Occasionally, you come across a video a little late that you really should have seen earlier, because the statements in it hit the mark. One such video comes from Apple’s long-time chief designer Jony Ive, who gave a commencement speech for the California College of the Arts in the middle of the pandemic to mark the graduation of the 2021 class and the awarding of an honorary doctorate to himself.

In the almost 15 minute video, Ive discusses, among other things, ideas and how fragile they are, how they need to be protected and how criticism made without constructive suggestions can be so destructive. His search for the nature of ideas also helped him to generate more ideas and deal with them better, protect them and develop them further.

Ideas, by definition, are always fragile. If they were resolved, they woulnd’t be ideas. They would be products ready to ship.

And then he says something very important that is the exact opposite of how we usually proceed:

You have to make an extraordinary effort not to focus on the problems, which are implicated with any new idea. These problems are known, they are quantifiable and understood. But you have to focus on the actual idea, which is partial, tentative, and unproven.

If you don’t do this, you quickly lose faith in the solvability of the idea. And that is precisely why the criticism mentioned above is so destructive without constructive suggestions.

Opinions are not ideas. Opinions are not as important as ideas. Opinions are just opinions.

He also talks about how important it is to show full and unconditional respect for creativity, ideas and the process, and not just when the ideas are good and the circumstances are easy and convenient. Only then will a creative person have the stamina to keep going, even when the circumstances are difficult and the solution is seemingly out of reach.

Finally, he also discusses the importance of curiosity and that maintaining curiosity and being open to new ideas is a conscious decision to learn, and that learning is more important than being right.