We all learned this morning of the premature demise of a visionary who revolutionized modern culture and changed forever the world's relationship to technology through inventions such as the i Pad and i Phone, innovations that enriched and improved all our lives immeasurably.
As tributes flowed in from around the world for one of the greatest innovators of all times, we recall some inspirational quotes from this brilliant and passionate man - Steve Jobs.....some lessons for us perhaps.
On Design:
“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.”
“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, May 25, 1998]
“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.”
“We made the buttons on the screen look
so good you’ll want to lick them.”
On Innovation:
“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.”
[NBC Nightly News, May 2006]
“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.”
On Values:
“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.”
[The Wall Street Journal, May 25, 1993]
"I make 50 cents for showing up ... and the other 50 cents is based on my performance" – 2007, Steve on his legendary $1 a year salary.
“I’m convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is
pure perseverance.”
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the
courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”
“My job is to
not be easy on people. My job is to
make them better.”
“Why join the navy if you can be a pirate?”
And we’ve all chosen to do this with our lives. So it better be
damn good. It better be worth it.”
Life is brief, and then you die, you know?
.
