Walter Isaacson quote: "What are the five products you want to focus on? Get rid of the rest, because they’re dragging you down. They’re turning you into Microsoft. They’re causing you to turn out products that are adequate but not great."

I've always had an abundance of material about the subjects of my biographies.
WALTER ISAACSON

And if you don't have your ears open, you're not going to be able to figure out what you sho...
WALTER ISAACSON

I think it is valuable and should be valued by its consumers. Charging for content forces discipline...
WALTER ISAACSON

Yeah, I think that his great creation was not any one product but a company in which creativity was ...
WALTER ISAACSON

I don't think there was enough skepticism because I think most of us kind of believed that Sadda...
WALTER ISAACSON

We have to compete in a universe of 200 networks, so we have to carve out our own niche, and to me, ...
WALTER ISAACSON

But the point is to get a whole new generation of people and people in general more re-engaged in ne...
WALTER ISAACSON

I think that we shouldn't be fixated all the time on the ups and downs of the weekly ratings, of...
WALTER ISAACSON

I've asked Jobs why he didn't get an operation then and he said, 'I didn't want my b...
WALTER ISAACSON

I think right now we need to look back at the founding values of our country. Rise above partisanshi...
WALTER ISAACSON

More generally, I made an effort to leave out things that weren't relevant to the main narrative...
WALTER ISAACSON

I do think it's important, if you're going to be very creative, to be a seeker.
WALTER ISAACSON

You can't have a sustainable US economy without a great education system. Teach students to do t...
WALTER ISAACSON

I wonder now how tough you have to be to get big things done.
WALTER ISAACSON

We are in a situation with the huge stimulus package that's going to be spent all across this na...
WALTER ISAACSON

I think that's exactly what Silicon Valley was all about in those days. Let's do a startup i...
WALTER ISAACSON

What Einstein was able to do was - to use a cliche - think out of the box.
WALTER ISAACSON

I think when money starts to corrupt journalism, it undermines the journalism, and it undermines the...
WALTER ISAACSON

I think one problem we've had is that people who are smart and creative and innovative as engine...
WALTER ISAACSON

When there are multiple versions of a story, you really have three ways to go. You can pick the most...
WALTER ISAACSON

Just being the seeker, somebody whose open to spiritual enlightenment, is in itself the important th...
WALTER ISAACSON

Terrorism is a horrible thing that is the great threat to civilization on our planet.
WALTER ISAACSON

Smart people are a dime a dozen. What matters is the ability to think different... to think out of t...
WALTER ISAACSON

If you just sit and observe, you will see how restless your mind is. If you try to calm it, it only ...
WALTER ISAACSON

Este es un homenaje a los locos. A los inadaptados. A los rebeldes. A los alborotadores. A las ficha...
WALTER ISAACSON

One way to remember who you are is to remember who your heroes are.
WALTER ISAACSON

Algunas personas proponen: «Dales a los clientes lo que quieren». Pero esa no es mi postura. Nuest...
WALTER ISAACSON

Jobs insisted that Apple focus on just two or three priorities at a time. “There is no one better ...
WALTER ISAACSON

Some people say, "Give the customers what they want." But that's not my approach. Out job is to figu...
WALTER ISAACSON

Walter Issacson biographer of Steve Jobs:

I remember sitting in his backyard in his garde...
WALTER ISAACSON

I visited Jobs for the last time in his Palo Alto, Calif., home. He had moved to a downstairs bedroo...
WALTER ISAACSON

When you write biographies, whether it's about Ben Franklin or Einstein, you discover something ...
WALTER ISAACSON

I think that Benjamin Franklin felt very strongly in foreign policy in this world, that you needed t...
WALTER ISAACSON

faithful to its core mission of being the most authoritative and credible source of information in t...
WALTER ISAACSON

I think we're trying as much as possible to be part of the heart and soul of Aspen,
WALTER ISAACSON

Spielberg made movies the way they are today. Our list is aimed at naming the people who influenced ...
WALTER ISAACSON

We'd love to have conversations if Ted Koppel wanted to, and could,
WALTER ISAACSON

It's like when FEMA wasn't really that creative, and the water was rising and people were stranded, ...
WALTER ISAACSON

