یکشنبه ۲۵ شهریور ۰۳ | ۲۰:۲۵ ۷ بازديد
30
Creativity and Technology
One of the things I learned at Pixar is the tech-
nology industries and the content industries do
not understand each other. In Silicon Valley and
at most technology companies, I swear that most
people think the creative process is a bunch of
guys in their early 30s, sitting on a couch, drink-
ing beer and thinking of jokes. No, they really do.
That’s how television is made, they think; that’s
how movies are made. People in Hollywood and
in the content industries, they think technology
is something you just write a check for and buy.
They don’t understand the creativity element of
technology. These are like ships passing in the
night.
—CNN Tech, June 10, 2011
Credo
It’s Not Done Until It Ships.
—Folklore.org, January 1983
The Journey Is the Reward.
—Folklore.org, January 1983
The organization is clean and simple to under-
stand, and very accountable. Everything just got
simpler. That’s been one of my mantras—focus
and simplicity.
—Bloomberg Businessweek, May 12, 1998
32
Customer Complaints
I have received hundreds of emails from iPhone
customers who are upset about Apple dropping
the price of iPhone by $200 two months after it
went on sale. After reading every one of these
emails, I have some observations and conclu-
sions.… There is always change and improvement,
and there is always someone who bought a prod-
uct before a particular cutoff date and misses the
new price or the new operating system or the new
whatever. This is life in the technology lane. If you
always wait for the next price cut or to buy the
new improved model, you’ll never buy any tech-
nology product because there is always something
better and less expensive on the horizon.… [E]ven
though we are making the right decision to lower
the price of iPhone, and even though the tech-
nology road is bumpy, we need to do a better job
of taking care of our early iPhone customers as we
aggressively go after new ones with a lower price.
Our early customers trusted us, and we must live
up to that trust with our actions in moments like
these.
—Apple Website, September 2007
Customer Loyalty
I get asked a lot why Apple’s customers are so
loyal. It’s not because they belong to the Church
of Mac! That’s ridiculous.
It’s because when you buy our products, and
three months later you get stuck on something,
you quickly figure out [how to get past it]. And
you think, “Wow, someone over there at Apple
actually thought of this!”…. There’s almost no
product in the world that you have that experience
with, but you have it with a Mac. And you have it
with an iPod.
—Bloomberg Businessweek, October 12, 2004
David versus Goliath
It’s curious to me that the largest computer com-
pany in the world [IBM] couldn’t even match the
Apple II, which was designed in a garage six years
ago.
—InfoWorld, March 8, 1982
34
Deadlines
No way, there’s no way we’re slipping! You guys
have been working on this stuff for months now.
Another couple of weeks isn’t going to make that
much of a difference. You may as well get it over
with. Just make it as good as you can. You better
get back to work!
—Folklore.org, January 1984
Real artists ship.
—Folklore.org, January 1984
Death
That’s why I think death is the most wonderful
invention of life. It purges the system of these
old models that are obsolete. I think that’s one of
Apple’s challenges, really. When two young people
walk in with the next thing, are we going to em-
brace it and say this is fantastic? Are you going to
be willing to drop our models, or are we going to
explain it away? I think we’ll do better, because
we’re completely aware of it and we make it a pri-
ority.
—Playboy, February 1985
Quoting Mark Twain, on the premature announce-
ment of his death by Bloomberg: The reports of my
death are greatly exaggerated.
—Apple event for the iPod, September 9, 2008
36
Decision Making
At Apple, there are ten really important decisions
to make every week. It’s a transactional company;
it’s got a lot of new products every month. And
if some of those decisions are wrong, maybe you
can fix them a few months later. At Pixar, because
I’m not directing the movies, there are just a few
really important strategic decisions to make every
month, maybe even every quarter, but they’re
really hard to change. Pixar’s much slower-paced,
but you can’t change your mind when you go
down these paths.
—To Infinity and Beyond! 2007
Demise
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.
—Time, August 18, 1997
Dent In the Universe
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.
—CNNMoney/Fortune
62
Jobs’s $1 Annual Salary
I get 50 cents a year for showing up…and the other
50 cents is based on my performance.
—AppleInsider.com, May 10, 2007
Letting Go of the Past
When I got back here in 1997 I was looking for
more room, and I found an archive of old Macs
and other stuff. I shipped all that off to Stanford.
If you look backward in this business, you’ll be
crushed. You have to look forward.
—Wired, December 22, 2008
Life’s Complications
It’s insane: We all have busy lives, we have jobs,
we have interests, and some of us have children.
