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Bottom line is, I didn't return to Apple to make a fortune. I've been very lucky in my life and already have one. When I was 25, my net worth was $100 million or so. I decided then that I wasn't going to let it ruin my life. There's no way you could ever spend it all, and I don't view wealth as something that validates my intelligence.
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But innovation comes from people meeting up in the hallways or calling each other at 10:30 at night with a new idea, or because they realized something that shoots holes in how we've been thinking about a problem.
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It's hard to tell with these Internet startups if they're really interested in building companies or if they're just interested in the money. I can tell you, though: If they don't really want to build a company, they won't luck into it. That's because it's so hard that if you don't have a passion, you'll give up.
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When the sales guys run the company, the product guys do not matter so much, and a lot of them just turn off.
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For most of my life, I’ve felt that there must be more to our existence than meets the eye. This is who I am, and you can’t expect me to be someone I’m not.
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Somewhere between the janitor and the CEO, reasons stop mattering.
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A lot of companies have chosen to downsize, and maybe that was the right thing for them. We chose a different path. Our belief was that if we kept putting great products in front of customers, they would continue to open their wallets.
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Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.
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Believe things will work out. How was I ever to know that the girl who broke my heart in university would lead to my soulmate? How was I to know that the ‘dream job’ I was rejected from out of college would lead me to a year of entrepreneurship and adventure in Spain? How was I to know that taking a miserable job back in the states would be just the push I needed to vow to never do something I wasn’t passionate about again? Everything works out. I mean everything. As long as you believe it will. When you do, you will find the silver lining. That will take you to the next level.
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Most people do not ever pick up the phone. They never ask, and that is what separates the people that do things from the people that just dream about them. You have to act, and you have to be willing to fail. You have to be willing to crash and burn, because if you are afraid of failing, you will not get very far.
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The unions are the worst thing that ever happened to education because it's not a meritocracy. It turns into a bureaucracy, which is exactly what has happened. The teachers can't teach and administrators run the place and nobody can be fired. It's terrible.
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When you first start off trying to solve a problem, the first solutions you come up with are very complex, and most people stop there. But if you keep going, and live with the problem and peel more layers of the onion off, you can often times arrive at some very elegant and simple solutions.
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I think we're having fun. I think our customers really like our products. And we're always trying to do better.
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It gave a tremendous level of self-confidence, that through exploration and learning one could understand seemingly very complex things in one's environment.
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We believe people with passion can change the world for the better. That's what we believe. And we believe that those people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones that actually do.
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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.
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You've got to find what you love.
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What we want to do is make a leapfrog product that is way smarter than any mobile device has ever been, and super-easy to use. This is what iPhone is. OK? So, we're going to reinvent the phone.
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We're gambling on our vision, and we would rather do that than make "me too" products. Let some other companies do that. For us, it's always the next dream.
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Nobody has tried to swallow us since I've been here. I think they are afraid how we would taste.
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I feel like somebody just punched me in the stomach and knocked all my wind out. I'm only 30 years old and I want to have a chance to continue creating things. I know I've got at least one more great computer in me. And Apple is not going to give me a chance to do that.
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When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
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Why would I ever want to run Disney? Wouldn't it make more sense just to sell them Pixar and retire?
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Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.