The New Yorker has a list of the top 10 tech quotes of 2011. Instead of the usual boring quotes about how awesome a product is, they’re insights into the dirty underbelly of the world of technology.
The quotes cover topics like the ongoing problems with patent trolls, and what Bill Gates told Steve Jobs after being accused of ripping off Apple. The New Yorker’s Nicholas Thompson chose the quotes based on how much they mattered in the tech world and how much he personally liked them. It’s a pretty great list. Here are a few gems:
I actually worked on a whole bunch of patents in my career over the years and I have to say that every single patent is nothing but crap.
A software engineer explains to This American Life that the patents he’s been granted over the years are unintelligible lawyer speak. This quote was from the program’s investigation into patent trolls.
I think it’s more like we both had this rich neighbour named Xerox and I broke into his house to steal the TV set and found out that you had already stolen it.
What Bill Gates told Steve Jobs after Jobs accused Microsoft of ripping off Apple with Windows. The quote appeared in Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs.
Bezos is super smart; don’t get me wrong. He just makes ordinary control freaks look like stoned hippies.
Posted to Google+ by a Google employee. The employee used to work at Amazon and had though that he was only sharing the information with co-workers using Google+’s Circles. Whooops.
Check out the rest of the New Yorkers quotes here. If you remember some choice quotes from the past year, drop them in the comments. [The New Yorker]