People in technology disproportionately like to comment on Apple’s products and business. Outside of technology, there are just as many folks who love to obsess over Disney’s theme parks. Based on my friend networks, I’d wager that for every person who obsesses over Apple’s keynotes, there’s a Disney enthusiast keeping up on special events and the best way to enjoy the theme parks.
The connection that strikes me is that both of these companies pay more attention to details than their competitors. Apple’s competitors throw software and hardware at the wall like spaghetti, hoping it will stick. Disney’s competitors rename their rides to match the blockbusters of summer. By comparison, Apple makes a big deal about the fit and finish of their hardware (let’s not talk about that camera though!) and has a coherent story about how all their products fit together into a useful landscape. Disney carefully arranges their parks to keep the guests in a cohesive movie world and pays attention to the little details that enhance or optimize the experience.
I could make some value judgement here about how attention to detail is more profitable, better design, better engineering, or whatever. I suspect all of those are true, but it’s not what excites me about Apple or Disney. When I read about changes to Disney’s theme parks or Apple’s keynotes, I’m excited that there are companies, quite large and successful ones, that are connecting lot of dots in an intriguing way. They’re extracting delight from large scale complexity. Megaprojects are nifty and often enhance humanity, but they’re mostly out of touch or sight. It’s nice that some of us can experience and enjoy these commercial projects of vast scale and quality execution.
