Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication-- Steve Jobs turned this into the slogan behind an early Mac advertising campaign. Which doesn't make it less true.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Apple has some tremendous assets, but I believe without some attention, the company could, could, could - I'm searching for the right word - could, could die.

Sometimes life's going to hit you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did.

The most important thing is a person. A person who incites your curiosity and feeds your curiosity; and machines cannot do that in the same way that people can.

I'm one of the few people who understands how producing technology requires intuition and creativity, and how producing something artistic takes real discipline.

Management is about persuading people to do things they do not want to do, while leadership is about inspiring people to do things they never thought they could.

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.

Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

You have to be burning with "an idea, or a problem, or a wrong that you want to right." If you're not passionate enough from the start, you'll never stick it out.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The hardest thing when you think about focusing. You think focusing is about saying "Yes." No. Focusing is about saying "No." And when you say "No," you piss off people.

If I were running Apple, I would milk the Macintosh for all it's worth - and get busy on the next great thing. The PC wars are over. Done. Microsoft won a long time ago.

Each year has been so robust with problems and successes and learning experiences and human experienes that a year is a lifetime at Apple. So this has been ten lifetimes.

That's what Walt Disney did, and Hewlett and Packard, and the people who built Intel. They created a company to last, not just to make money. That's what I want Apple to be.

Many companies forget what it means to make great products. After initial success, sales and marketing people take over and the product people eventually make their way out.

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.

You've got to start with the customer experience and work backwards to the technology. You can't start with the technology and try to figure out where you're going to sell it.

You know, my main reaction to this money thing is that it's humorous, all the attention to it, because it's hardly the most insightful or valuable thing that's happened to me.

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.

But Apple really beats to a different drummer. I used to say that Apple should be the Sony of this business, but in reality, I think Apple should be the Apple of this business.

The reason that Apple is able to create products like iPad is because we always try to be at the intersection of technology and liberal arts, to be able to get the best of both.

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.

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.

The reason we wouldn't make a seven-inch tablet isn't because we don't want to hit a price point, it's because we don't think you can make a great tablet with a seven-inch screen.

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.

It wasn't that Microsoft was so brilliant or clever in copying the Mac, it's that the Mac was a sitting duck for 10 years. That's Apple's problem: Their differentiation evaporated.

Technology is nothing. What's important is that you have a faith in people, that they're basically good and smart, and if you give them tools, they'll do wonderful things with them.

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.

A lot of people think big business in America is a bad thing. I think it's a really good thing. Most people in business are ethical, hard-working, good people. And it's a meritocracy.

Not only was [Edwin Land] one of the great inventors of our time but, more important, he saw the intersection of art and science and business and built an organization to reflect that.

I dropped out of Reed College [Portland, Oregon] after the first six months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

People say sometimes, "You work in the fastest-moving industry in the world." I don't feel that way. I think I work in one of the slowest. It seems to take forever to get anything done.

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.

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.

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.

My model for business is The Beatles: They were four guys that kept each others' negative tendencies in check; they balanced each other. And the total was greater than the sum of the parts.

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.

We're going to be able to ask our computers to monitor things for us, and when certain conditions happen, are triggered, the computers will take certain actions and inform us after the fact.

LSD...reinforc ed my sense of what was important-creat ing great things instead of making money, putting things back into the stream of history and of human consciousness as much as I could.

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.

What we want to do is make a leapfrog product that is way smarter than any mobile device has ever been, and super-easy to use. This is what iPhone is. OK? So, we're going to reinvent the phone.

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.

Share This Page