Steve Jobs
Name: Steven Paul Jobs
Born: February 24, 1955, Los Altos, California, USA
Death: October 5, 2011 (Age: 56)
Computer-related contributions
- Co-Founder and former CEO of the Apple company.
- Founder of NeXT Computer.
- Owner of Pixar.
- Member of the board of directors of the Walt Disney Company in 2006.
- Inventor or co-inventor of 342 US Patents relating to computers and portable devices.
- Spearheaded the advent of the iPod, iTunes, iPhone, and iPad while CEO of Apple.
Significant publications
- Steve Jobs
- I, Steve: Steve Jobs in His Own Words
- iCon
Honors and awards
- Awarded the National Medal of Technology in 1984.
- Named most powerful person in business in Fortune Magazine on November 27, 2007.
- Inducted into the California Hall of Fame on December 5, 2007.
- Named The Person of the Year in the Financial Times December 2010.
Quotes
"You go to your TV to turn your brain off. You go to the computer when you want to turn your brain on."
"Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart."
"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."
"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."
"We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas."
"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."
"Deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what to do."
"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."
"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."
"It's better to be a pirate than join the Navy."
"When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: 'If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right.' It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: 'If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?' And whenever the answer has been 'no' for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something."
"I don't think there would have ever been an Apple computer had there not been a blue box."