"Our DNA is as a consumer company - for that individual customer who's voting thumbs up or thumbs down. That's who we think about. And we think that our job is to take responsibility for the complete user experience. And if it's not up to par, it's our fault, plain and simply"
About this Quote
The subtext is control. “Complete user experience” sounds empathetic, but it’s also an argument for vertical integration, walled gardens, and the ruthless pruning of options. If you’re responsible for the whole experience, you get to own the whole stack: hardware, software, services, even the rules of how people are allowed to use the thing they bought. Jobs recasts limitation as care.
Context matters: this is the Jobs-era answer to an industry that historically offloaded blame. PCs were a shell game of vendors, drivers, and third-party cruft, where failure was always someone else’s problem. Jobs turns that chaos into a competitive weapon: if it breaks, it’s on us, which implies it will work because we can’t afford it not to.
“Plain and simply” is the closer, a rhetorical slam dunk meant to sound humble while enforcing a standard no committee can water down. It’s not softness; it’s accountability as a branding strategy.
Quote Details
| Topic | Customer Service |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Jobs, Steve. (2026, January 17). Our DNA is as a consumer company - for that individual customer who's voting thumbs up or thumbs down. That's who we think about. And we think that our job is to take responsibility for the complete user experience. And if it's not up to par, it's our fault, plain and simply. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/our-dna-is-as-a-consumer-company-for-that-36570/
Chicago Style
Jobs, Steve. "Our DNA is as a consumer company - for that individual customer who's voting thumbs up or thumbs down. That's who we think about. And we think that our job is to take responsibility for the complete user experience. And if it's not up to par, it's our fault, plain and simply." FixQuotes. January 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/our-dna-is-as-a-consumer-company-for-that-36570/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Our DNA is as a consumer company - for that individual customer who's voting thumbs up or thumbs down. That's who we think about. And we think that our job is to take responsibility for the complete user experience. And if it's not up to par, it's our fault, plain and simply." FixQuotes, 17 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/our-dna-is-as-a-consumer-company-for-that-36570/. Accessed 21 Feb. 2026.






