Steve Jobs

by Walter Isaacson

He was already starting to show the admixture of sensitivity and insensitivity, bristliness and detachment, that would mark him for the rest of his life.

Pretend to be completely in control and people will assume that you are.’”

Jobs’s father had once taught him that a drive for perfection meant caring about the craftsmanship even of the parts unseen.

He emphasized that you should never start

a company with the goal of getting rich. Your goal should be making something you believe in and making a company that will last.”

When Jobs did not want to deal with a distraction, he sometimes just ignored it, as if he could will it out of existence. At times he was able to distort reality not just for others but even for himself.

“The best way to predict the future is to invent it” and “People who are serious about software should make their own hardware.”

“Picasso had a saying—‘good artists copy, great artists steal’—and we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas.”

In the annals of innovation, new ideas are only part of the equation. Execution is just as important.