As the narrator of Amélie Poulain reminds us: look at the moon, not the finger.
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We have all seen that clip of Steve Jobs calmly responding to a rather rude question. But listen closely… it is not about composure. It is a masterclass in clarity.

“You’ve got to start with the customer experience and work backward to the technology.”

In 1997, Jobs was pushing back against the Java/OpenDoc hype. Engineers were dazzled by clever architecture but lacked a unifying story for why it mattered. His point was simple: real innovation begins with empathy, not code.

Fast forward to 2025. The parallel with Agentic AI is striking.

Every company suddenly has access to world-class models, and some are asking the wrong question: “What can we do with this?”

Jobs would plausibly flip it: “What will people never want to do again once this exists?”

Jobs’s logic was never about replacement; it was about elevation. The goal is to remove the drudgery so humans can focus on the differentiator.

And remember, the “customer” is not always external. In an enterprise, it can be another team, a colleague, or even your future self maintaining the process you build. Empathy must apply inward, too.