Background Image
...
We Do Not Say Anything About Future Products. We Work On Them In Secret, Then We Announce Them.
-Steve Jobs
...
Please Wait....
Translating....

We Do Not Say

Steve Jobs
...
We Do Not Say Anything About Future Products. We Work On Them In Secret, Then We Announce Them.

Understanding the Quote: "we do not say anything about future products. we work on them..."

This quote by Steve Jobs reflects deeply on the theme of silence. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Silence, Secret, Say Anything, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Steve Jobs interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs is celebrated for insightful thoughts on silence and secret. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

Views: 83379
Topic
Silence
Secret
Say Anything
More From Steve Jobs
We Don't Get A Chance To Do That Many Things, And Every One Should Be Really Excellent. Because This Is Our Life. Life Is Brief, And Then You Die, You Know? So This Is What We've Chosen To Do With Our Life. We Could Be Sitting In A Monastery Somewhere In Japan. We Could Be Out Sailing. Some Of The Team Could Be Playing Golf. They Could Be Running Other Companies. And We've All Chosen To Do This With Our Lives. So It Better Be Damn Good. It Better Be Worth It. And We Think It Is.
Running
Team
Creativity
Let's Make A Dent In The Universe
Positive
Being Positive
Initiative
It's Rare That You See An Artist In His 30s Or 40s Able To Really Contribute Something Amazing. Of Course, There Are Some People Who Are Innately Curious, Forever Little Kids In Their Awe Of Life, But They're Rare.
Kids
Artist
People
Apple Stores Are Intended Not Just To Move Boxes, But To Enrich Lives.
Moving
Apples
Boxes
Innovation Is Usually The Result Of Connections Of Past Experiences. But If You Have The Same Experiences As Everyone Else, You Are Unlikely To Look In A Different Direction.
Past
Innovation
Experience
Again, 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.
Inspirational
Life
Inspiring
I Don't Really Care About Being Right, I Just Care About Success. I Don't Mind Being Wrong, And I'll Admit That I'm Wrong A Lot. It Doesn't Really Matter To Me Too Much. What Matters To Me Is That We Do The Right Thing.
Inspirational
What Matters
Mind
Intuition Is A Very Powerful Thing, More Powerful Than Intellect.
Powerful
Abstract Thinking
Intuition
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.
Mean
Night
Thinking
Great Art Stretches The Taste, It Doesn't Follow Tastes.
Art
Taste
Great Art
You Are All Over The Map, Figure Out The Top 5 Things You Want To Focus On And Get Rid Of The Rest.
Focus
Maps
Want
Bill Gates'd Be A Broader Guy If He Had Dropped Acid Once Or Gone Off To An Ashram When He Was Younger.
Life
Dropping Acid
Best Job
Everyone Here Has The Sense That Right Now Is One Of Those Moments When We Are Influencing The Future.
Inspirational
Influence
Moments
Ad Campaigns Are Necessary For Competition. But Good Pr Educates People; That's All It Is.
People
Competition
Campaigns
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.
Life
Motivational
Success
Woz And I Started Apple In My Parents' Garage When I Was 20. We Worked Hard, And In 10 Years Apple Had Grown From Just The Two Of Us In A Garage Into A $2 Billion Company With Over 4,000 Employees.
Years
Two
Apples
I'm One Of Those People That Think Thomas Edison And The Light Bulb Changed The World More Than Karl Marx Ever Did.
Change
Science
Thinking
My Mother Taught Me To Read Before I Went To School, So I Was Pretty Bored In School, And I Turned Into A Little Terror. You Should Have Seen Us In Third Grade. We Basically Destroyed Our Teacher. We Would Let Snakes Loose In The Classroom And Explode Bombs.
Mother
Teacher
School
You Go To Your Tv To Turn Your Brain Off. You Go To The Computer When You Want To Turn Your Brain On.
Inspirational
Brain
Want
I'd Say We [apple Inc.] Are The Most Creative Of The Technology Companies And Definitely The Most Artist-friendly. Almost Everyone In The Music Business Uses A Mac And Everyone Has An Ipod.
Artist
Technology
Apples
I Want To Make A Dent In The Universe.
Want
Universe
If You Are Working On Something Exciting That You Really Care About, You Don't Have To Be Pushed. The Vision Pulls You.
Inspirational
Leadership
Vision
Don't Settle, As With All Matters Of The Heart You'll Know When You Find It
Change
Work
Life Changing
When You Grow Up, You Tend To Get Told That The World Is The Way It Is, And Your Life Is Just To Live Your Life Inside The World. Try Not To Bash Into The Walls Too Much. Try To Have A Nice Family Life. Have Fun, Save A Little Money. That's A Very Limited Life. Life Can Be Much Broader, Once You Discover One Simple Fact, And That Is Everything Around That You Call Life Was Made Up By People Who Were No Smarter Than You. And You Can Change It. You Can Influence It. You Can Build Your Own Things That Other People Can Use. Once You Learn That, You'll Never Be The Same Again.
