Steve Jobs Quotes

Steve Wozniak Why has Lisa not heard of me?

Steve Jobs Shit, man, how many fourth graders have heard of you?

Steve Wozniak You can't write code. You're not an engineer. You're not a designer. You can't put a hammer to a nail. I built the circuit board! The graphical interface was stolen from Xerox Park! Jeff Raskin was the leader of the Mac team before you threw him off his own project! Everything-- Someone else designed the box! So how come ten times in a day I read Steve Jobs is a genius? What do you do?

Steve Jobs I play the orchestra. And you're a good musician, you sit right there, you're the best in your role.

Steve Wozniak I came here to clear the air. Do you know why I came here?

Steve Jobs Didn't you just answer that?

Steve Wozniak I came here cause you're gonna get killed. Your computer's gonna fail. You got a college and university advisory board telling you they need a powerful work station for two to three thousand. You priced NeXT at 6500, and that doesn't include the optional $3000 hardrive which people will discover isn't optional, because the optical disk is too weak to do anything, and the $2500 laser printer brings the total to $12000, and in the entire world you are the only person that cares that it's housed in a perfect cube. You're gonna get killed. And I came here to stand next to you while that happens cause that's what friends do... that's what men do. I don't need your pass. We go back, so don't talk to me like I'm other people. I'm the only one that knows that this guy here is someone you invented. I'm standing by you because that perfect cube - that does nothing - is about to be the single biggest failure in the history of personal computing.

Steve Jobs Tell me something else I don't know.

Steve Jobs You know what LISA stood for?

Lisa Brennan What?

Steve Jobs The computer -- the LISA, you know what it stood for?

Lisa Brennan I'm sorry I said that about the iMac, it's not what I really think--

Steve Jobs Behind my back, at the office, you know what it stood for?

Lisa Brennan Local Integrated System Architecure"! I was five! Why couldn't you just lie?!

Steve Jobs I did. Of course it was named after you. "Local Integrated System Architecure" doesn't even mean anything.

Lisa Brennan Why'd you say it wasn't, all those years?

Steve Jobs I honestly don't know.

Lisa Brennan Why'd you say you weren't my father?

Steve Jobs ...I'm poorly made.

Steve Wozniak It's not binary. You can be gifted and decent at the same time.

Steve Jobs I forced the vote because I believed I was right. I still believe I'm right, and I'm right. Now, I bled that night, and I don't bleed. But time's done its thing, and I really haven't thought about it in a while.

Steve Jobs Joanna's gonna call my name in a second.

Joanna Hoffman Steve?

Steve Jobs That was unrehearsed.

John Sculley When are you gonna get furniture?

Steve Jobs It's not an easy process.

John Sculley It is. You buy a couch, take it from there.

Andy Hertzfeld Well, we're not a pit crew at Daytona. This can't be fixed in seconds.

Steve Jobs You didn't have seconds, you had three weeks. The universe was created in a third of that time.

Andy Hertzfeld Well, some day, you'll have to tell us how you did it.

Steve Jobs Five in six is your chance of surviving the first round of Russian Roulette, and you've reversed those odds. So unless you wanna be disgraced in front of your friends, family, colleagues, stockholders and the press, I wouldn't stand here arguing. Now go try and get some more bullets out of the gun. (after a moment of brief silence) DO IT, ANDY!

Steve Jobs Tell me what's wrong with you this morning.

Joanna Hoffman What's been wrong with me for 19 years. I have been a witness, and I tell you I've been complicit. I love you, Steve. You know how much. I love that you don't care how much money a person makes; you care what they make. But what you make isn't supposed to be the best part of you. When you're a father... that's what's supposed to be the best part of you, and it's caused me two decades of agony. Steve... that it is for you... the worst. It's a little thing... it's a very small thing. Fix it. Fix it now or you can contact me at my new job working anywhere I want.

Steve Wozniak This whole place was built by the Apple II, you were built by the Apple II!

Steve Jobs As a matter of fact, I was destroyed by the Apple II and its open systems so that hackers and hobbyists could build ham radios! Or something! And then it nearly destroyed Apple when you spent all your money on it and developed a grand total of no new products.

Steve Wozniak The Newton...

Steve Jobs The little box of garbage. You guys came up with the Newton, you, like, want people to know that. This is a product launch, not a luncheon. And the last thing I want to do is connect the iMac to the...

Steve Wozniak ...to the only successful product that this company has ever made. I'm sorry to be blunt, but that happens to be the truth. The Lisa was a failure, the Macintosh was a failure. I don't like talking like this, but I am tired of being Ringo when I know I was John.

Steve Jobs Everybody loves Ringo.

Steve Wozniak And I'm tired of being patronized by you!

Steve Jobs You think John became John by winning a raffle, Woz? You think he tricked somebody or hit George Harrison over the head? He was John because he was John.

