The 15 Best Business Quotes from Steve Jobs

Inspiration from a Business Legend

When Steve Jobs passed away in 2011 at the young age of 56, the untimely loss of Apple’s CEO reverberated far beyond the business world. Jobs was more than just the head of Apple; he was a true visionary, and his “think different” approach to business and technology both ensured his company’s phenomenal success and made him one of the country’s most admired business leaders.

Jobs was well known for his frankness and for his unorthodox outlook. Habitually clad in his trademark casual black turtleneck and blue jeans, this California boy regularly dispensed his words of wisdom — on both business and life — with a wry sense of humor that endeared him to many.

We’ve collected some of his most memorable sayings over the years, from the early days of Apple’s success to the years leading up to his death. No matter what kind of business you’re running, you can learn a thing or two about extraordinary business leadership from his example.

On the Importance of Quality

“When you’re a carpenter making a beautiful chest of drawers, you’re not going to use a piece of plywood on the back, even though it faces the wall and nobody will ever see it. You’ll know it’s there, so you’re going to use a beautiful piece of wood on the back. For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through.”

—Playboy, February 1985

On Anticipating Customer Expectations

“You can’t just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new.”

— Inc., April 1989

On What Matters Most

“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.”

— Wall Street Journal, May 25, 1993

On the Importance of Hiring Great Employees

“Technology is nothing. What’s important is that you have a faith in people, that they’re basically good and smart, and if you give them tools, they’ll do wonderful things with them. It’s not the tools that you have faith in — tools are just tools. They work, or they don’t work. It’s people you have faith in or not.”

— Rolling Stone, June 1994

On Microsoft Founder Bill Gates

“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 ashram when he was younger.”

—New York Times, January 12, 1997

On Being Selective About Challenges

“People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I’m actually as proud of the things we haven’t done as the things I have done. Innovation is saying no to 1,000 things.”

— Apple Worldwide Developers’ Conference, 1997

On Innovation

“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.”

— Fortune, November 1998

On the Value of Perseverance

“The problem with the Internet startup craze isn’t that too many people are starting companies; it’s that too many people aren’t sticking with it. That’s somewhat understandable because there are many moments that are filled with despair and agony when you have to fire people and cancel things and deal with very difficult situations. That’s when you find out who you are and what your values are.”

—Fortune, January 2000

On Blazing Your Own Trail

“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.”

–Stanford commencement speech, June 2005

On Finding Simple Solutions

“When you first start off trying to solve a problem, the first solutions you come up with are very complex, and most people stop there. But if you keep going, and live with the problem and peel more layers of the onion off, you can oftentimes arrive at some very elegant and simple solutions. Most people just don’t put in the time or energy to get there. We believe that customers are smart, and want objects which are well thought through.”

— Newsweek, October 14, 2006

On Bringing a ‘Revolutionary’ Product to Market

“Every once in a while a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything…. One is very fortunate if you get to work on just one of these in your career. Apple’s been very fortunate it’s been able to introduce a few of these into the world.”

— Announcement of the iPhone, January 9, 2007