Steve Jobs - The Lost Interview (11 May 2012) [VO] [ST-FR] [Ultra HD 4K]

SUMMARY

Robert X. Cringely interviews Steve Jobs in 1995, recounting his early fascination with computers, founding Apple, innovations like the Macintosh, corporate struggles, and visions for technology merging art and communication.

STATEMENTS

Steve Jobs first encountered a computer at age 10 or 11 through a time-sharing terminal at NASA Ames Research Center, experiencing the thrill of programming and executing ideas.
At 12, Jobs cold-called Bill Hewlett of Hewlett-Packard for parts to build a frequency counter, leading to a summer job that shaped his view of a company valuing employees.
Hewlett-Packard provided coffee and donut breaks, demonstrating recognition of employees as the company's true value, influencing Jobs' early perceptions of corporate culture.
Jobs attended Hewlett-Packard's Palo Alto Research Labs meetings, where he first saw the HP 9100, the earliest desktop computer, sparking his passion for self-contained machines.
Jobs met Steve Wozniak around age 14 or 15, bonding over electronics and inspired by an Esquire article about Captain Crunch's free phone calls, leading to blue boxing experiments.
Jobs and Wozniak discovered AT&T's technical journal at Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, revealing how to generate tones to control the phone network, confirming the story's reality.
After three weeks, they built a digital blue box that allowed free long-distance calls worldwide, teaching them they could control vast infrastructure with a small device.
The blue boxing lesson empowered Jobs and Wozniak, showing two young people could build something to influence billions in global systems, foundational to creating Apple.
Necessity drove the shift to personal computers; unable to afford a terminal for time-sharing, Jobs and Wozniak built one, evolving into the Apple I as an extension.
The Apple I was hand-built in garages over 40-80 hours, but demand from friends led to designing printed circuit boards to speed assembly and sell kits.
Jobs sold his Volkswagen bus and Wozniak his calculator to fund the first Apple I circuit boards, selling them to recover costs and ease production.
At the Byte Shop in Mountain View, Paul Terrell ordered 50 assembled Apple I boards, prompting Jobs to secure parts on net-30 credit and launch the business.
After selling 50 units, profits were tied up in remaining inventory, forcing Jobs to seek distribution by calling other computer stores nationwide.
Mike Markkula joined as an equal partner after retiring from Intel, providing funding and expertise to package the Apple II for non-hobbyists, fulfilling Jobs' vision.
The Apple II debuted at the West Coast Computer Faire with advanced color graphics, stealing the show and attracting dealers, propelling the company forward.
Jobs learned business by persistently asking "why" practices exist, uncovering folklore like standard costing due to poor information systems, which he improved at Apple.
Programming teaches structured thinking, akin to law school, positioning computer science as a liberal art everyone should learn to enhance cognitive processes.
Becoming rich young—over $100 million by 25—mattered less than the company's products and people; money enables long-term idea investment but wasn't the primary drive.
At Xerox PARC in 1979, Jobs was mesmerized by the graphical user interface, recognizing its inevitability for all future computers despite its flaws.
Xerox failed to capitalize on innovations because sales and marketing "toner heads" displaced product visionaries, rotting the genius that built their monopoly.
IBM's entry scared Apple, but its initial poor product succeeded due to ecosystem partners with vested interests, a genius strategy Jobs acknowledged.
Implementing Xerox ideas at Apple required bypassing skeptical Hewlett-Packard hires; Jobs outsourced a cheap, reliable mouse design in 90 days.
Companies confuse process with content as they grow, leading to downfall like IBM's; great products stem from content experts, not just managers.
The Lisa failed due to mismatched pricing and cultural drift from Apple's roots, costing Jobs leadership after internal battles.
Macintosh saved Apple by reinventing manufacturing with an automated factory, negotiating better chip prices, and launching at $2,500 with a new distribution system.
Great ideas are only 90% of the work; true products demand craftsmanship, trade-offs, and daily problem-solving to fit thousands of concepts together.
Teams polish ideas like rocks in a tumbler through friction and passion, producing beautiful results beyond one person's effort.
Dynamic range in software/hardware talent is 50-100:1; success comes from assembling A-players who self-select and propagate excellence.
Jobs directly critiques subpar work to refocus top talent on team goals without undermining confidence, prioritizing success over being right.
Apple pioneered desktop publishing by partnering with Adobe on PostScript, acquiring a LaserWriter stake, and pushing shared networked printing despite internal resistance.
Jobs' 1985 departure from Apple stemmed from hiring the wrong CEO in Sculley, whose survival instincts scapegoated him amid recession and leadership vacuum.
By 1995, Apple was dying from stagnation, eroding its 10-year lead as Microsoft caught up, with no visionary leadership to innovate.
Microsoft succeeded via IBM's boost and relentless improvement, but lacks taste, originality, and cultural depth, producing pedestrian products.
NeXT focuses on object-oriented software revolutionizing development 10x faster, enabling potent business tools like custom billing that shift market shares.
The web fulfills computing's communication dream, democratizing distribution where small companies rival giants, poised to redefine society with billions in e-commerce.
Humans are tool builders; the personal computer is the "bicycle of the mind," amplifying abilities and ranking as humanity's greatest invention.
Direction in innovation relies on taste from exposing oneself to humanity's best works; great artists steal ideas, blending liberal arts with technology.
Jobs identifies as a hippie, driven by seeking life's deeper meaning beyond materialism, infusing products with spirit that users sense and love.

