[keiferski]

And yet Apple is/was the most valuable company in the world, largely due to design.

Saying "design is horseshit" makes about as much sense as saying "engineering is horseshit" or "writing well is horseshit". Read: it makes absolutely no sense.

[tikhonj]

Apple is a not a particularly pertinent example. I'm not particularly familiar with Apple's history, but I suspect that their products delivered value immediately--people actually had a use for their stuff that nobody else could supply. Then, thanks to design (and marketing, and fashion, and engineering, and...) they grew.

The whole point of the article is that the foundation of any successful company lies in the value it provides people. Everything else--design is singled out because of the earlier article on the matter--is built on that foundation. Since a startup is just the foundation of a company, its primary goal should be creating a product people use.

In short, he didn't really mean that design is completely worthless--it is merely worthless without a solid product behind it. The same could be said about engineering and strong copy; neither is going to matter if you're making something utterly useless. Thus, given this meaning of "design is horseshit", "engineering/writing well is horseshit" actually makes sense.

Coincidentally, I agree with the idea behind the post: producing something viable is the most important thing a startup can do; the younger a startup is, the more important the product's value. However, I think the overly sensational, antagonistic and slightly misleading title was poorly chosen to represent his point. The post is solid but the title isn't. It does drive clicks and readers, so in a sense it was successful, but primarily from its less desirable qualities.

[armandososa]

     In short, he didn't really mean that design is completely worthless

Seriously? Because the term horseshit sounds pretty worthless to me.

[fleitz]

I take it you've never bought manure. Selling shit is business.

[tikhonj]

As I said in the end, the title is poorly chosen and doesn't really correspond to the post. As I read it, the idea isn't that design is worthless but that to a startup having a product people use is infinitely more important. I bet he just used "horseshit" because it came up in an article about ios recently (and to get more views).

[fookyong]

100% correct. I read this after posting a similar reply to another poster above:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3359676

[mbesto]

> but I suspect that their products delivered value immediately

And there is inherent value to delivering overall value quicker.

[wycats]

Apple wasn't a "design startup". Sure, Jobs valued design, but none of Apple's founders were designers.

[jmtame]

"Design is a funny word. Some people think design means how it looks. But of course, if you dig deeper, it's really how it works." - SJ

Jobs had a major role in how the products at Apple have worked from the start.

I also recall Jobs making interface design references in his Stanford commencement speech about typography, calligraphy, kerning, and typesets. This happened before he started Apple.

[NormM]

One of my favorite SJ quotes! I find it hard to believe the poster is opposed to spending time figuring out how your product should work. Maybe he really just means a startup needs to focus early on, and not waste time on inessentials. I actually hope, though, that Apple's success will make good design (in SJ's sense) more common in the tech industry.