I, Steve: Steve Jobs In His Own Words

By George Beahm

The New York Times bestselling collection that “offers Jobs’s views on life, death, technology and design, among other topics” (The Washington Post).
 
Drawn from more than three decades of media coverage—print, electronic, and online—this book serves up the best, most thought-provoking insights ever spoken by Steve Jobs: more than two-hundred quotations that are essential reading for everyone who seeks innovative solutions and inspirations applicable to their business, regardless of size.
 
Jobs, the longtime CEO of Apple, Inc., which he co-founded in 1976, stepped down from that role in August 2011, bringing an end to one of the greatest, most transformative business careers in history. Over the years, Jobs has given countless interviews to the media, explaining what he calls “the vision thing”—his unmatched ability to envision, and successfully bring to the marketplace, consumer products that people find simply irresistible.
 
Jobs has made an indelible mark in multiple industries, and played an enormous role in creating others. Consider how Jobs and Apple shaped the following fields: personal computers (laptop and desktop), apps (for multiple electronic devices), computer animation (Pixar), music (iTunes), telecommunications (iPhone), personal digital devices (iPod), books (iBook), and, most recently, tablets (iPad). Jobs is the great business visionary of our era.
 
“A new book revealing many of Steve Jobs’ most illuminating quotes.” —CNET
 
“Steve Jobs, whose resume twice cites ‘the vision thing,’ has given us some truly memorable quotes.” —FoxNews.com
 
“A 160-page collection of quotes from the most iconic product pitchman since P.T. Barnum.” —The New York Observer BetaBeat blog

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Oct 19, 2011
• ISBN: 9781572846937

Book preview

IS%20Ebook%20Cover.jpg

Copyright Information

Edited by George Beahm

Copyright © 2011 by George Beahm

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without express written permission from the publisher.

I, Steve was in no way authorized, prepared, approved, or endorsed by Steve Jobs and is not affiliated with or endorsed by any of his organizations.

First ebook edition November 2011.

ISBN-10 1-57284-693-3

ISBN-13 978-1-57284-693-7

This ebook edition of I, Steve includes corrections made after the book’s earlier printings.

B2 Books is an imprint of Agate Publishing, Inc. Agate books are available in bulk at discount prices. For more information, go to agatepublishing.com.

Table of Contents

Copyright Information

Dedication

Introduction: Steve Jobs and the Vision Thing

Quotations

Anxiety before iPad Debut

Apple’s Core: Employees

Apple’s DNA

Apple’s Existence

Attention Getting

Being the Best

Beyond Recruiting

Branding

Broad-Based Education

Broad Life Experiences, Importance of

Company Focus

Competition

Computers

Computers for Everyman

Computers as Tools

Confusing Product Lines

Consumerism

Consumer Product Design

Contribution

Convergence

Creating New Tools

Creativity and Technology

Credo

Customer Complaints

Customer Loyalty

David versus Goliath

Deadlines

Death

Decision Making

Demise

Dent in the Universe

Design

Difference, the Essential

Disney’s Animated Movie Sequels

E-Book Readers

Employee Motivation

Employee Potential

Excellence

Excitement

Firing Employees

Flash Crash

Focus

Focusing on Product

Forcing the Issue

Forward Thinking

Getting It Right

Goals

Grace Under Pressure

Great Ideas

Great Product Design

Great Products

Hard Work

Health Speculation

Health, Taking Time Off for

IBM

iCEO

Impact, in an Address to Apple Employees

Innovation

Insight

Inspiration

Integration

Interdisciplinary Talents

Internet Theft and Motivation

iPad and Inevitable Change

iPad Inspires iPhone

iPhone

iPod Nano

iPod Touch

iTunes

Jobs’s Curriculum Vitae (Résumé)

