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Jobs described Mike Markkula's maxim that a good company must "impute"- it must convey its values and importance in everything it does, from packaging to marketing. Johnson loved it. It definitely applied to a company's stores. " The store will become the most powerful physical expression of the brand," he predicted. He said that when he was young he had gone to the wood-paneled, art-filled mansion-like store that Ralph Lauren had created at Seventy-second and Madison in Manhattan. " Whenever I buy a polo shirt, I think of that mansion, which was a physical expression of Ralph's ideals," Johnson said. " Mickey Drexler did that with the Gap. You couldn't think of a Gap product without thinking of the Great Gap store with the clean space and wood floors and white walls and folded merchandise. By Walter Isaacson Mike Markkula Impute Gap Jobs

Byron published the first two cantos of his epic poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, a romanticized account of his wanderings through Portugal, Malta, and Greece, and, as he later remarked, "awoke one morning and found myself famous." Beautiful, seductive, troubled, brooding, and sexually adventurous, he was living the life of a Byronic hero while creating the archetype in his poetry. He became the toast of literary London and was feted at three parties each day, most memorably a lavish morning dance hosted by Lady Caroline Lamb. Lady Caroline, though married to a politically powerful aristocrat who was later prime minister, fell madly in love with Byron. He thought she was "too thin," yet she had an unconventional sexual ambiguity (she liked to dress as a page boy) that he found enticing. They had a turbulent affair, and after it ended she stalked him obsessively. She famously declared him to be "mad, bad, and dangerous to know," which he was. So was she. By Walter Isaacson Malta Pilgrimage Portugal Greece Childe

The exponential growth of this industry was correlated with the phenomenon famously discovered by Moore, who in 1965 drew a graph of the speed of integrated circuits, based on the number of transistors that could be placed on a chip, and showed that it doubled about every two years, a trajectory that could be expected to continue. This was reaffirmed in 1971, when Intel was able to etch a complete central processing unit onto one chip, the Intel 4004, which was dubbed a "microprocessor." Moore's Law has held generally true to this day, and its reliable projection of performance to price allowed two generations of young entrepreneurs, including Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, to create cost projections for their forward-leaning products. The By Walter Isaacson Chip Intel Drew Circuits Based

What are the five products you want to focus on? Get rid of the rest, because they're dragging you down. They're turning you into Microsoft. They're causing you to turn out products that are adequate but not great. By Walter Isaacson Focus Products Microsoft Rest Rid

In ancient Rome, when a victorious general paraded through the streets, legend has it that he was sometimes trailed by a servant whose job it was to repeat to him, " Memento Mori": Remember you will die. A reminder of mortality would help the hero keep things in perspective, instill some humility. Job's memento mori had been delivered by his doctors, but it did not instill humility. Instead he roared back after his recovery with even more passion. The illness reminded him that he had nothing to lose, so he should forge ahead full speed. " He came back on a mission," said Cook. " Even though he was now running a large company, he kept making bold moves that I don't think anybody else would have done. By Walter Isaacson Rome Remember Memento Mori Streets

Jobs had not tempered his way of dealing with employees. "He applied charm or public humiliation in a way that in most cases proved to be pretty effective," Tribble recalled. But sometimes it wasn't. One engineer, David Paulsen, put in ninety-hour weeks for the first ten months at NeXT. He quit when "Steve walked in one Friday afternoon and told us how unimpressed he was with what we were doing." When Business Week asked him why he treated employees so harshly, Jobs said it made the company better. "Part of my responsibility is to be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren't used to an environment where excellence is expected." But he still had his spirit and charisma. There were plenty of field trips, visits by akido masters, and off-site retreats. By Walter Isaacson Jobs Tempered Dealing Tribble Employees

He also flowered intellectually during his last two years in high school and found himself at the intersection, as he had begun to see it, of those who were geekily immersed in electronics and those who were into literature and creative endeavors. "I started to listen to music a whole lot, and I started to read more outside of just science and technology - Shakespeare, Plato. I loved King Lear. By Walter Isaacson Intersection Endeavors Started Shakespeare Plato

A popular feel for scientific endeavors should, if possible, be restored given the needs of the twenty-first century. This does not mean that every literature major should take a watered-down physics course or that a corporate lawyer should stay abreast of quantum mechanics. Rather, it means that an appreciation for the methods of science is a useful asset for a responsible citizenry. What science teaches us, very significantly, is the correlation between factual evidence and general theories, something well illustrated in Einstein's life. By Walter Isaacson Century Popular Feel Scientific Endeavors

Therein lies the key, I think, to Einstein's brilliance and the lessons of his life. As a young student he never did well with rote learning. And later, as a theorist, his success came not from the brute strength of his mental processing power but from his imagination and creativity. By Walter Isaacson Einstein Key Life Lies Brilliance

Jobs had a tougher time navigating the controversies over Apple's desire to keep tight control over which apps could be downloaded onto the iPhone and iPad. Guarding against apps that contained viruses or violated the user's privacy made sense; preventing apps that took users to other websites to buy subscriptions, rather than doing it through the iTunes Store, at least had a business rationale. But Jobs and his team went further: They decided to ban any app that defamed people, might be politically explosive, or was deemed by Apple's censors to be pornographic. By Walter Isaacson Apple Apps Ipad Jobs Tougher

In September 1998, one month after they met with Bechtolsheim, Page and Brin incorporated their company, opened a bank account, and cashed his check. On the wall of the garage they put up a whiteboard emblazoned "Google Worldwide Headquarters. By Walter Isaacson September Bechtolsheim Page Brin Company

This interplay of military and academic motives became ingrained in the Internet. "The design of both the ARPANET and the Internet favored military values, such as survivability, flexibility, and high performance, over commercial goals, such as low cost, simplicity, or consumer appeal," the technology historian Janet Abbate noted. "At the same time, the group that designed and built ARPA's networks was dominated by academic scientists, who incorporated their own values of collegiality, decentralization of authority, and open exchange of information into the system."90 These academic researchers of the late 1960s, many of whom associated with the antiwar counterculture, created a system that resisted centralized command. It would route around any damage from a nuclear attack but also around any attempt to impose control. By Walter Isaacson Internet Academic Military Interplay Motives

His son Peter Bucky happily spent time driving Einstein around, and he later wrote down some of his recollections in extensive notebooks. They provide a delightful picture of the mildly eccentric but deeply un-affected Einstein in his later years. Peter tells, for example, of driving in his convertible with Einstein when it suddenly started to rain. Einstein pulled off his hat and put it under his coat. When Peter looked quizzical, Einstein explained: "You see, my hair has withstood water many times before, but I don't know how many times my hat can. By Walter Isaacson Einstein Bucky Peter Notebooks Son

This is also, I hope, a book about innovation. At a time when the United States is seeking ways to sustain its innovative edge, and when societies around the world are trying to build creative digital-age economies, Jobs stands as the ultimate icon of inventiveness, imagination, and sustained innovation. He knew that the best way to create value in the twenty-first century was to connect creativity with technology, so he built a company where leaps of the imagination were combined with remarkable feats of engineering. He and his colleagues at Apple were able to think differently: They developed not merely modest product advances based on focus groups, but whole new devices and services that consumers did not yet know they needed. By Walter Isaacson Innovation Hope Book Jobs Imagination

I think one problem we've had is that people who are smart and creative and innovative as engineers went into financial engineering. By Walter Isaacson Engineering Problem People Smart Creative

We didn't know much about each other twenty years ago. We were guided by our intuition; you swept me off my feet. It was snowing when we got married at the Ahwahnee. Years passed, kids came, good times, hard times, but never bad times. Our love and respect has endured and grown. We've been through so much together and here we are right back where we started 20 years ago - older, wiser - with wrinkles on our faces and hearts. We now know many of life's joys, sufferings, secrets and wonders and we're still here together. My feet have never returned to the ground. By Walter Isaacson Times Years Ago Twenty Feet

Jobs's intensity was also evident in his ability to focus. He would set priorities, aim his laser attention on them, and filter out distractions. If something engaged him- the user interface for the original Macintosh, the design of the iPod and iPhone, getting music companies into the iTunes Store-he was relentless. But if he did not want to deal with something - a legal annoyance, a business issue, his cancer diagnosis, a family tug- he would resolutely ignore it. That focus allowed him to say no. He got Apple back on track by cutting all except a few core products. He made devices simpler by eliminating buttons, software simpler by eliminating features, and interfaces simpler by eliminating options. He attributed his ability to focus and his love of simplicity to his Zen training. It honed his appreciation for intuition, showed him how to filter out anything that was distracting or unnecessary, and nurtured in him an aesthetic based on minimalism. By Walter Isaacson Jobs Focus Simpler Eliminating Intensity

He's a very, very sensitive guy. That's one of the things that makes his antisocial behavior, his rudeness, so unconscionable. I can understand why people who are thick-skinned and unfeeling can be rude, but not sensitive people. I once asked him why he gets so mad about stuff. He said, "But I don't stay mad." He has this very childish ability to get really worked up about something, and it doesn't stay with him at all. But there are other times, I think honestly, when he's very frustrated, and his way to achieve catharsis is to hurt somebody. And I think he feels he has a liberty and a license to do that. The normal rules of social engagement, he feels, don't apply to him. Because of how very sensitive he is, he knows exactly how to efficiently and effectively hurt someone. And he does do that. By Walter Isaacson Sensitive Guy People Stay Mad

pleaded every day" with Jobs and found it "enormously frustrating that I just couldn't connect with him." The fights almost ruined their friendship. "That's not how cancer works," Levinson insisted when Jobs discussed his diet treatments. "You cannot solve this without surgery and blasting it with toxic chemicals." Even Dr. Dean Ornish, a pioneer in alternative and nutritional methods of treating diseases, took a long walk with Jobs and insisted that sometimes traditional By Walter Isaacson Jobs Pleaded Day Enormously Found

And tried to redesign the computers using these newer parts. The challenge he set himself was to replicate the design using the fewest components possible. Each night he would try to improve his drawing from the night before. By the end of his senior year, he had become a master. "I was now designing computers with half the number of chips the actual company had in their own design, but only on paper." He never told his friends. After all, most seventeen-year-olds were getting their kicks in other ways. On Thanksgiving weekend of his senior year, Wozniak visited the University of Colorado. It was closed for the holiday, but he found an engineering student who took him on a tour of the labs. He begged his father to let him go there, even By Walter Isaacson Parts Redesign Newer Year Computers

The hub, it would allow the portable devices to become simpler. A lot of the functions that the devices tried to do, such as editing the video or pictures, they did poorly because they had small screens and could not easily accommodate menus filled with lots of functions. Computers could handle that more easily. And one more thing . . . What Jobs also saw was that this worked best when everything - the device, computer, software, applications, FireWire - was all tightly integrated. I became even more of a believer in providing end-to-end By Walter Isaacson Hub Simpler Devices Portable Functions

Ive grew up in Chingford, a town on the northeast edge of London. His father was a silversmith who taught at the local college. "He's a fantastic craftsman," Ive recalled. "His Christmas gift to me would be one day of his time in his college workshop, during the Christmas break when no one else was there, helping me make whatever I dreamed up. By Walter Isaacson Chingford London Ive Grew Town

Jobs would complain about the new generation of kids, who seemed to him more materialistic and careerist than his own. "When I went to school,it was right after the sixties and before this general wave of practical purposefulness had set in,"he said. "Now students aren't even thinking in idealistic terms, or at least nowhere near as much. By Walter Isaacson Jobs Kids Complain Generation Materialistic

Steve Jobs had a tendency to see things in a binary way: A person was either a hero or a bozo, a product was either amazing or shit By Walter Isaacson Jobs Steve Bozo Shit Tendency

Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving. - ALBERT EINSTEIN, IN A LETTER TO HIS SON EDUARD, FEBRUARY 5, 19301 By Walter Isaacson Life Bicycle February Riding Albert

Even a genius like Schopenhauer was crushed by unemployment," he wrote. "Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving."30 Eduard By Walter Isaacson Schopenhauer Unemployment Wrote Eduard Life

Jobs took McCollum's class for only one year, rather than the three that it was offered. For one of his projects, he made a device with a photocell that would switch on a circuit when exposed to light, something any high school By Walter Isaacson Jobs Year Offered Mccollum Class

Jobs tended to be deeply moved by artists who displayed purity, and he became a fan. He invited Ma to play at his wedding, but he was out of the country on tour. He came by the Jobs house a few years later, sat in the living room, pulled out his 1733 Stradivarius cello, and played Bach. "This is what I would have played for your wedding," he told them. Jobs teared up and told him, "You playing is the best argument I've ever heard for the existence of God, because I don't really believe a human alone can do this." On By Walter Isaacson Jobs Purity Fan Wedding Tended

Sure to become mandatory reading for anyone with an interest in big business and popular culture . . . Isaacson is to be commended for explaining the genius of Jobs in fascinating fashion, launching a discussion that could reach infinity and beyond. By Walter Isaacson Culture Mandatory Reading Interest Big

This is a book about the roller-coaster life and searingly intense personality of a creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing. You might even add a seventh, retail stores, which Jobs did not quite revolutionize but did reimagine. In addition, he opened the way for a new market for digital content based on apps rather than just websites. Along the way he produced not only transforming products but also, on his second try, a lasting company, endowed with his DNA, that is filled with creative designers and daredevil engineers who could carry forward his vision. In August 2011, right before he stepped down as CEO, the enterprise he started in his parents' garage became the world's most valuable company. By Walter Isaacson Music Phones Industries Personal Computers

Years later, on a Steve Jobs discussion board on the website Gawker, the following tale appeared from someone who had worked at the Whole Foods store in Palo Alto a few blocks from Jobs' home: 'I was shagging carts one afternoon when I saw this silver Mercedes parked in a handicapped spot. Steve Jobs was inside screaming at his car phone. This was right before the first iMac was unveiled and I'm pretty sure I could make out, 'Not. Fucking. Blue. Enough!!! By Walter Isaacson Gawker Jobs Foods Palo Alto

