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Steve Jobs' Best Quotes

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Re: Steve Jobs' Best Quotes

#31

Post by ulf »

vacri wrote: post #29
arst829 wrote: post #3

Perhaps the most pertinent to startup life: "“It’s more fun to be a pirate than to join the navy.”

Perhaps in the fantasy in our heads. But in real life, pirates are desperate people, usually repeatedly risking their lives in order to stay alive. In comparison, all the people I know in the navy absolutely love it - they like the life, they absolutely love the travelling from port to port, cameraderie, high tech playtoys, so on and so forth.

I think he meant it more in the context of olden times, where neither pirates nor navy had "high tech playtoys" and piracy was a little more common than today

Re: Steve Jobs' Best Quotes

#32

Post by jballanc »

My two favorite Steve quotes both came during a talk with some interns one summer (paraphrasing from memory):

-----

Intern: "Where do you see Apple in 5 years? 10 years?"

Steve: "I don't know. I'm too focused on where Apple is going tomorrow...and I think anyone that does tell you they know where their company will be in 5 years is lying, or doesn't have enough to worry about now."

(It was clear that Steve saw Apple's roadmap as a continuous progression from the present, rather than a plotted course to some arbitrary goal. That's an attitude that I've found has served me very well...)

-----

Intern: "What are your dreams?"

Steve: "To not be asked questions like that...next"

Re: Steve Jobs' Best Quotes

#33

Post by jballanc »

phil wrote: post #6

All armchair commentators would do well to consider this one: Q: There’s a lot of symbolism to your return. Is that going to be enough to reinvigorate the company with a sense of magic? “You’re missing it. This is not a one-man show. What’s reinvigorating this company is two things: One, there’s a lot of really talented people in this company who listened to the world tell them they were losers for a couple of years,…

To continue on this thread, I once heard Steve describe it this way:

"When I returned to Apple, I went to every engineering team and fired all the managers. Then, I went to the smartest engineer on each team and told them they were going to be the new manager. Of course, being the smartest engineers, they all immediately said, 'No'! So I told them, 'Look, either you're going to be the new manager, or I'll go hire someone like your old manager.' After that, every one of them agreed to take the position."

Re: Steve Jobs' Best Quotes

#36

Post by arethuza »

ulf wrote: post #31
vacri wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps in the fantasy in our heads. But in real life, pirates are desperate people, usually repeatedly risking their lives in order to stay alive. In comparison, all the people I know in the navy absolutely love it - they like the life, they absolutely love the travelling from port to port, cameraderie, high tech playtoys, so on and so forth.

I think he meant it more in the context of olden times, where neither pirates nor navy had "high tech playtoys" and piracy was a little more common than today

Also the distinction between navies and pirates was a lot less clearly defined than it is now.

Both John Paul Jones and Sir Walter Raleigh were regarded as pirates by their adversaries and as naval heroes at home.

Re: Steve Jobs' Best Quotes

#37

Post by psykotic »

arethuza wrote: post #36
ulf wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he meant it more in the context of olden times, where neither pirates nor navy had "high tech playtoys" and piracy was a little more common than today

Also the distinction between navies and pirates was a lot less clearly defined than it is now. Both John Paul Jones and Sir Walter Raleigh were regarded as pirates by their adversaries and as naval heroes at home.

And those two would be considered among the least piratic! The English Crown granted licenses that gave commercial vessels the rights to any plunder from Spanish ships and settlements. It was effectively a loose mercenary affiliation. Deal: We empower you to commit legally sanctioned piracy. In return you make life difficult for our enemies and cut us in on the proceeds. Soldiers in war were never as restrained as period movies would have us believe, so imagine being boarded or invaded by a desperate privateer crew with not even the semblance of honor and soldierly gallantry to moderate their behavior.

Ahem. Back to Steve.

Re: Steve Jobs' Best Quotes

#38

Post by arethuza »

psykotic wrote: post #37
arethuza wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also the distinction between navies and pirates was a lot less clearly defined than it is now. Both John Paul Jones and Sir Walter Raleigh were regarded as pirates by their adversaries and as naval heroes at home.

And those two would be considered among the least piratic! The English Crown granted licenses that gave commercial vessels the rights to any plunder from Spanish ships and settlements. It was effectively a loose mercenary affiliation. Deal: We empower you to commit legally sanctioned piracy. In return you make life difficult for our enemies and cut us in on the proceeds. Soldiers in war were never as restrained as pe…

I think it's allowed in the circumstances:

http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Pirate_Flag.txt

Re: Steve Jobs' Best Quotes

#39

Post by lhnz »

philjackson wrote: post #34

"We think the Mac will sell zillions, but we didn’t build the Mac for anybody else. We built it for ourselves." Seems contrary to advice I often read from people here.

Yes, but you might have also heard about "eating your own dog food."

Re: Steve Jobs' Best Quotes

#40

Post by lionhearted »

This one's my favorite -

--

Q: There’s a lot of symbolism to your return. Is that going to be enough to reinvigorate the company with a sense of magic?

“You’re missing it. This is not a one-man show. What’s reinvigorating this company is two things: One, there’s a lot of really talented people in this company who listened to the world tell them they were losers for a couple of years, and some of them were on the verge of starting to believe it themselves. But they’re not losers. What they didn’t have was a good set of coaches, a good plan. A good senior management team. But they have that now.” [BusinessWeek, May 25, 1998]

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