I want a faster horse

Henry Ford [1863-1947] when he was thirty-three seated in his first car, the Quadricycle, 1896.

Creativity in art and technology is about individual expression. Just as an artist couldn't produce a painting by conducting focus groups, [Steve] Jobs doesn't use them either. Jobs can't innovate by asking a focus group what they want - they don't know what they want. Like Henry Ford once said: "If I'd ask my customers what they wanted, they'd have said a faster horse." [p.65]

Apple's former Chief Evalgelist Guy Kawasaki was only slightly exaggerating when he said that the budget for focus groups and market research "is a negative number." "Steve Jobs doesn't do market research. Market research for Steve Jobs is the right hemisphere talks to the left hemisphere." [p.66]

- Leander Kahney [born 1965], Inside Steve's Brain, 2008