Walter Isaacson Quotes

To dwell on the things taht depress or anger us does not help in overcoming them. One must knock them down alone. ~ Walter Isaacson

Knowing that great conceptions are worth little without precision execution ~ Walter Isaacson

More generally, I made an effort to leave out things that weren't relevant to the main narrative themes of the book, namely that there were two sides to Steve Jobs: the romantic, poetic, countercultural rebel on one side, and the serious businessperson on the other. ~ Walter Isaacson

Perhaps no matter how fast computers progress, artificial intelligence may never outstrip the intelligence of the human-machine partnership. Let ~ Walter Isaacson

I don't have any skeletons in my closet that can't be allowed out. ~ Walter Isaacson

I think right now we need to look back at the founding values of our country. Rise above partisanship, be less bitter when it comes to important matters that have to be solved. ~ Walter Isaacson

For Steve, less is always more, simpler is always better. Therefore, if you can build a glass box with fewer elements, it's better, it's simpler, and it's at the forefront of technology. That's where Steve likes to be, in both his products and his stores. ~ Walter Isaacson

As much as Henry Kissinger wanted to attribute historical movement to impersonal forces, he too conceded to "the difference personalities make". ~ Walter Isaacson

The Loser Now Will Be Later to Win ~ Walter Isaacson

In the annals of innovation, new ideas are only part of the equation. Execution is just as important. ~ Walter Isaacson

treat you like a criminal," he said, showing a slide of an inmate in striped prison garb. Then a slide of Bob Dylan came on the screen. "People want to own the music they love. ~ Walter Isaacson

Franklin asserted his conservatism more forcefully. Most notable was an anonymous piece entitled "On the Laboring Poor," which he signed "Medius, ~ Walter Isaacson

One day someone called the Institute and asked to speak to a particular dean. When his secretary said that the dean wasn't available, the caller hesitantly asked for Einstein's home address. That was not possible to give out, he was informed. The caller's voice then dropped to a whisper. "Please don't tell anybody," he said, "but I am Dr. Einstein, I'm on my way home, and I've forgotten where my house is."40 ~ Walter Isaacson

He fell silent for a very long time. "But on the other hand, perhaps it's like an on-off switch," he said. "Click! And you're gone." Then he paused again and smiled slightly. "Maybe that's why I never liked to put on-off switches on Apple devices. ~ Walter Isaacson

Isaacson's biography can be read in several ways. It is on the one hand a history of the most exciting time in the age of computers, when the machines first became personal and later, fashionable accessories. It is also a textbook study of the rise and fall and rise of Apple and the brutal clashes that destroyed friendships and careers. And it is a gadget lover's dream, with fabulous, inside accounts of how the Macintosh, iPod, iPhone and iPad came into being. But more than anything, Isaacson has crafted a biography of a complicated, peculiar personality - Jobs was charming, loathsome, lovable, obsessive, maddening - and the author shows how Jobs's character was instrumental in shaping some of the greatest technological innovations ~ Walter Isaacson

From the earliest days at Apple, I realized that we thrived when we created intellectual property. If people copied or stole our software, we'd be out of business. If it weren't protected, there'd be no incentive for us to make new software or product designs. If protection of intellectual property begins to disappear, creative companies will disappear or never get started. But there's a simpler reason: It's wrong to steal. It hurts other people. And it hurts your own character. ~ Walter Isaacson

been baffled when Jobs insisted that he was not motivated by money, but it was partly true. He had neither Ellison's conspicuous consumption needs nor Gates's philanthropic impulses nor the competitive urge to see how high ~ Walter Isaacson

Greg Calhoun, who became close to Jobs right after college, saw another effect. ~ Walter Isaacson

When you write biographies, whether it's about Ben Franklin or Einstein, you discover something amazing: They are human. ~ Walter Isaacson

Innovation is driven by people who have both good theories and the opportunity to be part of a group that can implement them. The ~ Walter Isaacson

Unlike other product developers, Jobs did not believe the customer was always right; if they wanted to resist using a mouse, they were wrong. ~ Walter Isaacson

I think different religions are different doors to the same house. Sometimes I think the house exists, and sometimes I don't. It's the great mystery. (Steve Jobs) ~ Walter Isaacson

One of the great pressures we're facing in journalism now is it's a lot cheaper to hire thumb suckers and pundits and have talk shows on the air than actually have bureaus and reporters. ~ Walter Isaacson

The main thing in our design is that we have to make things intuitively obvious. ~ Walter Isaacson

conformed to the principle of least action, a foundation of physics that holds that light or any object moving between two points should follow the easiest path.3 Planck's paper not only contributed to the development of relativity theory; it also helped to legitimize it among other physicists. ~ Walter Isaacson

