Simple can be harder than complex.

Shortly after Apple announced its new software strategy in May 1998, Reinhardt asks whether Jobs will buy a stake in the company for its symbolic value. Jobs answers by talking about the work he has put into Apple and the clearer responsibilities of its rebuilt senior team. He says the company has become easier to understand and manage, then draws this lesson about simplicity.

A simple result can require more disciplined thought than a complicated one. The effort is worthwhile because clarity makes effective action possible.

Often treated only as a rule about minimalist product styling. The immediate subject is Apple’s organization, management accountability and strategy; Jobs is not saying to remove useful functions merely for appearance.

Work, Reason, Wisdom

• Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.
• People don’t know what they want until you show it to them.
• Creativity is just connecting things.
• The true teacher is a learner. Elbert Hubbard
• The only persons who are really at leisure are those who devote themselves to philosophy: and they alone really live: for they do not merely enjoy their own lifetime, but they annex every century to their own: all the years which have passed before them belong to them. Seneca the Younger

• en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs

Steve Jobs, “Steve Jobs: ‘There’s Sanity Returning’”, Q&A with Andy Reinhardt, Business Week, 25 May 1998 (extended online version, preserved on Bloomberg). Checked at Quotogeny, https://quotogeny.com/q/simple-can-be-harder-than-complex/ (30 October 2026).

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