Once a year Jobs took his most valuable employees on a retreat, which he called " The Top 100." They were picked based on a simple guideline: the people you would bring if you could take only a hundred people with you on a lifeboat to your next company. At the end of each retreat, Jobs would stand in front of the whiteboard( he loved whiteboards because they gave him complete control of a situation and they engendered focus) and ask, " What are ten things we should be doing next?" People would fight to their suggestions on the list. Jobs would write them down, and then cross off the ones he decreed dumb. After much jockeying, the group would come up with a list of ten.Then Jobs would slash the bottom seven and announce, " We can only do three. By Walter Isaacson Top Jobs Retreat People Called

Jobs, who could identify with each of those sentiments, wrote some of the lines himself, including "They push the human race forward." By the time of the Boston Macworld in early August, they had produced a rough version. They agreed it was not ready, but Jobs used the concepts, and the "think different" phrase, in his keynote speech there. "There's a germ of a brilliant idea there," he said at the time. "Apple is about people who think outside the box, who want to use computers to help them change the world." They debated the grammatical issue: If "different" was supposed to modify the verb "think," it should be an adverb, as in "think differently." But Jobs insisted that he wanted "different" to be used as a noun, as in "think victory" or "think beauty." Also, it echoed colloquial use, as in "think big. By Walter Isaacson Jobs Including Sentiments Wrote Forward

Results in binary code with little lights. When it was finished, Fernandez told Wozniak there was someone at Homestead High he should meet. "His name is Steve. He likes to do pranks like you do, and he's also into building electronics like you are." It may have been the most significant meeting in a Silicon Valley garage since Hewlett went into Packard's thirty-two years earlier. "Steve and I just sat on the sidewalk in front of Bill's house for the longest time, just sharing stories - mostly about pranks we'd pulled, and also what kind of electronic designs By Walter Isaacson Results Lights Fernandez Steve Binary

Sculley began to believe that Jobs's mercurial personality and erratic treatment of people were rooted deep in his psychological makeup, perhaps the reflection of a mild bipolarity. By Walter Isaacson Jobs Sculley Makeup Bipolarity Began

This entailed switching around by hand ENIAC's rat's nest of cables and resetting its switches. At first the programming seemed to be a routine, perhaps even menial task, which may have been why it was relegated to women, who back then were not encouraged to become engineers. But what the women of ENIAC soon showed, and the men later came to understand, was that the programming of a computer could be just as significant as the design of its hardware. By Walter Isaacson Eniac Switches Entailed Switching Hand

The best and most innovative products don't always win ... (it's an) aesthetic flaw in how the universe worked By Walter Isaacson Win Innovative Products Aesthetic Worked

Steve Jobs thus became the greatest business executive of our era, the one most certain to be remembered a century from now. History will place him in the pantheon right next to Edison and Ford. More than anyone else of this time, he made products that were completely innovative, combining the power of poetry and processors. With a ferocity that could make working with him as unsettling as it was inspiring, he also built the world's most creative company. And he was able to infuse into its DNA the design sensibilities, perfectionism, and imagination that make it likely to be, even decades from now, the company that thrives best at the intersection of artistry and technology. By Walter Isaacson Jobs Steve Era Greatest Business

Steve and I spent a lot of time on the packaging," said Ive. " I love the process of unpacking something. You design a ritual of unpacking to make the product feel special. Packaging can be theater, it can create a story. By Walter Isaacson Ive Steve Spent Lot Time

At one point I emailed to ask if it was true, as my daughter had told me, that the Apple logo was an homage to Alan Turing, the British computer pioneer who broke the German wartime codes and then committed suicide by biting into a cyanide-laced apple. He replied that he wished he had thought of that, but hadn't. By Walter Isaacson Turing Apple Alan British German

When I went to Pixar, I became aware of a great divide. Tech companies don't understand creativity. They don't appreciate intuitive thinking, like the ability of an A&R guy at a music label to listen to a hundred artists and have a feel for which five might be successful. And they think that creative people just sit around on couches all day and are undisciplined, because they've not seen how driven and disciplined the creative folks at places like Pixar are. On the other hand, music companies are completely clueless about technology. They think they can just go out and hire a few tech folks. But that would be like Apple trying to hire people to produce music. We'd get second-rate A&R people, just like the music companies ended up with second-rate tech people. I'm one of the few people who understands how producing technology requires intuition and creativity, and how producing something artistic takes real discipline. By Walter Isaacson Pixar People Music Companies Divide

In the early summer of 2004, I got a phone call from Steve Jobs. He had been scattershot friendly to me over the years, with occasional bursts of intensity, especially when he was launching a new product that he wanted on the cover of Time or featured on CNN, places where I'd worked. But now that I was no longer at either of those places, I hadn't heard from him much. We talked a bit about the Aspen Institute, which I had recently joined, and I invited him By Walter Isaacson Jobs Steve Early Summer Phone

Basic research leads to new knowledge," Bush wrote. "It provides scientific capital. It creates the fund from which the practical applications of knowledge must be drawn. By Walter Isaacson Bush Basic Wrote Research Leads

When Jobs was losing his footing at Apple in the summer of 1985, he went for a walk with Alan Kay, who had been at Xerox PARC and was then an Apple Fellow. Kay knew that Jobs was interested in the intersection of creativity and technology, so he suggested they go see a friend of his, Ed Catmull, who was running the computer division of George Lucas's film studio. They rented a limo and rode up to Marin County to the edge of Lucas's Skywalker Ranch, where Catmull and his little computer division were based. "I was blown away, and I came back and tried to convince Sculley to buy it for Apple," Jobs recalled. "But the folks running Apple weren't interested, and they were busy kicking me out anyway. By Walter Isaacson Jobs Fellow Alan Xerox Parc

On its first over was the famous picture of Earth taken from space; its subtitle was "Access to Tools." The underlying philosophy was that technology could be our friend. Brand wrote on the first page of the first edition, "A realm of intimate, personal power is developing- power of the individual to conduct his own education, find his own inspiration, shape his own environment, and share his adventure with whoever is interested. Tools that aid this process are sought and promoted by the Whole Earth Catalog. By Walter Isaacson Access Earth Space Tools Famous

The childhood that Paul and Clara Jobs created for their new son was, in many ways, a stereotype of the late 1950s. When Steve was two they adopted a girl they named Patty, and three years later they moved to a tract house in the suburbs. By Walter Isaacson Paul Clara Jobs Late Childhood

Lasting companies know how to reinvent themselves. Hewlett-Packard had done that repeatedly; it started as an instrument company, then became a calculator company, then a computer company. Apple has been sidelined by Microsoft in the PC business. You've got to reinvent the company to do some other thing, like other consumer products or devices. You've got to be like a butterfly and have a metamorphosis. By Walter Isaacson Company Lasting Companies Reinvent Microsoft

Innovation requires having at least three things: a great idea, the engineering talent to execute it, and the business savvy (plus deal-making moxie) to turn it into a successful product. By Walter Isaacson Innovation Things Idea Savvy Moxie

Despite being a denizen of the digital world, or maybe because he knew all too well its isolating potential, Jobs was a strong believer in face-to-face meetings. "There's a temptation in our networked age to think that ideas can be developed by email and iChat," he said. "That's crazy. By Walter Isaacson Jobs Meetings World Potential Denizen

Timothy Leary declared that personal computers had become the new LSD and years later revised his famous mantra to proclaim, Turn on, boot up, jack in. By Walter Isaacson Turn Leary Lsd Timothy Proclaim

Smart people are a dime a dozen. What matters is the ability to think different ... to think out of the box. By Walter Isaacson Smart Dozen People Dime Box

What Einstein was able to do was - to use a cliche - think out of the box. By Walter Isaacson Einstein Cliche Box

Customers don't know what they want until we've shown them. By Walter Isaacson Customers Shown

Unlike other product developers, Jobs did not believe the customer was always right; if they wanted to resist using a mouse, they were wrong. By Walter Isaacson Jobs Unlike Developers Mouse Wrong

I discovered that the best innovation is sometimes the company, the way you organize a company. The whole notion of how you build a company is fascinating. Steve Jobs By Walter Isaacson Company Discovered Innovation Organize Jobs

Throughout his life, Albert Einstein would retain the intuition and the awe of a child. He never lost his sense of wonder at the magic of nature's phenomena-magnetic fields, gravity, inertia, acceleration, light beams-which grown-ups find so commonplace. He retained the ability to hold two thoughts in his mind simultaneously, to be puzzled when they conflicted, and to marvel when he could smell an underlying unity. "People like you and me never grow old," he wrote a friend later in life. "We never cease to stand like curious children before the great mystery into which we were born. By Walter Isaacson Albert Einstein Child Life Retain

What drove me? I think most creative people want to express appreciation for being able to take advantage of the work that's been done by others before us. I didn't invent the language or mathematics I use. I make little of my own food, none of my own clothes. Everything I do depends on other members of our species and the shoulders that we stand on. And a lot of us want to contribute something back to our species and to add something to the flow. It's about trying to express something in the only way that most of us know how-because we can't write Bob Dylan songs or Tom Stoppard plays. We try to use the talents we do have to express our deep feelings, to show our appreciation of all the contributions that came before us, and to add something to that flow. That's what has driven me. By Walter Isaacson Express Drove Species Flow Add

A New Campus: Interviews with Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Ann Bowers. Steve Jobs, appearance before the Cupertino City Council, June 7, 2011. CHAPTER 41: ROUND THREE Family Ties: Interviews with Laurene Powell, Erin Jobs, Steve Jobs, Kathryn Smith, Jennifer Egan. Email from Steve Jobs, June 8, 2010, 4:55 p.m.; Tina Redse to Steve Jobs, July 20, 2010, and Feb. 6, 2011. President Obama: Interviews with David Axelrod, Steve Jobs, John Doerr, Laurene Powell, Valerie Jarrett, Eric Schmidt, Austan Goolsbee. Third Medical Leave, 2011: Interviews with Kathryn Smith, Steve Jobs, Larry Brilliant. Visitors: Interviews with Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mike Slade. CHAPTER 42: LEGACY Jonathan Zittrain, The Future of the Internet - And How to Stop It (Yale, 2008), 2; Cory Doctorow, Why I Won't Buy an iPad, By Walter Isaacson Jobs Steve Interviews Campus Wozniak

I never worried about money. I grew up in a middle-class family, so I never thought I would starve. And I learned at Atari that I could be an okay engineer, so I always knew I could get by. I was voluntarily poor when I was in college and India, and I lived a pretty simple life even when I was working. So I went from fairly poor, which was wonderful, because I didn't have to worry about money, to being incredibly rich, when I also didn't "have to worry about money.I watched people at Apple who made a lot of money and felt they had to live differently. Some of them bought a Rolls-Royce and various houses, each with a house manager and then someone to manage the house managers. Their wives got plastic surgery and turned into these bizarre people. This was not how I wanted to live. It's crazy. I made a promise to myself that I'm not going to let this money ruin my life."Excerpt From: Walter, Isaacson. "Steve Jobs." Simon & Schuster, 2011-10-23T21:00:00+00:00. iBooks. By Walter Isaacson Money Worried House Worry Poor

Steve Jobs's attitude toward wealth was complex. He was an antimaterialistic hippie who capitalized on the inventions of a friend who wanted to give them away for free, and he was a Zen devotee who made a pilgrimage to India and then decided that his calling was to create a business. And yet somehow these attitudes seemed to weave together rather than conflict. By Walter Isaacson Jobs Steve Complex Wealth Zen

On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies" Now let's look at how Einstein articulated all of this in the famous paper that the Annalen der Physik received on June 30, 1905. For all its momentous import, it may be one of the most spunky and enjoyable papers in all of science. Most of its insights are conveyed in words and vivid thought experiments, rather than in complex equations. There is some math involved, but it is mainly what a good high school senior could comprehend. "The whole paper is a testament to the power of simple language to convey deep and powerfully disturbing ideas," says the science writer Dennis Overbye. By Walter Isaacson Bodies June Electrodynamics Moving Einstein

When the design was finally locked in, Jobs called the Macintosh team together for a ceremony. "Real artists sign their work," he said. So he got out a sheet of drafting paper and a Sharpie pen and had all of them sign their names. The signatures were engraved inside each Macintosh. No one would ever see them, but the members of the team knew that their signatures were inside, just as they knew that the circuit board was laid out as elegantly as possible. Jobs called them each up by name, one at a time. Burrell Smith went first. Jobs waited until last, after all forty-five of the others. He found a place right in the center of the sheet and signed his name in lowercase letters with a grand flair. Then he toasted them with champagne. "With moments like this, he got us seeing our work as art," said Atkinson. By Walter Isaacson Jobs Macintosh Ceremony Design Finally

Jobs had begun to drop acid by then, and he turned Brennan on to it as well, in a wheat field just outside Sunnyvale. "It was great," he recalled. "I had been listening to a lot of Bach. All of a sudden the whole field was playing Bach. It was the most wonderful feeling of my life up to that point. I felt like the conductor of this symphony with Bach coming through the wheat. By Walter Isaacson Sunnyvale Brennan Bach Jobs Begun

Isaacson's biography can be read in several ways. It is on the one hand a history of the most exciting time in the age of computers, when the machines first became personal and later, fashionable accessories. It is also a textbook study of the rise and fall and rise of Apple and the brutal clashes that destroyed friendships and careers. And it is a gadget lover's dream, with fabulous, inside accounts of how the Macintosh, iPod, iPhone and iPad came into being. But more than anything, Isaacson has crafted a biography of a complicated, peculiar personality - Jobs was charming, loathsome, lovable, obsessive, maddening - and the author shows how Jobs's character was instrumental in shaping some of the greatest technological innovations By Walter Isaacson Isaacson Read Jobs Biography Rise

Internet services at Apple, Jobs's wingman in dealing with content companies. ANDREA "ANDY" CUNNINGHAM. Publicist at Regis McKenna's firm who handled Apple in the early Macintosh years. MICHAEL EISNER. Hard-driving Disney CEO who made the Pixar deal, then clashed with Jobs. LARRY ELLISON. CEO of Oracle and personal friend of Jobs. By Walter Isaacson Apple Andrea Andy Cunningham Jobs