Everyone’s lives are just getting busier, not less
busy, in this busy society. You just don’t have time
to learn this stuff, and everything’s getting more
complicated.… We both don’t have a lot of time to
learn how to use a washing machine or a phone.
—The Independent, October 29, 2005
Losing Market Share
And how are monopolies lost? Think about it.
Some very good product people invent some
very good products, and the company achieves
a monopoly. But after that, the product people
aren’t the ones that drive the company forward
anymore. It’s the marketing guys or the ones
who expand the business into Latin America or
whatever.… So a different group of people start to
move up. And who usually ends up running the
show? The sales guy.
—Bloomberg Businessweek, October 12, 2004
Losing Money
I’m the only person I know that’s lost a quarter of
a billion dollars in one year…. It’s very character-
building.
—Apple Confidential 2.0, 2004
64
Lost Opportunities
So we went to Atari and said, “Hey, we’ve got this
amazing thing, even built with some of your parts,
and what do you think about funding us? Or we’ll
give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary,
we’ll come work for you.” And they said, “No.” So
then we went to Hewlett-Packard, and they said,
“Hey, we don’t need you. You haven’t got through
college yet.’”
—Fast Company, August 11, 2009
Mac Cube
Ahead of its time, a commercial bust: The G4
Cube is simply the coolest computer ever. An
entirely new class of computer, it marries the
Pentium-crushing performance of the Power Mac
G4 with the miniaturization, silent operation and
elegant desktop design of the iMac. It is an amaz-
ing engineering and design feat, and we’re thrilled
to finally unveil it to our customers.
—Macworld Expo, 2000
Mac’s Introduction
It is now 1984. It appears IBM wants it all. Apple
is perceived to be the only hope to offer IBM a run
for its money. Dealers initially welcoming IBM
with open arms now fear an IBM dominated and
controlled future. They are increasingly turning
back to Apple as the only force that can ensure
their future freedom. IBM wants it all, and is aim-
ing its guns on its last obstacle to industry control:
Apple. Will “Big Blue” dominate the entire com-
puter industry? The entire information age? Was
George Orwell right?
—Apple special event for the Macintosh, January 1984
Mac Legacy
You saw the 1984 commercial. Macintosh was basi-
cally this relatively small company in Cupertino,
California, taking on the goliath, IBM, and saying
“Wait a minute, your way is wrong. This is not the
way we want computers to go. This is not the leg-
acy we want to leave. This is not what we want our
kids to be learning. This is wrong and we are going
to show you the right way to do it and here it is. It’s
called Macintosh and it is so much better.”
—Smithsonian Institution Oral and Video Histories,
April 20, 1995
66
Making Bold Announcements
I understand the appeal of a slow burn, but per-
sonally I’m a big-bang guy.
—Harvard Business School, Working Knowledge for
Business Leaders, June 16, 2003
Marketing
My dream is that every person in the world will
have their own Apple computer. To do that, we’ve
got to be a great marketing company.
—Odyssey: Pepsi to Apple, 1987
Microsoft’s Lack of Innovation
The only problem with Microsoft is they just have
no taste. 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 cul-
ture into their products. 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
—Triumph of the Nerds, PBS, June 1996
The thing I don’t think is good is that I don’t
believe Microsoft has transformed itself into an
agent for improving things, an agent for coming
up with the next revolution. The Japanese, for
example, used to be accused of just copying—and
indeed, in the beginning, that’s just what they did.
But they got quite a bit more sophisticated and
started to innovate—look at automobiles, they
certainly innovated quite a bit there. I can’t say
the same thing about Microsoft.
—Rolling Stone, January 17, 2011
68
Microsoft’s Microview
I told [Bill Gates] I believed every word of what I
said but that I should never have said it in public.
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 ash-
ram when he was younger.
—New York Times Magazine, January 12, 1997
Misplaced Values
You know, my main reaction to this money thing
is that it’s humorous, all the attention to it, be-
cause it’s hardly the most insightful or valuable
thing that’s happened to me in the past ten years.
But it makes me feel old, sometimes, when I speak
at a campus and I find that what students are most
in awe of is the fact that I’m a millionaire.
—Playboy, February 1985
Mistakes
On dropping Flash on Apple products: Some
things are good in a product, some things are bad.
If the market tells us we’re making bad choices,
we’ll make changes.
—D8 conference, June 1, 2010
Money
Innovation has nothing to do with how many
R&D dollars you have. When Apple came up with
the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times
more on R&D. It’s not about money. It’s about the
people you have, how you’re led, and how much
you get it.… Rarely do I find an important product
or service in people’s lives where you don’t have at
least two competitors. Apple is positioned beauti-
fully to be that second competitor.
