Mitchell Baker Quotes

It's important not only to have the right timing of when the hardware is going to be released but also when we are going to be able to introduce quality software.

The biggest challenge for open source is that as it enters the consumer market, as projects like WordPress and Firefox have done, you have to create a user experience that is on par or better than the proprietary alternatives.

I think, with any new product that's difficult to understand, there are always lots of questions and criticism. I think we have all the right criticism. We're just going to keep executing on what we believe.

The ventures that keep things light and fun, easy to understand, that have a compelling story, a sexy retail product, will have an easier time getting people to rally around them and contribute. A start-up doing something that's difficult to communicate or doesn't offer any kind of retail product will have a tougher go at it.

If I say I've got two versions of Word - that old one from 1982 that's perfect, with zero defects; or the new one that's got all this cool new stuff, but there might be a few bugs in it - people always want the new one. But I wouldn't want them to operate a plane I was on with software that happened to be the latest greatest release!

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.

I've been looking at the iPod- the Apple iPod. One of the interesting things about the iPod, one of the things that people love most about it is not the technology; it's the box it comes in.

Apple has beautiful design, beautiful product, incredibly functional. But mostly, it's about picking product, getting behind it, marketing it, and introducing it to a customer. What they've done just inspires me.

We do think deeply about the sequencing of our games, but having said that, Nintendo is well-known that if a game isn't ready, we will push out the development in order to make sure that it is as strong as possible when the game launches.

Product development is emotional for me! It's really important as a brand that we feel that our products are going to be life-changing for everyone who buys them. We won't ever launch something we don't feel strongly about.

'Instagram' is an app that only took 8 weeks to build and ship but was a product of over a year of work.

I've long believed that if you're not embarrassed by your first product release, you've released too late.

I just want to make things that people want to buy. I have no confusion about this.

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.

Our first product was Quicken, which is personal financial management on a PC. It had a tough start, and we ran some tracking surveys to understand who was using it. Half the users claimed to use it in some sort of office environment. We ignored that. I thought it was meaningless.

People are forgiving of v 1.0 of a product if it's truly innovative and useful. Then you can get away with a lot. But if you're merely marginally improving the status quo, then you better be rock solid.

I think the biggest challenge over time is that we stay creative and making sure that we continue to launch awesome products that people love.

Like any well designed software product, Windows is designed, developed and tested as an integrated whole.

I have shifted my mindset in terms of how companies should... focus on building amazing products. If you have amazing products, the marketing of those products is trivial.

My focus is incredibly narrow. I can't talk with any authority other than design and development of product.

I'm hands-on with everything. I approve the designs of everything we do because that's my brand that people are buying. I want it to look good.

Betting all your funds on the belief that you know what consumers want and are willing to pay for is like jumping into a river to test its depth - you'll need a lot of luck to stay afloat. To have a truly successful product launch, the conversations with your customers must start long before you write your first line of code.

I think an engineer has not matured until he or she has conceived of a product and participated in every stage of bringing it to fruition, if that makes sense. And not many engineers get to do all of those stages.

When I was working at the game company, I wasn't just doing graphic design, I was doing the entire product management, so I would do the graphic design, I would create the advertisements, even the catch copies. I would figure out what kind of packaging and design of the packaging, so I was basically doing total product management at that time.

We are so fortunate that our IP has been so effective out in the marketplace that every time there's a new iteration, our developers feel a sense of pressure.