Wall
Growing Up
Fun
Guess Who Surprised Themselves And Changed Their Minds.
Mind
Samsung
Changed
Customers Don't Measure You On How Hard You Tried, They Measure You On What You Deliver.
Customers
Hard
It Wasn't All Romantic. I Didn't Have A Dorm Room, So I Slept On The Floor In Friends' Rooms, I Returned Coke Bottles For The 5¢ Deposits To Buy Food With, And I Would Walk The 7 Miles Across Town Every Sunday Night To Get One Good Meal A Week At The Hare Krishna Temple. I Loved It.
Sunday
Night
Meals
With Our Technology, With Objects, Literally Three People In A Garage Can Blow Away What 200 People At Microsoft Can Do. Literally Can Blow It Away. Corporate America Has A Need That Is So Huge And Can Save Them So Much Money, Or Make Them So Much Money, Or Cost Them So Much Money If They Miss It, That They Are Going To Fuel The Object Revolution.
Blow
Technology
America
Design Is The Fundamental Soul Of A Man-made Creation
Men
Design
Soul
Every Good Product I've Ever Seen Is Because A Group Of People Cared Deeply About Making Something Wonderful That They And Their Friends Wanted. They Wanted To Use It Themselves.
People
Groups
Use
The Ipod Is Not A New Category. Music Is Not New. It's Not A Speculative Market. It's A Very, Very Large Market. It's Been Around For Thousands Of Years And Will Be Around As Long As Humans Exist.
Years
Ipods
Long
Each Dream You Leave Behind Is A Part Of Your Future That Will No Longer Exist.
Dream
Your Future
Our Future
It's Rare That You See An Artist In His 30s Or 40s Able To Really Contribute Something Amazing.
Life
Artist
Amazing Job
When I Went To School, It Was Right After The '60s And Before This General Wave Of Practical Purposefulness Had Set In.... The Idealistic Wind Of The '60s Was Still At Our Backs, Though, And Most Of The People I Know Who Are My Age Have That Engrained In Them Forever.
School
Wind
People
Here's To The Crazy Ones, The Misfits, The Rebels, The Troublemakers, The Round Pegs In The Square Holes... The Ones Who See Things Differently - They're Not Fond Of Rules... You Can Quote Them, Disagree With Them, Glorify Or Vilify Them, But The Only Thing You Can't Do Is Ignore Them Because They Change Things... They Push The Human Race Forward, And While Some May See Them As The Crazy Ones, We See Genius, Because The Ones Who Are Crazy Enough To Think That They Can Change The World, Are The Ones Who Do.
Inspirational
Motivational
Change
Without Death There Would Be Very Little Progress.
Creativity
Progress
Would Be
I Was Actually A Fruitarian At That Point In Time. I Ate Only Fruit. Now I'm A Garbage Can Like Everyone Else. And We Were About Three Months Late In Filing A Fictitious Business Name So I Threatened To Call The Company Apple Computer Unless Someone Suggested A More Interesting Name By Five O'clock That Day. Hoping To Stimulate Creativity. And It Stuck. And That's Why We're Called Apple.
Business
Creativity
Garbage Cans
I Found That There Were These Incredibly Great People At Doing Certain Things, And You Couldn't Replace One Of These People With Fifty Average People.
Success
Average
People
Recruiting Is Hard. It's Just Finding The Needles In The Haystack. You Can't Know Enough In A One-hour Interview. So, In The End, It's Ultimately Based On Your Gut. How Do I Feel About This Person? What Are They Like When They're Challenged? I Ask Everybody That: 'why Are You Here?' The Answers Themselves Are Not What You're Looking For. It's The Meta-data.
Inspirational
Data
Answers
Some Mistakes Will Be Made Along The Way. That's Good. Because Some Decisions Are Being Made Along The Way. We'll Find The Mistakes. We'll Fix Them.
Mistake
Decision
Way
We Did Not Enter The Search Business. Google Entered The Phone Business. Make No Mistake They Want To Kill The Iphone. We Won't Let Them.
Mistake
Iphone
Phones
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.
Years
Three
Want
It Isn't The Consumers' Job To Know What They Want.
Jobs
Want
Consumers
It Was One Of Those Sort Of Apocalyptic Moments. I Remember Within Ten Minutes Of Seeing The Graphical User Interface Stuff, Just Knowing That Every Computer Would Work This Way Someday. It Was So Obvious Once You Saw It. It Didn't Require Tremendous Intellect. It Was So Clear.
Knowing
Stuff
Way
My Job Is Not To Be Easy On People. My Job Is To Take These Great People We Have And To Push Them And Make Them Even Better.
Motivational
Leadership
Jobs
This Revolution, The Information Revolution, Is A Revolution Of Free Energy As Well, But Of Another Kind: Free Intellectual Energy.
Intellectual
Energy
Information
That's Been One Of My Mantras - Focus And Simplicity. Simple Can Be Harder Than Complex.
