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.
Interpretation
Innovation is driven by people and leadership, not just financial investment in research and development.
Steve Jobs emphasizes that the essence of innovation lies in the creativity and capability of the people involved, as well as the quality of leadership guiding them. He argues that substantial financial resources for research and development do not guarantee innovative breakthroughs; rather, it is the synergy of talented individuals and effective direction that leads to true advancements.
In practice
This quote can be used in a business meeting to inspire teams to focus on creativity over budget constraints.
Design is the fundamental soul of a man-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service. The iMac is not just the color or translucence or the shape of the shell. The essence of the iMac is to be the finest possible consumer computer in which each element plays together.
It is piracy, not overt online music stores, which is our main competitor.
The people who are doing the work are the moving force behind the Macintosh. My job is to create a space for them, to clear out the rest of the organization and keep it at bay.
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything - all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.
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.
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.
The biggest problem is that Facebook and Google are these giant feedback loops that give people what they want to hear. And when you use them in a world where your biases are being constantly confirmed, you become susceptible to fake news, propaganda, demagoguery.
When you post something, when you text something, you lose ownership of it when you hit enter or send. Who you send it to, where you post it, they take ownership of that information whether you like it or not. Unfortunately, you don't lose responsibility for that text or post.
Techno-humanism aims to amplify the power of humans, creating cyborgs and connecting humans to computers, but it still sees human interests and desires as the highest authority in the universe.
The illiterate of the future will not be the man who cannot read the alphabet, but the one who cannot take a photograph.
Safety is not just about trying really hard and being really careful. You have to design technology that makes it possible for a computer to be safe.
More than anything else, technology will pave the way for innovative change at Starbucks. The bulk of Starbucks' innovation over the next several years will be technology-focused.
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