It's really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them.
People who know what they are talking about don't need power Point.
Don't let something that doesn't matter cause you to lose something that does.
I want to make a dent in the universe.
I think great artists and great engineers are similar, in that they both have a desire to express themselves. In fact some of the best people working on the original Mac were poets and musicians on the side.
It's not done until it ships.
If you really look closely, most overnight successes took a long time.
Everything around you that you call life was made up by people, and you can change it.
Longer Version:
Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it… Once you learn that, you'll never be the same again.
Keep looking. Don't settle.
We at Apple had forgotten who we were. One way to remember who you are is to remember who your heroes are.
Innovation is saying no to 1,000 things.
It is in Apple's DNA that technology alone is not enough--it's technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the results that make our heart sing.
Innovation is not about saying yes to everything. It's about saying NO to all but the most crucial features.
Follow your heart and your intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.
If you wanna hire great people and have them stay working for you, you have to be run by ideas, not hierarchy. The best ideas have to win, otherwise good people don't stay.
If you live each day as if it were your last, someday you'll be right. Every morning I looked in the mirror and asked myself: If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I do today?
The axis today is not liberal and conservative, the axis is constructive-destructive.
If you want to live your life in a creative way, as an artist, you have to not look back too much. You have to be willing to take whatever you've done and whoever you were and throw them away.
If you keep your eye on the profit, you're going to skimp on the product. But if you focus on making really great products, then the profits will follow.
I was worth about over a million dollars when I was 23 and over ten million dollars when I was 24, and over a hundred million dollars when I was 25 and... it wasn't that important -- because I never did it for the money.
Innovation is the only way to win.
Creation is messy. You want genius, you get madness; two sides of the same coin.
Pixar is seen by a lot of folks as an overnight success, but if you really look closely, most overnight successes took a long time.
It doesn't make sense to hire smart people and then tell them what to to , We hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.
Deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what to do.
Sometimes life is going to hit you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith.
Longer Version:
Sometimes life's going to hit you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did.
My job is not to be easy on people. My job is to take these great people we have and to push them and make them even better.
Real artists ship.
I would trade all of my technology for an afternoon with Socrates.
And the only way to do great work is to love what you do.... Don't settle.
I've been rejected, but I am still in love.
When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn't really do it, they just saw something.
Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today? And whenever the answer has been No for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
I'm convinced that about half of what separates successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.
Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact: Everything you call life was made up by people no smarter than you.
Start small, think big. Don't worry about too many things at once. Take a handful of simple things to begin with, and then progress to more complex ones. Think about not just tomorrow, but the future. Put a ding in the universe.
That's been one of my mantras -- focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex.
Longer Version:
That's been one of my mantras -- focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it's worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.
You have to be burning with an idea, or a problem, or a wrong that you want to right. If you're not passionate enough from the start, you'll never stick it out.
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life.
Longer Version:
Your time is limited, don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma, which is living the result of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinion drown your own inner voice. Everything else is secondary.
The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.
If you haven't found it yet, keep looking.
The only way to do great work is to love what you do.
Longer Version:
The only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it.
The ones who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.
Quality is more important than quantity. One home run is much better than two doubles.
Creativity is just connecting things.
Longer Version:
Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn't really do it, they just saw something.
The people who are doing the work are the moving force behind the Macintosh. My job is to create a space for them, to clear out the rest of the organization and keep it at bay.
We don't get a chance to do that many things, and every one should be really excellent. Because this is our life.
Longer Version:
We don't get a chance to do that many things, and every one should be really excellent. Because this is our life. Life is brief, and then you die, you know? So this is what we've chosen to do with our life.
In the broadest context, the goal is to seek enlightenment -- however you define it.
You can build your own things that other people can use. And once you learn that, you'll never be the same again.
If you don't love it, you're going to fail.
I do not adopt softness towards others because I want to make them better.
Get closer than ever to your customers. So close that you tell them what they need well before they realize it themselves.
