Working Wisdom: quote about innovation and technology

“Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.”

The very last quote from Working Wisdom comes from Steve Jobs (born in San Francisco on 24 February 1955, died in Palo Alto on 5 October 2011), an American entrepreneur and business magnate. He was the chairman, CEO and co-founder of Apple Inc., as well as chairman and majority shareholder of Pixar and became a member of The Walt Disney Company’s board of directors following its acquisition of Pixar. He also co-founded NeXT, a computer platform development company, which was later bought by Apple. Jobs is regarded as a pioneer of the home computer revolution of the 1970s and 1980s, along with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, and of the market for mobile phones.

This quote is taken from the 2011 book I, Steve which was edited by Jobs himself and contained more than 200 quotations drawn from over three decades of media coverage. Jobs talked very openly about his own mistakes in his lifetime, and saw them as being pivotal moments in his life and career as he learned from his experiences and moved on to bigger and better things. The ability to innovate and adapt is key to success in today’s ever-changing business world. It is partly thanks to Jobs that the idea of embracing failure has become widely accepted in innovation-focused methodologies such as agile.