Steve Pol Jobs quotes chairman and former chief executive of Apple Inc. Born: 02/24/1955 Died: 10/05/2011 Country: usa

• 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)
• Apple's market share is bigger than BMW's or Mercedes's or Porsche's in the automotive market. What's wrong with being BMW or Mercedes? (Steve Jobs)
• Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren't used to an environment where excellence is expected. (Steve Jobs)
• Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works. (Steve Jobs)
• I think we're having fun. I think our customers really like our products. And we're always trying to do better. (Steve Jobs)
• Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower. (Steve Jobs)
• It is piracy, not overt online music stores, which is our main competitor. (Steve Jobs)
• It took us three years to build the NeXT computer. If we'd given customers what they said they wanted, we'd have built a computer they'd have been happy with a year after we spoke to them - not something they'd want now. (Steve Jobs)
• Pretty much, Apple and Dell are the only ones in this industry making money. They make it by being Wal-Mart. We make it by innovation. (Steve Jobs)
• Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations. (Steve Jobs)
• 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. (Steve Jobs)
• To turn really interesting ideas and fledgling technologies into a company that can continue to innovate for years, it requires a lot of disciplines. (Steve Jobs)
• 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. (Steve Jobs)
• 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] (Steve Jobs)
• Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart. [Stanford commencement speech, June 2005] (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. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle. [Stanford commencement speech, June 2005] (Steve Jobs)
• You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. 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. [Stanford commencement speech, June 2005] (Steve Jobs)
• I’m an optimist in the sense that I believe humans are noble and honorable, and some of them are really smart. I have a very optimistic view of individuals. As individuals, people are inherently good. I have a somewhat more pessimistic view of people in groups. And I remain extremely concerned when I see what’s happening in our country, which is in many ways the luckiest place in the world. We don’t seem to be excited about making our country a better place for our kids. [Wired, February 1996] (Steve Jobs)
• 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. [Wired, February 1996] (Steve Jobs)
• It’s more fun to be a pirate than to join the navy. [1982, quoted in Odyssey: Pepsi to Apple, 1987] (Steve Jobs)
• The desktop metaphor was invented because one, you were a stand-alone device, and two, you had to manage your own storage. That’s a very big thing in a desktop world. And that may go away. You may not have to manage your own storage. You may not store much before too long. [Wired, February 1996] (Steve Jobs)
• It’s like when IBM drove a lot of innovation out of the computer industry before the microprocessor came along. Eventually, Microsoft will crumble because of complacency, and maybe some new things will grow. But until that happens, until there’s some fundamental technology shift, it’s just over. [Wired, February 1996] (Steve Jobs)
• The most compelling reason for most people to buy a computer for the home will be to link it to a nationwide communications network. We’re just in the beginning stages of what will be a truly remarkable breakthrough for most people––as remarkable as the telephone. [Playboy, Feb. 1, 1985] (Steve Jobs)
• I’ll always stay connected with Apple. I hope that throughout my life I’ll sort of have the thread of my life and the thread of Apple weave in and out of each other, like a tapestry. There may be a few years when I’m not there, but I’ll always come back. [Playboy, Feb. 1, 1985] (Steve Jobs)
• 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, The New York Times, Jan. 12, 1997] (Steve Jobs)
• 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. I am saddened, not by Microsoft’s success — I have no problem with their success. They’ve earned their success, for the most part. I have a problem with the fact that they just make really third-rate products. [Triumph of the Nerds, 1996] (Steve Jobs)
• Some people are saying that we ought to put an IBM PC on every desk in America to improve productivity. It won’t work. The special incantations you have to learn this time are the “slash q-zs” and things like that. The manual for WordStar, the most popular word-processing program, is 400 pages thick. To write a novel, you have to read a novel––one that reads like a mystery to most people. They’re not going to learn slash q-z any more than they’re going to learn Morse code. That is what Macintosh is all about. [Playboy, Feb. 1, 1985] (Steve Jobs)
• Playboy: Are you saying that the people who made PCjr don’t have that kind of pride in the product? “If they did, they wouldn’t have made the PCjr.” [Playboy, Feb. 1, 1985] (Steve Jobs)
• The cure for Apple is not cost-cutting. The cure for Apple is to innovate its way out of its current predicament. [Apple Confidential: The Real Story of Apple Computer Inc., May 1999] (Steve Jobs)
• 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, Nov. 9, 1998] (Steve Jobs)
• Q: There’s a lot of symbolism to your return. Is that going to be enough to reinvigorate the company with a sense of magic? “You’re missing it. This is not a one-man show. What’s reinvigorating this company is two things: One, there’s a lot of really talented people in this company who listened to the world tell them they were losers for a couple of years, and some of them were on the verge of starting to believe it themselves. But they’re not losers. What they didn’t have was a good set of coaches, a good plan. A good senior management team. But they have that now.” [BusinessWeek, May 25, 1998] (Steve Jobs)

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