Startup Journey

Bijan Sabet: Why Facebook Connect shouldn't be your only sign in option

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 21:38:39 -0800

Bijan Sabet: Why Facebook Connect shouldn't be your only sign in option:

When I see startups that only offer FB Connect as the singular sign in option, I always get squeamish.

I tell founders they should support FB Connect but they also support Twitter sign-in as well as giving users an option to sign in the good old fashioned way : user id & password.

Sometimes…

KwiqApps Music App on UK Chart

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 23:47:24 -0800

KwiqApps Music App on UK Chart

the understatement: Android Orphans: Visualizing a Sad History of Support

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 10:33:09 -0700

the understatement: Android Orphans: Visualizing a Sad History of Support:

understatementblog:

The announcement that Nexus One users won’t be getting upgraded to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich led some to justifiably question Google’s support of their devices. I look at it a little differently: Nexus One owners are lucky. I’ve been researching the history of OS updates on Android phones…

Journalists on Steve Jobs

Sat, 08 Oct 2011 10:54:57 -0700

Steve Levy, Wired, Steve Jobs 1955-2011 - http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/10/jobs/all/1

Throughout his career, he was fearless in his demands. He kicked aside the hoops that everyone else had to negotiate and straightforwardly and brazenly pursued what he wanted. When he got what he wanted — something that occurred with astonishing frequency — he accepted it as his birthright.

…

The full legacy of Steve Jobs will not be sorted out for a very long time. When employees first talked about Jobs’ “reality distortion field,” it was a pejorative — they were referring to the way that he got you to sign on to a false truth by the force of his conviction and charisma. But at a certain point the view of the world from Steve Jobs’ brain ceased to become distorted. It became an instrument of self-fulfilling prophecy. As product after product emerged from Apple, each one breaking ground and changing our behavior, Steve Job’s reality field actually came into being. And we all live in it.

Walter Mossberg, WSJ, The Steve Jobs I Knew - http://allthingsd.com/20111005/the-steve-jobs-i-knew/

Earlier in the day, before Gates arrived, I did a solo onstage interview with Jobs, and asked him what it was like to be a major Windows developer, since Apple’s iTunes program was by then installed on hundreds of millions of Windows PCs.

He quipped: “It’s like giving a glass of ice water to someone in Hell.” When Gates later arrived and heard about the comment, he was, naturally, enraged, because my partner Kara Swisher and I had assured both men that we hoped to keep the joint session on a high plane.

In a pre-interview meeting, Gates said to Jobs: “So I guess I’m the representative from Hell.” Jobs merely handed Gates a cold bottle of water he was carrying. The tension was broken, and the interview was a triumph, with both men acting like statesmen. When it was over, the audience rose in a standing ovation, some of them in tears.

NY Times: The Wizard and the Mortal: Two Sides of Genius - http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/09/business/an-analogy-of-thomas-edison-and-steve-jobs.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

The public tributes to Edison in 1931 and those to Mr. Jobs 80 years later were similar, but only superficially. With Edison, the public thought of the Wizard, an outsize persona, through which it was impossible to see an actual person. But with Mr. Jobs, the tributes were to a fellow mortal, exactly our own height, just as vulnerable as we all are to the random strike of a life-ending catastrophe.

mammaradiologo: ADDIO al mio adorato Steve! In me hai lasciato...

Thu, 06 Oct 2011 14:33:26 -0700

mammaradiologo:

ADDIO al mio adorato Steve!

In me hai lasciato un gran segno :-))

Entrepreneurs Remembering Steve Jobs

Thu, 06 Oct 2011 14:09:00 -0700

Eric Schmidt (former CEO, Google) - http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/eric-schmidt-on-steve-jobs-10062011.html

Everyone knows the transaction where the board sided with John Sculley and Steve left Apple (AAPL). Steve sold all of his Apple stock, kept one share, and founded NeXT. Typical Steve maneuver. When I was still at Sun Microsystems, I visited him at NeXT—we did a bunch of deals with him. He was exactly the same way he was at Apple: strongly opinionated, knew what he was doing. He was so passionate about object-oriented programming. He had this extraordinary depth. I have a PhD in this area, and he was so charismatic he could convince me of things I didn’t actually believe.

…

One of the things about Steve is, he was always in the realm of possibility. There was a set of assumptions that Steve would make that were never crazy. They were just ahead of me.