CUNNINGHAM. Publicist at Regis McKenna's firm who handled Apple in the early Macintosh years. MICHAEL EISNER. Hard-driving By Walter Isaacson Cunningham Harddriving Michael Eisner Regis

father figure to Jobs. REGIS MCKENNA. Publicity whiz who guided Jobs early on and remained a trusted advisor. MIKE MURRAY. Early Macintosh marketing director. PAUL OTELLINI. CEO of Intel who helped switch the Macintosh to Intel chips but did not get the iPhone business. LAURENE POWELL. Savvy and good-humored Penn graduate, went to Goldman Sachs and then Stanford By Walter Isaacson Jobs Father Regis Mckenna Macintosh

He did, however, invite Jobs to visit him at his hotel before the concert. Jobs recalled: We sat on the patio outside his room and talked for two hours. I was really nervous, because he was one of my heroes. And I was also afraid that he wouldn't be really smart anymore, that he'd be a caricature of himself, like happens to a lot of people. But I was delighted. He was as sharp as a tack. He was everything I'd hoped. He was really open and honest. He was just telling me about his life and about writing his songs. He said, "They just came through me, it wasn't like I was having to compose them. That doesn't happen anymore, I just can't write them that way anymore." Then he paused and said to me with his raspy voice and little smile, "But I still can sing them. By Walter Isaacson Jobs Anymore Invite Concert Visit

I want it to be as beautiful as possible, even if it's inside the box. A great carpenter isn't going to use lousy wood for the back of a cabinet, even though nobody's going to see it. By Walter Isaacson Box Beautiful Inside Cabinet Great

The older I get, the more I see how much motivations matter. The Zune was crappy because the people at Microsoft don't really love music or art the way we do. We won because we personally love music. By Walter Isaacson Matter Older Motivations Love Music

treat you like a criminal," he said, showing a slide of an inmate in striped prison garb. Then a slide of Bob Dylan came on the screen. "People want to own the music they love. By Walter Isaacson Slide Treat Criminal Showing Garb

I'll always remember Apple like any man remembers the first woman he's fallen in love with." But he was also willing to fight with its management if need be. "When someone calls you a thief in public, you have to respond." Apple's By Walter Isaacson Apple Man Woman Fallen Love

Jobs insisted that Apple focus on just two or three priorities at a time. "There is no one better at turning off the noise that is going on around him," Cook said. "That allows him to focus on a few things and say no to many things. Few people are really good at that. By Walter Isaacson Apple Jobs Time Focus Insisted

The value of a college education is not the learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think, By Walter Isaacson College Education Learning Facts Training

Earlier that year Jobs had been hoping to find a buyer for Pixar that would let him merely recoup the $50 million he had put in. By the end of the day the shares he had retained - 80% of the company - were worth more than twenty times that, an astonishing $1.2 billion. That was about five times what he'd made when Apple went public in 1980. But Jobs told John Markoff of the New York Times that the money did not mean much to him. "There's no yacht in my future," he said. "I've never done this for the money. By Walter Isaacson Pixar Times Jobs Earlier Million

Hertzfeld explained that he needed to get his Apple II DOS program in good enough shape to hand it over to someone. "You're just wasting your time with that!" Jobs replied. "Who cares about the Apple II? The Apple II will be dead in a few years. The Macintosh is the future of Apple, and you're going to start on it now!" With that, Jobs yanked out the power cord to Hertzfeld's Apple II, causing the code he was working on to vanish. By Walter Isaacson Apple Dos Jobs Explained Needed

What was remarkable was that associating with a computer and electronics company was the best way for a rock band to seem hip and appeal to young people. Bono later explained that not all corporate sponsorships were deals with the devil. "Let's have a look," he told Greg Kot, the Chicago Tribune music critic. "The 'devil' here is a bunch of creative minds, more creative than a lot of people in rock bands. The lead singer is Steve Jobs. These men have helped design the most beautiful art object in music culture since the electric guitar. That's the iPod. The job of art is to chase ugliness away. By Walter Isaacson Remarkable Associating Computer Electronics Company

Half-formed ideas, they float around. They come from different places, and the mind has got this wonderful way of somehow just shoveling them around until one day they fit. They may fit not so well, and then we go for a bike ride or something, and it's better."12 By Walter Isaacson Halfformed Ideas Float Fit Places

Kissinger traces the balances made in foreign policy, including that of realism and idealism, from the times of Cardinal Richelieu through chapters on Theodore Roosevelt the realist and Woodrow Wilson the idealist. Kissinger, a European refugee who has read Metternich more avidly than Jefferson, is unabashedly in the realist camp. "No other nation," he wrote in Diplomacy, "has ever rested its claim to international leadership on its altruism." Other Americans might proclaim this as a point of pride; when Kissinger says it, his attitude seems that of an anthropologist examining a rather unsettling tribal ritual. The practice of basing policy on ideals rather than interests, he pointed out, can make a nation seem dangerously unpredictable. By Walter Isaacson Cardinal Richelieu Theodore Roosevelt Woodrow

AL ALCORN. Chief engineer at Atari, who designed Pong and hired Jobs. GIL AMELIO. Became CEO of Apple in 1996, bought NeXT, bringing Jobs back. BILL ATKINSON. Early Apple employee, developed graphics for the Mac intosh. CHRISANN BRENNAN. Jobs's girlfriend at Homestead High, mother of his daughter Lisa. LISA BRENNAN-JOBS. Daughter of Jobs and Chrisann Brennan, born in 1978; became a writer in New York City. NOLAN BUSHNELL. Founder of Atari and entrepreneurial role model for By Walter Isaacson Alcorn Jobs Brennan Apple Atari

The Apple Marketing Philosophy" that stressed three points. The first was empathy, an intimate connection with the feelings of the customer: "We will truly understand their needs better than any other company." The second was focus: "In order to do a good job of those things that we decide to do, we must eliminate all of the unimportant opportunities." The third and equally important principle, awkwardly named, was impute. It emphasized that people form an opinion about a company or product based on the signals that it conveys. "People DO judge a book by its cover," he wrote. "We may have the best product, the highest quality, the most useful software etc.; if we present them in a slipshod manner, they will be perceived as slipshod; if we present them in a creative, professional manner, we will impute the desired qualities. By Walter Isaacson Philosophy Apple Marketing Points Stressed

LAURENE POWELL. Savvy and good-humored Penn graduate, went to Goldman Sachs and then Stanford Business School, married Steve Jobs in 1991. GEORGE RILEY. Jobs's Memphis-born friend and lawyer. ARTHUR ROCK. Legendary tech investor, early Apple board member, Jobs's father figure. JONATHAN "RUBY" RUBINSTEIN. Worked By Walter Isaacson Laurene Powell Jobs School Penn

He had the attitude that he could do anything, and therefore so can you. He put his life in my hands. So that made me do something I didn't think I could do ... If you trust him, you can do things. If he's decided that something should happen, then he's just going to make it happen. (Elizabeth Holmes) By Walter Isaacson Attitude Happen Elizabeth Holmes Hands

I think that's exactly what Silicon Valley was all about in those days. Let's do a startup in our parents' garage and try to create a business. By Walter Isaacson Silicon Valley Days Business Startup

In a bravura demonstration of stonewalling, righteousness, and hurt sincerity, Steve Jobs successfully took to the stage the other day to deny the problem, dismiss the criticism, and spread the blame among other smartphone makers.". "This is a level of modern marketing, corporate spin, and crisis management about which you can only ask with stupefied incredulity and awe: How do they get away with it? Or, more accurately, how does he get away with it?" Wolff attributed it to Jobs's mesmerizing effect as "the last charismatic individual." Other CEOs would be offering abject apologies and swallowing massive recalls, but Jobs didn't have to. "The grim, skeletal appearance, the absolutism, the ecclesiastical bearing, the sense of his relationship with the sacred, really works, and, in this instance, allows him the privilege of magisterially deciding what is meaningful and what is trivial. By Walter Isaacson Steve Jobs Righteousness Stonewalling Sincerity

Jobs liked to tell the story- and he did so to his team that day- about how everything that he had done correctly had required a moment when he hit the rewind button. In each case he had to rework something that he discovered was not perfect. He talked about doing it on Toy Story, when the character of Woody had evolved into being a jerk, and on a couple of occasions with the original Macintosh. " If something isn't right, you can't just ignore it and say you'll fix it later," he said. " That's what other companies do. By Walter Isaacson Story Jobs Day Button Team

See God in the instruments and mechanisms that work reliably. By Walter Isaacson God Reliably Instruments Mechanisms Work

Henry Luce to his Time magazine writers: Tell the history of our time through the people who make it. By Walter Isaacson Time Luce Henry Writers Magazine

1. It is necessary for me to be extremely frugal for some time, till I have paid what I owe. 2. To endeavor to speak truth in every instance; to give nobody expectations that are not likely to be answered, but aim at sincerity in every word and action - the most amiable excellence in a rational being. 3. To apply myself industriously to whatever business I take in hand, and not divert my mind from my business by any foolish project of suddenly growing rich; for industry and patience are the surest means of plenty. 4. I resolve to speak ill of no man whatever.17 By Walter Isaacson Speak Business Time Till Owe

The key venue for freewheeling discourse was the Monday morning executive team gathering, which started at 9 and went for three or four hours. The focus was always on the future: What should each product do next? What new things should be developed? Jobs used the meeting to enforce a sense of shared mission at Apple. This served to centralize control, which made the company seem as tightly integrated as a good Apple product, and prevented the struggles between divisions that plagued decentralized companies. By Walter Isaacson Monday Gathering Hours Key Venue

Jobs put his hand on Ellison's left shoulder, pulled him so close that their noses almost touched, and said, Larry, this is why it's really important that I'm your friend. You don't need any more money. By Walter Isaacson Larry Ellison Jobs Shoulder Pulled

Occasionally, (Einstein) would take rambling walks on his own, which could be dicey. One day someone called the Institute and asked to speak to a particular dean. When his secretary said that the dean wasn't available, the caller hesitatingly asked for Einstein's home address. That was not possible to give out, he was informed. The caller's voice then dropped to a whisper. 'Please don't tell anybody,' he said, 'but I am Dr. Einstein, I'm on my way home, and I've forgotten where my house is. By Walter Isaacson Einstein Occasionally Dicey Rambling Walks

I think when money starts to corrupt journalism, it undermines the journalism, and it undermines the credibility of the product, and you end up not succeeding. By Walter Isaacson Journalism Undermines Product Succeeding Money

In two days he saw Rupert Murdoch, his son James, and the management of their Wall Street Journal; Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and the top executives at the New York Times; and executives at Time, Fortune, and other Time Inc. magazines. "I would love to help quality journalism," he later said. "We can't depend on bloggers for our news. By Walter Isaacson Fortune Time Murdoch James Journal

When he went to PARC for his formal interview, Kay was asked what he hoped his great achievement there would be. "A personal computer," he answered. Asked what that was, he picked up a notebook-size portfolio, flipped open its cover, and said, "This will be a flat-panel display. There'll be a keyboard here on the bottom, and enough power to store your mail, files, music, artwork, and books. All in a package about this size and weighing a couple of pounds. That's what I'm talking about." His interviewer scratched his head and muttered to himself, "Yeah, right." But Kay got the job. By Walter Isaacson Parc Interview Asked Formal Hoped

Tangerine clam, and a professional desktop computer that suggested a Zen ice cube. Like bell-bottoms that turn up in the By Walter Isaacson Zen Tangerine Clam Cube Professional

In the age of the internet when everybody's a pundit, we're still gonna need somebody there to go talk to the colonels, to be on the ground in Baghdad and stuff and that's very expensive. By Walter Isaacson Baghdad Pundit Colonels Expensive Age

At that time in IBM you had to wear a white shirt, dark pants and a black tie with your badge stapled to your shoulder or something," said Steve Bristow, an engineer. "At Atari the work people did counted more than how they looked. By Walter Isaacson Bristow Ibm Steve Shirt Dark

Google, you fucking ripped off the iPhone, wholesale ripped us off. Grand theft. I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple's $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong. I'm going to destroy Android, because it's a stolen product. I'm willing to go thermonuclear war on this. They are scared to death, because they know they are guilty. Outside of Search, Google's products - Android, Google Docs - are shit. [Steve Jobs] By Walter Isaacson Ripped Google Android Iphone Wholesale

We made the iPod for ourselves, and when you're doing something for yourself, or your best friend or family, you're not going to cheese out. If you don't love something, you're not going to go the extra mile, work the extra weekend, challenge the status quo as much. By Walter Isaacson Family Made Ipod Friend Cheese

Jobs has within him sort of this conflict, but he doesn't quite see it as a conflict between being hippie-ish and anti-materialistic but wanting to sell things like Wozniak's board. Wanting to create a business. By Walter Isaacson Wozniak Jobs Board Conflict Wanting

At the end of the presentation someone asked whether he thought they should do some market research to see what customers wanted. "No," he replied, "because customers don't know what they want until we've shown them." Then he pulled out a device that was about the size of a desk diary. "Do you want to see something neat?" When he flipped it open, it turned out to be a mock-up of a computer that could fit on your lap, with a keyboard and screen hinged together like a notebook. "This is my dream of what we will be making in the mid-to late eighties," he said. They were building a company that would invent the future. By Walter Isaacson Customers Wanted End Presentation Asked

Most people have a regulator between their mind and mouth that modulates their brutish sentiments and spikiest impulses. Not Jobs. He made a point of being brutally honest. My job is to say when something sucks rather than sugar coat it, : he said. This made him charismatic and inspiring, yet also,, to use the technical term, an asshole at times. By Walter Isaacson Impulses People Regulator Mind Mouth

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. The more the outside world tries to reinforce an image of you, the harder it is to continue to be an artist, which is why a lot of times, artists have to say, "Bye. I have to go. I'm going crazy and I'm getting out of here." And they go and hibernate somewhere. Maybe later they re-emerge a little differently. (Steve Jobs) By Walter Isaacson Artist Live Life Creative Back

The beginning of 2002 Apple faced a challenge. The seamless connection between your iPod, iTunes software, and computer made it easy to manage the music you By Walter Isaacson Apple Challenge Beginning Faced Ipod

