3 major breakthroughs

Steve Jobs and the Rule of 3. Also, 7 other things worth your time.

I wrote about the Rule of 3 in this newsletter last week. I was humbled afterward by how many readers replied to let me know they thought it was insightful and useful.

As far as I’m concerned, one of the most masterful business communicators of the last 50 years was Steve Jobs. I’ve written before about how Jobs used the Rule of 3 constantly, and I’d like to share some of that with you here, as well.

Let’s start out by examining the words Jobs used when he publicly introduced three legendary Apple products. See if you can spot a pattern.

First for our purposes: In 1984, Jobs introduced the Macintosh (link to video):

“There have only been two milestone products in our industry: the Apple II in 1977 and the IBM PC in 1981. Today ... we are introducing the third industry milestone product: Macintosh.”

In 2001, he introduced the iPod (link to video):

“There are three major breakthroughs in iPod. Let's take a look at each one of them.”

In 2007, he introduced the iPhone (link to video):

“[T]oday,…