I've heard the rumor on and off for a month or two. Most rumors like this have some basis for truth,...
WALTER ISAACSON

There is a whole group of young people now with attitude and sharpness that comes from a Bart Simpso...
WALTER ISAACSON

There would be times when we'd rack our brains on a user interface problem, and think we'd considere...
WALTER ISAACSON

Kissinger would probably be outraged even if he reread his own memoirs, on the grounds that they are...
WALTER ISAACSON

Look out your window, and what do you see? Le Corbusier, not Wright.
WALTER ISAACSON

I have my own theory about why decline happens at companies like IBM or Microsoft. The company does ...
WALTER ISAACSON

Bob Iger, Disney's chief operating officer, had to step in and do damage control. He was as sensible...
WALTER ISAACSON

Jobs's intensity was also evident in his ability to focus. He would set priorities, aim his laser at...
WALTER ISAACSON

One of Job's great strengths was knowing how to focus. " Deciding what not to do is as important as ...
WALTER ISAACSON

Mrs. Graham was an important and remarkable person in our profession and all of us lucky enough to k...
WALTER ISAACSON

With the participation of a wide range of policymakers -- from Margaret Thatcher to Jimmy Carter to ...
WALTER ISAACSON

Jobs had begun to drop acid by then, and he turned Brennan on to it as well, in a wheat field just o...
WALTER ISAACSON

I think the McCain and Lieberman talk about the need for civility in public discourse is right at th...
WALTER ISAACSON

Steve's head dropped and stared at his feet. After a weighty, uncomfortable pause, he issued a chall...
WALTER ISAACSON

There should be an honored place in history for statesmen whose ideas turned out to be right.
WALTER ISAACSON

I'll be in Philadelphia. They are throwing a huge party for him. Hundreds and hundreds of people are...
WALTER ISAACSON

Picasso had a saying - 'good artists copy, great artists steal' - and we have always been shameless ...
WALTER ISAACSON

It was elitism, sort of a condescending elitism that looked down on Franklin for having basic middle...
WALTER ISAACSON

It was important, his father said, to craft the backs of cabinets and fences properly, even though t...
WALTER ISAACSON

The people who invented the twenty-first century were pot-smoking, sandal-wearing hippies from the W...
WALTER ISAACSON

I actually think Bill Gates is conventionally smarter, even though it's a dumb word, but mental ...
WALTER ISAACSON

Asked about the fact that Apple's iTunes software for Windows computers was extremely popular, Jobs ...
WALTER ISAACSON

Benjamin Franklin: An American Life
WALTER ISAACSON

Was [Steve Jobs] smart? No, not exceptionally. Instead, he was a genius. His imaginative leaps were ...
WALTER ISAACSON

I don’t have any skeletons in my closet that can’t be allowed out.
WALTER ISAACSON

I never worried about money. I grew up in a middle-class family, so I never thought I would starve. ...
WALTER ISAACSON

Steve Jobs thus became the greatest business executive of our era, the one most certain to be rememb...
WALTER ISAACSON

As part of the deal, Dylan appeared in a television ad for the iPod, featuring his new album, Modern...
WALTER ISAACSON

Стив считал: в гениальном компьютере аппаратное и прог...
WALTER ISAACSON

«Это самый дорогой телефон в мире, — говорил Стив Балл�...
WALTER ISAACSON

I discovered that the best innovation is sometimes the company, the way you organize a company.
WALTER ISAACSON

As Osborne famously declared, "Adequacy is sufficient. All else is superfluous." Jobs found that app...
WALTER ISAACSON

Google, you fucking ripped off the iPhone, wholesale ripped us off. Grand theft. I will spend my las...
WALTER ISAACSON

Form follows emotion
WALTER ISAACSON

He had the uncanny capacity to know exactly what your weak point is, know what will make you feel sm...
WALTER ISAACSON

Simply handing over your iPod to a friend, your blind date, or the total stranger sitting next to yo...
WALTER ISAACSON

Steve has a reality distortion field.” When Hertzfeld looked puzzled, Tribble elaborated. “In hi...
WALTER ISAACSON

