The Genius Who Revolutionized Modern Technology
“He was very often the smartest guy in the room, and he would let people know that.” — The Mercury News
He’s called the “genius who revolutionized modern technology”. Adopted soon after his birth, his biological father was Syrian, and his mother was American. While he dropped out of college, he continued to audit classes for some time.
He stole from his partner when they created the Breakout game for Atari, keeping most of the $5,000 and only giving his partner $700… He was later pushed out of his own company in 1985, eventually returning as CEO in 1997 to revitalize the failing company.
Well known as an egomaniac, in 1993 he was listed on Fortune’s list of America’s Toughest Bosses. His name is on 346 US Patents, about 300 of which he was the sole inventor.
Born in 1955 he took his adoptive parents’ surname and was named Steven Paul Jobs. He died of pancreatic cancer at the young age of 56 in 2011 with an estimated net worth of $7 billion.
As co-founder of Apple, with Steve Wozniak, he served as its Chairman and CEO. He was the co-creator of the original Macintosh, iPod, iPhone, iPad, and the first Apple Stores. The following quote from a 2013 article provides a glimpse at his life from a former boss:
“’Steve was difficult but valuable,’ Bushnell says. ‘He was very often the smartest guy in the room, and he would let people know that.’ But Bushnell remains awestruck by Jobs’ success and the way he grew into not only a top executive, but a visionary — a rare combination.” — The Mercury News
Steve had too many accomplishments in his life to list here, so let’s take a peek into his life through his words. The following quotes are from a large number of books, articles, and videos.
Focus
“We try to focus and do very few things well. And focusing is hard because focusing doesn’t mean saying yes, it means saying no. So we decide not to do a lot of things so we can focus on a handful of things and do them well.”
“Focusing is about saying no.”
“That’s been one of my mantras — focus and simplicity.”
Time
“Well, my favorite things in life are books, sushi and… My favorite things in life don’t cost any money. It’s really clear that the most precious resource we all have is time.”
“My favorite things in life don’t cost any money. It’s really clear that the most precious resource we all have is time.”
“Let’s go invent tomorrow rather than worrying about what happened yesterday.”
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“The only thing you have in your life is time. If you invest that time in yourself to have great experiences that are going to enrich you, then you can’t possibly lose.”
“I have been trained to think in units of time that are measured in several years. With what I’ve chosen to do with my life, you know, even a small thing takes a few years. To do anything of magnitude takes at least five years, more likely seven or eight. Rightfully or wrongfully, that’s how I think.”
Creating
“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. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.”
“Creativity is just connecting things.”
“The doers are the major thinkers. The people that really create the things that change this industry are both the thinker and doer in one person.”
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“Humans are tool builders. We create things to amplify ourselves. The computer will rank at the top — it’s the most awesome tool ever.”
“What is Apple, after all? Apple is about people who think ‘outside the box’, people who want to use computers to help them change the world, to help them create things that make a difference, and not just to get a job done.”
The Future
“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.”
“We are aware that we are doing something significant. We’re here at the beginning of it and we’re able to shape how it goes.”
“Most of the time, we’re taking things. Neither you nor I made the clothes we wear; we don’t make the food or grow the foods we eat; Everyone here has the sense that right now is one of those moments when we are influencing the future.”
Success
“The secret of my success is that we have gone to exceptional lengths to hire the best people in the world. And when you’re in a field where the dynamic range is 25 to 1, boy, does it pay off.”
“I don’t care about being right. I care about success and doing the right thing.“
“When companies get bigger they try to replicate their success. But they assume their magic came from process.”
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“I think all of us need to be on guard against arrogance which knocks at the door whenever you’re successful.”
“I’m convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance. It is so hard. You put so much of your life into this thing. There are such rough moments in time that I think most people give up. I don’t blame them. It’s really tough and it consumes your life.”
Customers
“You’ve got to start with the customer experience and work backward to the technology.”
“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.”
“Get closer than ever to your customers. So close that you tell them what they need well before they realize it themselves.”
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“You can’t go out and ask people, you know, what the next big thing is. There’s a great quote by Henry Ford, right? He said, ‘If I’d have asked my customers what they wanted, they would have told me ‘A faster horse’.”
