Douglas Rushkoff Quotes

It wasn't until the Apple Macintosh that people understood what true hardware-software integration was about. It took one company to line it up: low-cost hardware, cool graphics, third-party products built on top of it, in an all-in-one attractive package that was accessible to consumer marketing.

Google's done a super good job on search; Apple's done a great job on the IPod.

This is what customers pay us for - to sweat all these details so it's easy and pleasant for them to use our computers. We're supposed to be really good at this. That doesn't mean we don't listen to customers, but it's hard for them to tell you what they want when they've never seen anything remotely like it.

You need to look no further than Apple's iPhone to see how fast brilliantly written software presented on a beautifully designed device with a spectacular user interface will throw all the accepted notions about pricing, billing platforms and brand loyalty right out the window.

Software is a great combination between artistry and engineering.

I knew the Apple II was great when I bought it, but as I dug into the details it just completely blew me away the creative artistic approach that the designers had taken.

I am intrigued enough to want to continue, and also to try and work with companies like Sony on modifying the cameras and making them more user-friendly and efficient.

Google is a company whose very existence depends on innovation - on inventing things that are new and didn't exist before - and on refining existing ideas and technologies to allow consumers to do things they couldn't do before.

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

I've always had a passion for the tech industry, and I like to help build interesting products.

I have sometimes thought the power of computers had exceeded our ability to use them, but Mr. Jobs and his team kept giving us devices that made indispensable things easier in ways you never thought of.

The payoff of a customer-centric approach to software and digital product design is substantial and long-lasting for both companies and their customers.

Personally, I'd love to see more social media firms develop business models that aren't reliant on advertising. If you're a social media firm selling ads, your goal is to get people to interrupt what they're doing all day long so they come and stare at your service as much as possible.

Design is a tool that either allows us to create new markets or disrupt existing ones.

Advertising and content have always been bound together - in print, on television, and on the web. Sure, you can skip the ad - just flip the page, or press 'ffwd' on your DVR. But great advertising, as I've long argued, adds value to the content ecosystem, and has as much a right to be in the conversation as does the publisher and the consumer.

Google has a great product. They've built a great business.

Google was founded to get information to everybody. A by-product of that strategy is that we invented an advertising business which has provided great economics that allows us to build the servers, hire the employees, create value.

I am interested in computers and technology, and art, photography, and design.

Design is the fundamental soul of a man-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service. The iMac is not just the color or translucence or the shape of the shell. The essence of the iMac is to be the finest possible consumer computer in which each element plays together.

We built the iPod in weeks. It had to be what I thought it was going to be because there wasn't time for endless refinements.

Windows is probably the most important product in the entire PC industry. Everything we do in terms of supporting touch, new hardware, accessibility has incredible impact.

We aren't into the consumer space because that space is largely dominated by search and advertising, and it has a consumer face to it.

The rise of Google, the rise of Facebook, the rise of Apple, I think are proof that there is a place for computer science as something that solves problems that people face every day.

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.

Far too few designers put any thought into usability, ending up with a great product that's completely inaccessible.