Steve Jobs: 'There's sanity returning' (Business Week, May 1998): Q&A

Steve Jobs · 14 May 1998

Steve Jobs did not write this page.

Every claim below was made in this piece, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.

Our reading
The Internet is a place to turn one’s brain on, and television a place to turn it off.

Their wordsthe Internet is a place you go when you want to turn your brain on, and a television is a place you go when you want to turn your brain off.
Our reading
It is really hard to design products by focus groups, because people often do not know what they want until they are shown it.
Mental modelYou are not the user

Their wordsBut 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.
Our reading
Focus and simplicity are worth the work: simple can be harder than complex, because the thinking has to be got clean, but once there one can move mountains.
Mental modelLess, but better

Their wordsEverything just got simpler. That's been one of my mantras -- focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it's worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.

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