Marc Benioff Quotes

Simple things should be simple and complex things should be possible.

A well-conceived product excels at what it does. It's close to being functionally flawless - like a Ziploc bag, a radio from Tivoli Audio, a Philips Sonicare toothbrush, a Nespresso coffee maker or Google's home page.

Products have to be designed in a way that they are comprehensible.

The design of the Mac wasn't what it looked like, although that was part of it. Primarily, it was how it worked. To design something really well, you have to get it. You have to really grok what it's all about. It takes a passionate commitment to really thoroughly understand something, chew it up, not just quickly swallow it.

Everybody is designing magic iPhone apps that do things that are really, really beautiful, but a really important thing about magic is that the gimmick has to be ugly.

Good design to me is both appearance and functionality together. It's the experience that makes it good design.

I imported the first Mac into England in 1984; you know, the beige box. I imported what I think were the first four that came into England. I never opened the instruction manual. That was the best thing about it.

Computers are scary. They're nightmares to fix, lose our stuff, and, on occasion, they crash, producing the blue screen of death. Steve Jobs knew this. He knew that computers were bulky and hernia-inducing and Darth Vader black. He understood the value of declarative design.

Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.

Users do not care about what is inside the box, as long as the box does what they need done.

Good design begins with honesty, asks tough questions, comes from collaboration and from trusting your intuition.

Technology is supposed to make our lives easier, allowing us to do things more quickly and efficiently. But too often it seems to make things harder, leaving us with fifty-button remote controls, digital cameras with hundreds of mysterious features and book-length manuals, and cars with dashboard systems worthy of the space shuttle.

Like many people out there, I'm inspired by the level of attention to detail, design and execution of Apple products.

My goal is to simplify complexity. I just want to build stuff that really simplifies our base human interaction.

Things that are ultimately complex must have a simple end user experience if they are to be successful.

Any product that needs a manual to work is broken.

Design is a funny word. Some people think design means how it looks. But of course, if you dig deeper, it's really how it works.

The wonderful thing about Apple technology is just how intuitive it is.

Web users ultimately want to get at data quickly and easily. They don't care as much about attractive sites and pretty design.

The role of designers and product makers is to really become much better editors. What kind of functionality is actually needed - and truly delightful - to consumers? Remove all the extraneous stuff.

Deep in the culture of Apple is this sense and understanding of design, developing, and making. Form and the material and process - they are beautifully intertwined - completely connected.

We try to develop products that seem somehow inevitable, that leave you with the sense that that's the only possible solution that makes sense.

Apple excels at taking existing concepts - computers, MP3 players, conceit - and carefully streamlining them into glistening ergonomic chunks of concentrated aspiration.

A world-changing vision often necessitates a profound simplicity in the user experience.

Consumers have zero time for products that are not simple, intuitive, and attractive to use. This is especially true with Internet products, where clean and useful design is a prerequisite to keeping anyone on your site for more than 30 seconds.