—CNNMoney/Fortune, November 9, 1998
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 mil-
lion dollars when I was twenty-five, and it wasn’t
important because I never did it for the money.
—Triumph of the Nerds, PBS, June 1996
70
Motivating Employees
What happens in most companies is that you
don’t keep great people under working envi-
ronments where individual accomplishment is
discouraged rather than encouraged. The great
people leave and you end up with mediocrity. I
know, because that’s how Apple was built.
—Playboy, February 1985
The people who are doing the work are the mov-
96
Soul of the New Machine
You know, if the hardware is the brain and the
sinew of our products, the software in them is
their soul.
—Keynote address, Apple Worldwide Development
Conference, June 6–10, 2011
Stagnation, the Danger of
On Apple during his decade-long absence: The
trouble with Apple is it succeeded beyond its
wildest dreams. We succeeded so well, we got
everyone else to dream the same dream. The rest
of the world became just like it. The trouble is, the
dream didn’t evolve. Apple stopped creating.
—Apple Confidential 2.0, 2004
Stickiness
You don’t need to take notes. If it’s important,
you’ll remember it.
—Inside Steve’s Brain, 2009
Stock Options
At Apple we gave all our employees stock options
very early on. We were among the first in Silicon
Valley to do that. And when I returned, I took
away most of the cash bonuses and replaced them
with options. No cars, no planes, no bonuses. Ba-
sically, everybody gets a salary and stock.… It’s a
very egalitarian way to run a company that Hewl-
ett-Packard pioneered and that Apple, I would like
to think, helped establish.
—CNNMoney/Fortune, November 9, 1998
Story, Importance of
We’ve pioneered the whole medium of computer
animation, but John [Lasseter] once said—and this
really stuck with me—“No amount of technology
will turn a bad story into a good story.”… That
dedication to quality is really ingrained in the cul-
ture of this studio.
—To Infinity and Beyond! 2007
98
Strategy
After departing Apple: 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.
—CNNMoney/Fortune, September 18, 1995
Success
Pixar’s seen by a lot of folks as an overnight suc-
cess, but if you really look closely, most overnight
successes took a long time.
—To Infinity and Beyond! 2007
Sucker-Punched, Being
I feel like somebody just punched me in the stom-
ach 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.
—Playboy, February 1985
Survival
Victory in our industry is spelled survival. The
way we’re going to survive is to innovate our way
out of this.
—Time, February 5, 2003
Takeovers, Hostile
On a planned takeover engineered by Oracle’s
Larry Ellison, restoring Jobs as the head of Apple:
I decided I’m not a hostile-takeover kind of guy. If
they had [asked] me to come back, it might have
been different.
—Time, February 5, 2003
Taking Stock of Apple
On his single share of Apple stock: Yes, I sold the
shares. I pretty much had given up hope that the
Apple board was going to do anything. I didn’t
think the stock was going up. [After Jobs’s depar-
ture, Apple stock reached its lowest level ever.]
—Time, August 18, 1997
100
Teamwork
My model for business is the Beatles. They were
four guys who kept each other’s kind of negative
tendencies in check. They balanced each other and
the total was greater than the sum of the parts.
That’s how I see business: great things in business
are never done by one person, they’re done by a
team of people.
—60 Minutes, 2003
Technology in Perspective
[Technology] doesn’t change the world. It really
doesn’t. Technologies can make it easier, can let
us touch people we might not otherwise. But it’s
a disservice to constantly put things in a radical
new light, that it’s going to change everything.
Things don’t have to change the world to be im-
portant.
—The Independent, October 29, 2005
S t e v e J o b S I n H I S o w n w o r d S
“Think Different” Ad Campaign
Well, I gotta tell you—we don’t do it because it
goes down well or not. We have a problem, and
our problem was that people had forgotten what
Apple stands for. As a matter of fact, a lot of our
employees have forgotten what Apple stands for.
And so we needed a way to communicate what
the heck Apple’s all about. And we thought, how
do you tell somebody what you are, who you are,
what you care about? And the best way we could
think of was, you know, if you know who some-
body’s heroes are, that tells you a lot about them.
So we thought we’re going to tell people who our
heroes are, and that’s what the “Think Different”
campaign is about. It’s about telling people who
we admire, who we think are the heroes of this
century. And—some people will like us, and some
people won’t like us.
