I heard through the zeitgeist grapevine at August’s office that this week, October 23rd, is the 25th anniversary of the iPod.

You might not have one anymore, but I’m sure you remember the iconic tiny music player. It totally changed the way we think about tech. It ushered in what we now call the “Apple Renaissance.”

I used to think Steve Jobs was a lone-wolf, heroic leader who was gripped by visionary inspiration and created the iPod in an insular space. Which, if you know anything about August, is opposite to how we approach teaming.

But with the anniversary coming up, I got curious. I did a deep dive on the iPod. Turns out, I’ve been completely wrong.

Here are three assumptions I made about the iPod’s creation, and what I was able to piece together about how the tech gadget actually came to be. Buckle up, let’s rewind to 2001...

1. I thought the iPod was a big, singular vision conjured out of thin air.

Nope, it was a series of small bets, some of which failed and all of which were exploratory.

At the start of 2001, Apple acquired a small app called SoundJam and used its software to launch iTunes, which Jobs envisioned as a digital hub. About a month later, their hardware chief was doing exploration at Toshiba and saw an itty-bitty hard drive that had no particular use. He bought exclusive rights anyway, remembering a past conversation about portable music players.

The specific idea of the iPod wasn’t driving these actions forward. Instead, these bets set the team up with the right tools for when the real project began, which leads me to the next point…

2. I thought Jobs’ talent drove the iPod’s creation.

Nope, wrong again. A contractor, Tony Fadell, had pitched the idea of a hard-drive player to multiple companies before Apple hired him to lead the project.

Most companies think they need the best people on their teams to generate the best ideas. That’s what Lie #2 in Teams That Meet The Moment is all about. But ideas can come from anywhere. What matters is recognizing the potential.

It wasn’t superstar talent within Apple coming up with the idea of the iPod. But it was their superstar teamwork that delivered on it. The project was greenlit with a holiday deadline, which only gave the team a matter of months to deliver, leading to my final assumption…

3. I thought Jobs had been sitting on the idea for a long time.

Wrong again. As you’ve seen, the idea came together quickly. Once all the pieces were in place, the team was mobilized to ship in 8 months…a pretty intense sprint mission.

At August, we love a sprint mission. It’s so much better than letting ideas simmer indefinitely. And the best way to encourage speed is with clear constraints.

The Apple team’s constraints were time and design: 8 months to ship, no buttons, and any song had to be reachable in 3 clicks (this led to the iconic scroll wheel!). The mechanics of how they got there were up to them.

They pulled in external teams from PortalPlayer and Pixo, combined with teams across Apple, for a cross-functional group that could get the project across the finish line.

When October 23rd, 2001 rolled around, Jobs unveiled the first iteration of what would become one of the most famous pieces of tech in the 21st century.

Looking at this journey from small bets to big impact, what stands out to me is that the best teams are porous in terms of their people and ideas.

Ideas emerged from external sources. The project lead came from outside Apple. Many of the teams that worked on the parts did, too.

It’s a great reminder for leadership teams that you don’t have to get caught up in having the perfect conditions for success, plus endless time and resources. Sometimes, the best products come from unexpected places and are carried through by the power of constraint.

Oh, and for all my techie readers, it’s also the same week Windows XP turns 25. But we’re not talking about that. For…reasons. *cue eye roll*

Karina Mangu-Ward

Partner, August Public