Isaacson Quotes & Sayings

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. — Walter Isaacson

For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through. — Walter Isaacson

Write a biography of him. I had recently published one — Walter Isaacson

Smart people are a dime a dozen. What matters is the ability to think different ... to think out of the box. — Walter Isaacson

poet convinced both of his own talent and of the need to be self-indulgent in order to be a great artist. — Walter Isaacson

Steve believed it was our job to teach people aesthetics, to teach people what they should like, — Walter Isaacson

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. — Walter Isaacson

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. — Walter Isaacson

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. — Walter Isaacson

Let's crowd source, curate, and add royalties to books — Walter Isaacson

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. — Walter Isaacson

To dwell on the things taht depress or anger us does not help in overcoming them. One must knock them down alone. — Walter Isaacson

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

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. — Walter Isaacson

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. — Walter Isaacson

most grounded people I have ever met. "There are parts of his life and personality that are extremely messy, and — Walter Isaacson

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. — Walter Isaacson

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. — Walter Isaacson

See God in the instruments and mechanisms that work reliably. — Walter Isaacson

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. — Walter Isaacson

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. — Walter Isaacson

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. — Walter Isaacson

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? — Walter Isaacson

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. — Walter Isaacson

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

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 — Walter Isaacson

Some leaders push innovations by being good at the big picture. Others do so by mastering details. Jobs did both, relentlessly. — Walter Isaacson

TV was on Mr. Jobs's to-do list. "I'd like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use," he told his biographer, Walter Isaacson. "I finally cracked it." But then he died, — Anonymous

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. — Walter Isaacson

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. — Walter Isaacson

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 — Walter Isaacson

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

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 — Walter Isaacson

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. — Walter Isaacson

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. — Walter Isaacson

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. — Walter Isaacson

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. — Walter Isaacson

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 — Walter Isaacson

A foolish faith in authority is the worst enemy of truth.46 — Walter Isaacson

For some people, miracles serve as evidence of God's existence. — Walter Isaacson

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. — Walter Isaacson

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 — Walter Isaacson

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) — Walter Isaacson

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 — Walter Isaacson

With the "SWAB JOB" school prank sign — Walter Isaacson

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

The main thing in our design is that we have to make things intuitively obvious. — Walter Isaacson

Everything you've ever done in your life is shit," Jobs said, "so why don't you come work for me? — Walter Isaacson

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 — Walter Isaacson

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. — Walter Isaacson

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. — Walter Isaacson

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. — Walter Isaacson

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. — Walter Isaacson

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

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. — Walter Isaacson

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 — Walter Isaacson

A frank, smart and wholly unsentimental biography . . . a remarkably — Walter Isaacson

Terrorism is a horrible thing that is the great threat to civilization on our planet. — Walter Isaacson

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. — Walter Isaacson

Markets rather than merely chasing old ones. — Walter Isaacson

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. — Walter Isaacson

You've got to make a new set of friends and interact with a new set of prejudices every time. — Walter Isaacson

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

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 — Walter Isaacson

Taking a long walk was his preferred way to have a serious conversation. It turned — Walter Isaacson

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. — Walter Isaacson

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. — Walter Isaacson

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. — Walter Isaacson

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. — Walter Isaacson

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

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. — Walter Isaacson

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. — Walter Isaacson

If you truly have a passion for what you do, you will care even about the parts unseen. — Walter Isaacson

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. — Walter Isaacson

slow and steady diligence is the true way to wealth. — Walter Isaacson

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. — Walter Isaacson

In other words, the idea for the iPad actually came before, and helped to shape, the birth of the iPhone. — Walter Isaacson

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. — Walter Isaacson

years. MICHAEL EISNER. Hard-driving Disney CEO who made — Walter Isaacson

And extol his new Macintosh. He was petulant — Walter Isaacson

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. — Walter Isaacson

Finally Jobs proposed Apple Computer. "I was on one of my fruitarian diets," he explained. "I had just come back from the apple farm. It sounded fun, spirited, and not intimidating. Apple took the edge off the word 'computer.' Plus, it would get us ahead of Atari in the phone book — Steve Jobs

Himself as the natural successor in that sequence. Because — Walter Isaacson

I have a strong emotional respect for Steve. — Walter Isaacson

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) — Walter Isaacson

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. — Walter Isaacson

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. — Walter Isaacson

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. — Walter Isaacson

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. — Walter Isaacson

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. — Walter Isaacson

A theme of digital success is keeping it simple. — Walter Isaacson

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. — Walter Isaacson

I will read anything by Laura Hillenbrand, Walter Isaacson, Barbara Kingsolver, John le Carre, John Grisham, Hilary Mantel, Toni Morrison, Anna Quindlen and Alice Walker. — Hillary Clinton

They'd ever enjoyed. Almost everyone mentioned some nice experience at a Four Seasons or Ritz-Carlton hotel. — Walter Isaacson

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

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. — Walter Isaacson

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. — Walter Isaacson

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. — Walter Isaacson

Now that I was no longer at either of those places, — Walter Isaacson

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. — Walter Isaacson