With Steve Jobs being customer #1. I’m an Apple outsider to be sure, but I can’t imagine that many people working at Apple aren’t avid users of the products they make. And relish they thought of creating new one’s that will delight them even more.

People attribute Apple’s status as the technology firm with the most passionately evangelistic customers on the planet to some sort of mystical, other worldly powers that Jobs must have. After all, the firms is famous for eschewing traditional forms of market research and customer research. But Jobs isn’t other worldly. He’s not from Naboo. He’s a customer. He and his creative teams build devices they’d be passionate about using. That’s why they build them with such passion, and success. For other firms trying to learn from Apple’s success, instead of trying to unearth the firm’s mysterious secrets, maybe it makes some sense to think about . . . hiring customers.