With the "SWAB JOB" school prank sign ~ Walter Isaacson

Interviews with more than a hundred family members, ~ Walter Isaacson

I want to make this a revolution, not an effort to squeeze out profits. ~ Walter Isaacson

Markets rather than merely chasing old ones. ~ Walter Isaacson

was restored to the throne at Apple, we put him on ~ Walter Isaacson

The comparison is perhaps a little bit unfair because a sonnet written by a machine will be better appreciated by another machine. ~ Walter Isaacson

In his competition with Bradford, Franklin had one big disadvantage. Bradford was the postmaster of Philadelphia, and he used that position to deny Franklin the right, at least officially, to send his Gazette through the mail. Their ensuing struggle over the issue of open carriage was an early example of the tension that often still exists between those who create content and those who control distribution systems. ~ Walter Isaacson

Most of the collaborations of technology were done by teams ... Collaboration is key to creativity ~ Walter Isaacson

Most people have a regulator between their mind and mouth that modulates their brutish sentiments and spikiest impulses. Not Jobs. He made a point of being brutally honest. My job is to say when something sucks rather than sugar coat it, : he said. This made him charismatic and inspiring, yet also,, to use the technical term, an asshole at times. ~ Walter Isaacson

It is tasteless to prolong life artificially," he told Dukas. "I have done my share, it is time to go. I will do it elegantly. ~ Walter Isaacson

By the end of his career, he [Steve Jobs] has proven that he can do the impossible, and he has gathered probably the most loyal team of eight players of any business in America. ~ Walter Isaacson

He believed that great harvests came from arid sources, pleasure from restraint," she noted. "He knew the equations that most people didn't know: Things led to their opposites. ~ Walter Isaacson

(Franklin and, by extension, the Junto were particularly fond of things that could help the public as well as themselves.) ~ Walter Isaacson

Kissinger traces the balances made in foreign policy, including that of realism and idealism, from the times of Cardinal Richelieu through chapters on Theodore Roosevelt the realist and Woodrow Wilson the idealist. Kissinger, a European refugee who has read Metternich more avidly than Jefferson, is unabashedly in the realist camp. "No other nation," he wrote in Diplomacy, "has ever rested its claim to international leadership on its altruism." Other Americans might proclaim this as a point of pride; when Kissinger says it, his attitude seems that of an anthropologist examining a rather unsettling tribal ritual. The practice of basing policy on ideals rather than interests, he pointed out, can make a nation seem dangerously unpredictable. ~ Walter Isaacson

A few days after he unveiled the iPad in January 2010, Jobs held a "town hall" meeting with employees at Apple's campus. ~ Walter Isaacson

system. Jobs was furious that Google had decided to compete with Apple in the phone business. "We did not enter the search business," he said. "They ~ Walter Isaacson

A recurring theme in his autobiography, as well as in his tales and almanacs, was his amusement at man's ability to rationalize what was convenient. At ~ Walter Isaacson

You read everything - that's part of the job," he said. "You accumulate all this trivia, and you hope that someday maybe a millionth of it will be useful. ~ Walter Isaacson

After growing wildly for years, the field of computing appears to be reaching its infancy. ~ Walter Isaacson

This interplay of military and academic motives became ingrained in the Internet. "The design of both the ARPANET and the Internet favored military values, such as survivability, flexibility, and high performance, over commercial goals, such as low cost, simplicity, or consumer appeal," the technology historian Janet Abbate noted. "At the same time, the group that designed and built ARPA's networks was dominated by academic scientists, who incorporated their own values of collegiality, decentralization of authority, and open exchange of information into the system."90 These academic researchers of the late 1960s, many of whom associated with the antiwar counterculture, created a system that resisted centralized command. It would route around any damage from a nuclear attack but also around any attempt to impose control. ~ Walter Isaacson

I think that we shouldn't be fixated all the time on the ups and downs of the weekly ratings, of the quarter-hour ratings. ~ Walter Isaacson

The value of a college education is not the learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think, ~ Walter Isaacson

A foolish faith in authority is the worst enemy of truth.46 ~ Walter Isaacson

Jobs put his hand on Ellison's left shoulder, pulled him so close that their noses almost touched, and said, Larry, this is why it's really important that I'm your friend. You don't need any more money. ~ Walter Isaacson

I was voluntarily poor when I was in college and India, and I lived a pretty simple life when I was working. So I went from fairly poor, which was wonderful because I didn't have to worry about money, to being incredibly rich, when i also didn't have to worry about money.' - Steve Jobs ~ Walter Isaacson

Responded with a presidential note describing how Washington defined a "base." Work on the new facility was halted, ~ Walter Isaacson

Ive grew up in Chingford, a town on the northeast edge of London. His father was a silversmith who taught at the local college. "He's a fantastic craftsman," Ive recalled. "His Christmas gift to me would be one day of his time in his college workshop, during the Christmas break when no one else was there, helping me make whatever I dreamed up. ~ Walter Isaacson