IDEAS

Early access to computers as a child sparked lifelong passion by turning abstract ideas into tangible results through programming.
Cold-calling industry leaders at 12 opened doors to jobs and insights, showing persistence unlocks opportunities in any era.
Corporate perks like communal breaks humanize companies, embedding employee value that shapes innovative cultures.
Self-contained desktop machines liberated computing from mysterious mainframes, democratizing technology for personal use.
Hacking phone systems revealed how simple devices could hijack global infrastructures, empowering youthful ingenuity.
Discovering hidden technical secrets in libraries mirrors the thrill of uncovering forbidden knowledge to bend systems.
Building from necessity fosters invention; unaffordable tools force creative solutions like custom terminals evolving into products.
Selling personal assets to fund prototypes demonstrates bootstrapping's raw commitment in nascent industries.
Assembling by hand evolves into scalable manufacturing, turning hobby projects into viable businesses through iteration.
Securing credit on ignorance highlights how naivety can fuel bold risks in early entrepreneurship.
Packaging for non-experts expands markets thousandfold, shifting from hobbyists to everyday users.
Venture capital introductions via rejections build networks; even "no" leads to pivotal partnerships.
Debuting with visuals like projections captivates audiences, turning technical demos into spectacles.
Questioning business norms uncovers inefficiencies, replacing folklore with precise, real-time controls.
Programming as mental training parallels legal reasoning, structuring thought for broader problem-solving.
Wealth accumulation young distracts little if mission-driven, prioritizing impact over financial gain.
Blinded by one innovation, deeper visits reveal overlooked gems like networking and object-oriented programming.
Monopolies breed complacency, elevating sales over product genius and eroding foundational strengths.
Ecosystem alliances amplify weak entries, turning rivals' momentum into collaborative dominance.
Outsourcing skepticism bypasses internal resistance, accelerating innovation with external expertise.
Growth confuses process for essence, prioritizing bureaucracy over creative content in scaling.
Mismatched products alienate core audiences, dooming high-end ventures in accessible markets.
Small teams on "missions from God" reinvent industries through total overhauls in production and strategy.
Ideas evolve via craftsmanship; trade-offs and daily discoveries craft superior realities from visions.
Team friction polishes raw concepts into refined masterpieces, mimicking natural transformation processes.
Elite talent pools self-sustain, rejecting mediocrity to amplify collective output exponentially.
Direct feedback sharpens excellence without ego coddling, refocusing on work's integrity.
Pioneering hardware-software partnerships unlocks killer apps, reshaping industries like publishing.
Survival instincts in crises scapegoat visionaries, fracturing leadership during downturns.
Stagnation erodes leads; without bold evolution, even billion-dollar R&D yields minimal progress.
Opportunism plus persistence turns boosts into empires, though lacking cultural depth limits transcendence.
Object tech revolutionizes software creation, enabling rapid, superior tools for competitive edges.
Web communication eclipses computation, fostering innovation free from monopolistic control.
Tools like bicycles amplify human potential, positioning computers as history's pinnacle invention.
Taste guides direction; stealing from arts infuses tech with humanistic subtlety and spirit.
Hippie ethos seeks existential depth, channeling wonder into products that resonate emotionally.