— Macworld Expo, March 13, 1999
102
Thinking Through the Problem
Once you get into the problem…you see that it’s
complicated, and you come up with all these con-
voluted solutions. That’s where most people stop,
and the solutions tend to work for a while. But
the really great person will keep going, find the
underlying problem, and come up with an elegant
solution that works on every level. That’s what we
wanted to do with the Mac.
—AppleDesign, 1997
We have a lot of customers, and we have a lot of
research into our installed base. We also watch
industry trends pretty carefully. 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.
—Bloomberg Businessweek, May 25, 1998
S t e v e J o b S I n H I S o w n w o r d S
To Be or Not to Be
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living some-
one else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma—which
is living with the results of other people’s think-
ing. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown
our your own inner voice. And most important,
have the courage to follow your heart and intui-
tion. They somehow already know what you truly
want to become. Everything else is secondary.
—Commencement address, Stanford University,
June 12, 2005
Toy Story 2
On how Pixar’s commitment to Toy Story 2 ex-
acted a heavy toll on the company’s employees:
Everybody was so dedicated to it and loved Toy
Story and those characters so much, and loved the
new movie so much, that we killed ourselves to
make it. It took some people a year to recover. It
was tough—it was too tough, but we did it. Now
enough time has passed that we can look back on
that and we’re glad we did it. But it was tough.
—To Infinity and Beyond! 2007
104
Trash Talking
Adam Osborne is always dumping on Apple. He
was going on and on about Lisa, and when we
122
2006
Disney buys Pixar for $7.4 billion; SJ gets a 7% stake ($3.5
billion) in Disney, becoming its largest individual
shareholder. He also becomes a member of its board of
directors. (January 24)
Apple debuts the MacBook (May 16) and a tower unit, the
Mac Pro. (August 7)
Pixar releases Cars, which grosses $244 million domesti-
cally. (June 9)
SJ’s gaunt-looking appearance at the annual Apple World-
wide Developers Conference (WWDC) gives rise to
speculation regarding his health and Apple’s succes-
sion plans. SJ announces OS X 10.5 Leopard.
2007
SJ announces at the Macworld Expo that he is reposition-
ing Apple Computer Inc., as, simply, Apple, Inc. (Janu-
ary 9)
Apple debuts the original iPhone.
Apple debuts its Apple TV at Macworld. (February)
Pixar releases Ratatouille, which grosses $206 million
domestically. It goes on to win an Academy Award for
Best Animated Feature Film. (June 29)
SJ is inducted into the California Museum’s Hall of Fame
by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. (December 5)
2008
Apple announces at Macworld the MacBook Air, a light-
weight laptop. (January 15)
Pixar releases WALL•E, which grosses $223 domestically.
It goes on to win an Academy Award for Best Ani-
mated Feature. (June 27)
S t e v e J o b S I n H I S o w n w o r d S
SJ’s appearance at the WWDC prompts renewed con-
cerns about his health.
Later that month, Bloomberg prematurely releases SJ’s obit-
uary. At an Apple event SJ quotes Mark Twain, “Reports
of my death are greatly exaggerated.” (September 9)
2009
SJ announces to his employees, in an interoffice memo,
that he is taking a six-month medical leave due to
health issues. In his absence, Timothy Cook once
again takes over as acting CEO. (January 14)
At Methodist University Hospital Transplant Institute in
Memphis, SJ undergoes a successful liver transplant.
(April)
Pixar releases Up, which grosses $293 million domesti-
cally. It goes on to win two Academy Awards (Best
Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures,
Original Score and Best Animated Feature Film). (May
29)
Fortune magazine names SJ the “CEO of the decade.”
2010
Pixar releases Toy Story 3, which grosses $415 million
domestically. It goes on to win two Academy Awards
(Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pic-
tures, Original Song and Best Animated Feature Film).
(June 18)
Apple debuts the iPad, ushering in the tablet era (April 3).
SJ creates an organ donors registry. (October)
Financial Times names SJ as its “Person of the Year.”
124
2011
Apple opens the Mac App store. (January 6)
SJ takes an extended, open-ended leave of absence and,
again, Timothy Cook takes the helm. SJ remains in-
volved in strategic decisions. (January 17)
After years of contentious talks with the local town coun-
cil in Woodside, California, SJ finally gets approval to
demolish his mansion to construct an $8.45 million,
4,910-square foot home, about which architect Chris-
topher Travis remarked to Wired magazine, “The site
plan definitely shows unnatural restraint for a person
of wealth. This kind of thing only happens when the
client gives the architect specific instructions to be
sparse and utilitarian.” (February)
Apple sells iPad 2. (March 11)
Pixar releases Cars 2, which grosses $189 million domes-
tically (as of September 15, 2011). (June 24)
Mac OS 10.7, Lion, is released, bringing the look and feel
of the iPhone and iPad iOS to Apple’s computer line. It
is available only by download as an Apple application
for $29.99. (July 20)
Based on Apple’s market capitalization of $343 billion
($371.66 per share), it temporarily exceeds Exxon’s
market cap as the world’s most valuable company.