Walter Issacson biographer of Steve Jobs:I remember sitting in his backyard in his garden, one day, and he started talking about God. He [Jobs] said, " Sometimes I believe in God, sometimes I don't. I think it's 50/50, maybe. But ever since I've had cancer, I've been thinking about it more, and I find myself believing a bit more, maybe it's because I want to believe in an afterlife, that when you die, it doesn't just all disappear. The wisdom you've accumulated, somehow it lives on."Then he paused for a second and said, "Yea, but sometimes, I think it's just like an On-Off switch. Click. And you're gone." And then he paused again and said, " And that's why I don't like putting On-Off switches on Apple devices."Joy to the WORLD! There IS an after-life! By Walter Isaacson Jobs God Issacson Steve Walter

PRAISE FOR WALTER ISAACSON'S Steve Jobs "This biography is essential reading." - The New York Times, Holiday Gift Guide "A superbly told story of a superbly lived life." - The Wall Street Journal "Enthralling." - The New Yorker "A frank, smart and wholly unsentimental biography . . . a remarkably sharp, hi-res portrait . . . Steve Jobs is more than a good book; it's an urgently necessary one." - Time "An encyclopedic survey of all that Mr. Jobs accomplished, replete with the passion and excitement that it deserves." - Janet Maslin, The By Walter Isaacson Praise Walter Jobs Reading Superbly

I was voluntarily poor when I was in college and India, and I lived a pretty simple life when I was working. So I went from fairly poor, which was wonderful because I didn't have to worry about money, to being incredibly rich, when i also didn't have to worry about money.' - Steve Jobs By Walter Isaacson India Money Poor Working Worry

decided then to write this book. Jobs surprised me by readily acknowledging that he would have no control over it or even the right to see it in advance. "It's your book," he said. "I won't even read it." But later that fall he seemed to have second thoughts about cooperating and, though I didn't know it, was hit by another round of cancer complications. He stopped returning my calls, and I put the project aside for a while. By Walter Isaacson Decided Book Write Jobs Advance

To dwell on the things taht depress or anger us does not help in overcoming them. One must knock them down alone. By Walter Isaacson Dwell Things Taht Depress Anger

Wozniak would be the gentle wizard coming up with a neat invention that he would have been happy just to give away, and Jobs would figure out how to make it user-friendly, put it together in a package, market it, and make a few bucks. By Walter Isaacson Jobs Make Wozniak Userfriendly Put

What drives people to kill and maim each other so savagely?" Einstein asked. "I think it is the sexual character of the male that leads to such wild explosions. By Walter Isaacson Savagely Drives People Kill Maim

People with the halo effect seem to know exactly what they're doing and, moreover, make you want to admire them for it. By Walter Isaacson People Make Halo Effect Admire

I think Henry Kissinger grew up with that odd mix of ego and insecurity that comes from being the smartest kid in the class. From really knowing you're more awesomely intelligent than anybody else, but also being the guy who got beaten up for being Jewish. By Walter Isaacson Henry Kissinger Class Grew Odd

By then Einstein had finally discovered what was fundamental about America: it can be swept by waves of what may seem, to outsiders, to be dangerous political passions but are, instead, passing sentiments that are absorbed by its democracy and righted by its constitutional gyroscope. McCarthyism had died down, and Eisenhower had proved a calming influence. "God's own country becomes stranger and stranger," Einstein wrote Hans Albert that Christmas, "but somehow they manage to return to normality. Everything - even lunacy - is mass produced here. But everything goes out of fashion very quickly."9 Almost By Walter Isaacson America Einstein Outsiders Passing Gyroscope

(In a letter from Einstein to Curie) Do not laugh at me for writing you without having anything sensible to say. But I am so enraged by the base manner in which the publc is presently daring to concern itself with you that I absolutely must give vent to this feeling. I am impelled to tell you how much I have come to admire your intellect, your drive, and your honesty, and that I consider myself lucky to have made your personal acquaintance in Brussels. Anyone who does not number among these reptiles is certainly happy, now as before, that we have such personages amoung us as you, and Langevin too, real peole with whom one feels privileged to be in contact. If the rabble continues to occupy itself with you, then simply dont read that hogwash, but rather leave it to the reptile for whom it has been fabricated. By Walter Isaacson Curie Einstein Letter Laugh Writing

So that's our approach. Very simple, and we're really shooting for Museum of Modern Art quality. The way we're running the company, the product design, the advertising, it all comes down to this: Let's make it simple. Really simple." Apple's design mantra would remain the one featured on its first brochure: "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. By Walter Isaacson Simple Approach Museum Modern Art

A foolish faith in authority is the worst enemy of truth.46 By Walter Isaacson Foolish Faith Authority Worst Enemy

There would be times when we'd rack our brains on a user interface problem, and think we'd considered every option, and he would go, " Did you think of this? " said Fadell. " And then we'd all go, " Holy Shit." He'd redefine the problem or approach, and our little problem would go away. By Walter Isaacson Option Problem Fadell Times Rack

Edwin Land of Polaroid talked about the intersection of the humanities and science. I like that intersection. There's something magical about that place. There are a lot of people innovating, and that's not the main distinction of my career. The reason Apple resonates with people is that there's a deep current of humanity in our innovation. I think great artists and great engineers are similar in that they both have a desire to express themselves. In fact some of the best people working on the original Mac were poets and musicians on the side. In the seventies computers became a way for people to express their creativity. Great artists like Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo were also great art science. Michelangelo knew a lot about how to quarry stone, not just how to be a sculptor. By Walter Isaacson Land Polaroid People Great Intersection

is to read things that are not yet on the page. Edwin Land of Polaroid talked about the intersection of the humanities and science. I like that intersection. There's something magical about that place. There are a lot of people innovating, and that's not the main distinction of my career. The reason Apple resonates with people is that there's a deep current of humanity in our innovation. I think great artists and great engineers are similar, in that they both have a desire to express themselves. In fact some of the best people working on the original Mac were poets and musicians on the side. In the seventies computers became a way for people to express their creativity. Great artists like Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo were also great at science. Michelangelo knew a lot about how to quarry stone, not just how to be a sculptor. People pay us to integrate things for them, because they don't have the time to think about this stuff 24/7. If you have an extreme passion for producing By Walter Isaacson People Great Page Read Intersection

When we ascribe credit for an invention, determining who should be most noted by history, one criterion is looking at whose contributions turned out to have the most influence. By Walter Isaacson Invention Determining History Influence Ascribe

became one of the first fifty employees at Atari, working as a technician for $5 an hour. "In retrospect, it was By Walter Isaacson Atari Working Hour Fifty Employees

I was on one of my fruitarian diets" Steve Jobs recalled "I had just comeback from the apple farm. It sounded fun, spirited, and not intimidating. Apple took the edge of the word 'computer', plus it would get us a head of Atari in the phone book. He told Wozniak if a better name did not hit them by the next afternoon, they would just stick with apple and they did. 1 Apr 1976 By Walter Isaacson Steve Jobs Diets Recalled Farm

CONTENTS Epigraph Characters Introduction: How This Book Came to Be CHAPTER ONE Childhood: Abandoned and Chosen CHAPTER TWO Odd Couple: The Two Steves CHAPTER THREE The Dropout: Turn On, Tune In . . . CHAPTER FOUR Atari and India: Zen and the Art of Game Design CHAPTER FIVE The Apple I: Turn On, Boot Up, Jack In . . . CHAPTER SIX By Walter Isaacson Chapter Contents Introduction Childhood Abandoned

He had the uncanny capacity to know exactly what your weak point is, know what will make you feel small, to make you cringe," Joanna Hoffman said. "It's a common trait in people who are charismatic and know how to manipulate people. Knowing that he can crush you makes you feel weakened and eager for his approval, so then he can elevate you and put you on a pedestal and own you. By Walter Isaacson Joanna Hoffman Small Cringe Make

It was a very big moment that's burned into my mind. When I realized that I was smarter than my parents, I felt tremendous shame for having thought that. I will never forget that moment. This discovery, he later told friends, along with the fact that he was adopted, made him feel apart - detached and separate - from both his family and the world. By Walter Isaacson Mind Big Burned Moment Parents

For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through. By Walter Isaacson Night Aesthetic Quality Sleep Carried

The Industrial Revolution was based on two grand concepts that were profound in their simplicity. Innovators came up with ways to simplify endeavors by breaking them into easy, small tasks that could be accomplished on assembly lines. Then, beginning in the textile industry, inventors found ways to mechanize steps so that they could be performed by machines, many of them powered by steam engines. Babbage, building on ideas from Pascal and Leibniz, tried to apply these two processes to the production of computations, creating a mechanical precursor to the modern computer. His most significant conceptual leap was that such machines did not have to be set to do only one process, but instead could be programmed and reprogrammed through the use of punch cards. Ada saw the beauty and significance of that enchanting notion, and she also described an even more exciting idea that derived from it: such machines could process not only numbers but anything that could be notated in symbols. By Walter Isaacson Industrial Revolution Simplicity Machines Based

But he also threatened that if Google continued to develop Android and used any iPhone features, such as multi-touch, he would sue. At first Google avoided copying certain features, but in January 2010 HTC introduced an Android phone that boasted multi-touch and many other aspects of the iPhone's look and feel. That was the context for Jobs's pronouncement that Google's "Don't be evil" slogan was "bullshit. By Walter Isaacson Google Android Features Sue Iphone

He said, 'From then on, I realized that I was not just abandoned. I was chosen. I was special.' And I think that's the key to understanding Steve Jobs. By Walter Isaacson Abandoned Realized Jobs Chosen Steve

You read everything - that's part of the job," he said. "You accumulate all this trivia, and you hope that someday maybe a millionth of it will be useful. By Walter Isaacson Job Read Part Trivia Accumulate

Simplicity isn't just a visual style. It's not just minimalism or the absence of clutter. It involves digging through the depth of the complexity. To be truly simple, you have to go really deep. By Walter Isaacson Simplicity Style Visual Clutter Complexity

service, which would relay messages to his mother. Ron Wayne drew a logo, using the ornate line-drawing style of Victorian illustrated fiction, that featured Newton sitting under a tree framed by a quote from Wordsworth: "A mind forever voyaging through strange seas of thought, alone." It was a rather odd motto, one that fit Wayne's self-image more than Apple Computer. Perhaps By Walter Isaacson Service Mother Wayne Relay Messages

As it turned out, Microsoft wasn't able to get Windows 1.0 ready for shipping until the fall of 1985. Even then, it was a shoddy product. It lacked the elegance of the Macintosh interface, and it had tiled windows rather than the magical clipping of overlapping windows that Bill Atkinson had devised. Reviewers ridiculed it and consumers spurned it. Nevertheless, as is often the case with Microsoft products, persistence eventually made Windows better and then dominant. By Walter Isaacson Windows Microsoft Ready Turned Shipping

I think the biggest innovations of the twenty-first century will be the intersection of biology and technology. A new era is beginning, just like the digital one was when I was his age. By Walter Isaacson Technology Biggest Innovations Twentyfirst Century

Bob Iger, Disney's chief operating officer, had to step in and do damage control. He was as sensible and solid as those around him were volatile. His background was in television; he had been president of the ABC network, which was acquired in 1996 by Disney. His reputation was as an corporate suit, and he excelled at deft management, but he also had a sharp eye for talent, a good-humored ability to understand people, and a quiet flair that he was secure enough to keep muted. Unlike Eisner and Jobs, he had a disciplined calm, which helped him deal with large egos. " Steve did some grandstanding by announcing that he was ending talks with us," Iger later recalled. " We went into crisis mode and I developed some talking points to settle things down. By Walter Isaacson Disney Bob Officer Control Iger

That spring Larry Ellison saw Amelio at a party and introduced him to the technology journalist Gina Smith, who asked how Apple was doing. "You know, Gina, Apple is like a ship," Amelio answered. "That ship is loaded with treasure, but there's a hole in the ship. And my job is to get everyone to row in the same direction." Smith looked perplexed and asked, "Yeah, but what about the hole?" From then on, Ellison and Jobs joked about the parable of the ship. "When Larry relayed this story to me, we were in this sushi place, and I literally fell off my chair laughing," Jobs recalled. "He was just such a buffoon, and he took himself so seriously. He insisted that everyone call him Dr. Amelio. That's always a warning sign. By Walter Isaacson Amelio Gina Apple Ship Ellison

While a student in McCollum's class, Jobs became friends with a graduate who was the teacher's all-time favorite and a school legend for his wizardry in the class. Stephen Wozniak, whose younger brother had been on a swim team with Jobs, was almost five years older than Jobs and far more knowledgeable about electronics. But emotionally and socially he was still a high school geek. By Walter Isaacson Class Jobs Student Mccollum Friends

Himself as the natural successor in that sequence. Because By Walter Isaacson Sequence Natural Successor

We are in a situation with the huge stimulus package that's going to be spent all across this nation and a big financial crisis and banking crisis. And what we need is good, trained journalists who can play the role of watchdog. By Walter Isaacson Crisis Situation Huge Stimulus Package

One of his motivating passions was to build a lasting company. At age twelve, when he got a summer job at Hewlett-Packard, he learned that a properly run company could spawn innovation far more than any single creative individual. " I discovered that the best innovation is sometimes the company, the way you organize a company," he recalled." The whole notion of how you build a company is fascinating. When i got the chance to come back to Apple, I realized that I would be useless without the company, and that's why I decided to stay and rebuild it. By Walter Isaacson Company Motivating Passions Lasting Build

One sticking point was that Jobs wanted his payout to be in cash. Amelio insisted that he needed to "have skin in the game" and take the payout in stock that he would agree to hold for at least a year." Jobs resisted. Finally, they compromised: Jobs would take $120 million in cash and $37 million in stock, and he pledged to hold the stock for at least six months. By Walter Isaacson Jobs Stock Payout Sticking Point

The unified field theory that ties together Jobs personality and products begins with his most salient trait: his intensity. His silences could be as searing as his rants; he had taught himself to stare without blinking. Sometimes this intensity was charming, in a geeky way, such as when he was explaining the profundity of Bob Dylan's music or why whatever product he was unveiling at that moment was the most amazing thing that Apple had ever made. At other times it could be terrifying, such as when he was fulminating about Google or Microsoft ripping of Apple. By Walter Isaacson Jobs Trait Apple Unified Field

