Whether you are reading this from your iPhone, Macbook, iPad, Mac mini, iMac, Watch, Apple TV or non-Apple product, you can't deny that Steve Jobs was a visionary and he changed the way we live.
His revolutionary company Apple was born out of years of hard work, determination and perseverance. Jobs co-founded Apple Computers with Steve Wozniak. Under his guidance, the company pioneered a large range of revolutionary technologies, namely the iPhone, iPod and iPad. These revolutionary products are now seen as dictating the evolution of modern technology.
Steve Jobs and his adopted father, Paul, worked on electronics in the family garage. Paul showed his son how to take apart and reconstruct electronics. This hobby gave Jobs the familiarity he always had with electronics.
While Jobs was enrolled at Homestead High School, he was introduced to his future partner Steve Wozniak, who was studying at the University of California, Berkeley. In a 2007 interview with PC World, Wozniak spoke about why he and jobs clicked so well: We both loved electronics and the way we used to hook up digital chips, Wozniak said. Very few people, especially back then, had any idea what chips were, how they worked and what they could do. I had designed many computers, so I was way ahead of him in electronics and computer design, but we still had common interests. We both had pretty much sort of an independent attitude about things in the world.
Jobs and Wozniak are credited with revolutionizing the computer industry by making machines smaller, cheaper, intuitive and accessible to everyday consumers. This way they democratized technology.
It wasn't a walk in the park for Jobs and he sure had to make sacrifices and take risks. Here are some of his quotes to inspire anyone to follow their dreams:
Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn't matter to me. Going to bed at night saying we've done something wonderful, that's what matters to me.
Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.
Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.
Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren't used to an environment where excellence is expected.
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.
Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.
I want to put a ding in the universe.
My favorite things in life don't cost any money. It's really clear that the most precious resource we all have is time.
Sometimes life is going to hit you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith.
I'm convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.
I'm as proud of many of the things we haven't done as the things we have done. Innovation is saying no to a thousand things.
Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it.
Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow know what you truly want to become.
I think if you do something and it turns out pretty good, then you should go do something else wonderful, not dwell on it for too long. Just figure out what's next.
When you're a carpenter making a beautiful chest of drawers, you're not going to use a piece of plywood on the back, even though it faces the wall and nobody will see it. You'll know it's there, so you're going to use a beautiful piece of wood on the back. For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through.
That's been one of my mantras—focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex; you have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple.
Quality is more important than quantity. One home run is much better than two doubles.