(August)
Apple submits a new proposal to the Cupertino City
Council to build a new campus designed by Foster +
Partners. Dubbed “the Spaceship” because of its round
design, it will be built on 98 acres of land and be com-
pleted in 2015.
by Walter Isaacson, moves up its publication date from
March 6, 2012 to November 21, 2011. (August 15)
Steve Jobs resigns as CEO from Apple. Timothy Cook is
appointed CEO as SJ assumes the position of chair-
man. (August 24)
Apple CEO Timothy Cook holds his first media event to
announce the iPhone 4GS. (October 4)
Steve Jobs dies. (October 5)
end of an era
Steve Jobs’s resignation
letter as CEO of Apple
August 24, 2011
To the Apple Board of Directors and the Apple
Community:
I have always said if there ever came a day
when I could no longer meet my duties and expec-
tations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let
you know. Unfortunately, that day has come.
I hereby resign as CEO of Apple. I would like
to serve, if the Board sees fit, as Chairman of the
Board, director and Apple employee.
As far as my successor goes, I strongly recom-
mend that we execute our succession plan and
name Tim Cook as CEO of Apple.
I believe Apple’s brightest and most innovative
days are ahead of it. And I look forward to watch-
ing and contributing to its success in a new role.
I have made some of the best friends of my life
at Apple, and I thank you for all the many years
of being able to work alongside you.
—Steve
CITaTIons
Anxiety before iPad Debut
Apple media event for iPhone 4.0 software, Cupertino,
CA, April 8, 2010.
Apple’s Core: Employees
Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg, an interview with Bill
Gates and Steve Jobs, D5 Conference: All Things Digi-
tal, Carlsbad, CA, May 30, 2007.
Apple’s DNA
“‘Our DNA Hasn’t Changed,’” CNNMoney/Fortune, Feb-
ruary 21, 2005. http://money.cnn.com/magazines/for-
tune/fortune_archive/2005/02/21/8251766/index.htm
Apple’s Existence
Cathy Booth, David S. Jackson, and Valerie March-
ant, “Steve’s Job: Restart Apple,” Time, August 18,
1997. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/arti-
cle/0,9171,986849-3,00.html
Attention Getting
Characteristically used at the end of an Apple event.
Being the Best
Apple media event for iPhone 4.0 software, Cupertino,
CA, April 8, 2010.
130
Beyond Recruiting
Rama Dev Jager and Rafael Ortiz, In the Company of Gi-
ants: Candid Conversations with the Visionaries of
Cyberspace (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1997).
Branding
“We don’t stand…”, Jeffrey L. Cruikshank, The Apple
Way: 12 Management Lessons from the World’s Most
Innovative Company (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2006).
“What are the great…”, Cathy Booth, David S. Jackson,
and Valerie Marchant, “Steve’s Job: Restart Apple,”
Time, August 18, 1997. http://www.time.com/time/
magazine/article/0,9171,986849-6,00.html
Broad-Based Education
Commencement address delivered at Stanford Univer-
sity, Stanford, CA, on June 12, 2005, whic
would ship Lisa, and then he started joking about
Mac. I was trying to keep my cool and be polite
but he kept asking, “What’s this Mac we’re hear-
ing about? Is it real?” He started getting under my
collar so much that I told him, “Adam, it’s so good
that even after it puts your company out of busi-
ness, you’ll still want to go out and buy it for your
kids.”
—Apple Confidential 2.0, 2004
Ubiquity of Mac
Apple’s in a pretty interesting position.
ing force behind the Macintosh. My job is to cre-
ate a space for them, to clear out the rest of the
organization and keep it at bay.… This is the neat-
est group of people I’ve ever worked with. They’re
all exceptionally bright, but more importantly
they share a quality about the way they look at
life, which is that the journey is the reward. They
really want to see this product out in the world.
It’s more important than their personal lives right
now.
—Macworld, no. 1, F, May 25, 1993
Design
In most people’s vocabularies, design means ve-
neer. It’s interior decorating. It’s the fabric of the
curtains and the sofa. But to me, nothing could
be further from the meaning of design. Design is
the fundamental soul of a man-made creation that
ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers
of the product or service.
—CNNMoney/Fortune, January 24, 2000
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