Steve Jobs has always been a great inspiration for me: I absolutely love his perception, his remarkable vision and the passion he put in everything he worked on. I also share Steve Jobs’ devotion to focus and simplicity. Frankly, I think they’re often underestimated.
I think we can all learn something from Steve as a person, as he wasn’t just a genius, he was also a great person.

Here are my 10 key lessons we can learn from Steve Jobs:

1. Customers cannot tell you what they need
   If you ask customers what they want, they will usually tell you that they want what they already have, but want it “better, faster, and cheaper”, because people don’t like change. If you listen to people and build what they want, by the time you finish building it they will want something else.
2. Design counts
   Steve was a perfectionist and believed that design represents so much more than just what we see, but actually defines how a product works and feels. He worked hard to make difficult tasks simple and to make Apple products intuitive and easy to use.
3. Experts are clueless
   Steve believed that experts, journalists, analysts, consultants, and gurus don’t know anything, so they “advise”. They can tell you where the problem is in your product, but aren’t capable of making a great product. So hear what experts say, but don’t always listen to them!
4. Don’t tolerate B-players
   Steve did a good job not letting bozos proliferate at his companies. He couldn’t stand B-players and only wanted the best people in the world working with him. If you’re running a company make sure you invest in the core component for success: people.
5. Love what you do
   If you want to do something great you have to love what you do. There’s no way around this simple fact. Ask yourself, am I doing what I always dreamed of doing? If yes, great. If no, change things quick. Life doesn’t go on forever, so get on your right path now.
6. Some things need to be believed to be seen
   When you are innovating, obsessing about design and are trying to change the world, people will think you are nuts. You will need to convince them to believe in your vision and in what you are doing in order to see your efforts come to fruition.
7. Never give up
   As Steve said: “I’m convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance. It is so hard. You put so much of your life into this thing. Unless you have a lot of passion about this, you’re not going to survive. You’re going to give it up. So you’ve got to have an idea, or a problem or a wrong that you want to right that you’re passionate about otherwise you’re not going to have the perseverance to stick it through. I think that’s half the battle right there.”
8. Take Risks
   In 2007, Steve said, “There’s an old quote that I love: I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been. And we’ve always tried to do that at Apple. Since the very, very beginning. And we always will.” Steve didn’t hesitate to take risks. If he wanted something, he would find the best way to get it, even if it involved taking risks. Don’t be afraid to take risks. Especially smart ones.
9. Remember You’ll be Dead Soon
   You probably all remember this part of Steve’s commencement address at Stanford in 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.”
   Our time in this world is short! Let’s make it count.

As for the 10th point, I think it’s best to just quote Steve’s words:

There are a lot of people innovating, and that’s not the main distinction of my career. The reason Apple resonates with people is that there’s a deep current of humanity in our innovation. I think great artists and great engineers are similar, in that they both have a desire to express themselves. In fact some of the best people working on the original Mac were poets and musicians on the side. […] You always have to keep pushing to innovate.