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CHAPTER 1
On Beginnings
"We started off with a very idealistic perspective — that doing something with the highest quality, doing it right the first time, would really be cheaper than having to go back and do it again."
— Newsweek, 1984
"Silicon Valley for the most part at that time was still orchards — apricot orchards and prune orchards — and it was really paradise. I remember the air being crystal clear, where you could see from one end of the valley to the other." — On growing up in Silicon Valley in the early 1960s, Smithsonian Institution, 1995
"Things became much more clear that they were the results of human creation not these magical things that just appeared in one's environment that one had no knowledge of their interiors. It gave a tremendous level of self-confidence, that through exploration and learning one could understand seemingly very complex things in one's environment. My childhood was very fortunate in that way."
— Smithsonian Institution, 1995
"When we finally presented [the Macintosh desktop computer] at the shareholders' meeting, everyone in the auditorium gave it a five-minute ovation. What was incredible to me was that I could see the Mac team in the first few rows. It was as though none of us could believe we'd actually finished it. Everyone started crying."
— Playboy, 1985
"Usually it takes ten years and a 100 million dollars to associate a symbol with the name of the company. Our challenge was how could we have a little jewel that we could use without a name to put on the product?"
— 1993 interview about the famous Apple logo
"'I was in the parking lot, with the key in the car, and I thought to myself, If this is my last night on earth, would I rather spend it at a business meeting or with this woman? I ran across the parking lot, asked her if she'd have dinner with me. She said yes, we walked into town and we've been together ever since."
— On meeting his wife, Laurene, The New York Times, 1997
"The people who built Silicon Valley were engineers. They learned business, they learned a lot of different things, but they had a real belief that humans, if they worked hard with other creative, smart people, could solve most of humankind's problems. I believe that very much."
— Wired, 1996
"... one of the things I did when I got back to Apple 10 years ago was I gave the museum to Stanford and all the papers and all the old machines and kind of cleared out the cobwebs and said, let's stop looking backwards here. It's all about what happens tomorrow."
— All Things Digital D5 conference
"From almost the beginning at Apple we were, for some incredibly lucky reason, fortunate enough to be at the right place at the right time."
"I had dinner in Seattle at Bill Gates' house a couple of weeks ago. We were both remarking how at one time we were the youngest guys in this business, and now we're the graybeards."
"So we went to Atari and said, 'Hey, we've got this amazing thing, even built with some of your parts, and what do you think about funding us? Or we'll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary, we'll come work for you.' And they said, 'No.' So then we went to Hewlett-Packard, and they said, 'Hey, we don't need you. You haven't got through college yet."
"I think this is the start of something really big. Sometimes that first step is the hardest one, and we've just taken it."
"I was lucky — I found what I love to do early in life."
"[Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak] and I very much like Bob Dylan's poetry, and we spent a lot of time thinking about a lot of that stuff. This was California. You could get LSD fresh made from Stanford. You could sleep on the beach at night with your girlfriend. California has a sense of experimentation and a sense of openness — openness to new possibilities." — Playboy, 1985
"You saw the 1984 commercial. Macintosh was basically this relatively small company in Cupertino, California, taking on the goliath, IBM, and saying, "Wait a minute, your way is wrong. This is not the way we want computers to go. This is not the legacy we want to leave. This is not what we want our kids to be learning. This is wrong and we are going to show you the right way to do it and here it is. It's called Macintosh and it is so much better. It's going to beat you and you're going to do it.'" — Smithsonian Institution, 1995
CHAPTER 2
On Business
"You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they'll want something new."
— Inc., 1989
"Quality is more important than quantity. One home run is much better than two doubles."
— BusinessWeek
"Apple has some tremendous assets, but I believe without some attention, the company could, could, could — I'm searching for the right word — could, could die."
— TIME, 1997, on his return to Apple as CEO
"The cure for Apple is not cost-cutting. The cure for Apple is to innovate its way out of its current predicament."
— Apple Confidential 2.0: The Definitive History of the World's Most Colorful Company (2004) by Owen W. Linzmayer
"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."