Polite and velvety leaders, who take care to avoid bruising others, are generally not as effective at forcing change. Dozens of the colleagues whom Jobs most abused ended their litany of horror stories by saying that he got them to do things they never dreamed possible. And he created a corporation crammed with A players. By Walter Isaacson Polite Leaders Change Velvety Care

One of the strongest motives that leads men to art and science is escape from everyday life with its painful crudity and hopeless dreariness. Such men make this cosmos and its construction the pivot of their emotional life, in order to find the peace and security which they cannot find in the narrow whirlpool of personal experience. By Walter Isaacson Dreariness Men Life Strongest Motives

If we want to resist the powers that threaten to suppress intellectual and individual freedom, we must be clear what is at stake," he said. "Without such freedom there would have been no Shakespeare, no Goethe, no Newton, no Faraday, no Pasteur, no Lister." Freedom was a foundation for creativity. By Walter Isaacson Freedom Stake Resist Powers Threaten

Ed Woolard, his mentor on the Apple board, pressed Jobs for more than two years to drop the interim in front of his CEO title. Not only was Jobs refusing to commit himself, but he was baffling everyone by taking only $1 a year in pay and no stock options. "I make 50 cents for showing up," he liked to joke, "and the other 50 cents is based on performance. By Walter Isaacson Woolard Apple Ceo Jobs Board

But when a boy was born - on February 24, 1955 - the designated couple decided that they wanted a girl and backed out. By Walter Isaacson February Born Boy Designated Couple

[Steve Jobs] chafed at not being in control, and he sometimes hallucinated or became angry. Even when he was barely conscious, his strong personality came through. At one point the pulmonologist tried to put a mask over his face when he was deeply sedated. Jobs ripped it off and mumbled that he hated the design and refused to wear it. Though barely able to speak, he ordered them to bring five different options for the mask and he would pick a design he liked. By Walter Isaacson Steve Chafed Control Angry Jobs

Even when he was barely conscious, his strong personality came through. At one point the pulmonologist tried to put a mask over his face when he was sedated. Jobs ripped it off and mumbled that he hated the design and refused to wear it. He ordered them to bring five different options and he would pick the one he liked. By Walter Isaacson Conscious Barely Strong Personality Sedated

The people who invented the twenty-first century were pot-smoking, sandal-wearing hippies from the West Coast like Steve, because they saw differently," he said. "The hierarchical systems of the East Coast, England, Germany, and Japan do not encourage this different thinking. The sixties produced an anarchic mind-set that is great for imagining a world not yet in existence. By Walter Isaacson Steve West Coast Potsmoking Sandalwearing

A lot of the credit, too, should go to Turing, for developing the concept of a universal computer and then being part of a hands-on team at Bletchley Park. How you rank the historic contributions of the others depends partly on the criteria you value. If you are enticed by the romance of lone inventors and care less about who most influenced the progress of the field, you might put Atanasoff and Zuse high. But the main lesson to draw from the birth of computers is that innovation is usually a group effort, involving collaboration between visionaries and engineers, and that creativity comes from drawing on many sources. By Walter Isaacson Turing Park Bletchley Credit Lot

By this point Jobs had poured close to $50 million of his own money into Pixar - more than half of what he had pocketed when he cashed out of Apple - and he was still losing money at NeXT. He was hard-nosed about it; he forced all Pixar employees to give up their options as part of his agreement to add another round of personal funding in 1991. But he was also a romantic in his love for what artistry and technology could do together. By Walter Isaacson Apple Money Jobs Pixar Million

The Adoption When Paul Jobs was mustered out of the Coast Guard after World War II, he made a wager with his crewmates. They had arrived in San Francisco, where their ship was decommissioned, and Paul bet that he would find himself a wife within two weeks. He was a taut, tattooed engine mechanic, six feet tall, with a passing resemblance to James Dean. But it wasn't his looks that got him a date with Clara Hagopian, a sweet-humored daughter of Armenian immigrants. It was the fact that he and his friends had a car, unlike By Walter Isaacson Paul Adoption Jobs Coast Guard

Jobs and Clow agreed that Apple was one of the great brands of the world, probably in the top five based on emotional appeal, but they needed to remind folks what was distinctive about it. So they wanted a brand image campaign, not a set of advertisements featuring products. It was designed to celebrate not what the computers could do, but what creative people could do with the computers. " This wasn't about processor speed or memory," Jobs recalled. " It was about creativity." It was directed not only at potential customers, but also at Apple's own employees: " We at Apple had forgotten who we were. One way to remember who you are is to remember who your heroes are. That was the genesis of that campaign. By Walter Isaacson Clow Apple Jobs World Appeal

years. MICHAEL EISNER. Hard-driving Disney CEO who made By Walter Isaacson Years Michael Eisner Disney Ceo

Was willing to pay about $500 apiece, cash on delivery. Jobs immediately called Wozniak at HP. "Are you sitting down?" he asked. Wozniak said he wasn't. Jobs nevertheless proceeded to give him the news. "I was shocked, just completely shocked," Wozniak recalled. "I will never forget that moment." To fill the order, they needed about $15,000 worth of parts. Allen Baum, By Walter Isaacson Apiece Wozniak Cash Delivery Jobs

The ladies staged tableaux vivants, in which they dressed in costume to re-create famous paintings. By Walter Isaacson Vivants Paintings Ladies Staged Tableaux

PAUL REINHOLD JOBS. Wisconsin-born Coast Guard seaman who, with his wife, Clara, adopted Steve in 1955. REED JOBS. Oldest child of Steve Jobs and Laurene Powell. RON JOHNSON. Hired by Jobs in 2000 to develop Apple's stores. JEFFREY KATZENBERG. Head of Disney Studios, clashed with Eisner and resigned in 1994 to cofound DreamWorks SKG. ALAN KAY. Creative and colorful computer pioneer who envisioned early personal computers, helped arrange Jobs's Xerox PARC visit and his purchase of Pixar. DANIEL KOTTKE. Jobs's closest friend at Reed, fellow pilgrim to India, early Apple employee. JOHN LASSETER. Cofounder and creative force at Pixar. DAN'L LEWIN. Marketing exec with Jobs at Apple and then NeXT. MIKE MARKKULA. First big Apple investor and chairman, By Walter Isaacson Jobs Paul Reinhold Apple Steve

Syrian-born graduate student in Wisconsin who became biological father of Jobs and Mona Simpson, later a food and beverage manager at the Boomtown casino near Reno. By Walter Isaacson Simpson Reno Wisconsin Jobs Mona

In other words, the idea for the iPad actually came before, and helped to shape, the birth of the iPhone. By Walter Isaacson Words Shape Iphone Idea Ipad

He fell silent for a very long time. "But on the other hand, perhaps it's like an on-off switch," he said. "Click! And you're gone." Then he paused again and smiled slightly. "Maybe that's why I never liked to put on-off switches on Apple devices. By Walter Isaacson Time Click Fell Silent Long

Had the rights to make all the sequels and exploit the characters. I made a presentation that said, here's the 15% of Pixar that Disney does not already own. So that's By Walter Isaacson Characters Make Sequels Exploit Pixar

Some people say, "Give the customers what they want." But that's not my approach. Out job is to figure out what they're going to want before they do. I think Henry Ford once said, "If I'd asked customers what they wanted, they would have told me, 'A faster horse!'" People don't know what they want until you show it to them. By Walter Isaacson Give People Customers Henry Ford

Human ingenuity," wrote Leonardo da Vinci, whose Vitruvian Man became the ultimate symbol of the intersection of art and science, "will never devise any inventions more beautiful, nor more simple, nor more to the purpose than Nature does. By Walter Isaacson Vinci Leonardo Vitruvian Man Nature

most grounded people I have ever met. "There are parts of his life and personality that are extremely messy, and By Walter Isaacson Met Grounded People Messy Parts

I have my own theory about why decline happens at companies like IBM or Microsoft. The company does a great job, innovates and becomes a monopoly or close to it in some field, and then the quality of the product becomes less important. The company starts valuing the great salesmen, because they're the ones who can move the needle on revenues, not the product engineers and designers. So the salespeople end up running the company. By Walter Isaacson Microsoft Ibm Company Theory Decline

You can't have a sustainable US economy without a great education system. Teach students to do the job right. You don't have an innovative economy unless you have a great education. By Walter Isaacson System Great Education Sustainable Economy

On the day he unveiled the Macintosh, a reporter from Popular Science asked Jobs what type of market research he had done. Jobs responded by scoffing, Did Alexander Graham Bell do any market research before he invented the telephone? By Walter Isaacson Macintosh Popular Science Jobs Market

I keep thinking about all the time away from my family this will cause, and the time away from the other family at Pixar," Jobs said. "But the only reason I want to do it is that the world will be a better place with Apple in it. By Walter Isaacson Time Pixar Jobs Family Thinking

Those who met with greater economic success in life were responsible to help those in genuine need; but those who from lack of virtue failed to pull their own weight could expect no help from society. By Walter Isaacson Society Met Greater Economic Success

freedom from programs that steal your private data. Freedom from programs that trash your battery. Freedom from porn. Yep, freedom. The times they are a changin', and some traditional PC folks feel like their world is slipping away. It is. By Walter Isaacson Freedom Programs Data Steal Private

It seems perverse to focus too much on the casualties or hardship in Afghanistan ... [Showing the misery of Afghanistan ran the risk of] promoting enemy propaganda ... we must talk about how the Taliban are using civilian shields and how the Taliban have harboured the terrorists responsible for killing close up to 5,000 innocent people. By Walter Isaacson Afghanistan Taliban Perverse Focus Casualties

Steve's sales pitch on the NeXT operating system was dazzling," according to Amelio. " He praised the virtues and strengths as though he were describing a performance of Oliver as Macbeth. By Walter Isaacson Amelio Steve Dazzling Macbeth Sales

Steve's head dropped and stared at his feet. After a weighty, uncomfortable pause, he issued a challenge that would haunt me for days. " Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water, or do you want a chance to change the world?" Sculley felt as if he had been punched in the stomach. There was no response possible other than to acquiesce. " He had a uncanny ability to always get what he wanted, to size up a person and know exactly what to say to reach a person," Sculley recalled. By Walter Isaacson Steve Feet Head Dropped Stared

Simply handing over your iPod to a friend, your blind date, or the total stranger sitting next to you on the plane opens you up like a book. (Steven Levy) By Walter Isaacson Simply Friend Date Book Steven

But when he and Zuse proposed it to the German Army in 1942, the commanders said they were confident that they would win the war before the two years it would take to build such a machine. By Walter Isaacson Zuse German Army Machine Proposed

Delivered to the Byte Shop within thirty days, when the payment for the parts would come due. All available hands were enlisted: Jobs and Wozniak, plus Daniel Kottke, his ex-girlfriend Elizabeth Holmes (who had broken away from the cult she'd joined), and Jobs's pregnant sister, Patty. Her vacated bedroom as well as the kitchen table and garage were commandeered as work space. Holmes, By Walter Isaacson Byte Shop Jobs Delivered Days

When he was restored to the throne at Apple, we put him on the cover of Time, and soon thereafter he began offering me his ideas for a series we were doing on the most influential people of the century. He had launched his "Think Different" campaign, featuring iconic photos of some of the same people we were considering, and he found the endeavor of assessing historic influence fascinating. By Walter Isaacson Apple Time Century People Restored

As Osborne famously declared, "Adequacy is sufficient. All else is superfluous." Jobs found that approach to be morally appalling, and he spent days making fun of Osborne. "This guy just doesn't get it," Jobs repeatedly railed as he wandered the Apple corridors. "He's not making art, he's making shit. By Walter Isaacson Adequacy Osborne Declared Sufficient Jobs

One day someone called the Institute and asked to speak to a particular dean. When his secretary said that the dean wasn't available, the caller hesitantly asked for Einstein's home address. That was not possible to give out, he was informed. The caller's voice then dropped to a whisper. "Please don't tell anybody," he said, "but I am Dr. Einstein, I'm on my way home, and I've forgotten where my house is."40 By Walter Isaacson Institute Einstein Asked Dean Day

If you didn't voice your opinion, [Steve Jobs] would mow you down," said Cook. "He takes contrary positions to create more discussion, because it may lead to a better result. So if you don't feel comfortable disagreeing, then you'll never survive. By Walter Isaacson Steve Jobs Cook Opinion Voice

Franklin was worried that his fondness for conversation and eagerness to impress made him prone to "prattling, punning and joking, which only made me acceptable to trifling company." Knowledge, he realized, "was obtained rather by the use of the ear than of the tongue." So in the Junto, he began to work on his use of silence and gentle dialogue. By Walter Isaacson Prattling Made Franklin Punning Joking

It's also a narrative of how they collaborated and why their ability to work as teams made them even more creative. By Walter Isaacson Creative Narrative Collaborated Ability Work

Kissinger would probably be outraged even if he reread his own memoirs, on the grounds that they are not favorable enough. By Walter Isaacson Kissinger Memoirs Outraged Reread Grounds

When the fermentation is over and the troubling parts subsided, the wine will be fine and good, and cheer the hearts of those that drink it."41 Franklin was wrong, sadly wrong, about the French Revolution, though he would not live long enough to learn it. Le Veillard would soon lose his life to the guillotine. So would Lavoisier the chemist, who had worked with him on the Mesmer investigation. Condorcet, the economist who had accompanied By Walter Isaacson Wrong Franklin Revolution French Subsided

In other words, the future might belong to people who can best partner and collaborate with computers. In By Walter Isaacson Words Computers Future Belong People

A break came when Polish intelligence officers created a machine based on a captured German coder that was able to crack some of the Enigma codes. By the time the Poles showed the British their machine, however, it had been rendered ineffective because the Germans had added two more rotors and two more plugboard connections to their Enigma machines. By Walter Isaacson Polish Enigma Codes Machine Break

We have to compete in a universe of 200 networks, so we have to carve out our own niche, and to me, that niche is just basic shoe-leather journalism with some good journalists at the helm you can trust as presenters. By Walter Isaacson Networks Niche Presenters Compete Universe

I think you still have to think differently to buy an Apple computer," he said. "The people who buy them do think different. They are the creative spirits in this world, and they're out to change the world. We make tools for those kinds of people. By Walter Isaacson Apple Computer Buy Differently World

