It takes these very simple-minded instructions – ‘Go fetch a number, add it to this number, put the result there, perceive if it’s greater than this other number’ – but executes them at a rate of, let’s say, 1,000,000 per second. At 1,000,000 per second, the results appear to be magic.
The desktop metaphor was invented because one, you were a stand-alone device, and two, you had to manage your own storage. That’s a very big thing in a desktop world. And that may go away. You may not have to manage your own storage. You may not store much before too long.
What we want to do is make a leapfrog product that is way smarter than any mobile device has ever been, and super-easy to use. This is what iPhone is. OK? So, we’re going to reinvent the phone.
For most of my life, I’ve felt that there must be more to our existence than meets the eye. This is who I am, and you can’t expect me to be someone I’m not.
The subscription model of buying music is bankrupt. I think you could make available the Second Coming in a subscription model and it might not be successful.
By honoring the lives of those we admire, we make our own values known.
We think that computers are the most remarkable tools that humankind has ever come up with, and we think that people are basically tool users. So if we can just get lots of computers to lots of people, it will make some qualitative difference to the world.
When we hire someone, even if they are going to be in marketing, I will have them talk to the design folks and the engineers.
We believe people with passion can change the world for the better. That’s what we believe. And we believe that those people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones that actually do.
You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.
You can tell a lot about a person by who his or her heroes are.
The day I was born songs were on records, phones were tied down, computers needed rooms and the web was fiction. Change the world. You can.
I was lucky to get into computers when it was a very young and idealistic industry. There weren’t many degrees offered in computer science, so people in computers were brilliant people from mathematics, physics, music, zoology, whatever. They loved it, and no one was really in it for the money.
The tragedy is that Dell didn’t win it – we lost it.
We live in an information economy. The problem is that information’s usually impossible to get, at least in the right place, at the right time.
Pursue your dreams and see the opportunities in life’s setbacks.
Our job is to read things that are not yet on the page.
We’re here to make a dent in the universe. Otherwise, why even be here? We’re creating a completely new consciousness, like an artist or a poet. That’s how you have to think of this. We’re rewriting the history of human thought with what we’re doing.
Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.
I’m one of the few people who understands how producing technology requires intuition and creativity, and how producing something artistic takes real discipline.