The reality distortion field was a confounding mélange of a charismatic rhetorical style, indomitab...
WALTER ISAACSON

There are parts of his life and personality that are extremely messy, and that's the truth
WALTER ISAACSON

I think the biggest innovations of the twenty-first century will be the intersection of biology and ...
WALTER ISAACSON

So that’s our approach. Very simple, and we’re really shooting for Museum of Modern Art quality....
WALTER ISAACSON

Was he smart? No, not exceptionally. Instead, he was a genius.
WALTER ISAACSON

Steve Jobs had a tendency to see things in a binary way: "A person was either a hero or a bozo, a pr...
WALTER ISAACSON

The older I get, the more I see how much motivations matter. The Zune was crappy because the people ...
WALTER ISAACSON

if you can't keep him interested, that's your fault.
WALTER ISAACSON

Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have ...
WALTER ISAACSON

You should never start a company with the goal of getting rich. Your goal should be making something...
WALTER ISAACSON

On the day he unveiled the Macintosh, a reporter from Popular Science asked Jobs what type of market...
WALTER ISAACSON

Steve Jobs: “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
WALTER ISAACSON

People who know what they’re talking about don’t need PowerPoint.
WALTER ISAACSON

If you act like you can do something, then it will work.
WALTER ISAACSON

Years later, on a Steve Jobs discussion board on the website Gawker, the following tale appeared fro...
WALTER ISAACSON

Jobs had always been an extremely opinionated eater, with a tendency to instantly judge any food as ...
WALTER ISAACSON

Sometimes, to relieve stress, he would soak his feet in the toilet, a practice that was not as sooth...
WALTER ISAACSON

In two days he saw Rupert Murdoch, his son James, and the management of their Wall Street Journal; A...
WALTER ISAACSON

In a bravura demonstration of stonewalling, righteousness, and hurt sincerity, Steve Jobs successful...
WALTER ISAACSON

Otherwise, as Dylan says, if you're not busy being born, you're busy dying.
WALTER ISAACSON

I think different religions are different doors to the same house. Sometimes I think the house exist...
WALTER ISAACSON

If you want to live your life in a creative way, as an artist, you have to not look back too much. Y...
WALTER ISAACSON

When he was turning thirty, Jobs had used a metaphor about record albums. He was musing about why fo...
WALTER ISAACSON

He also came to like the idea of having a uniform for himself, because of both its daily convenience...
WALTER ISAACSON

Jobs and Clow agreed that Apple was one of the great brands of the world, probably in the top five b...
WALTER ISAACSON

I believe that love is a better teacher than a sense of duty,” he said, “at least for me.
WALTER ISAACSON

After the applause, he used the quotations book to make a more subtle point, about his reality disto...
WALTER ISAACSON

reality has an odd habit of catching up with satire.
WALTER ISAACSON

I want it to be as beautiful as possible, even if it's inside the box. A great carpenter isn't going...
WALTER ISAACSON

More people show up for the (general election) than do the primary. Nobody can give a good enough re...
ALAN ISAACSON

It's a definite economic boost for the state, especially in the post-Christmas season. It's good exp...
ALAN ISAACSON

I feel like I am getting hit from both sides. I oppose bringing this up just after the impact fees.
ALAN ISAACSON

We want to offer developers a carrot rather than beat them with a stick.
ALAN ISAACSON

We're not against vacationers, but those of us who live here would like to have housing to continue ...
ALAN ISAACSON

The economic activity is not isolated to just Park City. It looks like they're spreading around more...
ALAN ISAACSON

But you should be prepared for it.
BEN ISAACSON

It's a great way to drive traffic.
BEN ISAACSON

I haven't seen one single case of a company posting a [privacy] policy and abusing it. We've done wh...
BEN ISAACSON

Most companies have Web pages now, even if it's just a one-page [online] brochure. Now, the question...
BEN ISAACSON

Today, Tom Reilly threw the entire gay community in front of the bus. We are stunned and horrified b...
ARLINE ISAACSON

We are fully aware that the votes of somebody like Phil Travis could be affected by Reilly's decisio...
ARLINE ISAACSON

We feel like Reilly put the entire gay community in front of a bus today.
ARLINE ISAACSON

