• “I’m one of those people who think that Thomas Edison and the light bulb changed the world a lot more than Karl Marx ever did.” (From Insanely Great, p. 26)
• “It’s not the consumers’ job to know what they want.” (NY Times)
• “We want it to make toast. We’re toying with refrigeration too.” (Wired, about the iPod, during 2004)
• “Real artists ship.” (Insanely Great, p.165. Referring to the newly developed Macintosh in 1983.)
• “I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me {at 30 years old}. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.” (Stanford commencement speech, 2005)
• “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” (Stanford commencement speech, 2005)

The Economic Lesson

“More (Steve) Jobs, Jobs, Jobs, Jobs” sums it all up. In a 2010 NY Times Op-Ed, Thomas Friedman said that we can re-invigorate our economy by supporting our innovators. Let’s have a “Start-Up America.” Or as he concluded, “You want more good jobs, spawn more Steve Jobs.