[Steve Jobs] chafed at not being in control, and he sometimes hallucinated or became angry. Even when he was barely conscious, his strong personality came through. At one point the pulmonologist tried to put a mask over his face when he was deeply sedated. Jobs ripped it off and mumbled that he hated the design and refused to wear it. Though barely able to speak, he ordered them to bring five different options for the mask and he would pick a design he liked. ~ Walter Isaacson

Vision w/o execution is just hallucination. You need the right combination of visionary + team that can execute ~ Walter Isaacson

One way to remember who you are is to remember who your heroes are. ~ Walter Isaacson

Tale is thus both instructive and cautionary, filled ~ Walter Isaacson

Reality has an odd habit of catching up with satire. ~ Walter Isaacson

The tale of their teamwork is important because we don't often focus on how central that skill is to innovation. ~ Walter Isaacson

Like many entrepreneurs, Bushnell had no shame about distorting reality in order to motivate people. ~ Walter Isaacson

I will read anything by Laura Hillenbrand, Walter Isaacson, Barbara Kingsolver, John le Carre, John Grisham, Hilary Mantel, Toni Morrison, Anna Quindlen and Alice Walker. ~ Hillary Clinton

Good telling of human stories is the best way to keep the Internet and the World Wide Web from becoming a waste vastland. ~ Walter Isaacson

Wozniak would be the gentle wizard coming up with a neat invention that he would have been happy just to give away, and Jobs would figure out how to make it user-friendly, put it together in a package, market it, and make a few bucks. ~ Walter Isaacson

Edwin Land of Polaroid talked about the intersection of the humanities and science. I like that intersection. There's something magical about that place. There are a lot of people innovating, and that's not the main distinction of my career. The reason Apple resonates with people is that there's a deep current of humanity in our innovation. I think great artists and great engineers are similar in that they both have a desire to express themselves. In fact some of the best people working on the original Mac were poets and musicians on the side. In the seventies computers became a way for people to express their creativity. Great artists like Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo were also great art science. Michelangelo knew a lot about how to quarry stone, not just how to be a sculptor. ~ Walter Isaacson

Steve Jobs thus became the greatest business executive of our era, the one most certain to be remembered a century from now. History will place him in the pantheon right next to Edison and Ford. More than anyone else of this time, he made products that were completely innovative, combining the power of poetry and processors. With a ferocity that could make working with him as unsettling as it was inspiring, he also built the world's most creative company. And he was able to infuse into its DNA the design sensibilities, perfectionism, and imagination that make it likely to be, even decades from now, the company that thrives best at the intersection of artistry and technology. ~ Walter Isaacson

When there are multiple versions of a story, you really have three ways to go. You can pick the most sensational version. You can try to balance things in your gut to get to what you think is the honest truth. Or you can err on the side of kindness. ~ Walter Isaacson

He had the uncanny capacity to know exactly what your weak point is, know what will make you feel small, to make you cringe," Joanna Hoffman said. "It's a common trait in people who are charismatic and know how to manipulate people. Knowing that he can crush you makes you feel weakened and eager for his approval, so then he can elevate you and put you on a pedestal and own you. ~ Walter Isaacson

For some people, miracles serve as evidence of God's existence. ~ Walter Isaacson

Kottke found Kobun amusing. ~ Walter Isaacson

What do you think of Adolf Hitler?" Einstein replied, "He is living on the empty stomach of Germany. As soon as economic conditions improve, he will no longer be important. ~ Walter Isaacson

Laurene, Eve, Erin, and Lisa at the Corinth Canal in Greece, 2006: For young people, this ~ Walter Isaacson

Yeah, I think that his great creation was not any one product but a company in which creativity was connected to great engineering. And that will survive at least while the current people who trained under Steve are there. ~ Walter Isaacson

The ladies staged tableaux vivants, in which they dressed in costume to re-create famous paintings. ~ Walter Isaacson

I visited Jobs for the last time in his Palo Alto, Calif., home. He had moved to a downstairs bedroom because he was too weak to go up and down stairs. He was curled up in some pain, but his mind was still sharp and his humor vibrant. ~ Walter Isaacson

Ed Woolard, his mentor on the Apple board, pressed Jobs for more than two years to drop the interim in front of his CEO title. Not only was Jobs refusing to commit himself, but he was baffling everyone by taking only $1 a year in pay and no stock options. "I make 50 cents for showing up," he liked to joke, "and the other 50 cents is based on performance. ~ Walter Isaacson

In two days he saw Rupert Murdoch, his son James, and the management of their Wall Street Journal; Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and the top executives at the New York Times; and executives at Time, Fortune, and other Time Inc. magazines. "I would love to help quality journalism," he later said. "We can't depend on bloggers for our news. ~ Walter Isaacson