They kept going hard after the tailback to stop that all night. We went with the reverse to catch th...
DICK ISAACSON

We have some juniors on this team and I challenged them this week. I wanted them to use this game to...
DICK ISAACSON

I got selfish tonight. This is my last Manual game so I asked them to win it for me.
DICK ISAACSON

We're hopeful. We have our fingers crossed.
DICK ISAACSON

He's got the physical talent.
DICK ISAACSON

One night in practice we just threw him back there to see what would happen - kind of a garbage-can ...
DICK ISAACSON

If he catches that ball, we probably win 3-0. Paul knows he should have caught that ball. I just ask...
JAMI ISAACSON

We have 13 seniors and a good group of freshmen. We dealt with injuries last year, but I think we'll...
JAMI ISAACSON

Offensively, we can go a lot of ways. But it is the pitching I'm really excited about.
JAMI ISAACSON

We are going to play him right away. With some freshman, you throw them in and pull them out. Someti...
JAMI ISAACSON

I think it's a great day for PTI. I think this will allow the citizens of the Triad to fly out of PT...
HENRY ISAACSON

Next to his family and his friends, the airport was his true love. We owe the new terminal to Stanle...
HENRY ISAACSON

I'm going to make them keep their word. We're going out to see them middle of next week and that's g...
HENRY ISAACSON

I'm hoping that we've had enough conversation with the other airlines that they're going to keep the...
HENRY ISAACSON

They deny committing the crime. The defense is they didn't do what's alleged by Mr. Perez.
JOEL ISAACSON

Did you tell the whole and entire truth in your report?
JOEL ISAACSON

Wouldn't you feel better if he were hear to tell you?
JOEL ISAACSON

Retirement is an area where there is a lot of depression. There's only so may 'early-bird specials' ...
JOEL ISAACSON

They think you don't have to have exposure to certain areas -- you just have to buy the big names,
JOEL ISAACSON

And that will raise your cholesterol,
JOEL ISAACSON

Once you object to alcohol and gambling, then you can raise questions about the violence in Rap musi...
JOEL ISAACSON

Gifts must affect the receiver to the point of shock.
WALTER BENJAMIN

America's health care system is neither healthy, caring, nor a system.
WALTER CRONKITE

I look forward to making tangible and inspirational contributions to the Houston Technology Center&#...
WALTER O'BRIEN

Every passion borders on the chaotic, but the collector's passion borders on the chaos of memori...
WALTER BENJAMIN

All human knowledge takes the form of interpretation.
WALTER BENJAMIN

I can never believe how much time and energy and money and talent and everything else is being poure...
WALTER BECKER

There are some things that I write that I know are personal in a way, or the gag is so obscure that ...
WALTER BECKER

We have been fortunate enough to do something that has always been out of the mainstream and yet hav...
WALTER BECKER

All our wives are experimental psychologists.
WALTER BECKER

If there's a strange way to do something, I would certainly like to know about it. I feel that I...
WALTER BECKER

I always look for the weirdest note to land on. I felt that that was the least I could do for the gr...
WALTER BECKER

From a linguistic point of view, you can't really take much objection to the notion that a show ...
WALTER BECKER

That's sort of what we wanted to do: conquer from the margins, sort of find our place in the mid...
WALTER BECKER

You have a kid, and it's like, 'He's gotta go to college! Gotta have some clothes!'
WALTER BECKER

'8 Miles to Pancake Day' is a reconciliation of the classic space-time dilemma.
WALTER BECKER

It seemed like the more complex the music we were playing, the less able we were to guarantee its co...
WALTER BECKER

There was a film called 'FM,' and we were asked to do the title song. And I said, 'Does ...
WALTER BECKER

'Deacon Blues' was special for me. It's the only time I remember mixing a record all day...
WALTER BECKER

The protagonist in 'Deacon Blues' is a triple-L loser - an L-L-L Loser. It's not so much...
WALTER BECKER

There's a great freedom in writing by yourself. You can write anything you want.
WALTER BECKER

I spent a couple of years not doing any music or anything, just here in Hawaii trying to get healthy...
WALTER BECKER

