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.
Interpretation
Innovation relies more on leadership and team dynamics than on financial investment alone.
Steve Jobs emphasizes that true innovation is driven by the quality of the people involved and their leadership rather than the amount of money invested in research and development. This highlights the importance of a great team and a visionary approach over mere financial resources.
In practice
This quote could be used as a motivation in a team meeting to inspire employees to focus on collaboration and creativity.
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.
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.
the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.
It is the triumph of civilization that at last communities have obtained such a mastery over natural laws that they drive and control them. The winds, the water, electricity, all aliens that in their wild form were dangerous, are now controlled by human will, and are made useful servants.
Now anybody can make music at home, and you can hear music on any computer without having to buy it. Everything is apparently better with all the machines we have now, but at the same time, the quality of life is not improving.
The marketplace judges technologies by their practical effectiveness, by whether they succeed or fail to do the job they are designed to do.
Is it a fact-or have I dreamt it-that, by means of electricity, the world of matter has become a great nerve, vibrating thousands of miles in a breathless point of time?
A programming language is for thinking about programs, not for expressing programs you've already thought of. It should be a pencil, not a pen.
The fundamental truth for developers is they will build if there are users.
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