CHAPTER ONE

Against Failure

You don’t have to fail to succeed.

IT WAS ONLY TWO WEEKS AFTER WE LAUNCHED SIRI, the first virtual personal assistant, that we got the call from Steve Jobs. We had set out to create a breakthrough in the market and we thought success would be years away, not weeks.

A year and a half after that phone call, Siri had become the core application for a new and highly popular service on Apple iPhones, one that is now familiar to tens of millions of users and has entered the popular consciousness through movies and television. In the first few weeks after its introduction, Siri helped accelerate billions of dollars’ worth of sales of the iPhone 4s. We had succeeded.

This success wasn’t achieved through what is now thought ...

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