Innovator Quotes

A computer is the most incredible tool we've ever seen. It can be a writing tool, a communications center, a supercalculator, a planner, a filer and an artistic instrument all in one, just by being given new instructions, or software, to work from. There are no other tools that have the power and versatility of a computer.

I make 50 cents for showing up... and the other 50 cents is based on my performance.

Don't be evil is a load of crap.

In the first 30 years of your life, you make your habits. For the last 30 years of your life, your habits make you.

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.

Every once in a while, a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything.

Deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what to do.

The creative industries tend to dismiss technology as just something to buy and not understand how hard it is and how creative it can be as well.

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.

Overnight success stories take a long time.

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.

Whatever you do, you must never let the voice in your head control the brain in your heart.

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.

We're just enthusiastic about what we do.

Death is very likely the single best invention of life.

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.

Ultimately, it comes down to taste. It comes down to trying to expose yourself to the best things that humans have done and then try to bring those things into what you're doing. 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.

[My teacher] basically bribed me back into learning with candy and money and what was really remarkable was before very long I had such a respect for her that it sort of re-ignited my desire to learn.

In order to learn how to do something well, you have to fail sometimes. In order to fail, there has to be a measurement system. And that's the problem with most philanthropy - there's no measurement system. You give somebody some money to do something and most of the time you can really never measure whether you failed or succeeded in your judgment of that person or his ideas or their implementation.

Let's make a dent in the universe

It's more fun to be a pirate than to join the Navy.

Each dream you leave behind is a part of your future that will no longer exist.

When you're young, you look at television and think, there's a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that's not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want.

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.

A lot of people in our industry haven't had very diverse experiences. So they don't have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem. The broader one's understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have.

And no, we don't know where it will lead. We just know there's something much bigger than any of us here.

Technology alone is not enough.

You have to have a lot of passion for what you do... because if you don't, any rational person would give up.

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?

Your work is going to fill a large part of your life... so love what you do. Your time is limited. Don't waste it.

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country.... I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this.... It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating. None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me.

The Japanese have hit the shores like dead fish. They're just like dead fish washing up on the shores.

My opinion is that the only two computer companies that are software-driven are Apple and NeXT, and I wonder about Apple.

If, for some reason, we make some big mistake and IBM wins, my personal feeling is that we are going to enter a computer Dark Ages for about twenty years.

There are downsides to everything; there are unintended consequences to everything.

The good music companies do an amazing thing. They have people who can pick the person that's gonna be successful out of 5,000 candidates. And there's not enough information to do that - it's an intuitive process.

I think the biggest innovations of the 21st century will be at the intersection of biology and technology. A new era is beginning.

For most of my life, I’ve felt that there must be more to our existence than meets the eye. This is who I am, and you can’t expect me to be someone I’m not.

We just wanted to build the best thing we could build

Part of what made the Macintosh great was that the people working on it were musicians, poets, and artists, and zoologists, and historians. They also happened to be the best computer scientists in the world. But if it hadn't been computer science, these people would have been doing amazing things in other fields.

My philosophy is that everything starts with a great product.

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.

In your life you only get to do so many things and right now we've chosen to do this, so let's make it great.

After all the statistics and calculations are formulated, the one element that breathes life into marketing is good design.

Let's go invent tomorrow...

That's always been in my mind my metaphor for a team working really hard on something they're passionate about. It's that through the team, through that group of incredibly talented people bumping up against each other, having arguments, having fights sometimes, making some noise, and working together they polish each other and they polish the ideas, and what comes out are these really beautiful stones.

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.

Focus is about saying, No. And the result of that focus is going to be some really great products where the total is much greater than the sum of the parts.

A small team of (A plus) players can run circles around a giant team of B and C players.

I'm the only person I know that's lost a quarter of a billion dollars in one year. It's very character-building.

Whenever you do any one thing intensely over a period of time you have to give up other lives you could be living. You have to have a real single-minded kind of tunnel vision if you want to get anything significant accomplished. Especially if the desire is not to be a businessman, but to be a creative person.

Don't just live a life; build one.

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.

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.

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.

I thought deeply about this. I ended up concluding that the worst thing that could possibly happen as we get big and as we get a little more influence in the world is if we change our core values and start letting it slide, I can't do that. I'd rather quit.

Our goal is to make the best devices in the world, not to be the biggest.

If I knew in 1986 how much it was going to cost to keep Pixar going, I doubt if I would have bought the company.

Pixar is seen by a lot of folks as an overnight success, but if you really look closely, most overnight successes took a long time.

This was a very typical time. I was single. All you needed was a cup of tea, a light, and your stereo, you know, and that's what I had.