#17 Steve Jobs on why owning a product matters in engineering

Check out this quote from Steve Jobs, talking about consulting:

Without owning something over an extended period of time—like a few years—where one has a chance to take responsibility for one’s recommendations, where one has to see one’s recommendations through all action stages, and accumulate scar tissue from the mistakes, and pick oneself up off the ground, and dust oneself off, one learns a fraction of what one can. Coming in and making recommendations without owning the results, without owning the implementation, I think is a fraction of the value, and a fraction of the opportunity to learn and get better.

I like the image job recalls "accumulate scar tissue", because it often feels like a scar (and not in a good way). But these scars will really help to make better discissions next time.