Our goal is to make the best devices in the world, not to be the biggest.
Interpretation
Focus on quality and innovation instead of solely pursuing size and dominance.
Steve Jobs emphasizes that the primary objective of a company should be to create exceptional products rather than to become the largest entity in the industry. This highlights the importance of craftsmanship, quality, and user experience over merely chasing market share, suggesting that true success comes from excellence and innovation.
In practice
In a tech conference, while discussing product development, one might say 'As Steve Jobs once stated, our goal is to make the best devices in the world, not to be the biggest.'
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.
I'm always interested in what you can do with technology that people haven't thought of doing yet.
Technology should do the hard work, so you can get on and live your life. We're only at one percent of what's possible, and we're moving slow relative to the opportunity we have.
I said the screen will kill the reader, and it has: the movie screen in the beginning, the television screen, and now the coup de grace, the computer screen.
The Internet offers endangered languages a chance to have a public voice in a way that would not have been possible before.
No matter how beautiful, no matter how cool your interface, it would be better if there were less of it.
Once the Xerox copier was invented, diplomacy died.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.