Jobs’s Legacy at Apple

Jobs’s $1 Annual Salary

Letting Go of the Past

Life’s Complications

Losing Market Share

Losing Money

Lost Opportunities

Mac Cube

Mac’s Introduction

Mac Legacy

Making Bold Announcements

Marketing

Microsoft’s Lack of Innovation

Microsoft’s Microview

Misplaced Values

Mistakes

Money

Motivating Employees

Motivation

Need for Teamwork

Netbooks

New Products

No Resting on Laurels

Owning the User Experience

Packaging

PARC’s Graphical Interface

PARC’s Innovations

Parochial Thinking

Partnership

Passion

Passion versus Active Thinking

PC as the Digital Hub

Perception

Perseverance

Pixar

Pixar’s People

Porn Apps on Android

Pride in Product

Priorities Assessment

Process

Products

Product Creation

Product Design

Product Imagination

Product Innovation

Product Integration

Product Secrecy

Products’ Appeal

Profit Sharing, Not Advances

Quality

Real Estate Location

Reliability

Repeating Success

Risking Failure

Shared Vision

Simplicity

Slogan: First Generation iPod

Software

Soul of the New Machine

Stagnation, the Danger of

Stickiness

Stock Options

Story, Importance of

Strategy

Success

Sucker-Punched, Being

Survival

Takeovers, Hostile

Taking Stock of Apple

Teamwork

Technology in Perspective

Think Different Ad Campaign

Thinking Through the Problem

To Be or Not to Be

Toy Story 2

Trash Talking

Ubiquity of Mac

User Experience

Values

Vision

Wisdom

Working Hard and Growing Older

Zen

Milestones

End of an Era: Steve Jobs’s Resignation Letter as Apple CEO

Citations

About the Editor

Dedication

This one is for Britton Edwards.

Apple has a core set of talents, and those talents are: We do, I think, very good hardware design; we do very good industrial design; and we write very good system and application software. And we’re really good at packaging that all together into a product. We’re the only people left in the computer industry that do that.

—Steve Jobs, Rolling Stone, December 25, 2003

Introduction: Steve Jobs and the Vision Thing

I’m always keeping my eyes open for the next big opportunity, but the way the world is now, it will take enormous resources, both in money and in engineering talent, to make it happen. I don’t know what that next big thing might be, but I have a few ideas.

—Steve Jobs, Fortune, January 24, 2000

Since 1976 Steve Jobs spoke his mind, to the delight of his advocates and the dismay of his detractors, in every possible venue: press releases, statements on Apple’s Websites, public appearances to introduce new Apple products, and interviews to the print and electronic media.

But no matter what one thinks of Jobs, who twice cites the vision thing on his résumé, one indisputable fact stands out: He gave us some of the most memorable quotes about the nature of business in our time.

Steve Jobs occupied a unique and enviable position in the business community. He was selected as CEO of the Decade by Fortune magazine, the best-performing CEO in the world by the Harvard Business Review, and Person of the Decade by the Wall Street Journal, among numerous other honors.

On August 15, 2011, news broke that the only authorized biography of Steve Jobs, written by Walter Isaacson, had been moved up from March 2012 to November 21, 2011, prompting questions as to why. Big publishers simply don’t move up pub dates four months on a whim. Clearly, a shoe had been dropped.

Nine days later, on August 24, the other shoe dropped: Steve Jobs announced he was stepping down as CEO, and asked the Apple board to execute our succession plan, which put Timothy Cook at the helm.

On October 5, one day after Apple’s new CEO held his first media event to announce the iPhone 4S, Apple’s board stated that Steve Jobs, at age 56, had died. The board released a statement: Steve’s brilliance, passion and energy were the source of countless innovations that enrich and improve all of our lives. The world is immeasurably better because of Steve.

Quotations

Anxiety before iPad Debut

Even though we’ve been using these internally for some time and working on it for a few years, you still have butterflies in your stomach the week before…the night before introduction…the launch.… You never know until you get it into your customers’ hands and they tell

Reviews for I, Steve

[martinbodek · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I'm in the midst of a few other cinder block books, so I can't take on the authorized Steve Jobs book at the moment. However, I still needed a taste of the man following his untimely passing. This book fit the bill. It's summary? I could get into various flowery adjectives, but what it boils to is: he knew what the !#$^ he was doing, he didn't care what you thought of him, he marched to his own beat, and he could market the hell out of anything.