Your AI can now think like Steve Jobs. Seriously.
I often find myself staring at a project, a document, or even just an email, and feeling like it’s a tangled mess of complexity. We add one more feature, one more slide, one more sentence, and before we know it, the original, simple idea is buried. I just stumbled upon an incredible post by a LinkedIn creator that offers a brilliant solution to this exact problem. The mind behind it realized that Steve Jobs’ legendary principles for innovation and design are absolutely perfect for steering AI. This person has turned Jobs’ entire philosophy into a set of sharp, focused prompts that cut through noise like a hot knife through butter.
🧠 Channeling the Master of Simplicity
The core idea is stunningly simple yet powerful. The original poster didn’t just ask an AI to “summarize” or “improve” something. Instead, they used questions that reflect Jobs’ obsession with focus, elegance, and the user experience. By framing prompts this way, you force the AI to move beyond just processing information and into a mode of critical, philosophical design thinking. It’s like having the world’s most demanding, and successful, product manager personally reviewing your work. The AI can tap into vast knowledge of design patterns and human behavior, applying them through the specific lens of radical simplicity.
Here are the three biggest takeaways I got from this amazing approach:
📌 Radical Simplification and Ruthless Focus
One of the biggest traps we fall into is over-engineering. We build apps with dozens of features or create presentations with way too much information. This contributor shows how to use AI to fight that impulse. Instead of letting your ideas get bloated, you can use prompts that force the AI to act as a ruthless editor. It’s all about finding the essential core of your project and stripping away everything else. For example, the author shared how a prompt helped turn a planned 47-module course into just 5 core modules that truly mattered. That’s not just trimming; it’s a complete transformation. It separates what’s merely possible from what’s truly necessary.
Try these prompts the expert shared:
“I’m building [describe your project]. How can I make this simpler?”
“My app has 20 features but users are confused. What’s the one thing this absolutely must do perfectly?”
“My website has tons of options but low conversions. Where am I adding complexity that users don’t value?”
✅ Reinvention and the Pursuit of Elegance
So often, we get stuck making small, incremental changes. We tweak a resume we’ve had for years or add another step to a clunky workflow. The post’s author points out that Jobs was a master of starting from scratch to find a better way. You can use AI to do the same. These prompts encourage the model to ignore existing constraints and imagine a solution from a clean slate. I love this because it breaks you out of the ‘patching’ mindset. It’s not about fixing the current version; it’s about envisioning the perfect version. The goal is to find the most ‘elegant’ path: the one that feels intuitive, seamless, and almost magical to the user.
Prompts for a fresh start:
“I’ve been tweaking my resume for years. What would this look like if I started from zero?”
“I have a complex workflow with 15 steps. What would the most elegant solution be?”
“Users struggle with our onboarding process. What would this be like if it just worked magically?”
💡 Designing for a Beginner’s Mind
The “curse of knowledge” is real. When we’re deep into a project, we forget what it’s like to see it for the first time. We use jargon, make assumptions, and create experiences that are confusing to newcomers. This talented creator highlights a set of prompts designed to completely eliminate this problem. By asking the AI to design or explain something for a total beginner, you force it to drop all assumptions. It has to find the simplest language and the most intuitive path. This is incredibly useful for investor pitches, marketing copy, user guides, or any situation where clarity is critical. The author even suggests stacking these questions to give your project a complete design audit, which I think is a fantastic technique.
Prompts to achieve ultimate clarity:
“I’m explaining my business to investors. How would I design this for someone who’s never seen it before?”
“I need to explain AI to executives. How can I make the complex appear simple?”
“How can I make my professional story simpler and more compelling?”
This is just scratching the surface of what the original poster shared. There are over a dozen prompts, including advanced techniques and a “secret weapon” prefix to add to any creative problem.
Go check out the full post from this innovator to see all the prompts and start designing everything in your life with the focus of an Apple product!
I used Steve Jobs’ innovation methods as AI prompts and discovered the power of radical simplification
byu/EQ4C in