Great Steve Jobs Quotes

[Chess]

http://www.wired.com/news/culture/mac/0,70512-0.html

Some selections:

"I've always wanted to own and control the primary technology in everything we do."
-- BusinessWeek Online, Oct. 12, 2004

"It's really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them."
-- BusinessWeek, May 25 1998

"What's new is this amazingly efficient distribution system for stolen property called the internet -- and no one's gonna shut down the internet."
-- On how he sold iTMS to the music industry, Rolling Stone, Dec. 3, 2003

[Wally Balljacker]

Funny, I just finished reading that before I came in here. Some of those lines are classic. Love him or hate him, he is a master at spinning bullshit.

[Patrick]

"I've always wanted to own and control the primary technology in everything we do."

Not a big surprise. He's a control freak and a business man.

"It's really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them."

I agree. It seems that the F/OSS projects that are run by committee often have more issues than one run by a benevolent dictator. It's easier to get things done when one person is in charge.

"What's new is this amazingly efficient distribution system for stolen property called the internet -- and no one's gonna shut down the internet."

Stealing? It's called programming. Programmers constantly borrow from each other. I laugh when I hear about companies patenting 5 lines of code. Get a bunch of programmers in a room together and tell them to code a particular task. You will get some duplication regardless if they collaborate or not. There's only so many ways to code a 'for' loop.

[snarkout]

I think he was specifically talking about music in this case, though.

[Vogateer]

"It's really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them."

I agree. It seems that the F/OSS projects that are run by committee often have more issues than one run by a benevolent dictator. It's easier to get things done when one person is in charge.

I can't count the number of times I've seen a good idea hit with an acute case of analysis paralysis when it gets to a committee. As goofy as he was, I like the quotes of Ross Perot:

“If you see a snake, just kill it - don't appoint a committee on snakes.”
“Inventories can be managed, but people must be led.”

"What's new is this amazingly efficient distribution system for stolen property called the internet -- and no one's gonna shut down the internet."

Stealing? It's called programming. Programmers constantly borrow from each other. I laugh when I hear about companies patenting 5 lines of code. Get a bunch of programmers in a room together and tell them to code a particular task. You will get some duplication regardless if they collaborate or not. There's only so many ways to code a 'for' loop.

I can understand completely why copyright and patents were begun, but now they've morphed into yet another tool companies can use in their anti-competitive practices.