Steve Jobs in His Own Words

Since his passing much has been written about Steve Jobs and the legacy he has left. Enough has been written about this remarkable man. So for this column, I turned to You Tube, so I could pay tribute to Steve Jobs with his own words.

Opportunity:

On seeing the first user-interface at Xerox – the inspiration behind the Mac operating system.

“Basically they were copier heads, that just had no clue about a computer and what it could do, and so they just grabbed defeat from the greatest victory in the computer industry. Xerox could have owned the entire computer industry today.”

Before returning to Apple, in a 1996 Interview with on Wall Street Week with Louis Rukeyser.

“Apple was a company that was based on innovation. When I left Apple 10 years ago, we were ten years head of everybody else. The problem was, that Apple stood still. Even though it invested cumulatively billions in R & D, the output has not been there and people have not caught up with it and the differentiation has eroded in particular with respect to Microsoft. And so the way out for Apple, and I still think Apple has a future, there’s some awfully good people there and tremendous brand loyalty to that company. I think the way out is not to slash and burn, it’s to innovate. That’s how apple got to its glory, and I think that’s how apple could return to it.”

1997 – Steve Jobs explains the reasons behind the new Apple “Think Different” Marketing campaign.
“What we’re about isn’t making boxes for people to get their jobs done, though we do that well, we do that better than almost anybody in some cases, but Apple’s about something more than that. We believe that people with passion can change the world for the better.”

In 1996 “Triumph of the Nerds: The Rise of Accidental Empires” aired on PBS. Steve Jobs explains the problem he has with Microsoft.

“The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste, they have absolutely no taste, and what that means is – I don’t mean that in a small way I mean that in a big way. In the sense that they they don’t think of original ideas and they don’t bring much culture into their product and you say why is that important – well you know proportionally spaced fonts come from type setting and beautiful books, that’s where one gets the idea – if it weren’t for the Mac they would never have that in their products and so I guess 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.”

“Picasso had a saying, good artists copy. Great Artists steal. And we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas.”

“People say you have to have a lot of passion for what you do, and the reason is, because it’s so hard, that if you don’t any rational person would give up. It’s really hard, and you have to do it over a sustained period of time, so if you don’t love it, if you’re not having fun doing it you’re going to give up.”

“Sometimes you just have to look at yourself and go, you know, it’s just not really great, it’s OK, it’s good, but lets not fool ourselves and call it great. You know, we’re willing to throw something away because it’s not great, and try again when all of the pressures of commerce are at your back saying, no you can’t do that.”

Rubbing it in:

2007 With Bill Gates, being interviewed at the D5 conference.

“We’ve got cards and letters from people saying that iTunes is their favorite thing on Windows. It’s like giving a glass of ice water to somebody in hell.”

In 1977 Steve Jobs was asked why prices for Apple products was higher than those of other PC manufacturers. His bottom line?

“We don’t ship junk!”