Inspirational
Change
Life Changing
To Me, Ideas Are Worth Nothing Unless Executed. They Are Just A Multiplier. Execution Is Worth Millions.
Ideas
Execution
Millions
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.
Inspirational
Attitude
Yoga
Shake Off This Erroneous Notion That Life Is There And You're Just Gonna Live In It, Versus Embrace It, Change It, Improve It, Make Your Mark Upon It.
Inspirational
Motivational
Life Is
No One Wants To Die. Even People Who Want To Go To Heaven Don't Want To Die To Get There.
Death
Suicide
Stanford University
It [what You Choose To Do] Has Got To Be Something That You're Passionate About Because Otherwise You Won't Have The Perseverance To See It Through.
Leadership
Perseverance
Passionate
I Hate It When People Call Themselves 'entrepreneurs' When What They're Really Trying To Do Is Launch A Startup And Then Sell Of Go Public, So They Can Cash In And Move On. They're Unwilling To Do The Work It Takes To Build A Real Company, Which Is The Hardest Work In Business.
Hate
Real
Moving
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.
Inspirational
Mean
Technology
I Just Had A Romance That I Really Care About, A Lot-i Mean, A Lot-go Up In Smoke. Because Of The Stress, And The Sort Of Other Woman That Macintosh Is.
Stress
Mean
Science
I Began To Realize That An Intuitive Understanding And Consciousness Was More Significant Than Abstract Thinking And Intellectual Logical Analysis. Intuition Is A Very Powerful Thing, More Powerful Than Intellect, In My Opinion. That's Had A Big Impact On My Work.
Powerful
Thinking
Impact
To Turn Really Interesting Ideas And Fledgling Technologies Into A Company That Can Continue To Innovate For Years, It Requires A Lot Of Disciplines.
Success
Business
Technology
It's Not About Pop Culture, And It's Not About Fooling People, And It's Not About Convincing People That They Want Something They Don't. We Figure Out What We Want. And I Think We're Pretty Good At Having The Right Discipline To Think Through Whether A Lot Of Other People Are Going To Want It, Too. That's What We Get Paid To Do.
Life
Thinking
Want Something
Most People Make The Mistake Of Thinking Design Is What It Looks Like. People Think It's This Veneer - That The Designers Are Handed This Box And Told, 'make It Look Good!' That's Not What We Think Design Is. It's Not Just What It Looks Like And Feels Like. Design Is How It Works.
Mistake
Thinking
People
Innovation Is The Only Way To Win.
Winning
Innovation
Way
Who Wants A Stylus. You Have To Get Em And Put Em Away, And You Lose Em. Yuck. Nobody Wants A Stylus.
Yuck
Ems
Want
I Wish Developing Great Products Was As Easy As Writing A Check. If That Was The Case, Microsoft Would Have Great Products.
Inspirational
Writing
Wish
Simplicity Is The Ultimate Sophistication. It Takes A Lot Of Hard Work To Make Something Simple, To Truly Understand The Underlying Challenges And Come Up With Elegant Solutions. [...] It's Not Just Minimalism Or The Absence Of Clutter. It Involves Digging Through The Depth Of Complexity. To Be Truly Simple, You Have To Go Really Deep. [...] You Have To Deeply Understand The Essence Of A Product In Order To Be Able To Get Rid Of The Parts That Are Not Essential.
Hard Work
Simple
Order
It's Not About Money. It's About The People You Have, How You're Led, And How Much You Get It.
Best Job
People
Innovation
Do You Want To Spend The Rest Of Your Life Selling Sugared Water Or Do You Want A Chance To Change The World?
Inspirational
Change
Life Lesson
When We Started Off We Didn't Know How To Spell Software.
Software
Know How
Knows
Do You Create Anything, Or Just Criticize Others Work And Belittle Their Motivations?
Motivation
Criticize
Belittle
When You're A Carpenter Making A Beautiful Chest Of Drawers, You're Not Going To Use A Piece Of Plywood On The Back, Even Though It Faces The Wall And Nobody Will Ever See It. You'll Know It's There, So You're Going To Use A Beautiful Piece Of Wood On The Back.
Beautiful
Wall
Best Job
I Try To Get People To See What I Have. . . . When You Run A Computer Company, You Have To Get People To Buy Into Your Dreams.
Running
Dream
People
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.
Best Job
Facts
Microsoft
It Is Piracy, Not Overt Online Music Stores, Which Is Our Main Competitor.
Music
Online
Stores
We Believe People With Passion Can Change The World For The Better. That's What We Believe. And We Believe That Those People Who Are Crazy Enough To Think They Can Change The World Are The Ones That Actually Do.
Crazy
Believe
Passion
No One Wants To Die. Even People Who Want To Go To Heaven Don't Want To Die To Get There. And Yet Death Is The Destination We All Share. No One Has Ever Escaped It. And That Is As It Should Be, Because Death Is Very Likely The Single Best Invention Of Life. It Is Life's Change Agent. It Clears Out The Old To Make Way For The New.