…

Steve and I were talking about children one time, and he said the problem with children is that they carry your heart with them. The exact phrase was, “It’s your heart running around outside your body.” That’s a Steve Jobs quote. He had a level of perception about feelings and emotions that was far beyond anything I’ve met in my entire life. His legacy will last for many years, through people he’s trained and people he’s influenced. But what death means is you can’t call—you can’t call him. It’s a loss. I’ll miss talking to him.

Jonathan Schwartz (former CEO, Sun Microsystems) - http://jonathanischwartz.wordpress.com/2011/10/06/eitherwayyoureright/

Perhaps I’m biased by age or experience, but I don’t think my social graph is the only one to see Steve as a gravitational force. Every startup aspires to be an Apple of their field.

And every CEO I know aspires to so effectively captivate their audience -and their shareholders (and board).

For Silicon Valley, he has, in many ways, been the star around which we all orbit. His absence is disorienting. I can’t think of a better way of describing it.

Rest in peace, Steve, thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

Steve Wolfram (CEO, Mathematica) - http://blog.stephenwolfram.com/2011/10/steve-jobs-a-few-memories/

At the time, all sorts of people were telling me that I needed to put quotes on the back cover of the book. So I asked Steve Jobs if he’d give me one. Various questions came back. But eventually Steve said, “Isaac Newton didn’t have back-cover quotes; why do you want them?” And that’s how, at the last minute, the back cover of A New Kind of Science ended up with just a simple and elegant array of pictures. Another contribution from Steve Jobs, that I notice every time I look at my big book.

…

In my life, I have had the good fortune to interact with all sorts of talented people. To me, Steve Jobs stands out most for his clarity of thought. Over and over again he took complex situations, understood their essence, and used that understanding to make a bold definitive move, often in a completely unexpected direction.

Richard Branson - http://www.virgin.com/richard-branson/blog/remembering-steve-jobs

Woke this morning to hear the sad news that Steve Jobs has lost his battle with cancer. He was a truly great businessman but more than that he was an inspiration to young people, entrepreneurs, inventors, designers, early adopters, budding musicians, and people with disabilities who discovered with Apple’s devices a way to engage with the world.

So many people drew courage from Steve and related to his life story: adoptees, college drop-outs, struggling entrepreneurs, ousted business leaders figuring out how to make a difference in the world, and people fighting debilitating illness. We have all been there in some way and can see a bit of ourselves in his personal and professional successes and struggles.

He inspired with his direct message “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life…have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.” And yet, despite all his success - he never forgot what was really important in life and was a much loved family man. My thoughts are with Laurene and his family. He will be sorely missed.

Sergey Brin - https://plus.google.com/109813896768294978296/posts/dwmWyNSoXTh

From the earliest days of Google, whenever Larry and I sought inspiration for vision and leadership, we needed to look no farther than Cupertino. Steve, your passion for excellence is felt by anyone who has ever touched an Apple product (including the macbook I am writing this on right now). And I have witnessed it in person the few times we have met.

On behalf of all of us at Google and more broadly in technology, you will be missed very much. My condolences to family, friends, and colleagues at Apple.

Larry Page - https://plus.google.com/106189723444098348646/posts

I am very, very sad to hear the news about Steve. He was a great man with incredible achievements and amazing brilliance. He always seemed to be able to say in very few words what you actually should have been thinking before you thought it. His focus on the user experience above all else has always been an inspiration to me. He was very kind to reach out to me as I became CEO of Google and spend time offering his advice and knowledge even though he was not at all well. My thoughts and Google’s are with his family and the whole Apple family.

Jason Calacanis - http://www.launch.is/blog/by-the-way-what-have-you-done-thats-so-great.html

1. Unrelenting attention to detail.
2. Impeccable taste.
3. Indefatigable passion.
4. Absolute conviction.
5. Unwavering vision.
6. Boundless curiosity.
7. Mercurial motivator.

One or two of these will help you make a living.
Three or four of these will make you successful.
Four of five of these will make you a legend.
Five or six of these will make you iconic for all time.

All seven will make you Steve Jobs.

Statements from Bill Gates, President Obama

Thu, 06 Oct 2011 13:37:00 -0700

Via: http://www.thegatesnotes.com/Personal/Steve-Jobs

I’m truly saddened to learn of Steve Jobs’ death. Melinda and I extend our sincere condolences to his family and friends, and to everyone Steve has touched through his work.

