18 Leadership Quotes About Apple CEO Steve Jobs Part 1

Today, Apple Founder and CEO Steve Jobs unexpectedly resigned from his post.  The iconic figure is one of the great leaders of the last century.

If you are a regular reader of this site you know I am a fan of the CNBC Titans series.  The following are leadership quotes from a show they recently did profiling this incredible individual:

1. “Centuries from now people will look at Steve Jobs as one of those people who changed the world.” – John Sculley
2. “He is the living embodiment of creativity, non-conformity, and passion.” – Leander Khaney
3. “No one personified Silicon Valley, its personality, its culture, better than Steve Jobs.” – Alan Deuschman
4. “It was not a democracy.  There was only one vote that mattered.” – Guy Kawasaki
5. “He is constantly looking at the experience.  How does someone experience things.”
6. “No one can demo like he can.” – Kawasaki
7. “Who else gets media coverage for coming out with version 4 of a product.” – Deuschman
8. “Isn’t it funny a ship that leaks from the top.” – Jobs
9. “I had no idea what I was going to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me out.”
10. “He isn’t interested in protecting his old businesses.  He wants to rip them down with a sledgehammer and put something in its place.” – Khaney
11. “Steve is famous for being scary.  There’s a lot of people who stories about Steve in their face screaming.” – Khaney
12. “Do you want to sell sugar-water for the rest of your life or do you want to come with me and change the world?” – Jobs to then Pepsi CEO Sculley
13. “This is the scariest thing I’ve ever done.” – Jobs to Sculley in 1984, backstage right before he was to unveil the Macintosh.”
14. “We just released our finest creation, the Macintosh, a year earlier and I just turned 30.  And then I got fired.  How can you get fired from a company you started?”
15. “I was a very public failure and I even thought about running away from the Valley.  But something slowly began to dawn on me.  I still loved what I did.  The turn of events at Apple did not change that one bit.  I had been rejected but I was still in love.  And so I decided to start over.”
16. “He needed to prove the critics wrong and prove he could be the person running the company.” – Deuschman
17. “Because of the failure to innovate Microsoft caught up (with Apple).  Windows caught up.” – Andy Hertzfeld regarding Windows 95.
18. “The original idea was Apple would try to use Steve Jobs.  And that was a naive idea that you think you can be the one to take advantage of Steve Jobs.  That’s not how it works with Steve Jobs.  You are not going to be the person taking advantage of him.” – Deuschamn on Apple after the purchase of Next from Jobs

Check back tomorrow for Part 2 of this series.

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