"MacUser: If you could change one thing, what would it be? Jef Raskin: To not have people assume you can rank every-thing one dimensionally. Or have everybody realise that killing people is not a way to solve problems."
Jef Raskin was an American human–computer interface expert who conceived and began leading the Macintosh project at Apple in the late 1970s.
"Very often, when told of a new idea, he will immediately attack it and say that it is worthless or even stupid, and tell you that it was a waste of time to work on it. This alone is bad management, but if the idea was a good one he will soon be telling people about it as though it was his own."
Jef Raskin"MacUser: Which person do you most admire? Jef Raskin: For what attribute? Once again you ask a question that linearises a complex matter. I can name many. Lets start with people named George: George Cantor for moving infinity out of philosophy into mathematics, George Washington for showing how a leader should relinquish power, and George Bernard Shaw for his humanity... Or we can do it by subject and admire Aristotle, Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein for their pulling from nature comprehensible laws; or Euclid, Gauss and Gödel for their contributions to mathematics; or people who have influenced me very directly, in which case Id mention my very admirable parents and the teacher who taught me to be intellectually independent, L R Genise; or how about Claude Shannon without whose work on information theory I would have been lost."
Jef Raskin"The system should treat all user input as sacred."
Jef Raskin"How in the world do you sell something thats different? Thats the biggest problem. The worlds not quite ready to believe. Its like in the early days at Apple, they said, "Whats it good for?" We couldnt give a really good answer so they assumed the machine wasnt going to sell. But I do know the way I plan to sell my product is by word of mouth. Some people will try it and say, "This product really gets my job done. It doesnt have fifteen fonts. I cant print it out in old gothic banners five feet long, but I sure got that article finished under the deadline." Thats how I can sell it. Later, people will understand it."
Jef Raskin"I have always liked Steve personally, but I have found it impossible to work for him and retain much enjoyment in my work."
Jef Raskin"What I proposed was a computer that would be easy to use, mix text and graphics, and sell for about $1,000. Steve Jobs said that it was a crazy idea, that it would never sell, and we didnt want anything like it. He tried to shoot the project down."
Jef Raskin