I, Steve Jobs

After a long while I decided to make a small but no less pleasant departure from the digital age's information-gathering trend and turn to printed literary publications - specifically, to read a book I had spotted some time ago at the Zvaigzne ABC bookshop: "I, Steve Jobs", compiled by George Beahm. Interestingly, the author is a former US Army light artillery officer who served in the National Guard on active duty. That, it must be said, is also all that the author wished to communicate about himself at the end of the book. But despite that, he managed to write (compile) more than 30 books on various topics in business and popular culture.

The book is written in an unusual style - not as another biographical account, but rather as a collection of quotations arranged by theme. These are quotations that Steve Jobs made in publicly available publications or at conferences. At the end of the book there is also a bibliographic summary of S. Jobs's most important events, which in my view would fit better at the beginning, as a reader unfamiliar with this person's biography might find it difficult to understand the meaning of the quotations. Perhaps creative people, as Steve Jobs was, read books from the back? :)

Some Steve Jobs Quotations

An interesting observation: as a young man, Steve Jobs was far more "idealistic" and inclined towards changing the world, whereas as he approached the twilight of his life he realised the world is far more resistant to change and turned his attention to life's fundamental values (quotations 3 and 7).

Although in the book the quotations are systematised by theme, I have decided to share some of them in chronological order:

[1] Nothing is finished until it's sold.
Folklore.org, 1983

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[2] People judge you on your accomplishments, so focus on results. Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren't used to an environment where excellence is expected.
The Journey is the Reward, 1987

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[3] (While trying to persuade PepsiCo CEO John Sculley) Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want a chance to change the world?
Odyssey: Pepsi to Apple, 1987

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[4] People think focus means saying yes to the thing you've got to focus on. But that's not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that are there right alongside.
Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, 1997

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[5] (About OS X Aqua) We made the buttons on the screen look so good you'll want to lick them.
CNNMoney: Fortune, 2000

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[6] I think television and personal computers will never converge. I actually believe that when you watch television, you turn off your brain, whereas when you work on a computer, you turn it on.
Macworld, 2004

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[7] Technology doesn't change the world. [...] Technology simply makes many things easier to accomplish, as it allows you to reach people who would otherwise be unreachable. But it would be a disservice if we constantly recast things in a new light and said that technology is the driver of change. Things can matter even if they don't change the world.
The Independent, 2005

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[8] They say you should work at what you love, and that is the absolute truth. That is because work is hard [...] If you compare people who are considered successful and those who haven't achieved anything, most often it turns out that the successful ones loved their work [...]
D5 Conference, 2007

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[9] (About iPhone) Actually, the tablet came first. I had this idea that you could get rid of the keyboard and type directly on a touchscreen. I asked our people about it. About six months later - there it was.
D8 Conference, 2010

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[10] We didn't arrive at this party first, but we'll be the best.
Apple meeting on iPhone OS 4.0, 2010

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[11] You know, if hardware is the brains of our product, then software is its soul.
Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, 2011