“We did iTunes because we all love music. We made what we thought was the best jukebox in iTunes. Then we all wanted to carry our whole music libraries around with us. The team worked really hard. And the reason that they worked so hard is because we all wanted one. You know? I mean, the first few hundred customers were us.”
Ideas
“There is a tremendous amount of craftsmanship between a great idea and a great product.”
“Don’t get hung up on who owns the idea. Pick the best one, and let’s go.”
“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. I think that’s half the battle right there.”
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“The best ideas have to win, otherwise, good people don’t stay.”
“What I do all day, is meet with teams of people, and work on ideas, and solve problems, to make new products, to make new marketing programs, whatever it is.”
“All we are is our ideas or people. That’s what keeps us going to work in the morning, to hang around these great bright people. I’ve always thought that recruiting is the heart and soul of what we do.”
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“Picasso had a saying: good artists copy, great artists steal. And we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas, and I think part of what made the Macintosh great was that the people working on it were musicians and poets and artists and zoologists and historians who also happened to be the best computer scientists in the world.”
Innovation
“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.”
“I’m as proud of many of the things we haven’t done as the things we have done. Innovation is saying no to a thousand things.”
“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.”
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“Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.”
“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.“
“I discovered that the best innovation is sometimes the company, the way you organize a company. The whole notion of how you build a company is fascinating.”
Technology
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.
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“They haven’t used it (iPads). We limit how much technology our kids use at home.”
“I used to think that technology could help education. I’ve probably spearheaded giving away more computer equipment to schools than anybody else on the planet. But I’ve had to come to the inevitable conclusion that the problem is not one that technology can hope to solve. What’s wrong with education cannot be fixed with technology. No amount of technology will make a dent.”
Quality
“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 see it. You’ll know it’s there, so you’re going to use a beautiful piece of wood on the back. For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through.”
“Quality is more important than quantity. One home run is much better than two doubles.”
“People judge you on your performance, so focus on the outcome. Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.”
Marketing
“The best example of all and one of the greatest jobs of marketing that the universe has ever seen, is Nike. Remember, Nike sells a commodity. They sell shoes. And yet, when you think of Nike, you feel something different than a shoe company. In their ads, as you know, they don’t ever talk about the product. They don’t ever tell you about their air soles.”
“To me, marketing is about values.”
“My dream is that every person in the world will have their own Apple computer. To do that, we’ve got to be a great marketing company.”
Learning
“Actually, making an insanely great product has a lot to do with the process of making the product, how you learn things and adopt new ideas and throw out old ideas.”
“Learning to program teaches you how to think. Computer science is a liberal art.”
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“Well, I was thrown out of school a few times.”
“One of the saints in my life is this woman named Imogene Hill, who was a fourth-grade teacher who taught this advanced class. She got hip to my whole situation in about a month and kindled a passion in me for learning things. I learned more that year than I think I learned in any year in school.”
Wisdom
“Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.”
“I think the things you most regret in life are things you didn’t do. What you really regret was never asking that girl to dance.”
“The people that have really made the contributions have been the thinkers and the doers.”
Inspiration
“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.”
“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.”
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“Now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you, ‘Stay hungry, stay foolish’”.
“Don’t take it all too seriously. 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.”
Death
“I think death is the most wonderful invention of life. It purges the system of these old models that are obsolete.”
“Without death, there would be very little progress.”
“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.”
“If today were the last of your life, would you do what you were going to do today?”
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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.
“Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there.”
“Ever since I’ve had cancer, I’ve been thinking about it more. And I find myself believing a bit more. I kind of — maybe it’s ’cause I want to believe in an afterlife. That when you die, it doesn’t just all disappear.”
Life
“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.”
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“Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith.”
“But I believe life is an intelligent thing, that things aren’t random.”
“I was lucky, I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents’ garage when I was 20.”
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“That was one of the things that came out most clearly from this whole experience [with cancer]. I realized that I love my life. I really do. I’ve got the greatest family in the world, and I’ve got my work. And that’s pretty much all I do. I don’t socialize much or go to conferences. I love my family, and I love running Apple, and I love Pixar. And I get to do that. I’m very lucky.”
We can learn much from his short life and this small sample of Jobs’ words cannot begin to do his life justice. You can find many books and much on the internet written about him, as well as numerous videos online.
I leave you with a final quote from Jobs to think about and apply to your life.
“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. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”
Bill Abbate Leadership Writer and Editor in ILLUMINATION.
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