INSIGHTS

Childhood encounters with technology instill profound wonder, transforming passive curiosity into active creation.
Persistence in reaching gatekeepers reveals hidden worlds, forging paths where none seem to exist.
Valuing people over processes in companies sustains innovation, preventing drift into soulless efficiency.
Hacking infrastructures teaches asymmetric power: small innovations can command large systems.
Bootstrapping from personal sacrifice builds resilient foundations, turning constraints into catalysts.
Questioning conventions demystifies business, replacing inherited myths with empirical clarity.
Liberal arts framing of tech education broadens cognition, equating code to philosophical discipline.
Mission eclipses money; true drive lies in enabling human potential through products.
Visionary blindness to secondary ideas underscores focused obsession's double-edged nature.
Monopolies invert priorities, sidelining creators for maintainers and dooming latent genius.
Alliances create vested interests, converting competitors' weaknesses into shared triumphs.
Internal resistance demands external pivots, proving agility trumps entrenched hierarchy.
Scaling confounds essence with method, where content mastery outlives procedural rigidity.
Product-market misalignment erodes identity, highlighting cultural fidelity's commercial imperative.
Intense teams forge breakthroughs via conflict, yielding polished outcomes from raw passion.
A-player clusters generate self-reinforcing excellence, elevating industries beyond averages.
Candid critique sustains high standards, prioritizing collective success over individual comfort.
Partnerships accelerate dominance, blending hardware vision with software ecosystems.
Crises expose leadership voids, where survival overrides strategy, fracturing core visions.
Innovation halts without evolution; leads vanish if complacency supplants bold iteration.
Relentless opportunism builds empires, but cultural voids yield merely functional artifacts.
Software paradigms like objects multiply efficiency, arming businesses with invisible weapons.
Communication mediums redefine tools, unleashing societal shifts through open platforms.
Human amplification via inventions ranks computing paramount, nudging trajectories for good.
Aesthetic taste elevates utility, stealing humanistic essence to enrich technological souls.
Existential quests infuse creations with spirit, making tools conduits for deeper meaning.

QUOTES

"It was an incredibly thrilling experience um so I became very um captivated by by a computer."
"We could build a little thing that could control a giant thing and that was an incredible lesson."
"I don't think there would have ever been an Apple computer had there not been blue boxing."
"Throughout the years in business I found something which was I'd always ask why you do things."
"I think everybody in this country should learn how to program a computer should learn a computer language because it teaches you how to think."
"The most important thing was the company the people the products we were making what we were going to enable people to do with these products."
"Within you know 10 minutes it was obvious to me that all computers would work like this someday."
"Xerox could have owned the entire computer industry today um could have been a company 10 times its size."
"Great products stem from content experts, not just managers."
"There's a just a tremendous amount of craftsmanship in between a great idea and a great product."
"Teams working really hard on something they're passionate about is like rocks in a tumbler, coming out beautifully polished."
"In software and hardware the difference between average and the best is 50 to one maybe 100 to one."
"When you say someone's work is shit, you really mean I don't quite understand it would you please explain it to me."
"I don't really care about being right you know I just care about success."
"Microsoft's just you know it's McDonald's."
"The innovation in the industry is in software and there hasn't ever been a real revolution in how we created software."
"The web is the ultimate direct to customer distribution channel."
"The personal computer was the bicycle of the mind."

