Steve Jobs Quotes
February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011
More Steve Jobs Quotes
"You‘ve got to start with the customer experience and work back toward the technology - not the other way around."
Steve Jobs— May 1997, World Wide Developers Conference
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.
Steve Jobs— "Statement in The Computerworld Smithsonian Awards Program oral history" (20 April 1995)
I found that there were these incredibly great people at doing certain things, and that you couldn't replace one of these people with 50 average people. They could just do things that no number of average people could do.
Steve Jobs— As quoted in Steve's Two Jobs, Time (Michael Krantz, Oct. 18, 1999)
The cure for Apple is not cost-cutting. The cure for Apple is to innovate its way out of its current predicament.
Steve Jobs— As quoted in Apple Confidential 2.0: The Definitive History of the World's Most Colorful Company (2004) by Owen W. Linzmayer
Mac OS X Tiger will come out long before Longhorn.
Steve Jobs— Comparing the progress of Mac OS X and what would eventually become known as Microsoft's Vista, at the MacWorld San Francisco keynote address (January 2005)
Pixar is the most technically advanced creative company; Apple is the most creatively advanced technical company.
Steve Jobs— As quoted in Fortune (21 February 2005)
I want to put a ding in the universe.
Steve Jobs
Stay Hungry...Stay Foolish.
Steve Jobs—
Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and 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.
Steve Jobs— Commencement address at Stanford University (2005)
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.
Steve Jobs— 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
Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want a chance to change the world?
Steve Jobs— A comment he made in persuading John Sculley to become Apple's CEO, as quoted in Odyssey: Pepsi to Apple: A Journey of Adventure, Ideas, and the Future (1987) by John Sculley and John A. Byrne
It's more fun to be a pirate than to join the Navy.
Steve Jobs— 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. 157Variant: Why join the Navy . . . if you can be a pirate?As quoted or paraphrased in Young Guns: The Fearless Entrepreneur's Guide to Chasing Your Dreams and Breaking Out on Your Own (2009) by Robert Tuchman, p. 18
If I knew in 1986 how much it was going to cost to keep Pixar going, I doubt if I would have bought the company.
Steve Jobs— As quoted in Fortune (18 September 1995)
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.
Steve Jobs— As quoted in Fortune (18 September 1995)
[Miele] really thought the process through. They did such a great job designing these washers and dryers. I got more thrill out of them than I have out of any piece of high tech in years.
Steve Jobs— On design excellence, in WIRED magazine (February 1996)
iMac is next year's computer for $1,299, not last year's computer for $999.
Steve Jobs— Introduction of the first iMac computer in Cupertino, Calif., (6 May 1998)
But in the end, for something this complicated, 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.
Steve Jobs— As quoted in BusinessWeek (25 May 1998)
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.
Steve Jobs— As quoted in "Steve Jobs: The Rolling Stone Interview" in Rolling Stone (3 December 2003)
We used to dream about this stuff. Now we get to build it. It's pretty great.
Steve Jobs— Keynote address at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (June 2004)
We think basically you watch television to turn your brain off, and you work on your computer when you want to turn your brain on.
Steve Jobs— Interview in Macworld magazine (February 2004)
They are shamelessly copying us.
Steve Jobs— About Microsoft and the operating system which would be released as Vista, as quoted in "Apple's Jobs swipes at Longhorn" om cNet News (21 April 2005)
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.
Steve Jobs— Interview with the New York Times (5 June 2007)
I wish developing great products was as easy as writing a check. If that was the case, Microsoft would have great products.
Steve Jobs— On why he delayed the Leopard OS in favor of developing the iPhone rather than hiring more developers, at the annual Apple stockholder's meeting (10 May 2007) as quoted in "Apple's Jobs brushes aside backdating concerns" at c|net News (10 May 2007)Variant: I wish developing great products was as easy as writing a check ... if so, then Microsoft would have great products.As quoted in "Apple iPhone: more secrets revealed" (11 May 2007)
