Steve Jobs Quotes

Don’t ask our customers what they want. Ask yourself what they would want if they knew what you know of what is possible for us to do for them. The burden is on us to understand the consumer’s needs sufficiently to answer that question.

How do people know what they want until we show them?

You can't make anything authentic by asking people what they want because they don't know what they want. That's what they're looking at you for.

Britain is famous for being great at inventing and poor at commercializing.

We need to listen to consumers' needs.

There are two kinds of people... There are the dreamers who go and buy, and there are the doers who go and make. And I've always recognized that. So the dreamers are what support our company because they will buy the product that they could make if they wanted to, had time to, or were so inclined to.

I founded Atari in my garage in Santa Clara while at Stanford. When I was in school, I took a lot of business classes. I was really fascinated by economics. You end up having to be a marketeer, finance maven and a little bit of a technologist in order to get a business going.

To ensure we are meeting the demands of existing customers while also attracting new users, we remain focused on building cutting-edge technology and introducing new and innovative product offerings.

Just as producers often give consumers things they want but didn't think to ask for, consumers sometimes come up with surprising uses for new inventions. When a new product appears, it can uncover dissatisfactions and desires no one knew were there.

Without a consumer society there was no need for an industrial revolution.

The patent system was established to encourage inventors to disclose the details of their inventions. Its purpose was to help society rather than to help inventors. At the time, the life span of 17 years for a patent was short compared with the rate of advance of the state of the art. Since patents are an issue only among manufacturers, for whom the cost and effort of a license agreement are small compared with setting up production, the patents often do not do much harm. They do not obstruct most individuals who use patented products.

Steve Jobs' ability to focus in on a few things that count, get people who get user interface right, and market things as revolutionary are amazing things.

Products are sold because they solve a problem or fill a need. Understanding problems and needs involves understanding customers and what makes them tick.

Market leaders inevitably slip into decline when they tell the people what they want instead of giving the people what they want.

It isn't the consumers' job to know what they want.

I wrote an ad for Apple Computer: "Macintosh - We might not get everything right, but at least we knew the century was going to end".

Before you build a better mousetrap, it helps to know if there are any mice out there.

I've always been obsessed with marketing and media. I always wanted to be a business brand owner. I wanted to create things.

Marketing is the distinguishing, unique function of the business.

The market and the consumer and idea trump the system.

It's not the consumers' job to figure out what they want

I think the Macintosh was created by a group of people who felt that ah there wasn't a strict vision between sort of science and art.

Design, in its broadest sense, is the enabler of the digital era.

Every corner of the public psyche is canvassed by some of the most talented citizens to see if the desire for some merchandisable product can be cultivated.

If every customer is using your product "correctly", you'll never learn anything interesting about what to do next.