Steve Jobs dies: Quotes from late Apple founder

COMMENCEMENT SPEECH AT Standford University, 2005

"Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything -- all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure -- these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart."

"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma -- which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice."

ALLTHINGSD CONFERENCE, 2010

"There's nothing that makes my day more than getting an e-mail from some random person in the universe who just bought an iPad over in the UK and tells me the story about how it's the coolest product they've ever brought home in their lives. That's what keeps me going. It's what kept me five years ago, it's what kept me going 10 years ago when the doors were almost closed. And it's what will keep me going five years from now whatever happens."

INTERVIEW WITH PLAYBOY MAGAZINE, 1985

"I don't think I've ever worked so hard on something, but working on Macintosh was the neatest experience of my life. Almost everyone who worked on it will say that. None of us wanted to release it at the end. It was as though we knew that once it was out of our hands, it wouldn't be ours anymore. When we finally presented it at the shareholders' meeting, everyone in the auditorium stood up and gave it a 5-minute ovation. What was incredible to me was that I could see the Mac team in the first few rows. It was as though none of us could believe that we'd actually finished it. Everyone started crying."

INTERVIEW WITH FORTUNE MAGAZINE, 2000

"In most people's vocabularies, design means veneer. It's interior decorating. It's the fabric of the curtains and the sofa. But to me, nothing could be further from the meaning of design. Design is the fundamental soul of a man-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service."

"My position coming back to Apple was that our industry was in a coma. It reminded me of Detroit in the '70s, when American cars were boats on wheels."

Billionaire comebacks

It was a stinging blow for Steve Jobs when a boardroom power struggle ousted him from Apple, the company he co-founded as a 21-year-old. A friend was so concerned over what the distraught Jobs might do that he drove to his house and sat with him for hours.

Jobs didn't stay down for long though. He soon began poaching Apple employees for his new company Next and picked up a digital graphics company, later called Pixar, from George Lucas for $5 million.

These moves set Jobs up for a spectacular comeback. He sold Pixar, which made blockbuster films like Toy Story, to Disney in 2006 for $7.4 billion. Earlier, a struggling Apple came knocking at Next's door, hoping the company could help bolster Apple's flagging software lineup. Apple paid about $400 million to acquire Next in 1997.

Apple didn't only need Jobs' company, it also needed his leadership. In Jobs' absence Apple faltered severely. Macs were rapidly ceding market share to PCs, and the company was fumbling a release of a new operating system. In September 1997, Jobs was named chief executive officer.

Jobs' second term has become a remarkable success story. Mac sales are booming, iPods are hugely popular and iPhones are earning the company new victories in the cellphone market. Shares of Apple are up an incredible 1,500% over the past five years.

Jobs' roller coaster trajectory isn't unusual. Billionaires actually suffer more major career and business setbacks than the rest of us.

"It's not that the wealthy are incompetent," explains Russ Alan Prince, president of Prince & Associates, a research company specializing in private wealth. "It's just that they try more."

Take Donald Trump. He shot to billionaire status in the 1980s by borrowing heavily to finance ambitious real estate projects. He lost it all (and more) in a 1990 real estate crash. (Trump would later recall passing a homeless person and realizing that the man was wealthier than he was.)

While they fail more, billionaires respond with greater persistence. They are more likely to try again in the same field. Trump kept building, began licensing his name to other developers and started clawing his way out of the hole. By last year, Forbes estimated he was the 117th wealthiest American.

Persistence in the same field pays off. While an initial business venture in the area might be a failure, the businessman or woman is building a network and knowledge that could provide the groundwork for another more successful venture.

Racing tycoon O. Bruton Smith is another one who stuck to familiar territory after failure. For him, it was the racetrack. Smith couldn't make it as a driver so he turned his attention to the business-side of the sport. He began promoting dirt-track races.

Smith saw an opportunity to build a new track in Charlotte. He raised $450,000, an impressive amount in the early 1960s, and broke ground on the project. The money wasn't enough, though, and soon Smith's track was bankrupt.

After dallying in auto dealerships, Smith returned a decade later. He used proceeds from his car business to buy back the stock in the track. With the sport booming--and with Smith's savvy marketing--the track was a roaring success this time. Smith now owns six tracks and is worth an estimated $1.2 billion.

Obstinacy is no guarantee to riches. Trying again and again in a business with no potential is a sure way to find bankruptcy and stay there. But in the right field at the right time, a stubborn streak can be just as important as hard work, talent, drive and luck.

In Pictures: Billionaire Comebacks

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