I'm actually as proud of many of the things we haven't done as the things we have done.
The people who made Mac are sort of on the edge.
Stay hungry. Stay foolish.
Longer Version:
Stay hungry. Stay foolish. Never let go of your appetite to go after new ideas, new experiences, and new adventures.
Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it's worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.
We have always been shamelss about stealing great ideas.
Invest time in yourself to have great experiences that are going to enrich you.
If you are willing to work hard and ask lots of questions, you can learn business pretty fast.
Death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It is life's change agent, it clears out the old to make way for the new.
Focus does not mean saying yes, it means saying no.
Make it like a sunflower.
To turn really interesting ideas and fledgling technologies into a company that can continue to innovate for years, it requires a lot of disciplines.
Pretty much, Apple and Dell are the only ones in this industry making money. They make it by being Wal-Mart. We make it by innovation.
Innovation has nothing to do with how many R and D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R and D. It's not about money. It's about the people you have, how you're led, and how much you get it.
When you're young, you look at television and think, there's a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that's not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want.
Longer Version:
When you're young, you look at television and think, There's a
conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But
when you get a little older, you realize that's not true. The networks
are in business to give people exactly what they want. That's a far
more depressing thought. Conspiracy is optimistic! You can shoot
the bastards! We can have a revolution! But the networks are really
in business to give people what they want. It's the truth.
We think Android is very, very fragmented, and becoming more fragmented by the day. And as you know, Apple strives for the integrated model so that the user isn't forced to be the systems integrator.
It is piracy, not overt online music stores, which is our main competitor.
And it comes from saying no to 1,000 things to make sure we don't get on the wrong track or try to do too much. We're always thinking about new markets we could enter, but it's only by saying no that you can concentrate on the things that are really important.
I'm very excited about having the Internet in my den.
We want to reinvent the phone. What's the killer app? The killer app is making calls! It's amazing how hard it is to make calls on most phones. We want to let you use contacts like never before -- sync your iPhone with your PC or mac.
The reason that Apple is able to create products like the iPad is because we've always tried to be at the intersection of technology and the liberal arts.
Longer Version:
The reason that Apple is able to create products like iPad is because we always try to be at the intersection of technology and liberal arts, to be able to get the best of both.
What is Apple, after all? Apple is about people who think 'outside the box,' people who want to use computers to help them change the world, to help them create things that make a difference, and not just to get a job done.
But innovation comes from people meeting up in the hallways or calling each other at 10:30 at night with a new idea, or because they realized something that shoots holes in how we've been thinking about a problem.
When you're a carpenter making a beautiful chest of drawers, you're not going to use a piece of plywood on the back, even though it faces the wall and nobody will ever see it. You'll know it's there, so you're going to use a beautiful piece of wood on the back.
Longer Version:
When you're a carpenter making a beautiful chest of drawers, you're not going to use a piece of plywood on the back, even though it faces the wall and nobody will ever see it. You'll know it's there, so you're going to use a beautiful piece of wood on the back. For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through.
I've done a lot of things I'm not proud of, such as getting my girlfriend pregnant when I was 23 and the way I handled that.
It's not the tools that you have faith in -- tools are just tools. They work, or they don't work. It's people you have faith in or not. Yeah, sure, I'm still optimistic I mean, I get pessimistic sometimes but not for long.
I'm an optimist in the sense that I believe humans are noble and honorable, and some of them are really smart. I have a very optimistic view of individuals.
What we want to do is make a leapfrog product that is way smarter than any mobile device has ever been, and super-easy to use. This is what iPhone is. OK? So, we're going to reinvent the phone.
Our goal is to make the best devices in the world, not to be the biggest.
Quotes by Steve Jobs are featured in:
Change Quotes
Creativity Quotes
Humility Quotes
Inspirational Quotes
Leadership Quotes
Perseverance Quotes
Simplicity Quotes
Sunflower Quotes
Self-Discovery Quotes
Programming Quotes