If you just sit and observe, you will see how restless your mind is. If you try to calm it, it only makes it worse, but over time it does calm, and when it does, there's room to hear more subtle things - that's when your intuition starts to blossom and you start to see things more clearly and be in the present more. Your mind just slows down, and you see a tremendous expanse in the moment. You see so much more than you could see before. It's a discipline; you have to practice it. By Walter Isaacson Observe Mind Sit Restless Calm

I love it when you can bring really great design and simple capability to something that doesn't cost much," he said as he pointed out the clean elegance of the houses. "It was the original vision for Apple. That's what we tried to do with the first Mac. That's what we did with the iPod. By Walter Isaacson Houses Love Bring Great Design

What's the difference between Apple and the Boy Scouts? The Boy Scouts have adult supervision. By Walter Isaacson Boy Scouts Apple Difference Supervision

Even before Jobs started elementary school, his mother had taught him how to read. This, however, led to some problems once he got to school. "I was kind of bored for the first few years, so I occupied myself by getting into trouble." It also soon became clear that Jobs, by both nature and nurture, was not disposed to accept authority. By Walter Isaacson School Read Jobs Started Elementary

Jobs was a strong-willed, elitist artist who didn't want his creations mutated inauspiciously by unworthy programmers. To him it would be as if someone off the street added some brush strokes to a Picasso painting or changed the lyrics to a Dylan song. By Walter Isaacson Jobs Strongwilled Elitist Programmers Artist

The Kleinrock controversy is interesting because it shows that most of the Internet's creators preferred - to use the metaphor of the Internet itself - a system of fully distributed credit. They instinctively isolated and routed around any node that tried to claim more significance than the others. The Internet was born of an ethos of creative collaboration and distributed decision making, and its founders liked to protect that heritage. It became ingrained in their personalities - and in the DNA of the Internet itself. By Walter Isaacson Internet Kleinrock Preferred Credit Controversy

Torvalds decided to use the GNU General Public License, not because he fully embraced the free-sharing ideology of Stallman (or for that matter his own parents) but because he thought that letting hackers around the world get their hands on the source code would lead to an open collaborative effort that would make it a truly awesome piece of software. "My reasons for putting Linux out there were pretty selfish," he said. "I didn't want the headache of trying to deal with parts of the operating system that I saw as the crap work. I wanted help."136 By Walter Isaacson License Stallman Gnu General Public

Steve had a TEAC reel-to-reel and massive quantities of Dylan bootlegs," Kottke recalled. "He was both really cool and high-tech. By Walter Isaacson Teac Kottke Dylan Steve Bootlegs

Of months, he began encouraging people to talk to me, even foes and former girlfriends. Nor did he try to put anything off-limits. "I've done a lot of things I'm not proud of, such as getting my girlfriend pregnant when I was twenty-three and the way I handled that," he said. "But I don't have any By Walter Isaacson Months Began Encouraging People Talk

Asked about the fact that Apple's iTunes software for Windows computers was extremely popular, Jobs joked, 'It's like giving a glass of ice water to somebody in hell. By Walter Isaacson Jobs Apple Windows Asked Popular

Without Steve Jobs, you would have well-designed computers, probably open and not integrated, but they wouldn't have sex appeal, they wouldn't have romance. By Walter Isaacson Jobs Steve Computers Integrated Appeal

When another asserted something that I thought an error, I denied myself the pleasure of contradicting him. By Walter Isaacson Error Asserted Thought Denied Pleasure

It is tasteless to prolong life artificially," he told Dukas. "I have done my share, it is time to go. I will do it elegantly. By Walter Isaacson Dukas Artificially Tasteless Prolong Life

the ideal chief executive as an outside person, an inside person, and a person of action. By Walter Isaacson Person Action Ideal Chief Executive

I had no idea what i wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. By Walter Isaacson Idea Wanted Life College Figure

Einstein's discovery of special relativity involved an intuition based on a decade of intellectual as well as personal experiences.9 The most important and obvious, I think, was his deep understanding and knowledge of theoretical physics. He was also helped by his ability to visualize thought experiments, which had been encouraged by his education in Aarau. Also, there was his grounding in philosophy: from Hume and Mach he had developed a skepticism about things that could not be observed. And this skepticism was enhanced by his innate rebellious tendency to question authority. By Walter Isaacson Einstein Personal Obvious Physics Discovery

I actually think Bill Gates is conventionally smarter, even though it's a dumb word, but mental processing power - I've watched him use four different screens, process information, get to the right answer, boom boom boom. By Walter Isaacson Boom Bill Gates Smarter Word

Now he was about to launch the Macintosh, a machine that violated many of the principles of the hacker's code: It was overpriced; it would have no slots, which meant that hobbyists could not plug in their own expansion cards or jack into the motherboard to add their own new functions; and it took special tools just to open the plastic case. It was a closed and controlled system, like something designed by Big Brother rather than by a hacker. By Walter Isaacson Macintosh Code Overpriced Slots Functions

Portfolio of Diana Walker Photos For almost thirty years, photographer Diana Walker has had special access to her friend Steve Jobs. Here is a selection from her portfolio. By Walter Isaacson Diana Walker Jobs Photos Steve

When a person can take pleasure in marching in step to a piece of music it is enough to make me despise him. He has been given his big brain only by mistake. By Walter Isaacson Person Pleasure Marching Step Piece

When it came time to announce the price of the new machine, Jobs did what he would often do in product demonstrations: reel off the features, describe them as being "worth thousands and thousands of dollars," and get the audience to imagine how expensive it really should be. Then he announced what he hoped would seem like a low price: "We're going to be charging higher education a single price of $6,500. By Walter Isaacson Jobs Price Thousands Machine Demonstrations

Insert quarter, avoid Klingons. By Walter Isaacson Klingons Insert Quarter Avoid

He lies not because it's in his interest, he lies because it's in his nature." It was in Jobs's nature to mislead or be secretive when he felt it was warranted. By Walter Isaacson Lies Interest Nature Jobs Warranted

When he was turning thirty, Jobs had used a metaphor about record albums. He was musing about why folks over thirty develop rigid thought patterns and tend to be less innovative. " People get stuck in those patterns, just like grooves in a record, and they never get out of them, " he said. At age forty-five, Jobs was now about to get out of his groove. By Walter Isaacson Jobs Albums Thirty Turning Metaphor

They'd ever enjoyed. Almost everyone mentioned some nice experience at a Four Seasons or Ritz-Carlton hotel. By Walter Isaacson Enjoyed Seasons Hotel Mentioned Nice

In classic Steve fashion, he would agree to something, but it would never happen," said Lack. "He would set you up and then pull it off the table. He's pathological, which can be useful in negotiations. And he's a genius. By Walter Isaacson Lack Steve Fashion Happen Classic

The history of this nation up through the Civil War shows how difficult the establishment of a federal authority can be when there are profound differences in the values of the societies it attempts to integrate."3 Oppenheimer thus became the first of many postwar realists to disparage Einstein for being allegedly too idealistic. By Walter Isaacson Oppenheimer Civil War Einstein Integrate

If you truly have a passion for what you do, you will care even about the parts unseen. By Walter Isaacson Unseen Passion Care Parts

Avie Tevanian, a lanky and gregarious engineer at NeXT who had become Jobs's friend, remembers that every now and then, when they were going out to dinner, they would stop by Chrisann's house to pick up Lisa. "He was very sweet to her," Tevanian recalled. "He was a vegetarian, and so was Chrisann, but she wasn't. He was fine with that. He suggested she order chicken, and she By Walter Isaacson Lisa Jobs Tevanian Chrisann Avie

At the Ahwahnee Lodge in Yosemite National Park. Built in the 1920s, the Ahwahnee is a sprawling pile of stone, concrete, and timber designed in a style that mixed Art Deco, the Arts and Crafts movement, By Walter Isaacson Park Ahwahnee Lodge Yosemite National

For Steve, less is always more, simpler is always better. Therefore, if you can build a glass box with fewer elements, it's better, it's simpler, and it's at the forefront of technology. That's where Steve likes to be, in both his products and his stores. By Walter Isaacson Steve Simpler Elements Technology Stores

Wozniak began to rankle at Jobs's style. Steve was too tough on people. I wanted our company to feel like a family where we all had fun and shared whatever we made. By Walter Isaacson Jobs Wozniak Style Began Rankle

Sketches Einstein: His Life and Universe A Benjamin Franklin Reader Benjamin Franklin: An American Life Kissinger: A Biography The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made (with Evan Thomas) By Walter Isaacson Benjamin Franklin Einstein Kissinger Men

In the annals of innovation, new ideas are only part of the equation. Execution is just as important. By Walter Isaacson Innovation Equation Annals Ideas Part

I began to realize that an intuitive understanding and consciousness was more significant than abstract thinking and intellectual logical analysis. By Walter Isaacson Analysis Began Realize Intuitive Understanding

For some people, miracles serve as evidence of God's existence. By Walter Isaacson God People Miracles Existence Serve

Otherwise, as Dylan says, if you're not busy being born, you're busy dying. By Walter Isaacson Dylan Born Dying Busy

I am a fruitarian and I will only eat leaves picked by virgins in the moonlight - Steve Jobs By Walter Isaacson Steve Jobs Moonlight Fruitarian Eat

More generally, I made an effort to leave out things that weren't relevant to the main narrative themes of the book, namely that there were two sides to Steve Jobs: the romantic, poetic, countercultural rebel on one side, and the serious businessperson on the other. By Walter Isaacson Jobs Poetic Steve Generally Book

I don't have any skeletons in my closet that can't be allowed out. By Walter Isaacson Skeletons Closet Allowed

One way to remember who you are is to remember who your heroes are. By Walter Isaacson Remember Heroes

I think that genius comes not just from having great mental processing power. It comes from being able to, as Steve Jobs' ad said, think different. By Walter Isaacson Power Genius Great Mental Processing

Steve Jobs: The best way to predict the future is to invent it. By Walter Isaacson Jobs Steve Predict Future Invent

In all of his products, technology would be married to great design, elegance, human touches and even romance. By Walter Isaacson Elegance Products Technology Design Human

By the end of his career, he [Steve Jobs] has proven that he can do the impossible, and he has gathered probably the most loyal team of eight players of any business in America. By Walter Isaacson Steve Jobs America Career Impossible

Jobs had always been an extremely opinionated eater, with a tendency to instantly judge any food as either fantastic or terrible. He could taste two avocados that most mortals would find indistinguishable, and declare that one was the best avocado ever grown and the other inedible. By Walter Isaacson Jobs Eater Terrible Extremely Opinionated

Pretend to be completely in control and people will assume that you are. By Walter Isaacson Pretend Completely Control People Assume

The ability of Isaacson to write books that capture an age as well as a man makes him one of our best and most important biographers. Steve Jobs shows Isaacson at his best." - Foreign By Walter Isaacson Isaacson Biographers Foreign Ability Write

Sometimes, to relieve stress, he would soak his feet in the toilet, a practice that was not as soothing for his collegues. By Walter Isaacson Stress Toilet Collegues Relieve Soak

Predictions that digital tools would allow workers to telecommute were never fully realized. One of Marissa Mayer's first acts as CEO of Yahoo! was to discourage the practice of working from home, rightly pointing out that "people are more collaborative and innovative when they're together." When Steve Jobs designed a new headquarters for Pixar, he obsessed over ways to structure the atrium, and even where to locate the bathrooms, so that serendipitous personal encounters would occur. Among his last creations was the plan for Apple's new signature headquarters, a circle with rings of open workspaces surrounding a central courtyard. Throughout history By Walter Isaacson Predictions Realized Digital Tools Workers

Steve Jobs was never going to let Flash on any Apple product again like that after in 1997 - he's got a long memory - they said no and Bill Gates said yes. By Walter Isaacson Jobs Flash Apple Bill Gates

Finally, on the day that he was scheduled to make the big announcement, Amelio called Jobs in. He needed an answer. Steve, do you just want By Walter Isaacson Finally Amelio Jobs Announcement Day

I think different religions are different doors to the same house. Sometimes I think the house exists, and sometimes I don't. It's the great mystery. (Steve Jobs) By Walter Isaacson House Religions Doors Steve Jobs

Most outside experts disagreed. "Maybe it's time Steve Jobs stopped thinking quite so differently," Business Week wrote in a story headlined "Sorry Steve, Here's Why Apple Stores Won't Work. By Walter Isaacson Disagreed Steve Business Work Experts

Not playing by the rules, not seeing things conventionally, that's the heart of who he [ Steve Jobs] is, and he does it in small ways of everyday rebellion just almost to assert who he is, like not putting a license plate on his car. By Walter Isaacson Steve Jobs Rules Conventionally Car

There was no CD tray, just a subtle slot. And as with the original Macintosh, there was no By Walter Isaacson Tray Slot Macintosh Subtle Original

Apple in 1996, bought NeXT, bringing Jobs back. BILL ATKINSON. Early Apple employee, developed graphics for the Macintosh. CHRISANN BRENNAN. Jobs's girlfriend at Homestead High, mother of his daughter Lisa. By Walter Isaacson Bought Bringing Back Apple Bill

The Macintosh lacked a fan, another example of Jobs's dogmatic stubbornness. Fans, he felt, detracted from the calm of a computer. This caused many component failures and earned the Macintosh the nickname "the beige toaster," which did not enhance its popularity. By Walter Isaacson Jobs Macintosh Stubbornness Lacked Dogmatic

ATKINSON. Early Apple employee, developed graphics for the Macintosh. CHRISANN BRENNAN. Jobs's girlfriend at Homestead High, mother By Walter Isaacson Atkinson Macintosh Mother Chrisann Brennan

And extol his new Macintosh. He was petulant By Walter Isaacson Macintosh Extol Petulant

But the main lesson to draw from the birth of computers is that innovation is usually a group effort, involving collaboration between visionaries and engineers, and that creativity comes from drawing on many sources. Only in storybooks do inventions come like a thunderbolt, or a lightbulb popping out of the head of a lone individual in a basement or garret or garage. By Walter Isaacson Effort Involving Engineers Sources Main

