Companies can add value and simultaneously promote themselves if their product or service truly improves the lives of their customers. I mean really improve lives, not wishful thinking, rationalization. That's the acid test.

Pursue joy, not happiness. This is probably the hardest lesson of all to learn. It probably seems to you that the goal in life is to be happy. Oh, you maybe have to sacrifice and study and work hard, but, by and large, happiness should be predictable.

Don't worry, be crappy. Revolutionary means you ship and then test... Lots of things made the first Mac in 1984 a piece of crap - but it was a revolutionary piece of crap.

I don't want to make more friends. I have four kids, I have plenty of friends, and all the personal relationships I need.

If you make money, you might not make meaning.

Here's what you should say [to an investor]: 'this is what my company does' It's that simple. What you're trying to do is get potential investors to fantasize about how your product or service will make a boatload of money. They can't fantasize if they don't know what you do.

The two most important things about people on a revolutionary team are their ability and passion. Their educational level or work experience is meaningless--most of the engineers who did ground-breaking work of the Macintosh design didn't even graduate from college.