HABITS

Persistently asking "why" behind business practices to uncover and eliminate inefficiencies.
Cold-calling experts and leaders to seek advice, parts, or opportunities directly.
Attending evening research lab meetings to immerse in cutting-edge technology.
Building devices from scavenged parts to solve immediate necessities.
Collaborating intensely with like-minded friends on weekend projects.
Selling personal items to fund prototypes and business starts.
Questioning standard costs and accounting to implement real-time tracking.
Exposing oneself to diverse arts, music, and history for inspirational taste.
Forming small, passionate teams for mission-driven innovations.
Providing direct, clear feedback on work quality to refocus efforts.
Visiting global factories to study and adapt manufacturing techniques.
Hiring only A-players and letting them self-select peers.
Stealing great ideas shamelessly from other fields to blend into products.
Seeking deeper life's meaning beyond materialism to infuse spirit in work.
Iterating daily on trade-offs to fit complex concepts into cohesive designs.

FACTS

In 1979, Xerox PARC demonstrated graphical user interfaces, object-oriented programming, and networked computers to Jobs.
Hewlett-Packard employed Jobs at age 12 for a summer, influencing his employee-centric company view.
AT&T's phone network flaw allowed voice-band signaling, enabling blue boxes to mimic switches.
The Byte Shop was the world's first computer store, later becoming an adult bookstore.
Apple II featured the most advanced personal computer graphics in 1977.
Jobs was worth over $100 million by age 25 after Apple's IPO.
Macintosh launched in 1984 at $2,500, using a factory automated after studying 80 Japanese sites.
LaserWriter was the first U.S.-shipped Canon laser printer engine, partnered with Adobe.
Apple became the world's largest printer company by revenue when Jobs left in 1985.
IBM's PC entered in 1981 as a $30 billion giant against Apple's $1 billion valuation.
NeXT in 1995 had 300 employees and $50-75 million revenue, leading in object-oriented software.
About 15% of U.S. goods and services were catalog-sold pre-web, shifting to online billions.
Human bicycle efficiency surpasses condors in locomotion studies from Scientific American.
Macintosh held a 10-year lead over competitors until 1995 stagnation.
MCI's Friends and Family program used custom software to capture billions from AT&T.

REFERENCES

Triumph of the Nerds television series.
Esquire magazine article on Captain Crunch.
AT&T technical journal from Stanford Linear Accelerator Center library.
HP 9100 desktop computer.
NASA Ames Research Center time-sharing terminal.
Bill Hewlett's phone call and Hewlett-Packard summer job.
Palo Alto Research Labs Tuesday night meetings.
Steve Wozniak's electronics projects.
Blue box device with "He's Got The Whole World in His Hands" logo.
Apple I terminal and circuit board.
Byte Shop in Mountain View on El Camino.
Mike Markkula from Intel.
West Coast Computer Faire booth with projection TV.
Xerox PARC Alto computers, GUI, object-oriented programming, networking.
David Kelley Design for mouse.
Lisa computer project.
Macintosh automated factory in California.
68000 microprocessor.
Adobe PostScript software and 19.9% stake.
Canon Laser Printer engine.
LaserWriter printer.
John Sculley from PepsiCo.
NeXT object-oriented software.
World Wide Web and Internet.
Scientific American article on locomotion efficiency.
Picasso's saying on copying vs. stealing.
Rock tumbler metaphor from elderly neighbor.

