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Steve Jobs
One of the great things about Steve Jobs (bio) is what comes out of his mouth. The Apple CEO is the master of hype and hyperbole. Even when he is not making an attempt, his words enlighten and stay with the audience. Here's a selection of 42 of the most "insanely great" things the man has said, organized by topic.
- On Beginnings
- 1.0
- There's a phrase in Buddhism, 'Beginner's mind.' It's wonderful to have a beginner's mind.
- On Working at HP
- 2.0
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When I was 12 or 13, I wanted to build something and I needed some parts, so I picked up the phone and called Bill Hewlett - he was listed in the Palo Alto phone book. He answered the phone and he was real nice. He chatted with me for, like, 20 minutes. He didn't know me at all, but he ended up giving me some parts and he got me a job that summer working at Hewlett-Packard on the line, assembling frequency counters. Assembling may be too strong. I was putting in screws. It didn't matter; I was in heaven.
Playboy Interview (Jan-1985) - On Woz
- 3.0
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I met Woz when I was 13, at a friend’s garage. He was about 18. He was, like, the first person I met who knew more electronics than I did at that point. We became good friends, because we shared an interest in computers and we had a sense of humor. We pulled all kinds of pranks together... Like making a huge flag with a giant one of these on it [gives the finger]. The idea was that we would unfurl it in the middle of a school graduation. Then there was the time Wozniak made something that looked and sounded like a bomb and took it to the school cafeteria.
Playboy Interview (Jan-1985) - On Computers
- 4.0
- I don't want people to think of this as a computer, I think of it as reinventing the phone.
- 5.0
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What a computer is to me is the most remarkable tool that we have ever come up with. It's the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds.
Memory and Imagination: New Pathways to the Library of Congress (1991) - On Macintosh
- 6.0
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Was George Orwell right about 1984?
Keynote address at the Apple sales conference launching the Macintosh 1984 commercial, which ends with the announcer saying "On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you'll see why 1984 won't be like 1984." (Oct-1983) - 7.0
- We're gambling on our vision, and we would rather do that than make "me too" products. Let some other companies do that. For us, it's always the next dream.
- On Why Kids are Important
- 8.0
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Older people sit down and ask, "What is it?" but the boy asks, "What can I do with it?"
When asked why Jobs was seemingly happier in showing off the new Macintosh to the kid as opposed to the adults. Playboy Interview (Jan- 1985) - On Apple
- 9.0
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Apple was this incredible journey. I mean we did some amazing things there. The thing that bound us together at Apple was the ability to make things that were going to change the world. That was very important. We were all pretty young. The average age in the company was mid-to-late twenties. Hardly anybody had families at the beginning and we all worked like maniacs and the greatest joy was that we felt we were fashioning collective works of art much like twentieth century physics.
Oral History Interview, Smithsonian (1995) - 10.0
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Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want a chance to change the world?
A comment he made to persuade John Sculley to become Apple's CEO (1985) - 11.0
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I got a lot of experience and scar tissue.
On his return to Apple (1997) - On Apple Products
- 12.0
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Every once in a while a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything. It's very fortunate if you can work on just one of these in your career. ...Apple's been very fortunate in that it's introduced a few of these.
Announcing the introduction of the iPhone (9-Jan-2007) - 13.0
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I've seen the demonstrations on the Internet about how you can find another person using a Zune and give them a song they can play three times. It takes forever. By the time you've gone through all that, the girl's got up and left! You're much better off to take one of your earbuds out and put it in her ear. Then you're connected with about two feet of headphone cable.
When asked whether he was concerned over Microsoft Zune's wireless capability, as a product competing with Apple's iPod, Newsweek (14-Oct-2006) - On Technology improving Education
- 14.0
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Lincoln did not have a Web site at the log cabin where his parents home-schooled him, and he turned out pretty interesting. Historical precedent shows that we can turn out amazing human beings without technology. Precedent also shows that we can turn out very uninteresting human beings with technology.
- On Innovation
- 15.0
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Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R&D. It's not about money. It's about the people you have, how you're led, and how much you get it.
As quoted in Fortune (09-Nov-1998); also quoted in "TIME digital 50" in TIME digital archive (1999) - 16.0
- You know, we don't grow most of the food we eat. We wear clothes other people make. We speak a language that other people developed. We use a mathematics that other people evolved... I mean, we're constantly taking things. It’s a wonderful, ecstatic feeling to create something that puts it back in the pool of human experience and knowledge.
- 17.0
- I wish developing great products was as easy as writing a check. If that was the case, Microsoft would have great products.
- 18.0
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It's like... somebody who's not cool trying to be cool. It's painful to watch. You know what I mean? It's like... watching Michael Dell try to dance. Painful.
On trying to innovate to be cool - On Design
- 19.0
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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. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That's because they were able to connect experiences they've had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they've had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people.
Wired Interview - 20.0
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To design something really well, you have to get it. You have to really grok what it's all about. It takes a passionate commitment to really thoroughly understand something, chew it up, not just quickly swallow it. Most people don't take the time to do that.
Wired Interview - 21.0
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That's like saying you don't want to kiss your lover's lips because everyone has lips. It doesn't make any sense. We don't strive to appear cool. We just try to make the best products we can. And if they are cool, well, that's great.