— BusinessWeek, 1998
"You can't really predict exactly what will happen, but you can feel the direction that we're going. And that's about as close as you can get. Then you just stand back and get out of the way, and these things take on a life of their own."
— Rolling Stone, 1994
"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."
— Interview for the release of the MacIntosh, 1984 "Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren't used to an environment where excellence is expected."
"If copyright dies, if patents die, if the protection of intellectual property is eroded, then people will stop investing. That hurts everyone."
— Rolling Stone, 2003
"We're not just building a computer, we're building a company."
— Esquire, 1986
"Apple is a company that doesn't have the most resources of everybody in the world. The way we've succeeded is by choosing what horses to ride really carefully ... we're organized like a startup. We're the biggest startup on the planet."
— All Things Digital D8 conference, 2005
"If Mercedes made a bicycle or a hamburger or a computer, I don't think there'd be much advantage in having its logo on it. I don't think Apple would get much equity putting its name on an automobile, either. And just because the whole world is going digital — TV, audio, and all that — doesn't mean there's anything wrong with just being in the computer business. The computer business is huge."
— Fortune, 1998
"You need a very product-oriented culture, even in a technology company. Lots of companies have tons of great engineers and smart people. But ultimately, there needs to be some gravitational force that pulls it all together. Otherwise, you can get great pieces of technology all ?oating around the universe."
— Newsweek, 2004
"I think the way out is not to slash and burn, it's to innovate. That's how Apple got to its glory, and that's how Apple could return to it."
— Wall $treet Week, 1996
"You can't look back and say, well, gosh, you know, I wish I hadn't have gotten ?red, I wish I was there, I wish this, I wish that. It doesn't matter. And so let's go invent tomorrow rather than worrying about what happened yesterday."
— All Things Digital D5 conference, 2007
"The system is that there is no system. That doesn't mean we don't have process. Apple is a very disciplined company, and we have great processes. But that's not what it's about. Process makes you more efficient."
— Newsweek, 2004
"The subscription model of buying music is bankrupt. I think you could make available the Second Coming in a subscription model and it might not be successful."
— Rolling Stone, 2003
"I've always wanted to own and control the primary technology in everything we do."
— BusinessWeek, 2004
"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."
— MSNBC, 2006
"Just avoid holding it in that way."
— Personal email to a customer with concerns over an antenna reception issue with the newly released iPhone 4, where dropped calls were caused when the user grasped the product's steel-banded sides, 2010
"I used to be the youngest guy in every meeting I was in, and now I'm usually the oldest. And the older I get, the more I'm convinced that motives make so much difference."
— BusinessWeek, 2004
"... I think it's really hard for one company to do everything. Life's complex."
— All Things Digital D5 conference
"There are sneakers that cost more than an iPod."
— On the iPod's $300 price tag, Newsweek, 2003
"Well, you know us. We never talk about future products. There used to be a saying at Apple: Isn't it funny? A ship that leaks from the top. So- — I don't wanna perpetuate that. So I really can't say."
— On any information regarding upcoming iPod releases, ABC News, 2005
"I don't think in terms of market shares, I think in terms of us making the best personal computers in the world, and if we can do that, I think our market share will go up."
— CNA, 1999
"A lot of companies have chosen to downsize, and maybe that was the right thing for them. We chose a different path. Our belief was that if we kept putting great products in front of customers, they would continue to open their wallets."
"It wasn't that Microsoft was so brilliant or clever in copying the Mac, it's that the Mac was a sitting duck for 10 years. That's Apple's problem: Their differentiation evaporated."
"If I were running Apple, I would milk the Macintosh for all it's worth — and get busy on the next great thing. The PC wars are over. Done. Microsoft won a long time ago."
— Fortune, 1996
"To turn really interesting ideas and fledgling technologies into a company that can continue to innovate for years, it requires a lot of disciplines."
"Process makes you more efficient."
— BusinessWeek, 2004
"I've also found that the best companies pay attention to aesthetics. They take the extra time to lay out grids and proportion things appropriately, and it seems to pay off for them. I mean, beyond the functional benefits, the aesthetic communicates something about how they think of themselves, their sense of discipline in engineering, how they run their company, stuff like that."
