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by nebula8804 41 days ago
Toyota's philosophy is polishing mature technology and small gradual iteration that supports that goal. That is not "skating to where the puck is going to be". With that philosophy Apple would never have developed the iPhone. Instead just iterating the iPod until someone else put them out of business.

It was famously explained in the original iPhone unveiling. They talked about developing new paradigms in computing and jumping towards those new paradigms with both feet.

Also, Steve Jobs once argued with Woz early on that users don't have a say in the product. The author creates a piece of work and does not stop to ask the audience what the next paragraph should be. At the end either the audience likes it or they don't and they go somewhere else. All the "toyotas" of the tech world are competing to 0 margins and will eventually die off. When Apple tried this in the 90s they ended up nearly bankrupt.

Here is Steve Jobs explaining this philosophy when users asked for cheaper machines: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U37Ds3RvyoM