Steve Wozniak He was John cause he wrote Ticket to Ride', and I wrote the Apple II.

Andrea Cunningham Everybody! Look, I want to clear the auditorium...

Steve Jobs Nobody moves! You made a beautiful board which, by the way, you were willing to give out for free, so don't tell me how you built Apple. If it weren't for me, you'd be the easiest A at Homestead High School.

Steve Wozniak These people live and die by your praise, so here's your chance: acknowledge that something good happened that you weren't in the room for!

Steve Jobs No.

Steve Wozniak Steve... do it! It's right, it's... it's right.

Steve Jobs Sorry, but no.

Steve Wozniak Then let me put it another way. I don't think there's a man who's done more to advance the democratization that comes with personal computing than I have, but you've never had any respect for me. Now why is that?

Steve Jobs I'd at least consider the possibility that it's because you've never had any for me.

Joanna Hoffman What the hell is going on here?

Steve Wozniak Nothing. Thank you for your time.

Steve Jobs I'm gonna put music in your pocket.

Lisa Brennan What?

Steve Jobs A hundred songs. A thousand songs. Five hundred songs. Somewhere between five hundred and a thousand songs. Right in your pocket. Because I can't stand looking at that ridiculous Walkman anymore. You're carrying around a brick playing a cassette tape. We're not savages. I'm gonna put a thousand songs in your pocket.

Lisa Brennan You can do that?

Steve Jobs We're very close. All I have to do really is wipe out the record business as we know it and we'll be all set.

John Sculley You're gonna end me, aren't you?

Steve Jobs You're being ridiculous...I'm gonna sit center court and watch you do it yourself. Then I’m gonna order a nice meal with a ‘55 Margaux, and sign some autographs.

John Sculley Jesus Christ!

Steve Jobs You want some advice, Pepsi Generation? Don’t send Woz out to slap me around in the press. Anybody else. You, Markkula, Arthur Rock, anyone but Rain Man'. Don’t manipulate him like that. Whatever you may think, I’m always gonna protect him.

John Sculley Come on, Steve.

Steve Jobs That's what men do.

John Sculley I can't put it more simply than this: we need to put our resources into updating the Apple II.

Steve Jobs By taking resources from the Mac!

John Sculley It's failing. That's a fact.

Steve Jobs It's overpriced.

John Sculley There's no evidence that it's--

Steve Jobs I'm the evidence! I'm the world's leading expert in the Mac, John, what's your resume?!

John Sculley You're issuing contradictory instructions, you're insubordinate, you make people miserable, our top engineers are fleeing to Sun, Dell, HP, Wall Street doesn't know who's driving the bus, we've lost hundreds of millions in value, and I'm the CEO of Apple, Steve, that's my resume.

Steve Jobs But before that, you sold carbonated sugar water, right? I sat in a fucking garage with Wozniak and invented the future, because artists lead and hacks ask for show of hands!

Steve Jobs John, listen to me: Whoever said "The customer is always right" was, I promise you, a customer.

Steve Wozniak We will know soon enough if you are ] or just think you are.

Steve Jobs You came a half inch from putting this company out of business. Now who do I see about that? I'm letting you keep your job. You get a pass.

Steve Wozniak You know, when people used to ask me what the difference was between me and Steve Jobs, I would say "Steve was the big picture guy and I liked a solid workbench". When people ask the difference now, I say "Steve’s an asshole". Your products are better than you are, brother.

Steve Jobs That's the idea, "brother", and knowing that... that's the difference!

Steve Wozniak It's not binary! You can be decent and gifted at the same time.

Steve Jobs I don't want people to dislike me. I'm indifferent to whether they dislike me.

Andy Hertzfeld Well, since it doesn't matter, I always have.

Steve Jobs Really. I've always liked you. That's unfortunate.

John Sculley Don't play stupid; you can't pull it off.

Lisa Brennan I had two different Harvard statisticians try to reverse-engineer the equation that you came up with to prove that 28% of American men could be my father. You know, my mother might be a troubled woman, but what’s your excuse? That’s why I’m not impressed with your story, dad! It’s that you knew what I was going through, and you didn’t do anything about it, and that makes you an unconscionable coward. And not for nothing, but “Think” is a verb, alright? Making “Different” an adverb. You’re asking people to “Think Differently”. And you-- And you can talk about the Bauhaus movement and Braun and "simplicity is sophistication" and Issey Miyake uniforms and Bob Dylan lyrics all you want, but that thing? (pointing at one of the posters of the iMac) Looks like Judy Jetson's easy-bake oven.

Joanna Hoffman I'm begging you to manage expectations.

Steve Jobs Have I ever let you down?

Joanna Hoffman Every single goddamn time.

Steve Jobs Then I'm due.