Steve and I first met nearly 30 years ago, and have been colleagues, competitors and friends over the course of more than half our lives.

The world rarely sees someone who has had the profound impact Steve has had, the effects of which will be felt for many generations to come.

For those of us lucky enough to get to work with him, it’s been an insanely great honor. I will miss Steve immensely.

Via: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/10/05/statement-president-passing-steve-jobs

Michelle and I are saddened to learn of the passing of Steve Jobs. Steve was among the greatest of American innovators — brave enough to think differently, bold enough to believe he could change the world and talented enough to do it.

By building one of the planet’s most successful companies from his garage, he exemplified the spirit of American ingenuity. By making computers personal and putting the Internet in our pockets, he made the information revolution not only accessible, but intuitive and fun. And by turning his talents to storytelling, he has brought joy to millions of children and grown-ups alike. Steve was fond of saying that he lived every day like it was his last. Because he did, he transformed our lives, redefined entire industries and achieved one of the rarest feats in human history: He changed the way each of us sees the world.

The world has lost a visionary. And there may be no greater tribute to Steve’s success than the fact that much of the world learned of his passing on a device he invented. Michelle and I send our thoughts and prayers to Steve’s wife, Laurene, his family, and all those who loved him.

Steve Jobs Narrates “Think Different” Ads 1997

Thu, 06 Oct 2011 13:29:52 -0700

Steve Jobs Narrates “Think Different” Ads 1997

Steve Jobs Quotes

Thu, 06 Oct 2011 13:08:43 -0700

Via WSJ - http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2011/08/24/steve-jobss-best-quotes/

On Design

“We think the Mac will sell zillions, but we didn’t build the Mac for anybody else. We built it for ourselves. We were the group of people who were going to judge whether it was great or not. We weren’t going to go out and do market research. We just wanted to build the best thing we could build.

“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. The design of the Mac wasn’t what it looked like, although that was part of it. Primarily, it was how it worked. To design something really well, you have to get it. You have to really grok what it’s all about. It takes a passionate commitment to really thoroughly understand something, chew it up, not just quickly swallow it. Most people don’t take the time to do that.

“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people.

“Unfortunately, that’s too rare a commodity. A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse experiences. So they don’t have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem. The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have. [Wired, February 1996]

“For something this complicated, it’s really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.”

“That’s been one of my mantras — focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.” [BusinessWeek, May 25, 1998, in a profile that also included the following gem: “Steve clearly has done an incredible job,” says former Apple Chief Financial Officer Joseph Graziano. “But the $64,000 question is: Will Apple ever resume growth?”]

***

“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. Take desktop video editing. I never got one request from someone who wanted to edit movies on his computer. Yet now that people see it, they say, ‘Oh my God, that’s great!’” [Fortune, January 24 2000]

***

“Look at the design of a lot of consumer products — they’re really complicated surfaces. We tried to make something much more holistic and simple. 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. Most people just don’t put in the time or energy to get there. We believe that customers are smart, and want objects which are well thought through.” [MSNBC and Newsweek interview, Oct. 14, 2006]

On His Products

“I don’t think I’ve ever worked so hard on something, but working on Macintosh was the neatest experience of my life. Almost everyone who worked on it will say that. None of us wanted to release it at the end. It was as though we knew that once it was out of our hands, it wouldn’t be ours anymore. When we finally presented it at the shareholders’ meeting, everyone in the auditorium gave it a five-minute ovation. What was incredible to me was that I could see the Mac team in the first few rows. It was as though none of us could believe we’d actually finished it. Everyone started crying.” [Playboy, Feb. 1, 1985]

“We made the buttons on the screen look so good you’ll want to lick them.” [On Mac OS X, Fortune, Jan. 24, 2000]

***

“It will go down in history as a turning point for the music industry. This is landmark stuff. I can’t overestimate it!” [On the iTunes Music Store, Fortune, May 12, 2003]

***

“Every once in a while a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything. … One is very fortunate if you get to work on just one of these in your career. Apple’s been very fortunate it’s been able to introduce a few of these into the world.” [Announcement of the iPhone, Jan. 9, 2007]

On Business

“You know, my main reaction to this money thing is that it’s humorous, all the attention to it, because it’s hardly the most insightful or valuable thing that’s happened to me.” [Playboy, Feb. 1, 1985]

Q: There’s a lot of symbolism to your return. Is that going to be enough to reinvigorate the company with a sense of magic?