HOW TO APPLY

Encounter technology early: Access computers or terminals young to experience programming's thrill and build foundational passion.
Cold-call experts: Look up leaders in directories and request resources directly, turning audacity into opportunities like jobs or parts.
Attend innovation hubs: Join research lab meetings or groups to immerse in emerging tech, discovering self-contained devices firsthand.
Collaborate with superiors: Bond with knowledgeable peers on shared interests like electronics to co-create projects rapidly.
Hunt hidden knowledge: Search libraries or archives for technical secrets to validate and exploit overlooked systems.
Build from necessity: Design and construct tools you can't afford, evolving prototypes like terminals into full products.
Scavenge and assemble manually: Gather parts creatively and hand-build devices, honing skills that attract demand from others.
Sell assets for funding: Liquidate personal items like vehicles to prototype circuit boards, enabling small-scale production.
Pitch to stores boldly: Approach early retailers with assembled units, negotiating orders that force scalable business models.
Secure credit naively: Convince suppliers for net-30 terms on parts, using sales to pay promptly and realize inventory profits.
Package for masses: Design enclosures and peripherals for non-hobbyists, expanding reach from thousands to millions.
Seek venture intros: Even if rejected, use investors' networks to find partners like executives for equal stakes and expertise.
Demo spectacularly: Use visuals like projections at fairs to captivate, lining up distributors and accelerating growth.
Question everything: Probe "why" in business practices to dismantle folklore, implementing precise systems like real-time costing.
Learn programming universally: Treat it as liberal arts education to structure thinking, applicable beyond tech careers.
Prioritize mission over money: Focus on products' enabling power, viewing wealth as tool for long-term ideas.
Visit innovation centers: Absorb demos like GUIs, recognizing inevitable shifts despite flaws.
Bypass skeptics: Outsource resistant elements like hardware to experts for quick, cost-effective solutions.
Assemble A-teams: Recruit top talent who self-police, creating self-sustaining excellence pockets.
Provide direct feedback: Clearly articulate work shortfalls tied to goals, maintaining confidence in abilities.
Partner ecosystems: Collaborate on software like PostScript to pioneer apps, dominating niches like publishing.
Reinvent totally: Overhaul manufacturing, pricing, and distribution in crises to launch saviors like Macintosh.

ONE-SENTENCE TAKEAWAY

Steve Jobs' journey reveals technology's fusion of art and engineering empowers human potential through passionate, tasteful innovation.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Immerse children in computing early to foster creative thinking and problem-solving skills.
Persistently question business norms to innovate beyond outdated practices.
Build personal tools from necessity to cultivate entrepreneurial resilience.
Collaborate with electronics-savvy peers to accelerate project development.
Secure resources through bold outreach, like cold-calling industry leaders.
Fund ventures by sacrificing non-essentials, bootstrapping with determination.
Design products for everyday users, not just experts, to broaden adoption.
Visit research labs to absorb groundbreaking ideas and adapt them swiftly.
Hire only elite talent that self-selects for high-performance teams.
Use direct, constructive criticism to elevate work without damaging morale.
Partner with software innovators to create ecosystem-defining applications.
Reinvent processes in downturns, focusing on automated efficiency and cost control.
Infuse products with humanistic taste from arts and liberal studies.
Prioritize communication over computation in future tech visions.
Embrace web platforms for democratized distribution and global reach.
Seek life's deeper meanings to inspire spiritually resonant creations.
Steal great ideas across fields to enrich technological outputs.
Assemble passionate teams that thrive on friction for polished results.
View computers as mind-amplifying bicycles to guide ethical directions.
Evolve stagnant leads through bold, continuous iteration.

MEMO

In 1995, as Silicon Valley buzzed with the promise of digital frontiers, journalist Robert X. Cringely unearthed a long-lost interview with Steve Jobs, conducted a decade earlier amid the founder's exile from Apple. Jobs, then steering the boutique software firm NeXT, reflected on his improbable ascent from a curious kid in suburban California to the architect of a computing revolution. At 10, he stumbled upon a teletype terminal at NASA's Ames Research Center, where typing commands into the ether and receiving executed results ignited a lifelong obsession. "It was an incredibly thrilling experience," Jobs recalled, the machine acting as a distant oracle that turned his boyish ideas into reality.

That spark led to audacious moves, like the 12-year-old Jobs phoning Hewlett-Packard's Bill Hewlett for frequency-counter parts, landing not just spares but a summer job at the engineering giant. Hewlett-Packard's egalitarian ethos—coffee carts trundling through labs, affirming employees as the heart of innovation—seared into Jobs' worldview. By his teens, he was haunting HP's Palo Alto labs, mesmerized by the suitcase-sized 9100, the world's first desktop computer, programmable in BASIC without trailing wires to some hidden mainframe. There, he met Steve Wozniak, five years his senior, a prankster electronics wizard fresh from college expulsion. Their partnership, forged in garage tinkering, birthed the blue box—a digital tone generator that hijacked AT&T's vast network for free global calls, a teenage caper teaching them that "a little thing could control a giant thing."

