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.

Walter Isaacson

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Walter Isaacson
Age: 72
Born: 1952
Born: May 20
Biographer
Journalist
Writer
New Orleans
Louisiana
Five
Causing
Turns
Microsoft
Great
Adequate
Turning
Products
Rest
Turn
Focus
Dragging

More quotes by Walter Isaacson

Image
If you truly have a passion for what you do, you will care even about the parts unseen.
Walter Isaacson
Image
We have to compete in a universe of 200 networks, so we have to carve out our own niche, and to me, that niche is just basic shoe-leather journalism with some good journalists at the helm you can trust as presenters.
Walter Isaacson
Image
Steve has a reality distortion field.” When Hertzfeld looked puzzled, Tribble elaborated. “In his presence, reality is malleable. He can convince anyone of practically anything. It wears off when he’s not around, but it makes it hard to have realistic schedules.
Walter Isaacson
Image
Without Steve Jobs, you would have well-designed computers, probably open and not integrated, but they wouldn't have sex appeal, they wouldn't have romance.
Walter Isaacson
Image
One of the great pressures we're facing in journalism now is it's a lot cheaper to hire thumb suckers and pundits and have talk shows on the air than actually have bureaus and reporters
Walter Isaacson
Image
Most of the collaborations of technology were done by teams...Collaboration is key to creativity
Walter Isaacson
Image
The reality distortion field was a confounding mélange of a charismatic rhetorical style, indomitable will, and eagerness to bend any fact to fit the purpose at hand.
Walter Isaacson
Image
I think the biggest innovations of the twenty-first century will be the intersection of biology and technology. A new era is beginning, just like the digital one was when I was his age.
Walter Isaacson
Image
People who know what they’re talking about don’t need PowerPoint.
Walter Isaacson
Image
I think that Benjamin Franklin felt very strongly in foreign policy in this world, that you needed to at least show some humility, especially when you were strong.
Walter Isaacson
Image
The older I get, the more I see how much motivations matter. The Zune was crappy because the people at Microsoft don’t really love music or art the way we do. We won because we personally love music.
Walter Isaacson
Image
When there are multiple versions of a story, you really have three ways to go. You can pick the most sensational version. You can try to balance things in your gut to get to what you think is the honest truth. Or you can err on the side of kindness.
Walter Isaacson
Image
The Mona Lisa, to me, is the greatest emotional painting ever done. The way the smile flickers makes it a work of both art and science, because Leonardo understood optics, and the muscles of the lips, and how light strikes the eye - all of it goes into making the Mona Lisa's smile so mysterious and elusive.
Walter Isaacson
Image
Simply handing over your iPod to a friend, your blind date, or the total stranger sitting next to you on the plane opens you up like a book. (Steven Levy)
Walter Isaacson
Image
But the point is to get a whole new generation of people and people in general more re-engaged in news, and this has happened a lot since September 11th of course.
Walter Isaacson
Image
Picasso had a saying - 'good artists copy, great artists steal' - and we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas.
Walter Isaacson
Image
...never let a passion for the perfect take precedence over pragmatism.
Walter Isaacson
Image
I've asked Jobs why he didn't get an operation then and he said, 'I didn't want my body to be opened... I didn't want to be violated in that way.'
Walter Isaacson
Image
I think America is really well-positioned, because we do train people to be creative and sometimes resist authority, which helps in being an innovator. I think you're going to see for the next phase of the revolution all sorts of wonderful ways of connecting art and literature and journalism into new forms of digital expression.
Walter Isaacson
Image
Terrorism is a horrible thing that is the great threat to civilization on our planet.
Walter Isaacson