What was it like to build and demo new things for Steve Jobs? How did Apple develop the software components of iconic hardware products iPhone, iPad, and more? Longtime Apple software engineer and designer Ken Kocienda shares stories and lessons from his career at Apple with a16z's Frank Chen.
In this wide-ranging conversation from April 2019, a16z’s Frank Chen sits down with Ken Kocienda, a longtime software engineer and designer at Apple from 2001 to 2017, who wrote a book about his career there, called Creative Selection.
They discuss Ken’s unconventional path from freelance photographer to software engineer at Apple, his work on many core products from Safari web browser to iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch and features like Autocorrect, what it was like to demo new products for Steve Jobs, and more.