Thursday 6 October 2011

Steve Jobs: key quotes

Steve Jobs, Apple co-founder and former CEO, dies at the age of 56

Candles, flowers, and an iPhone with Steve Jobs photo displayed outside the Apple Store at West 66th Street in New York
Steve Jobs, the Apple co-founder and former CEO, has died at the age of 56
after a long and highly public battle with cancer. "Apple has lost a visionary and
creative genius and the world has lost an amazing human being," Apple said.
"Steve's brilliance, passion and energy were the source of countless innovations
that enrich and improve all of our lives."





Here are some key quotes from Steve Jobs, the legendary 
co-founder and former chief executive of Apple Inc, 
who has died aged 56 after a long battle with cancer.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs holds a new iPod shuffle MP3 player at the 2005 Macworld Expo January 11, 2005
Apple CEO Steve Jobs holds a new iPod shuffle MP3 player at the 2005 Macworld Expo January 11, 2005 Photo: Getty Images


"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.''
"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 others' opinions drown out your own inner voice.''
"Stay hungry, stay foolish."
Commencement speech at Stanford University, 2005
"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.''
Interview with Business Week, 2004
"In most people's vocabularies, design means veneer. It's interior decorating. It's the fabric of the curtains and the sofa. But to me, nothing could be further from the meaning of design. Design is the fundamental soul of a man-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service.''
"My position coming back to Apple was that our industry was in a coma. It reminded me of Detroit in the '70s, when American cars were boats on wheels.''
Interview with Fortune Magazine, 2000
"These technologies can make life easier, can let us touch people we might not otherwise. You may have a child with a birth defect and be able to get in touch with other parents and support groups, get medical information, the latest experimental drugs. These things can profoundly influence life. I'm not downplaying that. But it's a disservice to constantly put things in this radical new light - that it's going to change everything. Things don't have to change the world to be important.''
Interview with Wired, 1996
"I don't think I've ever worked so hard on something, but working on Macintosh was the neatest experience of my life. Almost everyone who worked on it will say that. None of us wanted to release it at the end. It was as though we knew that once it was out of our hands, it wouldn't be ours anymore. When we finally presented it at the shareholders' meeting, everyone in the auditorium stood up and gave it a 5-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 that we'd actually finished it. Everyone started crying.''
Interview with Playboy, 1985
"You think I'm an arrogant [expletive] who thinks he's above the law, and I think you're a slime bucket who gets most of his facts wrong.''
Answering a New York Times reporter who asked about his health, 2008
"We don't get a chance to do that many things, and everyone should be really excellent. Because this is our life."
Interview with Fortune, 2008
"Design is not just what it looks like. Design is how it works."
Interview with The New York Times, 2003
"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."
Interview with The Wall Street Journal, 1993
"You can't just ask the cutomers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they'll want something new."
Interview with INC magazine, 1989

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