By Steve Jobs
A group of talented people, bumping up against each other, having arguments, having fights some times, making some noise. By working together they polish each other and they polish the ideas.
— Steve Jobs
In this interview Jobs tells the story of an elderly neighbour from when he was growing up who would create polished rocks from common stones by putting them in a homemade rock tumber:
He pulled out this old rock tumbler. It was a motor and a coffee can and a band between them. … We got some regular old ugly rocks and we put them in the can with a bit of liquid and a bit of grit powder. We closed the can up and turned the motor on. And he said “come back tomorrow”. The can was making a racket as the stones were bounding around.
I came back the next day and we opened the can and we took out these amazingly beautiful polished rocks. The same common stones that had gone in, through rubbing against each other, creating a little bit of friction, and creating a bit of noise, had come out these beautiful polished rocks.
Then he takes that as a metaphor for how teams working on new products can work together to make each other better:
It’s through a team, a group of talented people, bumping up against each other, having arguments, having fights some times, making some noise. By working together they polish each other and they polish the ideas and what comes out are these really beautiful [things]