“You’re missing it. This is not a one-man show. What’s reinvigorating this company is two things: One, there’s a lot of really talented people in this company who listened to the world tell them they were losers for a couple of years, and some of them were on the verge of starting to believe it themselves. But they’re not losers. What they didn’t have was a good set of coaches, a good plan. A good senior management team. But they have that now.” [BusinessWeek, May 25, 1998]

***

“Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R&D. It’s not about money. It’s about the people you have, how you’re led, and how much you get it.” [Fortune, Nov. 9, 1998]

***

“The cure for Apple is not cost-cutting. The cure for Apple is to innovate its way out of its current predicament.” [Apple Confidential: The Real Story of Apple Computer Inc., May 1999]

***

“The problem with the Internet startup craze isn’t that too many people are starting companies; it’s that too many people aren’t sticking with it. That’s somewhat understandable, because there are many moments that are filled with despair and agony, when you have to fire people and cancel things and deal with very difficult situations. That’s when you find out who you are and what your values are.

“So when these people sell out, even though they get fabulously rich, they’re gypping themselves out of one of the potentially most rewarding experiences of their unfolding lives. Without it, they may never know their values or how to keep their newfound wealth in perspective.” [Fortune, Jan. 24, 2000]

***

“The system is that there is no system. That doesn’t mean we don’t have process. Apple is a very disciplined company, and we have great processes. But that’s not what it’s about. Process makes you more efficient.

“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. It’s ad hoc meetings of six people called by someone who thinks he has figured out the coolest new thing ever and who wants to know what other people think of his idea.

“And it comes from saying no to 1,000 things to make sure we don’t get on the wrong track or try to do too much. We’re always thinking about new markets we could enter, but it’s only by saying no that you can concentrate on the things that are really important. [BusinessWeek, Oct. 12, 2004]

On His Competitors

Playboy: Are you saying that the people who made PCjr don’t have that kind of pride in the product?

“If they did, they wouldn’t have made the PCjr.” [Playboy, Feb. 1, 1985]

***

“Some people are saying that we ought to put an IBM PC on every desk in America to improve productivity. It won’t work. The special incantations you have to learn this time are the “slash q-zs” and things like that. The manual for WordStar, the most popular word-processing program, is 400 pages thick. To write a novel, you have to read a novel––one that reads like a mystery to most people. They’re not going to learn slash q-z any more than they’re going to learn Morse code. That is what Macintosh is all about.” [Playboy, Feb. 1, 1985]

***

“The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste. They have absolutely no taste. And I don’t mean that in a small way, I mean that in a big way, in the sense that they don’t think of original ideas, and they don’t bring much culture into their products.”

“I am saddened, not by Microsoft’s success — I have no problem with their success. They’ve earned their success, for the most part. I have a problem with the fact that they just make really third-rate products.” [Triumph of the Nerds, 1996]

***

“I wish him the best, I really do. I just think he and Microsoft are a bit narrow. He’d be a broader guy if he had dropped acid once or gone off to an ashram when he was younger.” [On Bill Gates, The New York Times, Jan. 12, 1997]

On Predicting the Future

“I’ll always stay connected with Apple. I hope that throughout my life I’ll sort of have the thread of my life and the thread of Apple weave in and out of each other, like a tapestry. There may be a few years when I’m not there, but I’ll always come back. [Playboy, Feb. 1, 1985]

***

“The most compelling reason for most people to buy a computer for the home will be to link it to a nationwide communications network. We’re just in the beginning stages of what will be a truly remarkable breakthrough for most people––as remarkable as the telephone.” [Playboy, Feb. 1, 1985]

***

“The desktop computer industry is dead. Innovation has virtually ceased. Microsoft dominates with very little innovation. That’s over. Apple lost. The desktop market has entered the dark ages, and it’s going to be in the dark ages for the next 10 years, or certainly for the rest of this decade.