Inspirational
Death
Stanford University
The Most Precious Resource We Have Is Time.
Resources
I Don't Mind If People Don't Like Me. Well, I Might A Little ... But I Really Mind It When Somebody Uses Their Position At Time Magazine To Tell 10 Million People They Don't Like Me. I Know What It's Like To Have Your Private Life Painted In The Worst Possible Light In Front Of A Lot Of People.
Light
People
Mind
And No, We Don't Know Where It Will Lead. We Just Know There's Something Much Bigger Than Any Of Us Here.
Encouraging
Life Lesson
Bigger
To Go Forward You Have To Leave Something Behind
Behinds
Most People Never Pick Up The Phone And Call. Most People Never Ask, And That’s What Separates The People Who Do Things From The People Who Just Dream About Them.
Dream
Phones
People
I Don't Really Care About Being Right, I Just Care About Success.
Care
About Success
Being Wrong
The World Doesn't Need Another Dell Or Compaq.
Needs
World
Dell
A Brand Is Simply Trust.
Brands
You've Got To Find What You Love.
Stanford University
Work You Love
Best Job
Companies Must Have A Noble Cause, And It's The Leaders Job To Transform That Noble Cause Into Such An Inspiring Vision, That It Will Attract The Most Talented People In The World To Want To Join It.
Jobs
People
Leader
Creativity Is Just Connecting Things. When You Ask Creative People How They Did Something, They Feel A Little Guilty Because They Didn't Really Do It, They Just Saw Something. It Seemed Obvious To Them After A While. That's Because They Were Able To Connect Experiences They've Had And Synthesize New Things.
Inspirational
Creativity
Artist
I Don't View Wealth As Something That Validates My Intelligence.
Views
Wealth
Net Worth
I Have Always Said If There Ever Came A Day When I Could No Longer Meet My Duties And Expectations As Apple's Ceo, I Would Be The First To Let You Know. Unfortunately, That Day Has Come.
Apples
Expectations
Firsts
The Biggest Effect Of The Personal Computer Revolution Has Been To Allow Millions And Millions Of People To Experience Computers Themselves Decades Before They Ever Would Have In The Old Paradigm.
People
Revolution
Computer
When You Have Feelings Like Sadness Or Anger About Your Cancer Or Your Plight, To Mask Them Is To Lead An Artificial Life.
Cancer
Sadness
Feelings
The Problem With The Internet Startup Craze Isn’t That Too Many People Are Starting Companies; It’s That Too Many People Aren’t Sticking With It.
Inspirational
People
Problem
Creativity Comes From Spontaneous Meetings, From Random Discussions.
Creativity
Consciousness
Spontaneous
I Don't Want To Fail, Of Course. But Even Though I Didn't Know How Bad Things Really Were, I Still Had A Lot To Think About Before I Said Yes. I Had To Consider The Implications For Pixar, For My Family, For My Reputation. I Decided That I Didn't Really Care, Because This Is What I Want To Do. If I Try My Best And Fail, Well, I've Tried My Best.
Thinking
Trying
Care
So We Went To Atari And Said, 'hey, We've Got This Amazing Thing, Even Built With Some Of Your Parts, And What Do You Think About Funding Us? Or We'll Give It To You. We Just Want To Do It. Pay Our Salary, We'll Come Work For You.' And They Said, 'no.' So Then We Went To Hewlett-packard, And They Said, 'hey, We Don't Need You. You Haven't Got Through College Yet.'
Life
Silly
Technology
If You Want To Live Your Life In A Creative Way, As An Artist, You Have To Not Look Back Too Much. You Have To Be Willing To Take Whatever You've Done And Whoever You Were And Throw Them Away.
Inspiring
Memorable
Artist
Why Would I Ever Want To Run Disney? Wouldn't It Make More Sense Just To Sell Them Pixar And Retire?
Running
Want
Pixar
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.
Motivational
Business
Work
I'm Convinced That About Half Of What Separates The Successful Entrepreneurs From The Non-successful Ones Is Pure Perseverance... Unless You Have A Lot Of Passion About This, You're Not Going To Survive. You're Going To Give It Up. So You've Got To Have An Idea, Or A Problem Or A Wrong That You Want To Right That You're Passionate About Otherwise You're Not Going To Have The Perseverance To Stick It Through.
Perseverance
Passion
Successful
So Let's Not Use A Stylus. We're Going To Use The Best Pointing Device In The World. We're Going To Use A Pointing Device That We're All Born With - Born With Ten Of Them. We're Going To Use Our Fingers. We're Going To Touch This With Our Fingers. And We Have Invented A New Technology Called Multi-touch, Which Is Phenomenal. It Works Like Magic.
Technology
Magic
Use
It's Not About Charisma And Personality, It's About Results And Products And Those Very Bedrock Things That Are Why People At Apple And Outside Of Apple Are Getting More Excited About The Company And What Apple Stands For And What Its Potential Is To Contribute To The Industry.
