Steve Jobs Killed 70% of Apple’s Products. Then Apple Became the Most Valuable Company on Earth

In 1997, Apple™ had 90 days of cash left. The company that had once defined personal computing was bleeding out. Losses were piling up. Morale was gone. The board was desperate. So they brought back the guy they’d kicked out twelve years earlier. ​Steve Jobs walked back into Apple™ in September 1997, and what he found was a mess. Dozens of products. Printers, servers, cameras, handhelds, multiple monitor lines, and a dizzying sprawl of Mac models that nobody could keep straight. Each one existed because some team had once made a case for it. Each one was draining time, money, and focus. Jobs started sitting through product reviews. He asked his team a question that sounds almost embarrassingly simple. “Which ones do I tell my friends to buy?” Nobody could answer. That silence told him everything. If the people building the products couldn’t answer that question, there was no way a customer walking into a store could answer it either. Within a year, Jobs had cut roughly 70% of the product line. He drew a 2×2 grid on a whiteboard. Consumer vs. pro. Desktop vs. portable. Four boxes. A handful of products. That was Apple now. He didn’t save Apple by adding more. He didn’t launch a new category or hire a brilliant strategist. He saved it by making fewer choices possible. Apple went from 90 days from bankruptcy to the most valuable company on earth. And if you create content, you’re probably making the exact same mistake. Let’s dive in.

🧐 The Psychology of Hick’s Law

Back in 1952, two psychologists ran a series of experiments that seem obvious in hindsight but changed how we understand the human brain.

​Hick’s Law is named after William Edmund Hick and Ray Hyman.

The idea is simple: the more choices someone has, the longer it takes them to decide. More options don’t just slow people down a little. Every option you add piles on more friction.

This isn’t indecisiveness. It’s biology.

​Brain imaging research confirms it. More choices force the brain to work measurably harder.
Your viewer is literally expending more effort when you give them too much to consider.

Think about the last time you went to a restaurant with a menu the size of a novel.
You flip through it. You second-guess your first choice.

The food arrives and you’re still wondering if the table next to you ordered better.
That’s Hick’s Law at work.

The abundance of options didn’t improve your experience. It degraded it.

The lesson isn’t “have nothing.” The lesson is “be ruthless about what earns its place.”

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🧠 Inside Your Viewer’s Mind

When someone watches your video, their brain is asking a question every few seconds:

“Should I keep watching, or is it time to leave?”

That question gets harder to answer in your favor every time you add something new.
– A new topic.
– A new character.
– A new tangent.
– A new call to action.

Each one is a fork in the road. Each fork is a moment where dropping off becomes the easier choice.

When your video introduces five different ideas, the viewer’s brain has to make five micro-decisions about whether to keep following you.

Most viewers won’t consciously think “this video has too many ideas.”
They’ll just feel a low-level friction building. Then they’re gone.
They don’t know why. You don’t know why.

And you chalk it up to the algorithm.

Here’s the brutal truth: most viewers don’t leave because they’re bored.
They leave because they got confused and gave up.

Confusion and cognitive overload feel identical from the outside.
Both of them look like a drop in watch time.

A video with one clear point and one clear call to action outperforms a video with five points and three CTAs almost every time. Not because viewers are lazy. Because their brains are efficient.

Given a choice between working hard and clicking away, they will click away.

When someone watches your video, their brain isn’t asking “is this interesting?”
It’s asking “do I know what’s happening and what I’m supposed to do next?”

The moment the answer to that question becomes murky, you’ve lost them. Not to another creator. Just to the back button.

🎓 Now How Do We Apply This to Video?

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When it comes to Strategy:

Your views dropped.

Most creators will run through a long list of possible explanations.
➡️ The thumbnail.
➡️ The title.
➡️ The posting time.
➡️ The algorithm changed.

Maybe it’s the length. Maybe it’s the hook. Maybe it’s all of these at once.

Here’s the simpler explanation: your content lineup is too scattered.

A channel that covers 40 different topic types confuses the algorithm and the audience.
There is no pattern for the algorithm to amplify.
There is no reason for a viewer to come back and expect more of what they liked.

A channel with 3 to 4 clear content pillars compounds. Each video reinforces the others.
The algorithm learns who to show your stuff to. Viewers learn what to expect.

The fix? Do what Jobs did. Draw your 2×2. Consumer vs. pro, or in your case, beginner vs. experienced creator, or tutorial vs. inspiration, or whatever your version of those axes looks like.

Put your content ideas in the grid. Then kill everything that doesn’t fit in one of your four boxes.

You don’t have too few ideas. You have too many.
And all of them fighting for space is exactly what’s keeping you from growing.

Watch the Video Below and become the most organized video content creator on the block!

When it comes to Story:

A video that tries to make seven points makes zero.

That’s not a knock on thoroughness. It’s just how human cognition works.

Every point you add is another choice the viewer has to process.
Every transition from one idea to the next is a moment where they have to decide whether the new idea is worth following.

If your video makes more than one main point, pick the best one and cut the rest. Save the others for future videos. Those aren’t ideas you’re throwing away. They’re your next three videos.

If your call to action asks viewers to do three things, subscribe, comment below, and check out the link in the description – they will do none of them.

One ask. One action. Give the brain exactly one thing to decide.

Here’s the kicker: the videos that feel “too simple” to post are often the ones that perform best.

Because simple means the viewer never has to work.
And when the viewer never has to work, they stay.

When it comes to Confidence:

Here’s where it gets uncomfortable.

The on-camera version of this problem is the creator who needs to “cover everything” so they don’t leave anyone out.

The thinking goes: if I narrow my topic, I’ll miss people.
If I make this video for a specific person, I’ll lose the rest.

That logic is backwards.

The complex thought sounds like this: “I need to make this video appeal to everyone so I don’t leave anyone out.”

The simple truth is this:

Not because it reaches more people.
Because the person it’s for feels like you made it specifically for them.

That feeling is what drives shares. That feeling is what drives comments.
That’s what builds a community instead of just an audience.

Pick someone. One real person. Make the video for them.
Trust that there are more people like them out there. Because there are.

You don’t have a content problem. You have a commitment problem.
Commit to fewer things. Do them better. Watch what happens.

🌶️ In A Spicy Nutshell

More choices slow people down. That’s not a preference. It’s biology.

• Your channel strategy needs pillars, not variety. Three to four content types that compound beat forty scattered ideas every time.
• Your videos need one point. Not five. One. The rest become your next videos.
• Your CTAs need one action. Give viewers one thing to do and they’ll do it. Give them three and they’ll do none.
• The video for one specific person outperforms the video for everyone. Specificity is not a limitation. It’s your advantage.

Until next time, cut more than you’re comfortable cutting. 🌶
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