“It’s like when IBM drove a lot of innovation out of the computer industry before the microprocessor came along. Eventually, Microsoft will crumble because of complacency, and maybe some new things will grow. But until that happens, until there’s some fundamental technology shift, it’s just over.” [Wired, February 1996]

***

The desktop metaphor was invented because one, you were a stand-alone device, and two, you had to manage your own storage. That’s a very big thing in a desktop world. And that may go away. You may not have to manage your own storage. You may not store much before too long. [Wired, February 1996]

On Life

“It’s more fun to be a pirate than to join the navy.” [1982, quoted in Odyssey: Pepsi to Apple, 1987]

***

“When you’re young, you look at television and think, There’s a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that’s not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want. That’s a far more depressing thought. Conspiracy is optimistic! You can shoot the bastards! We can have a revolution! But the networks are really in business to give people what they want. It’s the truth.” [Wired, February 1996]

***

“I’m an optimist in the sense that I believe humans are noble and honorable, and some of them are really smart. I have a very optimistic view of individuals. As individuals, people are inherently good. I have a somewhat more pessimistic view of people in groups. And I remain extremely concerned when I see what’s happening in our country, which is in many ways the luckiest place in the world. We don’t seem to be excited about making our country a better place for our kids.” [Wired, February 1996]

***

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.” [Stanford commencement speech, June 2005]

***

“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.” [Stanford commencement speech, June 2005]

***

“When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.” [Stanford commencement speech, June 2005]

***

“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.” [NBC Nightly News, May 2006]

And One More Thing

“No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” [Stanford commencement speech, June 2005]

Via Guardian - http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/oct/06/steve-jobs-quotes

On life

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything - all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”
– Stanford commencement speech 2005

On Macintosh

“I don’t think I’ve ever worked so hard on something, but working on Macintosh was the neatest experience of my life. Almost everyone who worked on it will say that. None of us wanted to release it at the end. It was as though we knew that once it was out of our hands, it wouldn’t be ours any more.

“When we finally presented it at the shareholders’ meeting, everyone in the auditorium stood up and gave it a 5-minute ovation. What was incredible to me was that I could see the Mac team in the first few rows. It was as though none of us could believe that we’d actually finished it. Everyone started crying.”
– Playboy magazine 1985

On technology

“We think the Mac will sell zillions, but we didn’t build the Mac for anybody else. We built it for ourselves. We were the group of people who were going to judge whether it was great or not. We weren’t going to go out and do market research. We just wanted to build the best thing we could build.

When you’re a carpenter making a beautiful chest of drawers, you’re not going to use a piece of plywood on the back, even though it faces the wall and nobody will ever see it. You’ll know it’s there, so you’re going to use a beautiful piece of wood on the back. For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through.”
– Playboy magazine 1985

On motivation

“That’s been one of my mantras — focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.”
– Business Week 1998

On money

“Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me … Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful … that’s what matters to me.”
– Wall Street Journal 1993

On internet start-ups

“The problem with the internet start-up craze isn’t that too many people are starting companies; it’s that too many people aren’t sticking with it. That’s somewhat understandable, because there are many moments that are filled with despair and agony, when you have to fire people and cancel things and deal with very difficult situations. That’s when you find out who you are and what your values are.

“So when these people sell out, even though they get fabulously rich, they’re gypping themselves out of one of the potentially most rewarding experiences of their unfolding lives. Without it, they may never know their values or how to keep their newfound wealth in perspective.”
– Fortune magazine 2000

On design

“In most people’s vocabularies, design means veneer. It’s interior decorating. It’s the fabric of the curtains and the sofa. But to me, nothing could be further from the meaning of 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.”
– Fortune magazine 2000

On Apple

“My position coming back to Apple was that our industry was in a coma. It reminded me of Detroit in the 70s, when American cars were boats on wheels.”
– Fortune magazine 2000

On innovation

“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 realised something that shoots holes in how we’ve been thinking about a problem. It’s ad hoc meetings of six people called by someone who thinks he has figured out the coolest new thing ever and who wants to know what other people think of his idea.

“And it comes from saying no to 1,000 things to make sure we don’t get on the wrong track or try to do too much. We’re always thinking about new markets we could enter, but it’s only by saying no that you can concentrate on the things that are really important.”
– Business Week 2004

On home computing

“The most compelling reason for most people to buy a computer for the home will be to link it to a nationwide communications network. We’re just in the beginning stages of what will be a truly remarkable breakthrough for most people – as remarkable as the telephone.”
– Playboy 1985

On desktop computers

“The desktop computer industry is dead. Innovation has virtually ceased. Microsoft dominates with very little innovation. That’s over. Apple lost. The desktop market has entered the dark ages, and it’s going to be in the dark ages for the next 10 years, or certainly for the rest of this decade.