Apples
People
Personality
Have The Courage To Follow Your Heart And Intuition. They Somehow Already Know What You Truly Want To Become. Everything Else Is Secondary.
Inspirational
Motivational
Positive
Our Goal Is To Make The Best Devices In The World, Not To Be The Biggest.
Life Lesson
Goal
World
So When A Good Idea Comes, You Know, Part Of My Job Is To Move It Around, Just See What Different People Think, Get People Talking About It, Argue With People About It, Get Ideas Moving Among That Group Of 100 People, Get Different People Together To Explore Different Aspects Of It Quietly, And, You Know – Just Explore Things.
Life
Jobs
Moving
‎experts Are Clueless.
Clueless
Experts
We Had The Hardware Expertise, The Industrial Design Expertise And The Software Expertise, Including Itunes. One Of The Biggest Insights We Have Was That We Decided Not To Try To Manage Your Music Library On The Ipod, But To Manage It In Itunes. Other Companies Tried To Do Everything On The Device Itself And Made It So Complicated That It Was Useless.
Ipods
Design
Trying
You Have To Have A Lot Of Passion For What You Do... Because If You Don't, Any Rational Person Would Give Up.
Giving Up
Passion
Rational
Remembering That I’ll Be Dead Soon Is The Most Important Tool I’ve Ever Encountered To Help Make The Big Choices In Life. Remembering That You Are Going To Die Is The Best Way I Know To Avoid The Trap Of Thinking You Have Something To Lose.
Thinking
Best Job
Stanford University
If A User Is Having A Problem, It's Our Problem.
Business
Problem
Entrepreneurship
Our Dna Is As A Consumer Company - For That Individual Customer Who's Voting Thumbs Up Or Thumbs Down. That's Who We Think About. And We Think That Our Job Is To Take Responsibility For The Complete User Experience. And If It's Not Up To Par, It's Our Fault, Plain And Simply.
Inspirational
Jobs
Educational
In Most Cases, Strengths And Weaknesses Are Two Sides Of The Same Coin. A Strength In One Situation Is A Weakness In Another, Yet Often The Person Can't Switch Gears. It's A Very Subtle Thing To Talk About Strengths And Weaknesses Because Almost Always They're The Same Thing.
Two Sides
Weakness
Gears
If I Had Never Dropped In On That Single Course In College, The Mac Would Have Never Had Multiple Typefaces Or Proportionally Spaced Fonts. And Since Windows Just Copied The Mac, It's Likely That No Personal Computer Would Have Them.
College
Stanford University
Multiple Jobs
Do Your Best At Every Job. Don't Sleep! Success Generates More Success So Be Hungry For It. Hire Good People With A Passion For Excellence.
Jobs
Passion
Sleep
Apple Is The Only Company In The World That Has All Of That Under One Roof. We Can Invent A Complete A Solution That Works - And Take Responsibility For It.
Responsibility
Apples
World
It's More Fun To Be A Pirate Than To Join The Navy. On The Importance Of Loving What You Do.
Fun
Loving What You Do
Pirate
The Day I Was Born Songs Were On Records, Phones Were Tied Down, Computers Needed Rooms And The Web Was Fiction. Change The World. You Can.
Song
Phones
Fiction
When Companies Get Bigger They Try To Replicate Their Success. But They Assume Their Magic Came From Process. They Try To Use Processes To Substitute Content.
Magic
Trying
Use
If You Don't Cannibalize Yourself, Someone Else Will.
Ifs
Somebody Once Told Me, ‘manage The Top Line, And The Bottom Line Will Follow.’ What's The Top Line? It's Things Like, Why Are We Doing This In The First Place? What's Our Strategy? What Are Customers Saying? How Responsive Are We? Do We Have The Best Products And The Best People? Those Are The Kind Of Questions You Have To Focus On.
People
Focus
Lines
Everything Around You That You Call Life Was Made Up By People That Were No Smarter Than You And You Can Change It, You Can Influence It, You Can Build Your Own Things That Other People Can Use.
Leadership
Best Job
People
People Think Focus Means Saying Yes To The Thing You've Got To Focus On. But That's Not What It Means At All. It Means Saying No To The Hundred Other Good Ideas That There Are. You Have To Pick Carefully. I'm Actually As Proud Of The Things We Haven't Done As The Things I Have Done. Innovation Is Saying No To 1,000 Things.
Inspiring
Mean
Thinking
Great Things In Business Are Never Done By One Person, They're Done By A Team Of People.
Teamwork
Business
People
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.
Technology
Light
Important
My Philosophy Is That Everything Starts With A Great Product.
Philosophy
Products
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.
Inspirational
Inspiring
Educational
Technology Alone Is Not Enough.
Technology
Enough
For The Past 33 Years, I Have Looked In The Mirror Every Morning And Asked Myself: 'if Today Were The Last Day Of My Life, Would I Want To Do What I Am About To Do Today?' And Whenever The Answer Has Been 'no' For Too Many Days In A Row, I Know I Need To Change Something.
