What Steve Jobs Can Teach Us About Existential Innovation
And how it can help builders and innovators make things that truly move the needle for humanity
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âOne of the ways that I believe people express their appreciation to the rest of humanity is to make something wonderful and put it out there."
â Steve Jobs
I came across this short video on the Steve Jobs Archive, and it made me think about the connection of his philosophy and existential innovation.
Steve Jobs wasnât just a product visionaryâhe was a systems thinker, an architect of new realities. He built Apple not just as a company, but as an ecosystem, a design philosophy, and an uncompromising standard for how technology should integrate into human life.
His intention wasnât just about making better computers or sleeker phones. Jobs understood something fundamental: the future doesnât emerge on its ownâit is created by those bold enough to shape it.
In a world where AI is accelerating, climate instability is mounting, and existential risks loom, we need to take that same ethos and apply it to something bigger than consumer tech. Existential innovationâthe kind that doesnât just make life better, but ensures humanity thrives for centuriesâdemands the same level of obsession, vision, and ruthless execution that Jobs brought to Apple.
Hereâs what I believe we can learn from Steve Jobsâ approachâand how we can use it to build the next era of civilization.
1. The future is built before people realize they need it
Jobs didnât wait for market research to tell him what to build. He famously dismissed focus groups with a simple truth: "Itâs not the customerâs job to know what they want." He understood that transformative innovation isnât about responding to demandâitâs about anticipating what will matter years and decades before others see it.
Existential innovation requires the same mindset. By the time the world realizes we need safe AGI, clean energy abundance, or solutions to demographic collapse, it may already be too late.
The biggest breakthroughs will come from visionaries who donât wait for permission, consensus, or obvious validation, but see the curve before it bends. To ensure the future is one worth living in, we need to be proactive, not reactive.
2. Build at the intersection of science and humanities
Jobsâ genius wasnât just in understanding technology and engineering. He saw Apple as existing at the intersection of technology and the liberal artsâa fusion of design, intuition, and technical prowess. The iPhone wasnât just a deviceâit was an extension of human capability, seamlessly designed to feel intuitive, inevitable.
âthe computer is a bicycle for the mindâ - Steve Jobs
Thatâs the approach we need in existential innovation. The worldâs most pressing challengesâsafe AI, longevity science, planetary resilienceâwonât be solved by technologists alone. We need philosophers, artists, psychologists, ethicists, and systems thinkers designing the future alongside engineers.
Building an artificial general intelligence isnât just a coding problem. Solving climate collapse isnât just about emissions reductions. Ensuring human flourishing isnât just about economic models. We must create solutions that are as human-centered as they are technologically ambitiousâor risk building a future optimized for efficiency, but devoid of meaning.
3. Embrace risk, disrupt yourself, and ignore the safe path
Jobs was fired from Apple in 1985. Most people would have played it safe after that. Instead, he started NeXT and helped build Pixar into a computer animation powerhouseâcompanies that redefined computing and storytelling. Years later, Apple was failing, and Jobs was brought back. He killed half the product line, took massive creative risks, and bet the future of the company on a few core innovationsâthe iMac, iPod, and later, the iPhone.
The lesson? The best ideas are almost always the riskiest.
Existential innovation isnât about incremental progressâitâs about fundamentally rewriting the rules of the game. That means:
Taking on projects that seem too ambitious to workâuntil they do.
Betting on breakthroughs that will take decades to matureâbecause no one else is willing to.
Killing ideas that are "good enough"âand instead pushing for what is truly revolutionary.
We wonât solve AI alignment, longevity, or planetary resilience with cautious, incremental steps. We need pirates who are willing to burn the ships and commit to the mission with everything they have.
4. Control the full stackâown the entire experience
Jobs was obsessed with controlling Appleâs hardware, software, and services. He hated licensing Appleâs operating system to other companies because it meant compromising on user experience. By contrast, Microsoft dominated the 90s by licensing Windows to PC manufacturers. They scaled faster, but the experience was fragmented, inconsistent. Apple, despite being a smaller player at the time, eventually won because it prioritized quality and coherence over rapid expansion.
The lesson? To truly shape the future, donât outsource the mission-critical pieces.
If youâre creating an existential innovation, ask yourself:
Who controls the infrastructure you depend on?
What happens if short-term incentives corrupt the long-term vision?
Where do you need to vertically integrate to ensure the integrity of your vision?
For example, when it comes to creating Artificial General Intelligence, this means ensuring safety isnât just a regulatory afterthought. For longevity, it means owning not just biotech research, but distribution and accessibility. For energy abundance, it means building full-stack solutions that donât rely on fragile supply chains.
Real change doesnât happen when you optimize someone elseâs system. It happens when you build your own. Easy said than done, but you get the gist.
5. Relentless simplicity: focus on what actually matters
Rumor has it that Steve Jobs once walked into a room of Apple engineers in the late 90s and asked: âWhich one of these products should we tell customers to buy?â. After no one in the company could answer clearly, Jobs ultimatley decided to kill everything except four productsâa consumer laptop, a pro laptop, a consumer desktop, and a pro desktop. That ruthless focus saved Apple.
Most of todayâs innovation landscape is cluttered with noise. Too many startups chase trends instead of solving deep, civilization-scale problems. Existential innovation demands long-term focus.
If youâre working on AGI safety, eliminate distractions and solve alignment firstâbecause nothing else matters if we get that wrong.
If youâre working on climate solutions, cut through the hype and focus on the energy breakthroughs that will actually scale.
If youâre working on longevity, ditch the supplements and focus on real biotech that will extend healthspans by decades, not months.
The best innovations donât typically come from doing moreâthey come from relentlessly focusing on what actually moves the needle.
Jobs understood that innovation isnât about waiting for the right moment, the right conditions, or the right permission. Itâs about building the future before anyone else believes in it. The same applies to existential innovation. No one is going to hand us a roadmap for solving AGI alignment, unlocking radical longevity, or ensuring humanityâs long-term survival.
The people who shape the next century will be the ones who stop waiting and start building.
Letâs make something wonderful.
Thanks for reading,
Yon
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AI assistants were used to help research and edit this essay.