In Steve Jobs’ infamous description of computers as “a bicycle for the mind”, he refers to an article in Scientific American he read as a child that measured the “locomotive efficiency of different species in the animal kingdom”. He described how the condor was top of the list, and humans came about a third of the way down the list, but humans on a bicycle beat were by far the most efficient and beat everything else by a landslide.

It is such a compelling and inspiring pitch. He absolutely nails it. So out of curiosity one day I went through the Scientific American archives to find the original article, written in 1973 by S. S Wilson, and see what was it he saw that led to this insight.

I discovered a few fascinating points in the process. The first surprise is that condors do not feature anywhere in the study.

Next, the species at the top of the list is not any type of bird. It’s a fish. Salmon are the most efficient.

Well… this seemed a much more important point while we were disucssing a soaring majestic bird we were competing with. Saying “a man on a bike beats a fish” doesn’t really carry the same air of apex superiority.

I also see this isn’t even a list. It’s a chart of course, but it’s hard to describe exactly where humans are here in this chart, but if we reframe it as a list, we can say “that humans came about a third of the way down the list” which is both roughly right and very easy to understand.

But, in the end, the truth is in there: that us homo sapiens do indeed demonstrate a so-so performance while “man on bicycle” beats all the other natural species by a large margin.

As I looked for different clips of this interview, I found many other interviews where Steve says exactly the same words. This is a very intentionally crafted story. He pauses as he finds the word to say human he says “not such a great showing for … the crown of creation”, but he knew exactly what he’s going to say next. Somehow getting “crown of creation” in there, sets up a godlike theme that connects with a condor flying high in the sky, and this turns it into a sweaty cold handshake when it becomes a salmon.

This seems like an example of deep design and engineering in crafting a story. Like most people I always thought the bicycle for the mind metaphor was beautiful and insightful, but the more I see these other details and how Jobs masterfully and intentionally selected and modified details to create and deliver this message is incredible.