“It’s like when IBM drove a lot of innovation out of the computer industry before the microprocessor came along. Eventually, Microsoft will crumble because of complacency, and maybe some new things will grow. But until that happens, until there’s some fundamental technology shift, it’s just over.”
– Wired magazine 1996

On instinct

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”
– Stanford commencement speech 2005

On work

“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.”
– Stanford commencement speech 2005

Remembering Steve Jobs

Thu, 06 Oct 2011 12:52:54 -0700

Like a lot of people in the tech world, I am so saddened by the passing away of Steve Jobs. I could barely concentrate on working and are on the constant refresh of Google news, Techmeme to look for information on how people are remembering him. So instead of attempting to write something myself, I want to just gather here what other people had said. And they definitely expressed the feeling more eloquently than I could have.

James Siminoff: Verizon: Oasis or Mirage

Thu, 14 Oct 2010 13:12:00 -0700

James Siminoff: Verizon: Oasis or Mirage:

siminoff:

The iPhone has given ATT , billions of dollars and a severely tarnished reputation. And now it seems the iPhone is coming to Verizon in early 2011. If that happens and the twitter/social sentiment translates to users than Verizon will be crushed by a exodus of ATT customers.

Snapshot: Goldilocks passes Alice for the iPad

Thu, 14 Oct 2010 13:10:42 -0700

Snapshot: Goldilocks passes Alice for the iPad

Peapod Labs’ Design Process for ABC Wildlife iPhone App.

Wed, 29 Sep 2010 23:01:23 -0700

Peapod Labs’ Design Process for ABC Wildlife iPhone App.

Kno single screen textbook reader 14 inch is huge.

Mon, 27 Sep 2010 12:45:17 -0700

Kno single screen textbook reader 14 inch is huge.

Video

Thu, 23 Sep 2010 17:27:00 -0700

startupquote: If I had asked my customers what they wanted,...

Thu, 05 Aug 2010 10:39:49 -0700

startupquote:

If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse.

- Henry Ford

Marco.org: Great since day one

Mon, 05 Jul 2010 10:02:37 -0700

Marco.org: Great since day one:

The original iPhone was great on day one. It couldn’t do as much as today’s iPhone, but it performed its feature-set extremely well. There were almost no rough edges or unpolished areas in its hardware or software, and nearly everything seemed justifiable, well conceived, and well executed.

The original iPhone was great on day one. It couldn’t do as much as today’s iPhone, but it performed its feature-set extremely well. There were almost no rough edges or unpolished areas in its hardware or software, and nearly everything seemed justifiable, well conceived, and well executed.

Apple tends to do that a lot. It’s deeply ingrained in their culture, priorities, and product development practices. In brief, their philosophy seems to be to ship only what’s great and leave out the rest. That’s why, instead of having a bad copy-and-paste implementation for the iPhone’s first two years, we just didn’t have one at all.

A super quick word search game on 4th of July?...

Sun, 04 Jul 2010 11:07:00 -0700

A super quick word search game on 4th of July? http://bit.ly/cflltU

Learning and Gaming

Wed, 16 Jun 2010 10:53:05 -0700

Games, if done well, can be a form of learning. Microsoft Office Labs did an experiment that turned Office in to a Game. They shared some key findings / thoughts here: http://www.slideshare.net/danctheduck/wordcamp-2010-public

Incidentally, Nivi from Venturehacks posted a blog this morning asking that if there a place for gaming mechanism in starting, managing startup etc. It is a good read. http://venturehacks.com/articles/startup-game

Fundamentally, both learning and gaming touches the basic human psychology, the understanding of which will help you better design your product (whether it is a social game, or your startup company).

How Parents Can Help Children Learn

Fri, 11 Jun 2010 11:15:42 -0700

Betty Hart and Todd R. Risley’s landmark 1995 book, “Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of Young American Children,” shows that parents who supply a language-rich environment for their children help them develop a wide vocabulary, and that helps them learn to read.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/10/garden/10childtech.html