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...never let a passion for the perfect take precedence over pragmatism.

Walter Isaacson

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Walter Isaacson
Age: 72
Born: 1952
Born: May 20
Biographer
Journalist
Writer
New Orleans
Louisiana
Perfect
Take
Never
Pragmatism
Precedence
Passion

More quotes by Walter Isaacson

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What Einstein was able to do was - to use a cliche - think out of the box.
Walter Isaacson
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Jobs did not know that Sculley had told Eisenstat he wanted to quit, but by then it didn't matter. Overnight, he had changed his mind and decided to stay. Despite the blowup the day before, he was still eager for Jobs to like him. So he agreed to meet the next afternoon.
Walter Isaacson
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Jobs has within him sort of this conflict, but he doesn't quite see it as a conflict between being hippie-ish and anti-materialistic but wanting to sell things like Wozniak's board. Wanting to create a business.
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Good telling of human stories is the best way to keep the Internet and World Wide Web from becoming a waste vastland.
Walter Isaacson
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I think when money starts to corrupt journalism, it undermines the journalism, and it undermines the credibility of the product, and you end up not succeeding.
Walter Isaacson
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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
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I think Leonardo da Vinci teaches us the value of both being focused on things that fascinate us but also, at times, being distracted and deciding to pursue some shiny new idea that you happen to stumble upon. Balancing intense focus with being interested in a whole lot of different things is something that we have to do in the Internet age.
Walter Isaacson
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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
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Did Alexander Graham Bell do any market research before he invented the telephone?
Walter Isaacson
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I think that genius comes not just from having great mental processing power. It comes from being able to, as Steve Jobs' ad said, think different.
Walter Isaacson
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Let's crowd source, curate, and add royalties to books
Walter Isaacson
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I hope that some day scientists can be considered heroes again, instead of Paris Hilton.
Walter Isaacson
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On the day he unveiled the Macintosh, a reporter from Popular Science asked Jobs what type of market research he had done. Jobs responded by scoffing, Did Alexander Graham Bell do any market research before he invented the telephone?
Walter Isaacson
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You should never start a company with the goal of getting rich. Your goal should be making something you believe in and making a company that will last. Excerpt From: Walter, Isaacson. “Steve Jobs.” Simon & Schuster, 2011-10-23T21:00:00+00:00. iBooks. This material may be protected by copyright.
Walter Isaacson
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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
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There are parts of his life and personality that are extremely messy, and that's the truth
Walter Isaacson
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You know, one of these things that happened in the '60s and '70s was this confluence of, sort of, a counter-culture with computer culture.
Walter Isaacson
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If you truly have a passion for what you do, you will care even about the parts unseen.
Walter Isaacson
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I think it's very important to have a sense of balance in covering the war, but you don't have to be morally neutral about terrorism.
Walter Isaacson
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You and I love understanding American Revolution, but let's also understand the digital revolution, because that makes us more comfortable with our technology.
Walter Isaacson