Quotes from Walter Isaacson

The reason Apple resonates with people is that there's a deep current of humanity in our innovation. I think great artists and great engineers are similar, in that they both have a desire to express themselves.

Other than a little training in commercial math at what was known as an "abacus school," Leonardo was mainly self-taught. He often seemed defensive about being an "unlettered man," as he dubbed himself with some irony. But he also took pride that his lack of formal schooling led him to be a disciple of experience and experiment.

a prim and proper lady who sat up front who had been, I was later told, President Eisenhower's personal pilot when she was a male

subrayaba que nunca se debía crear una empresa para hacerse rico. La meta debía ser producir algo en lo que creyeras y crear una compañía duradera».

himself a wife within two weeks. He was a taut, tattooed engine mechanic, six feet tall, with a passing resemblance

The first half of the twentieth century, beginning with Albert Einstein's 1905 papers on relativity and quantum theory, featured a revolution driven by physics.

There was a long silence. Al Gore was the first to speak, and he listed Jobs's accomplishments

But then he paused to recognize the role Jobs in fact played. "In so many other companies, ideas and great design get lost in the process," he said. "The ideas that come from me and my team would have been completely irrelevant, nowhere, if Steve hadn't been here to push us, work with us, and drive through all the resistance to turn

The second half of the twentieth century was an information-technology era, based on the idea that all information could be encoded by binary digits—known as bits—and all logical processes could be performed by circuits with on-off switches.

All he did was blow a lousy few million and they took his company away from him." Now, Sculley reflected, he was taking Jobs's company away from him.

Ive grew up in Chingford, a town on the northeast edge of London. His father was a silversmith who taught at the local college. "He's a fantastic craftsman," Ive recalled. "His Christmas gift to me would be one day of his time in his college workshop, during the Christmas break when no one else was there, helping me make whatever I dreamed up.

More than anyone else of his time, he made products that were completely innovative, combining the power of poetry and processors. With a ferocity that could make working with him as unsettling as it was inspiring, he also built the world's most creative company. And he was able to infuse into its DNA the design sensibilities, perfectionism, and imagination that make it likely to be, even decades from now, the company that thrives best at the intersection of artistry and technology.

American science and engineering was even more sexist than it is today," Jennings said.

We had to determine structures, because structures, the folds and shapes, are conserved over a longer evolutionary period than the nucleic acid sequences.

Jobs flew down to have lunch with Eisner, who was stunned at his audacity. They had a three-picture deal, and Pixar had made only one. Each side had its own nuclear weapons.

Some people say, "Give the customers what they want." But that's not my approach. Our job is to figure out what they're going to want before they do.

He held himself back for a while, but not for long.

you are interested in the history of the digital age and the emergence of digital culture, Isaacson's book is a must read." —

One of the basic lessons for innovation is to stay focused.

until 1992, it was illegal to connect a commercial service like AOL to the Internet," Steve Case said.37

After you interact with Ginevra de' Benci long enough, what at first seem like a vacant face and distant stare begin to appear suffused with a haunting tinge of emotion. She seems pensive and ruminating, perhaps about her marriage or the departure of Bembo, or because of some deeper mystery. Her life was sad; she was sickly and remained childless. But she also had an inner intensity. She wrote poetry, one line of which survives: "I ask your forgiveness; I am a mountain tiger.

The Innovator's Dilemma.)

When our tools don't work, we tend to blame ourselves, for being too stupid or not reading the manual or having too-fat fingers... When our tools are broken, we feel broken. And when somebody fixes one, we feel a tiny bit more whole.

By late February 2009 Jobs had secured a place on the Tennessee list (as well as the one in California), and the nervous waiting began. He was declining rapidly by the first week in March, and the waiting time was projected to be twenty-one days. "It was dreadful," Powell recalled. "It didn't look like we would make it in time." Every day became more excruciating. He moved up to third on the