The Wisdom of Steve Jobs

By Carol Kelly-Gangi

Hundreds of quotations from the revolutionary Apple founder on topics from innovation and design to hiring and firing to family and personal fulfillment.

During a career that spanned more than thirty-five years, Steve Jobs forever changed the way people communicate, listen to music, and watch video, among other things. This book brings together hundreds of quotations drawn from interviews, appearances, and media coverage over decades. Organized thematically, the selections reveal his insights and philosophies on everything from hiring, firing, and the workplace to competitors, family, and friends. In these selections, Jobs:

• Reflects on the goals, successes, and challenges of his business career
• Shares his deeply held views about the true meaning of design and product innovation
• Speaks frankly about the high expectations he sets for colleagues as well as himself
• Offers keen insights into how to live life to the fullest—both personally and professionally

In more personal excerpts, the fiercely private Jobs recalls his childhood and the valuable lessons his parents taught him; his adolescent years; and his early passion for electronics, while also speaks lovingly about his wife and family. In addition, the book includes an assortment of quotations from world leaders, industry giants, politicians, journalists, and friends who share their insights.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Apr 30, 2012
• ISBN: 9781435141360

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Compilation © 2012 by Carol Kelly-Gangi

Cover design: Patrice Kaplan

Cover art: © Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

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To John and Emily with love

Contents

Introduction

Early Years

Computers

Apple

NeXT and Pixar

Hiring, Firing, and the Workplace

Innovation

Design

Competitors

Family and Friends

Education

Money and Wealth

Death and Dying

The Wisdom of Steve Jobs

The Legacy of Steve Jobs

A Chronology of Steve Jobs

Introduction

When Steve Jobs passed away on October 5, 2011, after a prolonged battle with pancreatic cancer, it was not unexpected. But the immediate and worldwide response to his death was nonetheless overwhelming. Millions of people all over the world stopped to pause and express their grief for someone most of them never even knew. Moving tributes, letters, flowers, and other mementos were left at Apple® stores everywhere, and technology giants stopped to remember Jobs on their own sites. World leaders, business rivals, journalists, celebrities, and millions of regular people paid tribute to Jobs, lauding him with such terms as genius and visionary. Many turned to the technological devices that he had brought to the market to send messages of heartfelt grief for this American icon. In fact, 10,000 tweets per second about Jobs went out the night of October 5—amounting to the biggest online reaction to any event in recent history. Perhaps Jobs himself would have been humbled and slightly bemused by this unprecedented outpouring.

Steven Paul Jobs’ story is well-known and, by all accounts, one that only could have happened in America. Born in 1955, he was given up for adoption by his biological parents to Paul and Clara Jobs, decent working-class people who brought him up along with an adopted sister in a loving household in the suburbs of Silicon Valley. Paul Jobs was a tinkerer, who refurbished old cars and could build anything. He famously designated a portion of his workbench for his young son and taught him the fundamentals of using tools, taking things apart, and putting them back together, which ignited in Jobs a lifelong interest for design, craftsmanship, and electronics. After a rocky start in school, the younger Jobs was awakened to the joys of learning by an inspirational fourth-grade teacher, who saw his inordinate potential. His parents, likewise, came to realize that their son possessed a superior intellect and did whatever they could—including moving to a better school district—to support and encourage him. When Jobs was thirteen, a friend introduced him to Steve Wozniak, known as Woz, an avid electronics geek who impressed him because Woz knew more about electronics than Jobs did. The two became inseparable.

After Steve dropped out of Reed College, worked as a tech at Atari®, and traveled to India in search of enlightenment, he and Woz stumbled upon the idea of forming a computer company. They started dropping in on the Homebrew Computer Club, where they introduced the computer that Woz had constructed in June 1975. Jobs was the one who immediately saw the business potential in their product. Scrambling for components, a design, and financing, the pair founded the Apple Computer Company with a friend, who quickly backed out. In 1977, Apple was incorporated, and the Apple II was launched as the world’s first widely used personal computer. By 1980, Apple went public, raising $110 million in an initial public offering (IPO). By 1982, annual sales soared to $1 billion. In 1984, the iconic Macintosh® was launched.

The bottom fell out for Steve Jobs in 1985 when he found himself ousted from the company that he had co-founded; he had clashed with president and CEO John Sculley, who had secured the backing of Apple’s board of directors. Dismayed by the betrayal and the ouster, Jobs sold all but one share of his Apple stock and went to work forming NeXT™, a computer company aimed at constructing high-end computers for the academic market. He also purchased an ailing computer graphics company, Pixar, that under his leadership would go on to revolutionize the animated picture industry and ultimately would make him the single largest Walt Disney Company shareholder.

Meanwhile, in Jobs’ absence, Apple foundered and was by all accounts close to bankruptcy when Jobs reemerged at Apple: first as special adviser to then CEO Gil Amelio, next as interim CEO, and finally as the permanent CEO after Apple purchased NeXT and used its cutting-edge software as a basis for a new operating system. Under Jobs’ leadership, Apple was saved. Jobs and the company went on to transform multiple industries with such revolutionary products as the iMac®, iPod®, iTunes®, iPhone®, and iPad®—amounting to perhaps the greatest comeback in the history of American business.

The Wisdom of Steve Jobs brings together hundreds of quotations from and about this icon, drawn largely from more than twenty-five years’ worth of interviews, presentations, and media coverage. The selections are arranged thematically and