There was no such thing as the Scientific Revolution, ~ Walter Isaacson

Google, you fucking ripped off the iPhone, wholesale ripped us off. Grand theft. I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple's $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong. I'm going to destroy Android, because it's a stolen product. I'm willing to go thermonuclear war on this. They are scared to death, because they know they are guilty. Outside of Search, Google's products - Android, Google Docs - are shit. [Steve Jobs] ~ Walter Isaacson

Designed by Joy O'Meara Manufactured in the United States of America 1 3 5 7 9 10 ~ Walter Isaacson

Fortune proclaimed ~ Walter Isaacson

This entailed switching around by hand ENIAC's rat's nest of cables and resetting its switches. At first the programming seemed to be a routine, perhaps even menial task, which may have been why it was relegated to women, who back then were not encouraged to become engineers. But what the women of ENIAC soon showed, and the men later came to understand, was that the programming of a computer could be just as significant as the design of its hardware. ~ Walter Isaacson

The best and most innovative products don't always win ... (it's an) aesthetic flaw in how the universe worked ~ Walter Isaacson

In fact, these terms devised by Franklin are the ones we still use today, along with other neologisms that he coined to describe his findings: battery, charged, neutral, condense, and conductor. ~ Walter Isaacson

He knew that the best way to create value in the twenty-first century was to connect creativity with technology, so he built a company where leaps of the imagination were combined with remarkable feats of engineering. ~ Walter Isaacson

Jobs had always been an extremely opinionated eater, with a tendency to instantly judge any food as either fantastic or terrible. He could taste two avocados that most mortals would find indistinguishable, and declare that one was the best avocado ever grown and the other inedible. ~ Walter Isaacson

A nation which depends upon others for its new basic scientific knowledge will be slow in its industrial progress and weak in its competitive position in world trade. ~ Walter Isaacson

As a publishing magnate and then as a postmaster, he was one of the few to view America as a whole. To him, the colonies were not merely disparate entities. They were a new world with common interests and ideals. ~ Walter Isaacson

Innovation requires having at least three things: a great idea, the engineering talent to execute it, and the business savvy (plus deal-making moxie) to turn it into a successful product. ~ Walter Isaacson

In September 1998, one month after they met with Bechtolsheim, Page and Brin incorporated their company, opened a bank account, and cashed his check. On the wall of the garage they put up a whiteboard emblazoned "Google Worldwide Headquarters. ~ Walter Isaacson

Betty Snyder, who, under her married name, Betty Holberton, went on to become a pioneer programmer who helped develop the COBOL and Fortran languages, ~ Walter Isaacson

Subtle is the Lord, but malicious he is not."* ~ Walter Isaacson

Was willing to pay about $500 apiece, cash on delivery. Jobs immediately called Wozniak at HP. "Are you sitting down?" he asked. Wozniak said he wasn't. Jobs nevertheless proceeded to give him the news. "I was shocked, just completely shocked," Wozniak recalled. "I will never forget that moment." To fill the order, they needed about $15,000 worth of parts. Allen Baum, ~ Walter Isaacson

The Mac, on the other hand, would end up being as "insanely great" as Jobs and his acolytes could possibly make it - but it would not ship for another sixteen months, way behind schedule. ~ Walter Isaacson

I think it's really good that you have great competition among news networks, and for that matter all the networks in general. It's bringing more and more people in to watching the news. ~ Walter Isaacson

The people who invented the twenty-first century were pot-smoking, sandal-wearing hippies from the West Coast like Steve, because they saw differently," he said. "The hierarchical systems of the East Coast, England, Germany, and Japan do not encourage this different thinking. The sixties produced an anarchic mind-set that is great for imagining a world not yet in existence. ~ Walter Isaacson

Politics is for the present, while our equations are for eternity. ~ Walter Isaacson

Innovation happens in stages. ~ Walter Isaacson

Form follows emotion ~ Walter Isaacson

At the end of the presentation someone asked whether he thought they should do some market research to see what customers wanted. "No," he replied, "because customers don't know what they want until we've shown them." Then he pulled out a device that was about the size of a desk diary. "Do you want to see something neat?" When he flipped it open, it turned out to be a mock-up of a computer that could fit on your lap, with a keyboard and screen hinged together like a notebook. "This is my dream of what we will be making in the mid-to late eighties," he said. They were building a company that would invent the future. ~ Walter Isaacson

Timothy Leary declared that personal computers had become the new LSD and years later revised his famous mantra to proclaim, Turn on, boot up, jack in. ~ Walter Isaacson

Everything you've ever done in your life is shit," Jobs said, "so why don't you come work for me? ~ Walter Isaacson