Inspirational
Motivational
Change
The Problem Is I'm Older Now, I'm 40 Years Old, And This Stuff Doesn't Change The World. It Really Doesn't.
Technology
Years
World
We Just Wanted To Build The Best Thing We Could Build
Best Job
Wanted
Best Things
The Thing That Drives Me And My Colleagues At Both Apple And Pixar Is That You See Something Very Compelling To You, And You Don't Quite Know How To Get To It, But You Know, Sometimes Intuitively, It's Within Your Grasp. And It's Worth Putting In Years Of Your Life To Make It Come Into Existence.
Life
Years
Apples
Everything Is Based On A Simple Rule: Quality Is The Best Business Plan, Period.
Simple
Quality
Best Business
I Was Worth About Over A Million Dollars When I Was 23 And Over Ten Million Dollars When I Was 24, And Over A Hundred Million Dollars When I Was 25 And... It Wasn't That Important — Because I Never Did It For The Money.
Important
Dollars
Hundred
It's Very Simple: The More Successful You Are, The More You'll Earn. But If You're Not Successful, You Will Not Earn A Dime.
Successful
Simple
Dimes
Somewhere Between The Janitor And The Ceo, Reasons Stop Mattering.
Reason
Ceo
Janitor
In The First 30 Years Of Your Life, You Make Your Habits. For The Last 30 Years Of Your Life, Your Habits Make You.
Years
Lasts
Firsts
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.
Inspiring
Technology
Best Job
I Buy Everything From Costco. It's Great; They've Got Everything I Need.
Needs
Costco
Because Believing That The Dots Will Connect Down The Road Will Give You The Confidence To Follow Your Heart Even When It Leads You Off The Well Worn Path.
Believe
Heart
Giving
An Ipod, A Phone, An Internet Mobile Communicator... These Are Not Three Separate Devices! And We Are Calling It Iphone! Today Apple Is Going To Reinvent The Phone. And Here It Is.
Technology
Iphone
Phones
I Mean, Some People Say, 'oh, God, If [jobs] Got Run Over By A Bus, Apple Would Be In Trouble.' And, You Know, I Think It Wouldn't Be A Party, But There Are Really Capable People At Apple. My Job Is To Make The Whole Executive Team Good Enough To Be Successors, So That's What I Try To Do.
Life
Running
Jobs
It Is Hard To Think That A $2 Billion Company With 4,300-plus People Couldn't Compete With Six People In Blue Jeans.
Thinking
Blue
Jeans
If I Had Never Dropped In On That Single Course In College, The Mac Would Have Never Had Multiple Typefaces Or Proportionally Spaced Fonts. And Since Windows Just Copied The Mac, It's Likely That No Personal Computer Would Have Them. If I Had Never Dropped Out, I Would Have Never Dropped In On This Calligraphy Class, And Personal Computers Might Not Have The Wonderful Typography That They Do. Of Course It Was Impossible To Connect The Dots Looking Forward When I Was In College. But It Was Very, Very Clear Looking Backward 10 Years Later.
College
Stanford University
Years
I Think The Macintosh Was Created By A Group Of People Who Felt That Ah There Wasn't A Strict Vision Between Sort Of Science And Art.
Art
Thinking
People
People Don't Know What They Want Until You Show It To Them. That's Why I Never Rely On Marketing Research. Our Task Is To Read Things That Are Not Yet On The Page.
People
Marketing
Tasks
We're Here To Make A Dent In The Universe. Otherwise, Why Even Be Here? We're Creating A Completely New Consciousness, Like An Artist Or A Poet. That’s How You Have To Think Of This. We're Rewriting The History Of Human Thought With What We're Doing.
Artist
Thinking
Creating
When You’re In A Startup, The First Ten People Will Determine Whether The Company Succeeds Or Not.
People
Firsts
Succeed
The Minute I Dropped Out I Could Stop Taking The Required Classes That Didn't Interest Me, And Begin Dropping In On The Ones That Looked Interesting.
Class
Interesting
Dropping Out
Most People Do Not Ever Pick Up The Phone. They Never Ask, And That Is What Separates The People That Do Things From The People That Just Dream About Them. You Have To Act, And You Have To Be Willing To Fail. You Have To Be Willing To Crash And Burn, Because If You Are Afraid Of Failing, You Will Not Get Very Far.
Dream
Phones
People
I Have A Great Respect For Incremental Improvement, And I've Done That Sort Of Thing In My Life, But I've Always Been Attracted To The More Revolutionary Changes. I Don't Know Why. Because They're Harder. They're Much More Stressful Emotionally. And You Usually Go Through A Period Where Everybody Tells You That You've Completely Failed.
Done
Improvement
Revolutionary
I Know You Have 1000 Great Ideas For Things That Itunes Could Do. And We Have 1000 More. But Innovation Is Not About Saying "yes" To Everything. It's About Saying "no" To All But The Most Crucial Features.
