interaction with this thing because the world is so messy, we're losing humanity for gain. So I wish product designers out there really take it to heart. Not saying we have to be lily white and Bible-banging. I'm not saying that at all. I'm not MAGA. Just saying, hey, think about it.

iPhone与社交媒体的意外后果 Unintended Consequences of iPhone and Social Media

Host

很多人现在把 iPhone 看作一个让人上瘾的东西。它变得太好了,好到过头了。有很多数据显示它对人们的影响。你怎么看待这一点以及 iPhone 对人们的影响?

A lot of people look at the iPhone as this thing now that everyone's hooked on. It's gotten so good, we're like it's too good. And there's all this data showing the impact it has on people. How do you think about that and the impact the iPhone has had on people?

Tony Fadell

首先,iPhone 最初的目标并不是那样。存在意外后果,而意外后果就是社交媒体的兴起。苹果不是社交媒体公司,但它分发这些应用。我的看法是:我们有很多垃圾食品,导致国家或世界肥胖,因为垃圾食品太多了。我们需要规范消费、健康工具以及包装上的营养成分信息,这样如果你想做出更好的决定,就可以做到。我希望 AI 和这些助手能帮助人们更好地控制那些刺激我们蜥蜴脑去消费更多实体食物的情况。现在数字食物也在发生同样的事情,但数字食物没有营养标签、警告或必要的监管,就像实体食物一样。因为我们不能让创新放缓。

Well, the first thing is the iPhone wasn't set out to be that. There are unintended consequences, and the unintended consequence was social media happened. Apple is not a social media company, but it does distribute those apps. The way I think about it is: we have lots of junk food and an obese nation or world because of all the junk food. It takes regulation of our consumption and healthy tools, and nutritional elements on the back of things, so if you want to make a better decision, you can. I hope AI and these assistants will help people get better control of those kinds of things where our lizard brain is being stimulated to consume more physical food. Now the same thing is happening with digital food, but digital food doesn't have nutrition labels, warnings, or the regulation it needs, just like physical food. Because we can't let innovation be slowed down.

数字消费与平衡 Digital consumption and balance

Tony Fadell

我认为我们需要一些平衡。现在已经走得太远了。像 Google 和 Apple 这样的平台公司可以在数字消费工具和信息方面做得更多,帮助人们为自己和家人做出更好的决策。你可以去冰箱——iPhone 就像一个冰箱。你可以放垃圾食品,也可以放健康食品。即使你放了健康食品,你也可以每五秒钟就去拿一次。我们需要学习习惯、教授习惯、制定法规、提供信息,并提供工具来帮助监控和管理这些。就像我们有关于未满 21 岁不能购买某些东西的规定一样。如果你让客户变得不健康,长期来看你不会有客户。

I think we need some balance. It's swung too far. Platform companies like Google and Apple could do more around digital consumption tools and information to help people make better decisions for themselves and their families. You can go to the refrigerator—an iPhone is just a refrigerator. You can put in junk food or good food. Even if you put in good food, you could go to the good food every five seconds. We need to learn habits, teach habits, put in regulations, provide information, and supply tools to help monitor and manage that. Just like we have rules about who can buy something when they're under 21. If you make your customers unhealthy, you won't have customers in the long run.

书籍推荐与在线存在 Book recommendation and online presence

Host

我想对还没读过你书的人说,这本书非常棒。很少有书既能提供实用的战术指导——告诉你如何做一件事——又能激励你去创造和做出伟大的东西。《Build》就做到了这一点。我想大家都知道这本书,但不知道是否都读过。所以强烈推荐你们去读。最后两个问题:如果人们想了解你现在在做的事情,可以在网上哪里找到你?听众如何能帮到你?

Let me just say for folks that haven't read your book, I want to communicate how great it is. There are very few books that are both tactically useful—giving you how to do a thing—and also inspire you to build and make great things. Build does that in such a great way. I think everyone knows about it, but I don't know if everyone's read it. So highly encourage you to read it. Two final questions: Where can folks find you online if they want to learn about the stuff you're up to now? And how can listeners be useful to you?

Tony Fadell

太好了。再次感谢。这次采访很有趣,我真的很享受。如果你想和我们互动,可以访问 buildc.com。Build Collective,网址是 buildc,B-U-I-L-D-C.com。你可以看到我们投资的公司,并在那里找到联系方式。观众如何帮助我?或者帮助我们?我认为可以了解这些公司,看看是否能从一些见解中借鉴到你正在做的事情。我们帮助创建了很多网站,通过这些投资为深度科技做了很多营销。你可以看到一些做得好的营销。我希望你喜欢我们为 buildc 做的网站——它展示了一个我们认为非常棒的网站,不一定是为了销售东西。让他们去重建和应用。这是最重要的事情:重建,阅读类似的东西,真正磨练你的技艺。做出更好的产品,创造一个更好的世界,因为世界只会因我们创造和带来的东西而变得更好。帮助我的最重要方式就是做出其他很酷的产品,比如 Flighty 或其他我喜欢的东西。所以,做出伟大的东西吧,人们,不要认为 AI 会——把它们当作可以帮忙的工具,但不要认知投降。不要向机器投降。我们可以使用机器,但不要认知投降。做出比我自己或我们支持的团队能做出的更好的东西,因为我们现在有了更好的工具。所以,请去做吧。

Great. Well, thanks again. This was a fun interview. I really enjoyed it. If you want to interact with us, we're at buildc.com. Build Collective, but it's buildc, B-U-I-L-D-C.com. You can see the companies we invest in and find ways to contact us there. How can viewers help me? Or help us? I think learn about the companies, see if you can model whatever you're doing from some of the insights. There are a lot of websites we helped create, a lot of marketing for deep tech through those investments. You can see some well-done marketing. I hope you like our website for buildc—it shows what we think is a really great website that doesn't necessarily sell things. Just get them to rebuild and apply. That's the most important thing: rebuild, read other things like that, and really hone your craft. Make better products, make a better world, because the world only gets better by the things we make and what we bring. The most important way to help me is by making other cool products like Flighty or other things that I love. So make great stuff, people, and don't think the AIs will—use them as tools that can help, but don't have cognitive surrender. Don't surrender to the machine. We can use the machines, but don't cognitively surrender. Make better stuff than myself or any of the teams we back can make, because we do have better tools now. So please do.

结束语 Closing remarks

Host

太棒了。Tony,非常感谢你来做客。

Amazing. Tony, thank you so much for being here.

Tony Fadell

嘿,Lenny,这很棒。非常感谢。期待看到你的听众们会创造出什么。

Hey, Lenny, that was great. Really appreciate it. Looking forward to seeing what your audience creates.

Host

我也是。再见,各位。非常感谢你们的收听。如果你觉得这期节目有价值,可以在 Apple Podcasts、Spotify 或你喜欢的播客应用上订阅。也请考虑给我们评分或留下评论,这真的能帮助其他听众找到这个播客。你可以在 lennyspodcast.com 找到所有往期节目或了解更多关于本节目的信息。下期再见。

Same. Bye, everyone. Thank you so much for listening. If you found this valuable, you can subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Also, please consider giving us a rating or leaving a review as that really helps other listeners find the podcast. You can find all past episodes or learn more about the show at lennyspodcast.com. See you in the next episode.

互动版:逐字朗读 + 针对本期提问 →