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, as quoted in Newsweek(2006-10-14)
Look at the design of a lot of consumer products — they're really complicated surfaces. We tried to make something much more holistic and simple. When you first start off trying to solve a problem, the first solutions you come up with are very complex, and most people stop there. But if you keep going, and live with the problem and peel more layers of the onion off, you can often times arrive at some very elegant and simple solutions. Most people just don't put in the time or energy to get there. We believe that customers are smart, and want objects which are well thought through.
On the design of the iPod, as quoted in Newsweek (2006-10-14)
Real artists ship
An old saying at AppleComputer, attributed to Steve Jobs, meaning that it is important to actually deliver
It's more fun to be a pirate than to join the navy
At a retreat in September 1982, as quoted in John Sculley and John A. Byrne, Odyssey: Pepsi to Apple – A Journey of Adventure, Ideas, and the Future (1987), p. 157
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.
On the success of Bill Gates and Microsoft, as quoted in The Wall Street Journal (Summer 1993)
John Sculley ruined Apple and he ruined it by bringing a set of values to the top of Apple which were corrupt and corrupted some of the top people who were there, drove out some of the ones who were not corruptible, and brought in more corrupt ones and paid themselves collectively tens of millions of dollars and cared more about their own glory and wealth than they did about what built Apple in the first place — which was making great computers for people to use.
Statement in The Computerworld Smithsonian Awards Program oral history, (1995-04-20)
You know, I've got a plan that could rescue Apple. I can't say any more than that it's the perfect product and the perfect strategy for Apple. But nobody there will listen to me.
As quoted in Fortune (1995-09-18)
If, for some reason, we make some big mistake and IBM wins, my personal feeling is that we are going to enter a computer Dark Ages for about twenty years.
On the early rivalry between Macintosh and "IBM-compatible" computers based on Microsoft's DOS, as quoted in Steve Jobs : The Journey is the Reward (1987) by Jeffrey S. Young, p. 235
The desktop computer industry is dead. Innovation has virtually ceased. Microsoft dominates with very little innovation. That's over. Apple lost. The desktop market has entered the dark ages, and it's going to be in the dark ages for the next 10 years, or certainly for the rest of this decade.
As quoted in "Steve Jobs : The Next Insanely Great Thing" in WIRED magazine (February 1996)
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.
Interview in WIRED magazine (February 1996)
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)
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 (1998-11-09); also quoted in "TIME digital 50" in TIME digital archive (1999)
The products suck! There's no sex in them anymore!
On products at Apple, just before his return to it BusinessWeek (July 1997)
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.
As quoted in BusinessWeek (1998-05-25)
I would trade all of my technology for an afternoon with Socrates.
As quoted in Newsweek (29 October 2001)
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.
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. It's ad hoc meetings of six people called by someone who thinks he has figured out the coolest new thing ever and who wants to know what other people think of his idea.
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.
As quoted in "The Seed of Apple's Innovation"in Business Week (12 October 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.
"Jobs : Iconoclast and salesman" by Brian Williams, at MSNBC (2006-05-25)