I'm not interested in a rock/jazz fusion.
WALTER BECKER

It's great fun to play with a really good band.
WALTER BECKER

People are really exercised about one particular thing, and that is themselves. They will bore you e...
WALTER BECKER

Rock music is being systematically merged with fashion.
WALTER BECKER

Cynicism, I contend, is the wailing of someone who believes that things are, or should be, or could ...
WALTER BECKER

When you start to work with someone, there's a negotiation that takes place involving what's...
WALTER BECKER

My primary influences were the best jazz players from the 50's and 60's and later some of th...
WALTER BECKER

I listen to a mixture of old jazz, contemporary, pop, some world beat stuff and various odds and end...
WALTER BECKER

I'm a self-taught musician aside from what I've been able to pick up from other players.
WALTER BECKER

Honor sinks where commerce long prevails.
WALTER BAGEHOT

You may talk of the tyranny of Nero and Tiberius; but the real tyranny is the tyranny of your next-d...
WALTER BAGEHOT

An influential member of parliament has not only to pay much money to become such, and to give time ...
WALTER BAGEHOT

No real English gentleman, in his secret soul, was ever sorry for the death of a political economist...
WALTER BAGEHOT

The being without an opinion is so painful to human nature that most people will leap to a hasty opi...
WALTER BAGEHOT

No great work has ever been produced except after a long interval of still and musing meditation.
WALTER BAGEHOT

Public opinion is a permeating influence, and it exacts obedience to itself; it requires us to drink...
WALTER BAGEHOT

The habit of common and continuous speech is a symptom of mental deficiency. It proceeds from not kn...
WALTER BAGEHOT

All the best stories in the world are but one story in reality - the story of escape. It is the only...
WALTER BAGEHOT

Life is a school of probability.
WALTER BAGEHOT

It is unsound for an independent editor to be a financial contributor to any cause which would cause...
WALTER ANNENBERG

I have very little respect for Nancy Reagan. There is something about her that is very petty.
WALTER ANNENBERG

I cannot compromise or inhibit my independence.
WALTER ANNENBERG

Your Majesty, I took the liberty because I was so desirous of visiting alone with you for a few minu...
WALTER ANNENBERG

God grant you the strength to fight off the temptations of surrender.
WALTER ANNENBERG

You will not be satisfied unless you are contributing something to or for the benefit of others.
WALTER ANNENBERG

What matters is that you are doing what you think is right based on the standards which you hold.
WALTER ANNENBERG

The greatest happiness comes from being vitally interested in something that excites all your energi...
WALTER ANNENBERG

Live rich, die poor; never make the mistake of doing it the other way round.
WALTER ANNENBERG

I shall participate, I shall contribute, and in so doing, I will be the gainer.
WALTER ANNENBERG

Adversity tests us from time to time and it is inevitable that this testing continues during life.
WALTER ANNENBERG

Accomplish something every day of your life.
WALTER ANNENBERG

People who think about art as an investment are pathetic.
WALTER ANNENBERG

The test of character is having the ability to meet challenges.
WALTER ANNENBERG

In the world today, a young lady who does not have a college education just is not educated.
WALTER ANNENBERG

Never buy four C-plus paintings when you can buy one A.
WALTER ANNENBERG

My country has been very good to me; I must be good to my country.
WALTER ANNENBERG

Some people find an interest in making money, and though they appear to be slaving, many actually en...
WALTER ANNENBERG

Many activities and team play participation will give you a training that will prove invaluable late...
WALTER ANNENBERG

Too much work, too much vacation, too much of any one thing is unsound.
WALTER ANNENBERG

The greatest power is not money power, but political power.
WALTER ANNENBERG

I am responsible. Although I may not be able to prevent the worst from happening, I am responsible f...
WALTER ANDERSON

What are the five products you want to focus on? Get rid of the rest, because they’re dragging you down. They’re turning you into Microsoft. They’re causing you to turn out products that are adequate but not great.

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Walter Isaacson

What are the five products you want to focus on? Get rid of the rest, because they’re dragging you down. They’re turning you into Microsoft. They’re causing you to turn out products that are adequate but not great.

Walter Isaacson

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