I was lucky - I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents' garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years, Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees.
Interpretation
Finding one's passion early can lead to great accomplishments with hard work and dedication.
In this quote, Steve Jobs reflects on his early discovery of his passion for technology and entrepreneurship, which led him and Wozniak to co-found Apple in a small garage. It emphasizes the significance of pursuing what you love and the remarkable results that can follow, highlighting that with determination and hard work, even small beginnings can culminate in monumental success.
In practice
This quote could inspire a group of young entrepreneurs at a startup workshop.
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.
I'll tell you, there is nothing better in life than being a late bloomer. I believe that success can happen at any time and at any age.
The world's biggest problems are the world's biggest market opportunities. And that's a huge thing. Solve hunger, literacy and energy problems, get the gratitude of the world and become a billionaire in the process.
I have a freedom that's incredibly valuable. Obviously my freedom is far smaller in scale than people like Zemeckis and Spielberg have here. But it's comparable. I can dream up a project, develop it, make it, control it, release it.
The last thing you do the best is what you have the most joy doing.
If you don't understand how to run an efficient operation, new machinery will just give you new problems of operation and maintenance. The sure way to increase productivity is to better administrate man and machine.
The investor of today does not profit from yesterday's growth.
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