Ideas
Simplicity
Innovation
What Had Been The Focus Of My Entire Adult Life Was Gone, And It Was Devastating. I Didn't Really Know What To Do For A Few Months. I Felt That I Had Let The Previous Generation Of Entrepreneurs Down. I Was A Very Public Failure.
Focus
Entrepreneur
Adults
Be Honest With Yourself And With People Always Do Everything On Time. Never Give Up, Go To Your Goals, Even If All The Bad. In This Life, All Really, You Only Need To Do. The More I Talk To People, The More I Am Convinced That In General They Have One Goal - To Become The Richest Dead In The Cemetery.
Giving Up
People
Goal
What This Means Is That People Are Seeing A Stable Business, Which Is Good, And A Business That Is In Control, Which Is Also Good.
Mean
People
Seeing
First Was The Mouse. The Second Was The Click Wheel. And Now, We're Going To Bring Multi-touch To The Market. And Each Of These Revolutionary Interfaces Has Made Possible A Revolutionary Product - The Mac, The Ipod And Now The Iphone.
Iphone
Ipods
Firsts
You Need To Have A Collaborative Hiring Process.
Insightful
Needs
Process
Sometimes When You Innovate, You Make Mistakes. It Is Best To Admit Them Quickly, And Get On With Improving Your Other Innovations.
Inspirational
Wisdom
Business
Don't Just Live A Life; Build One.
Just Live
So When These People Sell Out, Even Though They Get Fabulously Rich, They're Gypping Themselves Out Of One Of The Potentially Most Rewarding Experiences Of Their Unfolding Lives. Without It, They May Never Know Their Values Or How To Keep Their Newfound Wealth In Perspective.
Business
People
Perspective
The Hd Revolution Is Over, It Happened. Hd Won. Everybody Wants Hd.
Want
Revolution
Over It
We've Demonstrated A Strong Track Record Of Being Very Disciplined With The Use Of Our Cash. We Don't Let It Burn A Hole In Our Pocket, We Don't Allow It To Motivate Us To Do Stupid Acquisitions. And So I Think That We'd Like To Continue To Keep Our Powder Dry, Because We Do Feel That There Are One Or More Strategic Opportunities In The Future.
Strong
Stupid
Opportunity
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.
Dark
Years
Best Job
I Don't Need A Hard Disk In My Computer If I Can Get To The Server Faster... Carrying Around These Non-connected Computers Is Byzantine By Comparison.
Needs
Byzantine
Computer
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. And Most Important, Have The Courage To Follow Your Heart And Intuition.
Inspirational
Motivational
Inspiring
Start Small, Think Big. Don’t Worry About Too Many Things At Once. Take A Handful Of Simple Things To Begin With, And Then Progress To More Complex Ones. Think About Not Just Tomorrow, But The Future. Put A Ding In The Universe.
Simple
Thinking
Worry
I Think The Biggest Innovations Of The 21st Century Will Be At The Intersection Of Biology And Technology. A New Era Is Beginning.
Thinking
Technology
Innovation
People Need To Have The Incentive That If They Invest And Succeed, They Can Make A Fair Profit. Otherwise They'll Stop Investing.
People
Needs
Investing
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.
Stupid
Successful
Thinking
I Would Trade All Of My Technology For An Afternoon With Socrates.
Inspirational
Education
Technology
Listen To Me. We're Here To Make A Dent In The Universe. Otherwise Why Even Be Here?
Journey
Listening
Acting
It Comes Down To Trying To Expose Yourself To The Best Things Humans Have Done. And Then Try To Bring Those Things In To What You're Doing.
Leadership
Trying
Done
I Think We Need Editorial Oversight Now More Than Ever. Anything We Can Do To Help Newspapers Find New Ways Of Expression That Will Help Them Get Paid, I Am All For.
Thinking
Expression
Way
I Know From My Own Education That If I Hadn't Encountered Two Or Three Individuals That Spent Extra Time With Me, I'm Sure I Would Have Been In Jail.
Two
Extra Time
Jail
We Had Nothing To Lose And Everything To Gain.
Gains
Nothing To Lose
Colonization
Marketing Is About Values. It's A Complicated And Noisy World, And We're Not Going To Get A Chance To Get People To Remember Much About Us. No Company Is. So We Have To Be Really Clear About What We Want Them To Know About Us.
People
Marketing
World
The Broader One's Understanding Of The Human Experience, The Better Design We Will Have.
Design
Understanding
Dots
When The Sales Guys Run The Company, The Product Guys Do Not Matter So Much, And A Lot Of Them Just Turn Off.
Running
Guy
Matter
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.
Money
Business
Apples
We Have Never Worried About Numbers. In The Marketplace, Apple Is Trying To Focus The Spotlight On Products, Because Products Really Make A Difference. You Can't Con People In This Business. The Products Speak For Themselves.
