Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards 10 years later.
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.
Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.
You have to be burning with an idea, or a problem, or a wrong that you want to right. If you’re not passionate enough from the start, you’ll never stick it out.
Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.
Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.
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.
Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
Everything is based on a simple rule: Quality is the best business plan, period.
Do not try to do everything. Do one thing well.
It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.
You’ve got to find what you love.
Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith.
Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.
Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you and you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use.
Most people never pick up the phone and call. Most people never ask, and that’s what separates the people who do things from the people who just dream about them.
Great things in business are never done by one person, they’re done by a team of people.
Companies must have a noble cause, and it’s the leader’s job to transform that noble cause into such an inspiring vision that it will attract the most talented people in the world to want to join it.
Listen to me. We’re here to make a dent in the universe. Otherwise why even be here?
We don’t settle for anything less than excellence.
The iPod is not a new category. Music is not new. It’s not a speculative market. It’s a very, very large market. It’s been around for thousands of years and will be around as long as humans exist.