🧵 View Thread
🧵 Thread (46 tweets)

steve jobs said a bunch of really insightful things over the years, but it can be surprisingly tedious to find them because there's so much noise from people over-quoting the inspirational babble. I find myself thinking this a few times a year; probably worth making my own set

currently looking for the quote he has about how it takes time to really get "all of the possible things you can do with a product" inside your head, to have that information among a group of people... what you can do with the glass...

these are some of the better quotes, though still not what i'm looking for people are really bad at selecting quotes A people say insightful things, B people quote them (poorly), C people share the most mundane and tepid of those quotes https://t.co/VJB9um3H82





still looking... https://t.co/qVAPc8RFtG





hehe, frito-lay "Apple is an Ellis Island company. Apple is built on refugees from other companies." Anybody have an opinion on the best entry point for reading more about Edwin Land? (still looking for my damn quote about making products, lol) https://t.co/es8Y1a6igE



interesting bits from this interview: - at age 21, took andy grove out to lunch - 'one of my role models is bob dylan' – he never stood still - 'if they keep on risking failure, they're still artists' - was reading richard feynman re: cancer and death https://t.co/UVcSbeV8nU

since this is now basically a steve jobs thread, I want to contrast the "wow he sat in an empty room, so zen" picture with a few others https://t.co/0LDC8wHpoi





Getting annoyed that I haven’t been able to find this quote yet. 😅 Did I imagine it? Was it someone other than Steve? IIRC he said things like “you can’t defy the laws of physics, there are certain things you can’t do with glass... but eventually you figure out what you can do”

“It’s the meta-data.” https://t.co/ir580U7esJ


“The whole strategy for Apple now is, if you will, to be the Sony of the computer business.” – Steve Jobs, 1998 https://t.co/UVcSbeV8nU

OK so this is in the *spirit* of the quote I’m looking for – “go hide away with people that really understand the tech, but also really care about the customers, and dream up this next breakthrough”. But... did I hallucinate the extra details? I bet there’s a more recent version https://t.co/IY8ipbPed8


THIS IS ALSO REALLY REALLY CLOSE Why are you taunting me like this Steve https://t.co/kDUCa9vD2U


I am halting today’s search for now https://t.co/PqgFXqVIno

This is a really interesting bit that I bet you’ve never seen unless you’ve watched the entire MIT lecture - Steve (then NeXT CEO) talking about relationships with suppliers https://t.co/x76L1LdVpj


Btw future-Visa (👋🏾) if you’re wondering why I was looking for that quote, it was for this thread https://t.co/wisae1Y1ix

currently thinking about: -threading -hyperlinking -information architecture -project management -einstein's messy table -pg's "holding a program in one's head" -^similar quote from steve jobs -vgr's 'crucible effect' -da vinci's messy notebooks -worrydream's seeing spaces https://t.co/NPbQL8Xm1Z





It’s this!!! This is why Twitter rules https://t.co/VTYo4hc8Dn

It’s interesting that this quote was in 1995 - and you can see the two “almost there” versions of it earlier were from 1985 and 1990 respectively. By following those quotes you can see how Steve refined his thinking about his processes over time

A thing I like to do when researching a person is to look for all the other people they've quoted or mentioned by name. Can you think of some people who should be in this map but aren't? https://t.co/ZUeP81tKk5


Interesting to pay attention to the details - “great user interface”, “vanish” https://t.co/qIJx0kTDbb

Steve Jobs in 1990: Interpersonal networked computing (through great software and UX) will give rise to decentralized orgs that allow people at every level work together remotely Crazy how Jobs could see clearly 30 yrs into the future! https://t.co/fqewFraHyC https://t.co/iPsLx0R7qI


I often find myself referencing this Steve Jobs quote about what it’s like to have the means to take responsibility for your own dreams, and can be held accountable for them https://t.co/xCmONgaOCP


Synthesis of thinking and doing https://t.co/iA2jAMNGxe

Mix the paint. Stretch the canvas. Get your hands dirty. Make the mistakes. Iterate. "My observation is that the doers are the major thinkers. The people that really create the things that change the industry are both the thinker-doer in the same person." https://t.co/h788QdjMtI


reminder that the company that makes iphones was founded by annoying prank-calling hackers who were goofing off and pursuing their own idea of what was fun and interesting https://t.co/sSycQONSAM

original source for the above quote, from Silicon Valley: A 100 Year Renaissance hosted by Walter Cronkite (jump to 41:50) "If we hadn't had made blue boxes, there would have been no Apple." https://t.co/copsoqIxrh https://t.co/QeQVCj8hoG


I wonder what Steve Jobs would've thought about the wealth tax debates. Some clues here: https://t.co/vqd3ugewM3 https://t.co/aW6TNhAZai




leadership = articulating vision + building consensus a great team becomes self-policing re: team quality interesting how great managers often tend to be great contributors who didn't want to be managers and didn't want to be managed https://t.co/fCXeLhstVO

obsession https://t.co/7ikg95QdIh

if someone claims to be the second coming of steve jobs, the first question I ask is, how do they talk to their families about household appliances? people focus too much on the "great" part of "insanely great" obsession runs all the way through https://t.co/gChm2QkXcM https://t.co/s4l7wbn8oo


30. metaphor of rocks polishing each other through friction https://t.co/catxTL1zkh

31. "The storyteller sets the vision, values and agenda of an entire generation that is to come and Disney has a monopoly on the storyteller business. You know what? I am tired of that bullshit, I am going to be the next storyteller." https://t.co/oGAgVm3sdz



eg this 1996 Wired interview is one of the most interesting. you can see a sort of depressing nihilism here. he does not yet know for certain that he's going to RETVRN OF THE KING and set into motion the most valuable company of all time. this is his Hakuna Matata phase https://t.co/p06s3QrXQk


33. simplicity https://t.co/LFYFnR1zl9 https://t.co/Lk1hox8oEk



34. “When you have a monopoly market share… the people that can make the company more successful are the sales and marketing people, and they end up running the companies… and the companies forget what it means to make great products.” https://t.co/yC8NsdkCI8


35. “I am going to wait for the next big thing.” (via Richard Rumalt’s Good Strategy, Bad Strategy) https://t.co/9MqNbLWUNi



36.

Also this rabbithole got me to rediscover Steve Jobs' 2010 "Thoughts on Flash" – I remember vaguely hearing about this drama (I didn't use any Apple products at the time so I didn't care) Steve was such a skilful communicator https://t.co/cXlyatfvHz https://t.co/gxWkNLzbip





37. 25 really important things to decide in a year https://t.co/SBN5yjAvxl


@visakanv whoa nice. lots of people diss consensus as slow, but it makes me think the actual issues are: 1. using consensus for decisions that are not sufficiently important 2. getting the wrong people in the room (or not all the right people)

@visakanv historical record of a photograph taken of Steve Jobs during this Playboy interview https://t.co/RCZF3pagbb

@visakanv https://t.co/cqYlgMEn3R