Veteran colleagues at Apple used to call his "reality distortion field." Sometimes it was the inadvertent misfiring of memory By Walter Isaacson Apple Veteran Reality Field Colleagues

The digital age could not become truly transformational until computers became truly personal. By Walter Isaacson Personal Digital Age Transformational Computers

The most successful endeavors in the digital age were those run by leaders who fostered collaboration while also providing a clear vision. Too often these are seen as conflicting traits: a leader is either very inclusive or a passionate visionary. But the best leaders could be both. Robert By Walter Isaacson Vision Successful Endeavors Digital Age

You've got to make a new set of friends and interact with a new set of prejudices every time. By Walter Isaacson Set Time Make Friends Interact

Any government is evil if it carries within it the tendency to deteriorate into tyranny," he warned the Russian scientists. "The danger of such deterioration is more acute in a country in which the government has authority not only over the armed forces but also over every channel of education and information as well as over the existence of every single citizen."27 By Walter Isaacson Russian Tyranny Scientists Government Evil

Nowadays sound embarrassing. Jobs wanted Apple "to become a wonderful consumer products company," Sculley wrote. "This was a lunatic plan ... Apple would never be a consumer products company ... We couldn't bend reality to all our dreams of changing the world ... High tech could not be designed and sold By Walter Isaacson Nowadays Embarrassing Company Sculley Products

In his competition with Bradford, Franklin had one big disadvantage. Bradford was the postmaster of Philadelphia, and he used that position to deny Franklin the right, at least officially, to send his Gazette through the mail. Their ensuing struggle over the issue of open carriage was an early example of the tension that often still exists between those who create content and those who control distribution systems. By Walter Isaacson Franklin Bradford Disadvantage Competition Big

As a result, the process of designing a product at Apple was integrally related to how it would be engineered and manufactured. Ive described one of Apple's Power Macs. "We wanted to get rid of anything other than what was absolutely essential," he said. "To do so required total collaboration between the designers, the product developers, the engineers, and the manufacturing By Walter Isaacson Apple Result Manufactured Process Designing

As Licklider explained, the sensible goal was to create an environment in which humans and machines "cooperate in making decisions." In other words, they would augment each other. "Men will set the goals, formulate the hypotheses, determine the criteria, and perform the evaluations. Computing machines will do the routinizable work that must be done to prepare the way for insights and decisions in technical and scientific thinking. By Walter Isaacson Licklider Explained Cooperate Create Environment

He was a loner with an intimate bond to humanity, a rebel who was suffused with reverence. And thus it was that an imaginative, impertinent patent clerk became the mind reader of the creator of the cosmos, the locksmith of the mysteries of the atom and the universe. By Walter Isaacson Humanity Reverence Loner Intimate Bond

Some leaders push innovations by being good at the big picture. Others do so by mastering details. Jobs did both, relentlessly. By Walter Isaacson Picture Leaders Push Innovations Good

A theme of digital success is keeping it simple. By Walter Isaacson Simple Theme Digital Success Keeping

Laurene Powell, said bluntly, "If you're ever going to do a book on Steve, you'd better do it now." He had just taken a second By Walter Isaacson Powell Steve Laurene Bluntly Book

Franklin's scientific achievements placed him in the pantheon with Newton. Franklin's experiments, he wrote in 1941, "afforded a basis for the explanation for all the known phenomena of electricity."16 Franklin By Walter Isaacson Newton Franklin Scientific Achievements Pantheon

Something more finished. But Jobs stared him down, and he agreed to take delivery and pay. After thirty days Apple was on the verge of being profitable. "We were able to build the boards more cheaply than we thought, because I got a good deal on parts," Jobs recalled. "So the fifty we sold to the Byte Shop almost By Walter Isaacson Finished Jobs Apple Pay Byte

and she had been unable to have any. So by 1955, after nine years of marriage, they were looking to adopt a child. By Walter Isaacson Unable Marriage Child Years Adopt

When part of this ecosystem was lacking, such as for John Atanasoff at Iowa State or Charles Babbage in the shed behind his London home, great concepts ended up being consigned to history's basement. And when great teams lacked passionate visionaries, such as Penn after Mauchly and Eckert left, Princeton after von Neumann, or Bell Labs after Shockley, innovation slowly withered. By Walter Isaacson John Atanasoff Iowa State Charles

I think it's really good that you have great competition among news networks, and for that matter all the networks in general. It's bringing more and more people in to watching the news. By Walter Isaacson General Networks Good Great Competition

Socrates' method of building an argument through gentle queries, he "dropped my abrupt contradiction" style of argument and "put on the humbler enquirer" of the Socratic method. By asking what seemed to be innocent questions, Franklin would draw people into making concessions that would gradually prove whatever point he was trying to assert. By Walter Isaacson Socratic Method Argument Socrates Queries

crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do. - Apple's "Think Different" commercial, 1997 By Walter Isaacson Apple Crazy Commercial Change World

We kind of missed the boat on that," he recalled. " So we needed to catch up real fast." The mark of an innovative company is not only that it comes up with new ideas first, but also that it knows how to leapfrog when it find itself behind. By Walter Isaacson Recalled Kind Missed Boat Fast

Such a leader knows how to empower groups to self-organize. When it's done right, a governance structure by consensus naturally emerges, as happened both with Linux and Wikipedia. "What astonishes so many people is that the open source model actually works," Torvalds said. "People know who has been active and who they can trust, and it just happens. By Walter Isaacson Selforganize Wikipedia Leader Empower Groups

He kept asking Kay and others for an assessment of "trends" that foretold what the future might hold for the company. During one maddening session, Kay, whose thoughts often seemed tailored to go directly from his tongue to wikiquotes, shot back a line that was to become PARC's creed: "The best way to predict the future is to invent it."60 By Walter Isaacson Kay Trends Future Company Assessment

Yeah, I think that his great creation was not any one product but a company in which creativity was connected to great engineering. And that will survive at least while the current people who trained under Steve are there. By Walter Isaacson Yeah Engineering Great Creation Product

Alto: She's a pistol and has the strongest will of any kid I've ever met. It's like payback. By Walter Isaacson Alto Met Pistol Strongest Kid

When you open the box of an iPhone or iPad, we want that tactile experience to set the tone for how you perceive the product. By Walter Isaacson Ipad Product Open Box Iphone

blogosphere attacked Jobs for being too controlling, he decided to write and post an open letter. Bill Campbell, his friend and board member, came by his house to go over it. "Does it sound like I'm just trying to stick it to Adobe?" he asked Campbell. "No, it's facts, just put it out there," the coach said. Most of the letter focused on the technical drawbacks of Flash. But By Walter Isaacson Jobs Campbell Blogosphere Controlling Attacked

First and foremost is that creativty is a collaborative process. Innovation comes from teams more often than the lightbulb moments of lone geniuses. By Walter Isaacson Process Foremost Creativty Collaborative Innovation

First and foremost is that creativity is a collaborative process. Innovation comes from teams more often than from the lightbulb moments of lone geniuses. This By Walter Isaacson Process Foremost Creativity Collaborative Innovation

His new idea was published that month in what became yet another seminal Einstein paper, "Cosmological Considerations in the General Theory of Relativity."9 On the surface, it did indeed seem to be based on a crazy notion: space has no borders because gravity bends it back on itself. Einstein By Walter Isaacson Cosmological Relativity Considerations General Theory

Authority should be questioned, hierarchies should be circumvented, nonconformity should be admired, and creativity should be nurtured. By Walter Isaacson Authority Questioned Hierarchies Circumvented Nonconformity

Jobs did not know that Sculley had told Eisenstat he wanted to quit, but by then it didn't matter. Overnight, he had changed his mind and decided to stay. Despite the blowup the day before, he was still eager for Jobs to like him. So he agreed to meet the next afternoon. By Walter Isaacson Sculley Eisenstat Quit Matter Jobs

Terrorism is a horrible thing that is the great threat to civilization on our planet. By Walter Isaacson Terrorism Planet Horrible Thing Great

The thing that struck me was his intensity. Whatever he was interested in he would generally carry to an irrational extreme." Jobs had honed his trick of using stares and silences to master other people. " One of his numbers was to stare at the person he was talking to. He would stare into their fucking eyeballs, ask some question, and would want a response without the other person averting their eyes. By Walter Isaacson Intensity Thing Struck Stare Person

Sculley found Jobs as memorable as his machine. He seemed more a showman than a businessman. Every move seemed calculated, as if it was rehearsed, to create an occasion of the moment. By Walter Isaacson Jobs Sculley Machine Found Memorable

He knew that the best way to create value in the twenty-first century was to connect creativity with technology, so he built a company where leaps of the imagination were combined with remarkable feats of engineering. By Walter Isaacson Technology Engineering Knew Create Twentyfirst

He showed me the rudiments of electronics, and I got very interested in that. Even more interesting were the trips to scavenge for parts. By Walter Isaacson Electronics Showed Rudiments Interested Parts

One of Job's business rules was to never be afraid of cannibalizing yourself. " If you don't cannibalize yourself, someone else will," he said. So even though an Iphone might cannibalize sales of an IPod, or an IPad might cannibalize sales of a laptop, that did not deter him. By Walter Isaacson Job Cannibalize Business Rules Afraid

The combination of GNU and Linux created an operating system that has been ported to more hardware platforms, ranging from the world's ten biggest supercomputers to embedded systems in mobile phones, than any other operating system. "Linux is subversive," wrote Eric Raymond. "Who would have thought that a world-class operating system could coalesce as if by magic out of part-time hacking by several thousand developers scattered all over the planet, By Walter Isaacson Gnu Linux Operating System Platforms

With the "SWAB JOB" school prank sign By Walter Isaacson Swab Job School Sign Prank

When highbrow critics accused Time of practicing personality journalism, Luce replied that Time did not invent the genre, the Bible did. By Walter Isaacson Luce Time Bible Journalism Genre

What do you think of Adolf Hitler?" Einstein replied, "He is living on the empty stomach of Germany. As soon as economic conditions improve, he will no longer be important. By Walter Isaacson Hitler Adolf Germany Einstein Replied

Innovation resides where art and science connect is not new. Leonardo da Vinci was the exemplar of the creativity that flourishes when the humanities and sciences interact. When Einstein was stymied while working out General Relativity, he would pull out his violin and play Mozart until he could reconnect to what he called the harmony of the spheres. By Walter Isaacson Innovation Resides Art Connect Vinci

States is seeking ways to sustain its innovative edge, and when societies around the world are trying to build creative digital-age economies, Jobs By Walter Isaacson Jobs States Edge Economies Seeking

Since the mathematicians have grabbed hold of the theory of relativity, I myself no longer understand it. By Walter Isaacson Relativity Mathematicians Grabbed Hold Theory

I don't think there was enough skepticism because I think most of us kind of believed that Saddam Hussein was building biological, chemical, and perhaps even, nuclear weapons. By Walter Isaacson Chemical Saddam Hussein Biological Nuclear

Steve has a reality distortion field." When Hertzfeld looked puzzled, Tribble elaborated. "In his presence, reality is malleable. He can convince anyone of practically anything. It wears off when he's not around, but it makes it hard to have realistic schedules. By Walter Isaacson Steve Field Tribble Distortion Reality

Picasso had a saying - 'good artists copy, great artists steal' - and we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas. By Walter Isaacson Picasso Good Copy Steal Ideas

When there are multiple versions of a story, you really have three ways to go. You can pick the most sensational version. You can try to balance things in your gut to get to what you think is the honest truth. Or you can err on the side of kindness. By Walter Isaacson Story Multiple Versions Version Pick

Progress comes not only in great leaps but also from hundreds of small steps. By Walter Isaacson Progress Steps Great Leaps Hundreds

slow and steady diligence is the true way to wealth. By Walter Isaacson Slow Wealth Steady Diligence True

From the earliest days at Apple, I realized that we thrived when we created intellectual property. If people copied or stole our software, we'd be out of business. If it weren't protected, there'd be no incentive for us to make new software or product designs. If protection of intellectual property begins to disappear, creative companies will disappear or never get started. But there's a simpler reason: It's wrong to steal. It hurts other people. And it hurts your own character. By Walter Isaacson Apple Earliest Days Realized Thrived

America's most dangerous internal threat, he felt, came not from communist subversives but from those who used the fear of communists to trample civil liberties. "America is incomparably less endangered by its own Communists than by the hysterical hunt for the few Communists that are here," he told the socialist leader Norman Thomas. By Walter Isaacson America Communists Threat Felt Liberties

truths, and he wanted to examine everything himself." Dudman allowed Jobs to audit classes and stay with friends in the dorms even after he stopped paying tuition. "The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting," he said. Among them was a calligraphy class that appealed to him By Walter Isaacson Truths Wanted Examine Classes Jobs

poet convinced both of his own talent and of the need to be self-indulgent in order to be a great artist. By Walter Isaacson Poet Artist Convinced Talent Selfindulgent

People will provide judgment, intuition, empathy, a moral compass, and human creativity. By Walter Isaacson Intuition Empathy People Judgment Compass

Thus did Ada, Countess of Lovelace, help sow the seeds for a digital age that would blossom a hundred years later. By Walter Isaacson Ada Countess Lovelace Sow Seeds

In the 1980s I thrilled to the static and screech that modems made when they opened for you the weirdly magical realm of online services and bulletin boards, By Walter Isaacson Boards Thrilled Static Screech Modems

Write a biography of him. I had recently published one By Walter Isaacson Write Biography Recently Published

Although Jobs later said that he was not plotting to take over Apple at the time, Ellison thought it was inevitable. " Anyone who spent more than a half hour with Amelio would realize that he couldn't do anything but self destruct," he later said By Walter Isaacson Ellison Jobs Apple Time Inevitable

A few days after he unveiled the iPad in January 2010, Jobs held a "town hall" meeting with employees at Apple's campus. By Walter Isaacson January Jobs Apple Town Hall

The general laws of nature are to be expressed by equations that hold true for all systems of coordinates, that is they are covariant with respect to any substitutions whatever."85 Einstein By Walter Isaacson Einstein Coordinates Whatever General Laws

Whoever accustoms himself to pass over in silence the faults of his neighbors shall meet with much better quarter from the world when he happens to fall into a mistake himself."14 By Walter Isaacson Himself Accustoms Pass Silence Faults