When asked once about the iPod "how can it be cool when Dick Cheney and Queen Elizabeth have one?" - 22.0
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I actually think there's actually very little distinction between an artist and a scientist or engineer of the highest calibre. They've just been to me people who pursue different paths but basically kind of headed to the same goal which is to express something of what they perceive to be the truth around them so that others can benefit by it.
Oral History Interview, Smithsonian (1995) - On the Internet
- 23.0
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Its very exciting is that Microsoft doesn't own it and I don't think they can. It's the one thing in the industry that Microsoft can probably never own.
Oral History Interview, Smithsonian (1995) - 24.0
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It's very exciting because it is going to destroy vast layers of our economy and make available a presence in the marketplace for very small companies, one that is equal to very large companies.
Oral History Interview, Smithsonian (1995) - On Bill Gates & Microsoft
- 25.0
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Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn't matter to me... Going to bed at night saying we've done something wonderful... that's what matters to me.
In an interview with WSJ (1993) - 26.0
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The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste. They have absolutely no taste. And I don't mean that in a small way, I mean that in a big way, in the sense that they don't think of original ideas, and they don't bring much culture into their products
.
Interview in the PBS documentary Triumph of the Nerds: The Rise of Accidental Empires (1996) - 27.0
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I wish him the best, I really do. I just think he and Microsoft are a bit narrow. He'd be a broader guy if he had dropped acid once or gone off to an ashram when he was younger.
On Bill Gates as quoted in "Creating Jobs" in The New York Times (Jan-1997) - 28.0
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Our friends up north spend over five billion dollars on research and development and all they seem to do is copy Google and Apple.
On Microsoft, at the Worldwide Developer's Conference (Aug-2006) - On Starting Up
- 29.0
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I get asked this a lot and I have a pretty standard answer which is, a lot of people come to me and say "I want to be an entrepreneur". And I go "Oh that's great, what's your idea?". And they say "I don't have one yet". And I say "I think you should go get a job as a busboy or something until you find something you're really passionate about because it's a lot of work".
Oral History Interview, Smithsonian (1995) - On Silicon Valley
- 30.0
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You have to go back a little history. I mean this is where the beatnik happened in San Francisco. This is where the hippy movement happened. This is the only place in America where Rock 'n Roll really happened. Right? Most of the bands in this country, Bob Dylan in the 60's, I mean they all came out of here. I think of Joan Baez to Jefferson Airplane to the Grateful Dead. Everything came out of here, Janis Joplin, Jimmy Hendrix, everybody. Why is that? You've also had Stanford and Berkeley, two awesome universities drawing smart people from all over the world and depositing them in this clean, sunny, nice place where there's a whole bunch of other smart people and pretty good food. And at times a lot of drugs and all of that. So they stayed. There's a lot of human capital pouring in. Really smart people. People seem pretty bright here relative to the rest of the country. People seem pretty open-minded here relative to the rest of the country.
Oral History Interview, Smithsonian (1995) - On Creation & Optimism
- 31.0
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So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
Address at Stanford University (2005) - 32.0
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One might sometimes say in despair no, but I think yes. And the reason is because human minds settle into fixed ways of looking at the world and that's always been true and it's probably always going to be true. I've always felt that death is the greatest invention of life. I'm sure that life evolved without death at first and found that without death, life didn't work very well because it didn't make room for the young.
Oral History Interview, Smithsonian (1995) - 33.0
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Stay hungry, stay foolish.
Address at Stanford University (2005) - On Music
- 34.0
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I think we're all happier when we have a little more music in our lives. We were very lucky - we grew up in a generation where music was an incredibly intimate part of that generation. More intimate than it had been, and maybe more intimate than it is today, because today there's a lot of other alternatives. We didn't have video games to play. We didn't have personal computers. There's so many other things competing for kids' time now. But, nonetheless, music is really being reinvented in this digital age, and that is bringing it back into people's lives. It's a wonderful thing. And in our own small way, that's how we're working to make the world a better place.
Rolling Stones Interview (Dec-2003) - On Money
- 35.0
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I was worth about over a million dollars when I was twenty-three and over ten million dollars when I was twenty-four, and over a hundred million dollars when I was twenty-five and it wasn't that important because I never did it for the money.
Interview in the PBS documentary Triumph of the Nerds: The Rise of Accidental Empires (1996) - 36.0
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I'm the only person I know that's lost a quarter of a billion dollars in one year... It's very character-building.
Interview in the PBS documentary Triumph of the Nerds: The Rise of Accidental Empires (1996) - On Being the Best
- 37.0
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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.
Address at Stanford University (2005) - 38.0
- Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.
- On the Purpose of Life
- 39.0
- I think if you do something and it turns out pretty good, then you should go do something else wonderful, not dwell on it for too long. Just figure out what's next.
- 40.0
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Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life.
Address at Stanford University (2005) - 41.0
- We're here to put a dent in the universe. Otherwise why else even be here?
- On a Wish
- 42.0
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I would trade all of my technology for an afternoon with Socrates.
Newsweek (29-Oct-2001)
