People don’t know what they want until you show it to them.
Genuine
Yes. In “Steve Jobs: ‘There’s Sanity Returning’”, Q&A with Andy Reinhardt, Business Week, 25 May 1998 (extended online version, Bloomberg Businessweek).
Checked against “Steve Jobs: ‘There’s Sanity Returning’”, Q&A with Andy Reinhardt, Business Week, 25 May 1998 (extended online version, Bloomberg Businessweek), in a full-text transcription.
- Where
- Answer to “Did you do consumer research on the iMac when you were developing it?”
- Source
- “Steve Jobs: ‘There’s Sanity Returning’”, Q&A with Andy Reinhardt, Business Week, 25 May 1998 (extended online version, Bloomberg Businessweek)
- Checked
- In a full-text transcription
Researched by AI. Entry updated 27 October 2026. Editorial review: pending. How we check
About this quote
The scene
Jobs, interim CEO of Apple for under a year, is interviewed just after Apple rolled out its new software strategy on 11 May 1998. Asked whether Apple tested the iMac on consumers, he says it relies on its installed base and industry trends, but that complicated products cannot be designed by focus group. He adds that this is why Apple pays its product people well: they are supposed to see ahead.
What it means
Customers can only react to what they already know; someone has to imagine the product first and then show it.
Often misread
Often quoted as a rule that listening to customers is pointless. Jobs says he does use Apple’s customer research and trends; his claim is narrower, that for a complicated new product a focus group cannot design it.
Also shared as
- ShortenedIt’s really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them. The two sentences as Jobs said them; the popular form drops “a lot of times” and the focus-group sentence. Where it was seen
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Sources
Cite it
Steve Jobs, “Steve Jobs: ‘There’s Sanity Returning’”, Q&A with Andy Reinhardt, Business Week, 25 May 1998 (extended online version, Bloomberg Businessweek). Checked at Quotogeny, https://quotogeny.com/q/people-dont-know-what-they-want/ (27 October 2026).
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Checked by people
People who checked this entry against its source, under their own names. Their checks do not change the verdict: an editor reviews every entry.
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