“If, for some reason, we make some big mistake and IBM wins, my personal feeling is that we are going to enter a computer Dark Ages for about twenty years.” Steve Jobs
“I feel like somebody just punched me in the stomach and knocked all my wind out. I'm only 30 years old and I want to have a chance to continue creating things. I know I've got at least one more great computer in me. And Apple is not going to give me a chance to do that.” Steve Jobs
“Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.” Steve Jobs
“You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they'll want something new.” Steve Jobs
“It's rare that you see an artist in his 30s or 40s able to really contribute something amazing.” Steve Jobs
“What a computer is to me is it's the most remarkable tool that we have ever come up with. It's the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds.” Steve Jobs
“My opinion is that the only two computer companies that are software-driven are Apple and NeXT, and I wonder about Apple.” Steve Jobs
“Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn't matter to me … Going to bed at night saying we've done something wonderful... that's what matters to me.” Steve Jobs
“We believe it's the biggest advance in animation since Walt Disney started it all with the release of Snow White 50 years ago.” Steve Jobs
“If I knew in 1986 how much it was going to cost to keep Pixar going, I doubt if I would have bought the company.” Steve Jobs
“You know, I've got a plan that could rescue Apple. I can't say any more than that it's the perfect product and the perfect strategy for Apple. But nobody there will listen to me.” Steve Jobs
“[Miele] really thought the process through. They did such a great job designing these washers and dryers. I got more thrill out of them than I have out of any piece of high tech in years.” Steve Jobs
“To design something really well you have to get it. You have to really grok what it’s all about. It takes a passionate commitment to thoroughly understand something — chew it up, not just quickly swallow it. Most people don’t take the time to do that.” Steve Jobs
“If I were running Apple, I would milk the Macintosh for all it's worth — and get busy on the next great thing. The PC wars are over. Done. Microsoft won a long time ago.” Steve Jobs
“I was worth about over a million dollars when I was twenty-three and over ten million dollars when I was twenty-four, and over a hundred million dollars when I was twenty-five and it wasn't that important because I never did it for the money.” Steve Jobs
“The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste. They have absolutely no taste. And I don't mean that in a small way, I mean that in a big way, in the sense that they don't think of original ideas, and they don't bring much culture into their products.” Steve Jobs
“I am saddened, not by Microsoft's success — I have no problem with their success. They've earned their success, for the most part. I have a problem with the fact that they just make really third-rate products.” Steve Jobs
“We hired truly great people and gave them the room to do great work. A lot of companies [...] hire people to tell them what to do. We hire people to tell us what to do. We figure we're paying them all this money; their job is to figure out what to do and tell us.” Steve Jobs
“I wish him the best, I really do. I just think he and Microsoft are a bit narrow. He'd be a broader guy if he had dropped acid once or gone off to an ashram when he was younger.” Steve Jobs
“Apple has some tremendous assets, but I believe without some attention, the company could, could, could — I'm searching for the right word — could, could die.” Steve Jobs
“Nobody has tried to swallow us since I've been here. I think they are afraid how we would taste.” Steve Jobs
“But in the end, for something this complicated, it's really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them.” Steve Jobs
“We’ve had three big ideas at Amazon that we’ve stuck with for 18 years, and they’re the reason we’re successful: Put the customer first. Invent. And be patient. If you replace ‘customer’ with ‘reader,’ that approach, that point of view, can be successful at The Post, too..” Jeff Bezos
“That kind of divine discontent comes from observing customers and noticing that things can always be better.” Jeff Bezos
“We’re building what’s called a private cloud for them [the C.I.A.], … because they don’t want to be on the public cloud.” Jeff Bezos
“You gotta earn your keep in this world. When you invent something new, if customers come to the party, it’s disruptive to the old way.” Jeff Bezos
“Communication is a sign of dysfunction. It means people aren’t working together in a close, organic way. We should be trying to figure out ways for teams to communicate less with each other, not more.” Jeff Bezos
“The thing I have noticed is when the anecdotes and the data disagree, the anecdotes are usually right. There's something wrong with the way you are measuring it.” Jeff Bezos
“It's not manufacturers trying to rip anybody off or anything like that. There's nobody getting rich writing software that I know of.” Bill Gates
“Instead of buying airplanes and playing around like some of our competitors, we've rolled almost everything back into the company.” Bill Gates
“To create a new standard, it takes something that's not just a little bit different; it takes something that's really new and really captures people's imagination — and the Macintosh, of all the machines I've ever seen, is the only one that meets that standard.” Bill Gates
“The next generation of interesting software will be done on the Macintosh, not the IBM PC.” Bill Gates
“I think it's more like we both had this rich neighbor named Xerox and I broke into his house to steal the TV set and found out that you had already stolen it.” Bill Gates
“I believe OS/2 is destined to be the most important operating system, and possibly program, of all time.” Bill Gates
“There's only one trick in software, and that is using a piece of software that's already been written.” Bill Gates
“If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today's ideas were invented, and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today.... The solution to this is patent exchanges with large companies and patenting as much as we can.” Bill Gates
“In terms of doing things I take a fairly scientific approach to why things happen and how they happen. I don't know if there's a god or not, but I think religious principles are quite valid.” Bill Gates
“What we're saying to people is that every idea about ease-of-use, we can develop in software, for the PC, without asking them to buy new hardware, without asking them to throw away their old applications.” Bill Gates
“Just in terms of allocation of time resources, religion is not very efficient. There's a lot more I could be doing on a Sunday morning.” Bill Gates
“It's possible, you can never know, that the universe exists only for me. If so, it's sure going well for me, I must admit.” Bill Gates
“We've done some good work, but all of these products become obsolete so fast... It will be some finite number of years, and I don't know the number — before our doom comes.” Bill Gates
“Microsoft has had clear competitors in the past. It's a good thing we have museums to document that.” Bill Gates
“Trustworthy Computing has four pillars: reliability, security, privacy and business integrity.” Bill Gates