— Inc., 1989
"Customers think the price is really good where it is. We're trying to compete with piracy — we're trying to pull people away from piracy and say, 'You can buy these songs legally for a fair price.' But if the price goes up a lot, they'll go back to piracy. Then, everybody loses."
"The HD revolution is over, it happened. HD won. Everybody wants HD."
— Apple Special Event keynote, 2010
"In business, if I knew earlier what I know now, I'd have probably done some things a lot better than I did, but I also would've probably done some other things a lot worse. But so what? It's more important to be engaged in the present."
— Fortune, 1998
"If I give you 20 bricks, you could lay them all on the ground and you'd have 20 bricks on the ground. Or you can lay them on top of each other and start building a wall."
"We hire people who want to make the best things in the world."
"Technology is nothing. What's important is that you have a faith in people, that they're basically good and smart, and if you give them tools, they'll do wonderful things with them."
— Rolling Stone, 1994
"And boy, have we patented it!"
— Introducing the iPhone, Macworld 2007
"Do your best at every job. Don't sleep! Success generates more success so be hungry for it. Hire good people with a passion for excellence."
"You make some of the best products in the world — but you also make a lot of crap. Get rid of the crappy stuff."
— As said to Nike
"... there were too many people at Apple and in the Apple ecosystem playing the game of, for Apple to win, Microsoft has to lose. And it was clear that you didn't have to play that game because Apple wasn't going to beat Microsoft. Apple didn't have to beat Microsoft. Apple had to remember who Apple was because they'd forgotten who Apple was."
— All Things Digital D5 conference
CHAPTER 3
On Leadership
"My job is to not be easy on people. My job is to make them better."
"When I hire somebody really senior, competence is the ante. They have to be really smart. But the real issue for me is, Are they going to fall in love with Apple? Because if they fall in love with Apple, everything else will take care of itself." — Fortune, 2008
"This is not a one-man show."
— BusinessWeek, 1998
"My number one job here at Apple is to make sure that the top 100 people are A+ players. And everything else will take care of itself."
— TIME, 1999
"I'm a very big believer in equal opportunity as opposed to equal outcome. I don't believe in equal outcome because unfortunately life's not like that. It would be a pretty boring place if it was."
— Computerworld Smithsonian Awards, 1995
"We all tend to reduce reality to symbols, but Superman went out a long time ago. The way you accomplish anything significant is with a team."
— Inc., 1989
"My model for business is The Beatles. They were four guys who kept each other's kind of negative tendencies in check. They balanced each other and the total was greater than the sum of the parts. That's how I see business: great things in business are never done by one person, they're done by a team of people."
— 60 Minutes, 2003
"I know people like symbols, but it's always unsettling when people write stories about me, because they tend to overlook a lot of other people."
— TIME, 1999
"Some people say, 'Oh, God, if Jobs got run over by a bus, Apple would be in trouble.' And, you know, I think it wouldn't be a party, but there are really capable people at Apple. And the board would have some good choices about who to pick as CEO."
— Fortune, 2008
"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."
"The things that I have done in my life, I think the things we do now at Pixar, these are team sports. They are not something one person does."
— Charlie Rose, 1996
CHAPTER 4
On Innovation
"Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower."
"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."
— Apple press release for the release of the iPhone, 2007
"Everyone wants a MacBook Pro because they are so bitchin'."
— Apple shareholder meeting, 2006
"We believe it's the biggest advance in animation since Walt Disney started it all with the release of Snow White 50 years ago."
— Fortune, 1995, on Toy Story
"iMac is next year's computer for $1,299, not last year's computer for $999."
— Introducing the first iMac computer, 1998
"It's not about pop culture, and it's not about fooling people, and it's not about convincing people that they want something they don't. We figure out what we want."
— Fortune, 2008
"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."
— BusinessWeek, 1998
"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."
"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."
— Fortune, 1998
"It was a great challenge. Let's make a great phone that we fall in love with."
"The broader one's understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have."
"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."
— 1996
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "The Business Wisdom of Steve Jobs"
by .
Copyright © 2011 Skyhorse Publishing, Inc..
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