I think we're having fun. I think our customers really like our products. And we're always trying to do better.
Interpretation
The quote reflects a commitment to enjoyment, customer satisfaction, and continuous improvement.
Steve Jobs highlights the importance of finding joy in work while ensuring that customers appreciate the products. This statement emphasizes a philosophy of constant growth and striving for excellence, suggesting that success is not just about profits, but also about creating a positive experience for customers and enjoying the journey of improvement.
In practice
This quote can be used in a keynote speech about entrepreneurship to inspire the audience.
Design is the fundamental soul of a man-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service. The iMac is not just the color or translucence or the shape of the shell. The essence of the iMac is to be the finest possible consumer computer in which each element plays together.
It is piracy, not overt online music stores, which is our main competitor.
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.
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because 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.
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.
For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: 'If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?' And whenever the answer has been 'No' for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
It is not ease, but effort-not facility, but difficulty, makes men. There is, perhaps, no station in life in which difficulties have not to be encountered and overcome before any decided measure of success can be achieved.
Everyone wants to be a movie star or a model, to be in the papers, but few realise just what hard work it is, getting up early, and so on.
Success happened little by little for me. I tasted the flavor of fame in small doses: I started at 10 years old when I won a music contest; I was performing at birthday parties, company meetings.
The blaze of reputation cannot be blown out, but it often dies in the socket; a very few names may be considered as perpetual lamps that shine unconsumed.
You don't know what it is to be heavyweight champ of the world until you become the heavyweight champ of the world.
Luck? Sure. But only after long practice and only with the ability to think under pressure.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.