korrents
Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs

@steve-jobs · 40 positions · On ppll ↗

American entrepreneur (1955 to 2011); co-founded Apple in 1976 and led it again from 1997 to 2011; ran Pixar from 1986 to 2006.

Steve Jobs did not write this page.

We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.

3 of Steve Jobs's claims fit 3 mental models. Most often: Less, but better, Power laws, You are not the user.

Models we see in what they say

Our reading: their claim applies the idea without naming it. The claim is theirs; filing it here is ours.

Less, but better

Find the essence and cut the rest; simplicity is hard work, not the absence of effort.

Used by 59 others

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.

  1. Steve Jobs American entrepreneur (1955 to 2011) Everything 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. Steve Jobs: 'There's sanity returning' (Business Week, May 1998): Q&Aweb.archive.org · 14 May 1998All korrents from this piece
    Everything 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.

Power laws

In many things a few cases account for most of the result, so the average misleads and the outlier decides.

Used by 25 others

In software the gap between the best and the worst person is about a hundred to one, so it pays to go after the best people in the world.

  1. Steve Jobs American entrepreneur (1955 to 2011) In the field that I'm in the difference between the best person and the worst person is about a hundred to one or more. The difference between a good software person and a great software person is fifty to one, twenty-five to fifty to one, huge dynamic range. Therefore, I have found, not just in software, but in everything I've done it really pays to go after the best people in the world. Steve Jobs oral history interview with Daniel Morrow (Smithsonian, 20 April 1995): excerptsweb.archive.org · 20 Apr 1995All korrents from this piece
    In the field that I'm in the difference between the best person and the worst person is about a hundred to one or more. The difference between a good software person and a great software person is fifty to one, twenty-five to fifty to one, huge dynamic range. Therefore, I have found, not just in software, but in everything I've done it really pays to go after the best people in the world.

You are not the user

Watch real people use the real thing; your own sense of what is obvious does not count as evidence.

Used by 15 others

It is really hard to design products by focus groups, because people often do not know what they want until they are shown it.

  1. Steve Jobs American entrepreneur (1955 to 2011) 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: 'There's sanity returning' (Business Week, May 1998): Q&Aweb.archive.org · 14 May 1998All korrents from this piece
    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.