I think money is a wonderful thing because it enables you to do things. It enables you to invest in ideas that don't have a short-term payback.
Interpretation
Money can empower you to pursue long-term investments and innovative ideas.
In this quote, Steve Jobs emphasizes the positive role of money as a tool that allows individuals to invest in ideas and projects that may not yield immediate returns. He suggests that the ability to finance such endeavors can lead to significant achievements and contributions, highlighting the importance of viewing money as a means to foster creativity and progress rather than merely a measure of wealth.
In practice
In a motivational speech about entrepreneurship, you might use this quote to inspire budding inventors.
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.
In most things success depends on knowing how long it takes to succeed.
I would rather live a short life of glory than a long one of obscurity.
In all my years of baseball, I have always expected to be traded. I never liked the idea.
Sweat equity is the best equity.
I have gone through a long apprenticeship. I have gone through enough of being a nobody. I have decided that when I am a star, I will be every inch and every moment the star! Everybody from the studio gateman to the highest executive will know it.
Work mixed with management becomes not only easier but more profitable. The time is past when anyone can boast about 'hard work' without having a corresponding result to show for it.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.