The new leaders face new tests such as how to lead in this idea-intensive, interdependent network environment

Everything at Apple can be best understood through the lens of designing. Whether it's designing the look and feel of the user experience, or the industrial design, or the system design, and even things like how the boards were laid out.

When I was 5 or 6 years old, I never wanted toys; I wanted electrical parts so I could build things. And I was better at taking things apart and putting them back together, but I always had extra pieces left over, so I think it was an early warning that I was a better designer than an engineer.

There are just moments when all the stars are aligned for breakthrough products.

No great marketing decisions have ever been made on qualitative data

The characteristics that I look for when I'm looking for really good entrepreneurs to lead companies are you have to have an inquiring mind, you have to say there must be a better way to do things, and now with technology at a point where everything is possible, how do we turn the possible into the probable? And it all starts with a passion to do something really well, to solve a problem in a way that's never been solved before, and to have just an incredible work ethic, to be persistent.

Steve [Jobs'] brilliance is his ability to see something and then understand it and then figure out how to put it into the context of his design methodology - everything is design.