Apples
Numbers
People
The Engineering Is Long Gone In Most Pc Companies. In The Consumer Electronics Companies, They Don't Understand The Software Parts Of It. And So You Really Can't Make The Products That You Can Make At Apple Anywhere Else Right Now. Apple's The Only Company That Has Everything Under One Roof.
Engineering
Apples
Long
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.
Life
Best Job
Track
You Know, You Keep On Innovating, You Keep On Making Better Stuff. And If You Always Want The Latest And Greatest, Then You Have To Buy A New Ipod At Least Once A Year.
Years
Ipods
Want
I Naively Chose A College That Was Almost As Expensive As Stanford, And All Of My Working-class Parents Savings Were Being Spent On My College Tuition. After Six Months I Couldn't See The Value In It. I Had No Idea What I Wanted To Do With My Life And No Idea How College Was Going To Help Me Figure It Out.
College
Class
Ideas
I Was Lucky To Get Into Computers When It Was A Very Young And Idealistic Industry. There Weren't Many Degrees Offered In Computer Science, So People In Computers Were Brilliant People From Mathematics, Physics, Music, Zoology, Whatever. They Loved It, And No One Was Really In It For The Money.
People
Degrees
Lucky
Design Isn't Just How It Looks. It's How It Works.
Design
Looks
Great Engineers Are A Huge Multiplier.
Engineers
Huge
I Make 50 Cents For Showing Up... And The Other 50 Cents Is Based On My Performance.
Showing Up
Cents
Performances
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.
Two
Long
Going Away
When You Start Looking At A Problem And It Seems Really Simple, You Don't Really Understand The Complexity Of The Problem. Then You Get Into The Problem, And You See That It's Really Complicated, And You Come Up With All These Convoluted Solutions. That's Sort Of The Middle, And That's Where Most People Stop... But The Really Great Person Will Keep On Going And Find The Key, The Underlying Principle Of The Problem - And Come Up With An Elegant, Really Beautiful Solution That Works.
Beautiful
Simple
Keys
The Problem With The Internet Startup Craze Isn't That Too Many People Are Starting Companies; It's That Too Many People Aren't Sticking With It. That's Somewhat Understandable, Because There Are Many Moments That Are Filled With Despair And Agony, When You Have To Fire People And Cancel Things And Deal With Very Difficult Situations. That's When You Find Out Who You Are And What Your Values Are.
Business
Difficult Situations
Agony
What A Computer Is To Me Is The Most Remarkable Tool That We Have Ever Come Up With. It's The Equivalent Of A Bicycle For Our Minds.
Inspirational
Memorable
Technology
Ask For Feedback From People With Diverse Backgrounds. Each One Will Tell You One Useful Thing. If You're At The Top Of The Chain, Sometimes People Won't Give You Honest Feedback Because They're Afraid. In This Case, Disguise Yourself, Or Get Feedback From Other Sources.
People
Giving
Honest Feedback
Love What You Do...don't Settle
Settling
I Feel Like Somebody Just Punched Me In The Stomach And Knocked All My Wind Out. I'm Only 30 Years Old And I Want To Have A Chance To Continue Creating Things. I Know I've Got At Least One More Great Computer In Me. And Apple Is Not Going To Give Me A Chance To Do That.
Life
Creating Things
Years
I Think The Artistry Is In Having An Insight Into What One Sees Around Them. Generally Putting Things Together In A Way No One Else Has Before And Finding A Way To Express That To Other People Who Don't Have That Insight.
Inspiring
Thinking
People
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.
Inspirational
Change
Success
I Didn't See It Then, But It Turned Out That Getting Fired From Apple Was The Best Thing That Could Have Ever Happened To Me. The Heaviness Of Being Successful Was Replaced By The Lightness Of Being A Beginner Again, Less Sure About Everything. It Freed Me To Enter One Of The Most Creative Periods Of My Life.
Inspirational
Success
Creativity
I Can Help The Next Generation Remember The Lineage Of Great Companies Here And How To Continue The Tradition. The Valley Has Been Very Supportive Of Me. I Should Do My Best To Repay.
Supportive
Generations
Valleys
As Regis Mckenna Once Said, The Best Marketing Is Education
Marketing
Said
Focus And Simplicity...once You Get There, You Can Move Mountains.
Life Lesson
Moving
Simple
Do You Want To Sell Sugar Water All Your Life, Or Do You Want To Come With Me And Change The World?
Leadership
Motivation
Water
I Was At Reed [college] For Only A Few Months. My Parents Intended For Me To Stay There For All Four Years But I Decided That College Wasn't Right For Me. I Had No Idea What I Wanted To Do I Didn't See How College Was Going To Help Me.
College
Ideas
Years
I Think We're Having Fun. I Think Our Customers Really Like Our Products. And We're Always Trying To Do Better.
Inspirational
Success
Fun
Life Is About Creating And Living Experiences That Are Worth Sharing.
Creating
Life Is
Trending Author
Paula Poundstone
Zhu Rongji
Jiddu Krishnamurti
John Crowley
Jasmine Guy
Emmanuelle Beart
Category
Information