From phone phreaking to personal computing was a logical leap born of thrift: needing a terminal for free time-sharing but unable to buy one, Jobs and Wozniak built their own, grafting a microprocessor to create the Apple I. Hand-assembled over grueling hours, these boards drew friends' interest, prompting the sale of Jobs' Volkswagen bus and Wozniak's calculator to fund printed circuits. A fateful pitch at the Byte Shop, the planet's inaugural computer store, secured an order for 50 assembled units. Juggling net-30 credit from wary distributors, they delivered in 29 days, their profits locked in 50 more machines—a Marxian crisis resolved by cold-calling stores nationwide. Enter Mike Markkula, the Intel alum who traded retirement for partnership, bankrolling the Apple II's sleek plastic case and color graphics debut at the 1977 West Coast Computer Faire, where it dazzled with projected demos.

Jobs' management philosophy crystallized through relentless "why" questions, dismantling corporate folklore like variance-adjusted costing, which masked sloppy controls. He championed programming not as rote skill but a liberal art, akin to law school, teaching structured thought everyone should master. Wealth came swiftly—$100 million by 25 post-IPO—but paled beside the thrill of empowering users. Xerox PARC's 1979 demo of graphical interfaces, glimpsed amid object programming and networked Altos, blinded him to all but the mouse-driven future: "All computers would work like this someday." Yet Xerox's "toner heads"—sales execs from its copier monopoly—squandered the goldmine, a cautionary tale of how dominance elevates marketers over makers.

Apple's brush with IBM's 1981 entry terrified the $1 billion upstart, but the PC's flaws were redeemed by an open ecosystem vesting partners in its success. Implementing PARC's vision demanded skirting HP transplants wedded to "soft keys"; Jobs outsourced a $15 mouse in 90 days, proving agility's edge. Growth's pitfalls emerged: process fetishism eclipsed content, birthing the mismatched $10,000 Lisa, which alienated Apple's hobbyist roots and cost Jobs his division after boardroom clashes. Undeterred, he rallied a "mission from God" team for Macintosh, touring 80 Japanese factories to automate production, slashing chip costs, and launching a $2,500 wonder in 1984 that reinvigorated the firm.

The Mac's alchemy lay in craftsmanship bridging idea to artifact, navigating trade-offs in electrons, plastics, and robots while juggling 5,000 concepts daily. Jobs likened his team to rocks tumbling in a gritty can, friction polishing ugly stones into gems through arguments and passion. A-players, with their 50-to-100:1 edge over averages, self-policed excellence, shunning B-listers. Direct critiques—"your work isn't good enough"—refocused without ego bruising, as Jobs prized success over infallibility, flipping opinions on evidence. Desktop publishing's genesis came via Adobe's PostScript and the LaserWriter, Apple's first laser printer, networked for sharing despite Lisa's pricing ghosts; by departure, Apple led global printer revenues.

Jobs' 1985 ouster, orchestrated by CEO John Sculley's Pepsi-honed survival instincts amid recession, was "very painful." Hired to market the "bicycle of the mind," Sculley scapegoated the visionary, fracturing Apple's soul as divisions warred without unified leadership. By 1995, Jobs lamented Apple's "glide slope to die," its 10-year Mac lead squandered in stagnant R&D billions yielding mere tweaks. Microsoft, rocket-boosted by IBM yet relentless, dominated via opportunism but peddled "McDonald's" fare—pedestrian, tasteless, sans cultural spirit from typesetting's elegant fonts.

Exiled at NeXT, Jobs revolutionized software with object-oriented tools building 10x faster, eyeing the web's communicative dawn over computation. This ultimate direct channel would eclipse catalogs, letting minnows mimic whales in e-commerce billions, unowned by Microsoft for pure innovation. Humans as tool-builders peaked with computers amplifying intellect like bicycles outpacing condors. Taste, pilfered from Picasso to poets, guided Jobs' hippie core—seeking life's ineffable beyond garages and careers—infusing Macs with a sensed wonder. As history unfolds, nudging this vector right promises enlightenment for all.