“Creativity is just connecting things.”
“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.”
“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.”
“Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.”
“Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”
“Let’s go invent tomorrow rather than worrying about what happened yesterday.”
“You can build your own things that other people can use. And once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.”
“Don’t get hung up on who owns the idea. Pick the best one, and let’s go.”
“The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.”
“The most precious thing that we all have with us is time.”
“People judge you on your performance, so focus on the outcome. Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.”
“I think the things you most regret in life are things you didn’t do. What you really regret was never asking that girl to dance.”
“If you act like you can do something, then it will work.”
“The only thing you have in your life is time. If you invest that time in yourself to have great experiences that are going to enrich you, then you can’t possibly lose.”
“If you are willing to work hard and ask lots of questions, you can learn business pretty fast.”
“Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want a chance to change the world?”
“If you are working on something exciting that you really care about, you don’t have to be pushed. The vision pulls you.”
“I think the things you regret most in life are the things you didn’t do.”
“You think, well, focusing is saying yes. No, focusing is about saying no. Focusing is about saying no. And you’ve got to say no, no, no. When you say no, you piss off people.”
“We’re just enthusiastic about what we do.”
“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.”
“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.”
“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.”
“Details matter, it’s worth waiting to get it right.”
“You should never start a company with the goal of getting rich. Your goal should be making something you believe in and making a company that will last.”
“Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.”
“If you want to live your life in a creative way, as an artist, you have to not look back too much. You have to be willing to take whatever you’ve done and whoever you were and throw them away.”
“I think if you do something and it turns out pretty good, then you should go do something else wonderful, not dwell on it for too long. Just figure out what’s next.”
“Quality is more important than quantity. One home run is much better than two doubles.”
“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.”
“I’m convinced that about half of what separates successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.”
“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.”
“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”
“My favorite things in life don’t cost any money. It’s really clear that the most precious resource we all have is time.”
“The products suck! There’s no sex in them anymore!”
“For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through.”
“Get closer than ever to your customers. So close that you tell them what they need well before they realize it themselves.”
“If you don’t love it, you’re going to fail.”
“The only way to do great work is to love what you do.”
“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.”
“If today were the last day of your life, would you want to do what you are about to do today?”
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.”
“Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.”
“Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.”
“Sometimes life is going to hit you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith.”
“Things don’t have to change the world to be important.”
“Stay hungry. Stay foolish.”
“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.”
“We’re here to put a dent in the universe. Otherwise why else even be here?”
“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 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.”
“I’ve always been attracted to the more revolutionary changes. I don’t know why. Because they’re harder. They’re much more stressful emotionally. And you usually go through a period where everybody tells you that you’ve completely failed.”
“We don’t get a chance to do that many things, and every one should be really excellent. Because this is our life. Life is brief, and then you die, you know? And we’ve all chosen to do this with our lives. So it better be damn good. It better be worth it.”
“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.”
“I don’t care about being right. I care about success and doing the right thing.”
“You have to believe that the dots will somehow connect in your future.”
“The really great person will keep on going and find the key, underlying principle of the problem, and come up with a beautiful elegant solution that works.”
“Don’t take it all too seriously. If you want to live your life in a creative way, as an artist, you have to not look back too much. You have to be willing to take whatever you’ve done and whoever you were and throw them away.”
“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while.”