Maynard Webb Quotes

I knew the Apple II was great when I bought it, but as I dug into the details it just completely blew me away the creative artistic approach that the designers had taken.

Every year we are greeted by a host of new apps that will 'change the way we think' about ordering takeout, 'fundamentally transform' our shoe purchases, or 'revolutionize' the way we edit photos.

I tell people that the history of Mozilla and Firefox is so one of a kind that it should not be used - ever - as an example of what's possible.

We love serious technology innovations, and there is a strong bias towards large technology innovations that are sort of disruptive to the current market.

Though the first iPhone was expensive, it was such a refreshing new product that early users flocked to it.

I'm a designer, but I rely on programmers to bring my ideas to life. By learning to code myself, I think I can make things easier for all of us. Similarly, I want to be able to build things on my own without having to bother a programmer.

Being a tech company has to be about a pattern of repetitive innovation.

Our first product was Quicken, which is personal financial management on a PC. It had a tough start, and we ran some tracking surveys to understand who was using it. Half the users claimed to use it in some sort of office environment. We ignored that. I thought it was meaningless.

You can't start a product simply by building it. You have to know why you're building it, and you might go down the wrong rabbit hole, waste time, and confuse things. Spending long afternoons with a sketchbook or talking through your ideas with other people can save a year in software development later on.

Even though Traf-O-Data wasn't a roaring success, it was seminal in preparing us to make Microsoft's first product a couple of years later.

It's a nice reader, but there's nothing on the iPad I look at and say, 'Oh, I wish Microsoft had done it.'

Who decides what's in Windows? The customers who buy it.

The top principle for disruptive and sustaining innovation is that it has to have a laser focus on customers. Innovation begins with their needs and expectations.

I think that we're on a path that Apple was determined to be on since the '70s, which was to try and make technology relevant and personal.

Steve Jobs' ability to focus in on a few things that count, get people who get user interface right, and market things as revolutionary are amazing things.

Engineering talent is the most precious resource for any technology company - Palantir and Addepar are successful first and foremost because of their top tech cultures, and the same is true for our best portfolio companies at 8VC.

I've always had a passion for the tech industry, and I like to help build interesting products.

I originally studied graphic design and video production. I had wanted to be a programmer - I loved development and coding - but it turned out that I really enjoyed doing the frontend more than backend development.

Silicon Valley's long-running track record of creating globally disruptive startups is the envy of the world.

Growth hackers are typically computer engineers that build great marketing ideas into the product during the development process.

Founders, presuming they know their customers, assume they know all the features customers need.

It turns out it's important to build a product and not just a bunch of data models.

To me, 'design thinking' is another way of saying empathize with the customer. It's consideration for the person you're designing for.

My entrepreneurial spirit happened all day long because I got to think of things that kids would interact with. I was in front of my customers for 6-8 hours a day. I got to see what they like, what they don't like, what they connected with, and most importantly, did they learn something from this?

The iPhone was the first phone that brought what we used to think of as 'desktop quality' software to a handheld platform: software where you just say, 'Wow, that's a great user experience,' not merely, 'Wow, that's a great user experience for a handheld.'