Crazy One's Quote — Steve Jobs, what he said and where

Here’s
to the
crazy ones

Thirty-five years of Steve Jobs at Apple, read straight down: what he said, the day he said it, and the machine that was on the table.

The title is the first line of Think Different, 1997 — TBWA\Chiat\Day under Lee Clow, written by Rob Siltanen and Ken Segall, read on air by Richard Dreyfuss. Jobs recorded a version in his own voice. It was never broadcast. Who wrote it →

1985Cast Out · Section 03

Twelve years without a keynote stage

The 1985 board vote, the NeXT years, Pixar's unlikely survival, and the words from a decade nobody photographs.

A five-million-dollar animation studio bought from Lucasfilm, a logo that cost sixty thousand, and a workstation that turned out to be where the web was written.

A NeXTcube motherboard with dual processors, memory slots, and multiple chips mounted on a circuit board — A NeXT motherboard. Tim Berners-Lee wrote the first web server and browser on a machine built around one of these, at CERN in 1990.Photo: NeXTcube motherboard · Wikimedia Commons

1997The Return · Section 04

Back, with an advertisement instead of a product

1997 to 2005: the WWDC Q&A, Think Different's making, the Bondi Blue iMac, and the Stanford address word by word.

Think Different — Who Wrote It

The 1997 campaign: TBWA\Chiat\Day, Lee Clow, Rob Siltanen and Ken Segall's respective accounts of the copy, Richard Dreyfuss's voiceover, and Jobs's own recording that was never broadcast.

The Return

Translucent bondi blue iMac G3 shown at an angle against a plain background

Bondi Blue, and the Desk with Someone at It

The iMac G3 (1998) — Jonathan Ive's design brief, the colour decision, and what Jobs said about the consumer market in the Fortune interview that year.

The Return

The 1997 WWDC Q&A, UncutAn hour of questions, 1997

2005The flagship · Stanford

Twelve minutes at Stanford Stadium

Jobs had never graduated from anything. He said so at the opening, structured the address around three stories, announced each one by number, and closed with a line he had read as a teenager on the last issue of the Whole Earth Catalog. It is the most fact-checked speech in the canon and the easiest one to source.

Read the account of the address →

Where the closing line actually came from

Stewart Brand printed it on the farewell issue in 1974. Jobs moved it from an obscure back page into global circulation, and the distance between Brand’s meaning and its present use is most of the story. The Whole Earth Catalog →

Stanford Stadium commencement, adult graduates in gowns, wide shot — Graduates at a commencement ceremony, the audience Jobs addressed in June 2005.Photo: RDNE Stock project / Pexels

Here’s
to the
crazy ones

Who covered the cost of the lead

Verified

Never Said

A board with no case, built in a house in Los Altos

The Garage on Crist Drive

What Wozniak Actually Built

The machine introduced itself

Twelve years without a keynote stage

Back, with an advertisement instead of a product

Think Different — Who Wrote It

Bondi Blue, and the Desk with Someone at It

Twelve minutes at Stanford Stadium

Where the closing line actually came from

The Devices

Here’sto thecrazy ones

Who covered the cost of the lead

Verified

Never Said

A board with no case, built in a house in Los Altos

The Garage on Crist Drive

What Wozniak Actually Built

The machine introduced itself

Twelve years without a keynote stage

Back, with an advertisement instead of a product

Think Different — Who Wrote It

Bondi Blue, and the Desk with Someone at It

Twelve minutes at Stanford Stadium

Where the closing line actually came from

The Devices

Here’s
to the
crazy ones