At age twelve, when he got a summer job at Hewlett-Packard, he learned that a properly run company could spawn innovation far more than any single creative individual. I discovered that the best innovation is sometimes the company, the way you organize a company, By Walter Isaacson Twelve Hewlettpackard Individual Company Innovation

His fingerprints are all over today's technologies. Photoelectric cells and lasers, nuclear power and fiber optics, space travel, and even semiconductors all trace back to his theories. By Walter Isaacson Technologies Fingerprints Today Photoelectric Lasers

The main thing in our design is that we have to make things intuitively obvious. By Walter Isaacson Obvious Main Design Make Intuitively

You know, one of these things that happened in the '60s and '70s was this confluence of, sort of, a counter-culture with computer culture. By Walter Isaacson Sort Culture Things Happened Confluence

I think that we shouldn't be fixated all the time on the ups and downs of the weekly ratings, of the quarter-hour ratings. By Walter Isaacson Ratings Fixated Time Ups Weekly

I had come to revere the Italian designers, just like the kid in Breaking Away reveres the Italian bikers," recalled Jobs, "so it was an amazing inspiration. By Walter Isaacson Italian Jobs Breaking Designers Bikers

conformed to the principle of least action, a foundation of physics that holds that light or any object moving between two points should follow the easiest path.3 Planck's paper not only contributed to the development of relativity theory; it also helped to legitimize it among other physicists. By Walter Isaacson Planck Conformed Action Easiest Theory

Now kids get a MacBook and regard it as an appliance. They treat it like a refrigerator and expect it to be filled with good things, but they don't know how it works. They don't fully understand what I knew, and my parents knew, which was what you could do with a computer was limited only by your imagination.8 By Walter Isaacson Appliance Kids Macbook Regard Knew

The goal was never to beat the competition, or to make a lot of money. It was to do the greatest thing possible, or even a little greater. By Walter Isaacson Competition Money Goal Beat Make

Not since the original Mac had a clarity of product vision so propelled a company into the future. If anybody was ever wondering why Apple is on the earth, I would hold up this as a good example By Walter Isaacson Mac Future Original Clarity Product

Throughout his career, Jobs liked to see himself as an enlightened rebel pitted against evil empires, a Jedi warrior or Buddhist samurai fighting the forces of darkness. IBM was his perfect foil. He cleverly cast the upcoming battle not as a mere business competition, By Walter Isaacson Jobs Jedi Buddhist Career Empires

Steve believed it was our job to teach people aesthetics, to teach people what they should like, By Walter Isaacson Teach People Steve Aesthetics Believed

Most of the collaborations of technology were done by teams ... Collaboration is key to creativity By Walter Isaacson Teams Technology Creativity Collaborations Key

I visited Jobs for the last time in his Palo Alto, Calif., home. He had moved to a downstairs bedroom because he was too weak to go up and down stairs. He was curled up in some pain, but his mind was still sharp and his humor vibrant. By Walter Isaacson Calif Alto Home Jobs Palo

rethink things. There was something about the design that lacked purity, he felt. "Why By Walter Isaacson Rethink Things Purity Felt Design

Cutting the cake in the shape of Half Dome with Laurene and his daughter from a previous relationship, Lisa Brennan. By Walter Isaacson Lisa Brennan Half Dome Laurene

Responded with a presidential note describing how Washington defined a "base." Work on the new facility was halted, By Walter Isaacson Base Washington Responded Presidential Note

something that's so thoughtful on the outside you say, 'Oh, wow, it must be really thoughtful By Walter Isaacson Wow Thoughtful

The year before, 279,000 Apple IIs were sold, compared to 240,000 IBM PCs and its clones. By Walter Isaacson Apple Ibm Sold Compared Clones

Innovation occurs when ripe seeds fall on fertile ground. By Walter Isaacson Innovation Ground Occurs Ripe Seeds

The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do. By Walter Isaacson People Crazy Change World

A society's competitive advantage will come not from how well its schools teach the multiplication and periodic tables, but from how well they stimulate imagination and creativity. By Walter Isaacson Tables Creativity Society Competitive Advantage

Taking a long walk was his preferred way to have a serious conversation. It turned By Walter Isaacson Taking Conversation Long Walk Preferred

Kathryn Smith: 16 DPA/Landov: 21 Courtesy of Daniel Kottke: 56 Mark Richards: 71, 348 Ted Thai/Polaris: 102 By Walter Isaacson Dpa Landov Polaris Smith Courtesy

A nation which depends upon others for its new basic scientific knowledge will be slow in its industrial progress and weak in its competitive position in world trade. By Walter Isaacson Trade Nation Depends Basic Scientific

There was no such thing as the Scientific Revolution, By Walter Isaacson Revolution Scientific Thing

Even thirty years later, reflecting back on the competition, Jobs cast it as a holy crusade: "IBM was essentially Microsoft at its worst. They were not a force for innovation; they were a force for evil. They were like ATT or Microsoft or Google is." Unfortunately By Walter Isaacson Jobs Ibm Microsoft Reflecting Competition

Tale is thus both instructive and cautionary, filled By Walter Isaacson Filled Tale Cautionary Instructive

One of Job's great strengths was knowing how to focus. " Deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what to do, " he said. " That's true for companies, and it's true for products. By Walter Isaacson Job Focus Deciding Great Strengths

Mauchly and Eckert should be at the top of the list of people who deserve credit for inventing the computer, not because the ideas were all their own but because they had the ability to draw ideas from multiple sources, add their own innovations, execute their vision by building a competent team, and have the most influence on the course of subsequent developments. The machine they built was the first general-purpose electronic computer. By Walter Isaacson Ideas Eckert Computer Mauchly Sources

Scattershot friendly to me over the years, with occasional bursts of intensity, especially when he was By Walter Isaacson Scattershot Years Intensity Friendly Occasional

The creation of a triangular relationship among government, industry, and academia was, in its own way, one of the significant innovations that helped produce the technological revolution of the late twentieth century. By Walter Isaacson Industry Government Century Creation Triangular

other computer wunderkind born in 1955. By Walter Isaacson Computer Wunderkind Born

One of the great pressures we're facing in journalism now is it's a lot cheaper to hire thumb suckers and pundits and have talk shows on the air than actually have bureaus and reporters. By Walter Isaacson Reporters Great Pressures Facing Journalism

Einstein was asked what the next war would look like. "I do not know how the Third World War will be fought," he answered, "but I can tell you what they will use in the Fourth - rocks. By Walter Isaacson War Einstein Asked Fourth Rocks

Sculley began to believe that Jobstrong>sstrong>'strong>sstrong> mercurial perstrong>sstrong>onality and erratic treatment of people were rooted deep in histrong>sstrong> pstrong>sstrong>ychological makeup, perhapstrong>sstrong> the reflection of a mild bipolarity. By Walter Isaacson Sstrong Jobstrong Strong Pstrong Perhapstrong

Getting shocked was a badge of honor for Woz. He prided himself on being a hardware engineer, which meant By Walter Isaacson Woz Shocked Badge Honor Engineer

I can't see any reason that anyone would want a computer of his own," DEC president Ken Olsen declared at a May 1974 meeting where his operations committee was debating whether to create a smaller version of its PDP-8 for personal consumers. By Walter Isaacson Dec Ken Olsen Meeting Consumers

When I was diagnosed with cancer, I made my deal with God or whatever, which was that I By Walter Isaacson God Cancer Diagnosed Made Deal

Playing juvenile pranks. In twelfth grade he built an electronic metronome - one of those tick-tick-tick devices that keep time in music class - and realized it sounded like a bomb. So he took the labels off some big batteries, taped them together, and put it in a school locker; he rigged By Walter Isaacson Playing Pranks Juvenile Metronome Devices

It's about doing something larger than yourself. It's about serving this world, helping others. By Walter Isaacson Larger World Helping Serving

Laurene, Eve, Erin, and Lisa at the Corinth Canal in Greece, 2006: For young people, this By Walter Isaacson Eve Erin Laurene Greece Lisa

Perhaps no matter how fast computers progress, artificial intelligence may never outstrip the intelligence of the human-machine partnership. Let By Walter Isaacson Progress Artificial Partnership Intelligence Matter

Back in 1917, when Einstein had analyzed the "cosmological considerations" arising from his general theory of relativity, most astronomers thought that the universe consisted only of our Milky Way, floating with its 100 billion or so stars in a void of empty space. By Walter Isaacson Einstein Milky Back Cosmological Considerations

Continued to say. But in 2009 his wife, Laurene Powell, By Walter Isaacson Continued Laurene Powell Wife

By 1940 Grace Hopper was bored. She had no children, her marriage was unexciting, and teaching math was not as fulfilling as she had hoped. By Walter Isaacson Grace Hopper Bored Children Unexciting

A physicist is one who's concerned with the truth," he later said. "An engineer is one who's concerned with getting the job done. By Walter Isaacson Concerned Truth Physicist Engineer Job

Good telling of human stories is the best way to keep the Internet and the World Wide Web from becoming a waste vastland. By Walter Isaacson Internet World Wide Web Good

Betty Snyder, who, under her married name, Betty Holberton, went on to become a pioneer programmer who helped develop the COBOL and Fortran languages, By Walter Isaacson Betty Snyder Holberton Cobol Fortran

Perhaps the oddest meeting was when Dr. Dre came to visit Jobs at Apple headquarters. Jobs loved the Beatles By Walter Isaacson Dre Apple Headquarters Jobs Beatles

We believe we have a moral responsibility to keep porn off the iPhone," Jobs declared in an email to a customer. "Folks who want porn can buy an Android. By Walter Isaacson Jobs Iphone Customer Folks Android

Alan was slow to learn that indistinct line that separated initiative from disobedience. By Walter Isaacson Alan Disobedience Slow Learn Indistinct

If he was displeased, he might scream and get hopping mad and use expletives, but he wouldn't do it in a way that would totally destroy the person he was talking to. It was just his way to get the person to do a better job. By Walter Isaacson Displeased Expletives Person Scream Hopping

But the point is to get a whole new generation of people and people in general more re-engaged in news, and this has happened a lot since September 11th of course. By Walter Isaacson September People Point Generation General

I do think it's important, if you're going to be very creative, to be a seeker. By Walter Isaacson Important Creative Seeker

Mr. Franklin kept a horn book always in his pocket in which he minuted all his invitations to dinner, and Mr. Lee said it was the only thing in which he was punctual By Walter Isaacson Franklin Lee Dinner Punctual Horn

On Startups: "I hate it when people call themselves "entrepreneurs" when what they're really trying to do is launch a startup and then sell or go public, so they can cash in and move on. By Walter Isaacson Entrepreneurs Public Startups Startup Hate

Designed by Joy O'Meara Manufactured in the United States of America 1 3 5 7 9 10 By Walter Isaacson America Joy Manufactured United States

There are parts of his life and personality that are extremely messy, and that's the truth By Walter Isaacson Messy Truth Parts Life Personality

Deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what to do, By Walter Isaacson Deciding Important

I believe that the most important mission of the state is to protect the individual and to make it possible for him to develop into a creative personality, By Walter Isaacson Personality Important Mission State Protect

They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. By Walter Isaacson Rules Fond Quo Respect Status

Just being the seeker, somebody whose open to spiritual enlightenment, is in itself the important thing and it's the reward for being a seeker in this world. By Walter Isaacson Seeker Enlightenment World Open Spiritual

Let's crowd source, curate, and add royalties to books By Walter Isaacson Curate Source Books Crowd Add

Man is very capable of imagining infinite happiness, and he should be able to grasp the infinity of space - I By Walter Isaacson Man Happiness Space Capable Imagining

He was incredibly phony, a complete poseur... He pretended to be interested in technology, but he wasn't. He was a marketing guy, and that is what marketing guys are: paid poseurs. By Walter Isaacson Phony Incredibly Complete Marketing Poseur

she said. He had called me right before he was going to be operated on for cancer, and he was still keeping it a secret, she explained. I decided By Walter Isaacson Cancer Secret Explained Decided Called

Apple's products By Walter Isaacson Apple Products

The reason Apple can create products like the iPad is that we've always tried to be at the intersection of technology and liberal arts, By Walter Isaacson Apple Arts Reason Create Products

The thing that Von Neumann had, which I've noticed that other geniuses have, is the ability to pick out, in a particular problem, the one crucial thing that's important. By Walter Isaacson Thing Von Neumann Problem Important

The juice goes out of Christianity when it becomes too based on faith rather than on living like Jesus or seeing the world as Jesus saw it," he told me. "I think different religions are different doors to the same house. By Walter Isaacson Jesus Christianity Juice Based Faith

Coming back after seven months in Indian villages, I saw the craziness of the Western By Walter Isaacson Western Indian Coming Villages Back

Von Neumann, by contrast, wore a three-piece suit at almost all times, including on a donkey ride down the Grand Canyon; even as a student he was so well dressed that, upon first meeting him, the mathematician David Hilbert reportedly had but one question: Who is his tailor?45 By Walter Isaacson Neumann Canyon Grand David Hilbert

Like many entrepreneurs, Bushnell had no shame about distorting reality in order to motivate people. By Walter Isaacson Bushnell Entrepreneurs People Shame Distorting

People know how to deal with a desktop intuitively. If you walk into an office, there are papers on the desk. The one on the top is the most important. People know how to switch priority. Part of the reason we model our computers on metaphors like the desktop is that we can leverage this experience people already have. By Walter Isaacson Intuitively People Deal Desktop Office

I think it is valuable and should be valued by its consumers. Charging for content forces discipline on journalists: they must produce things that people actually value. By Walter Isaacson Consumers Valuable Valued Charging Journalists

As Friedland had done and as Jobs would learn to do, he was able to turn charm into a cunning force, to cajole and intimidate and distort reality with the power of his personality By Walter Isaacson Friedland Jobs Force Personality Learn

Physics should represent a reality in time and space, free from spooky action at a distance. By Walter Isaacson Physics Space Free Distance Represent

When the conventional wisdom of physics seemed to conflict with an elegant theory of his, Einstein was inclined to question that wisdom rather than his theory, often to have his stubbornness rewarded. By Walter Isaacson Einstein Wisdom Theory Rewarded Conventional