Ask for feedback from people with diverse backgrounds. Each one will tell you one useful thing. If you're at the top of the chain, sometimes people won't give you honest feedback because they're afraid. In this case, disguise yourself, or get feedback from other sources.

If you keep your eye on the profit, you’re going to skimp on the product. But if you focus on making really great products, then the profits will follow.

Focusing is about saying No.

It takes these very simple-minded instructions - 'Go fetch a number, add it to this number, put the result there, perceive if it's greater than this other number' - but executes them at a rate of, let's say, 1,000,000 per second. At 1,000,000 per second, the results appear to be magic.

Breakthrough is how to distinguish a leader and who followed

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

I was at Reed [College] for only a few months. My parents intended for me to stay there for all four years but I decided that college wasn't right for me. I had no idea what I wanted to do I didn't see how college was going to help me.