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

SUMMARY

In a rediscovered 1995 interview, Steve Jobs, hosted by Robert X. Cringely, recounts his early fascination with computers, Apple's founding, key innovations like the Macintosh, corporate challenges, and visions for software and the web's transformative potential.

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 in BASIC or Fortran.
At 12, Jobs called Bill Hewlett of Hewlett-Packard for spare parts to build a frequency counter, leading to a summer job that shaped his view of a company valuing employees.
Hewlett-Packard provided early influences, including coffee and donut breaks that demonstrated employee appreciation, forming Jobs' initial business perspective.
Jobs met Steve Wozniak around age 14 or 15, bonding over electronics and reading about Captain Crunch's free phone call technique in Esquire magazine.
Jobs and Wozniak built blue boxes to make free long-distance calls by mimicking AT&T signaling tones, learning they could control vast infrastructure with simple devices.
The blue boxing experience taught Jobs and Wozniak that two young people could build something to influence billions in global systems, inspiring Apple's creation.
Necessity drove the shift to personal computers; lacking a terminal for time-sharing, Jobs and Wozniak built one, evolving it into the Apple I.
The Apple I was assembled by hand in garages, taking 40 to 80 hours each, initially for personal use with scavenged parts.
Friends wanted Apple I boards but lacked assembly skills, so Jobs and Wozniak helped, leading to the idea of printed circuit boards for faster production.
To fund the first printed circuit boards, Jobs sold his Volkswagen bus and Wozniak his calculator, enabling sales to recover costs.
Jobs sold remaining Apple I boards to the Byte Shop, the world's first computer store, which requested fully assembled units, prompting a business pivot.
Jobs convinced electronics distributors for net-30 credit to buy parts for 100 units, assembling and selling 50 to break even on the rest.
This initial success created a profit realization crisis with 50 unsold computers, leading to nationwide distribution calls and business growth.
Mike Markkula joined as an equal partner after retiring from Intel, providing funding and expertise to tool the Apple II design.
The Apple II aimed for color graphics and a fully packaged personal computer for non-hobbyists, debuting at the West Coast Computer Faire with advanced graphics.
At 21, Jobs learned business by questioning "why" practices, discovering many were folklore without deep rationale.
Apple's factory accounting used standard costs adjusted quarterly due to poor information systems, which Jobs later improved with automation for real-time costing.
Programming taught Jobs structured thinking, akin to law school, viewing computer science as a liberal art everyone should learn.
Jobs became worth over $100 million by age 25 but prioritized company, people, and products over money.
Visiting Xerox PARC in 1979, Jobs was captivated by the graphical user interface, foreseeing all computers would adopt it.
Xerox failed to commercialize innovations because sales and marketing "toner heads" overpowered product visionaries in monopolistic structures.
IBM's PC entry scared Apple, but its initial poor product succeeded due to ecosystem vested interests improving it.
Implementing Xerox ideas at Apple faced resistance from Hewlett-Packard hires unfamiliar with GUIs, mice, or fonts, requiring external prototyping.
Companies confuse process with content when scaling, leading to downfall; great products stem from content experts, not just managers.
The Lisa failed due to a $10,000 price mismatch with Apple's culture and channels, lacking fundamental content understanding.
After losing Lisa leadership to John Couch, Jobs formed a small Macintosh team to save Apple, reinventing manufacturing, distribution, and marketing.
Macintosh development involved visiting 80 Japanese factories, building the world's first automated computer factory in California.
Motivating the Mac team required passion and vision; great ideas are 90% incomplete without craftsmanship handling trade-offs and details.
Jobs likened team collaboration to a rock tumbler, where friction among talented people polishes ideas into beautiful products.
In software and hardware, the gap between average and best is 50-to-1 or more, so success comes from assembling A-players who self-polish.
Apple pioneered desktop publishing by partnering with Adobe for PostScript and Canon for laser printers, becoming the world's largest printer company by revenue.
Jobs' 1985 departure from Apple stemmed from clashes with John Sculley during a recession, where survival instincts led to his ousting amid leadership vacuum.
By 1995, Apple was dying due to standing still while Microsoft caught up, eroding differentiation and market share.
Microsoft succeeded via IBM's boost and relentless opportunism but lacks taste, producing pedestrian products without cultural depth or enlightenment.
NeXT focused on object-oriented software, revolutionizing development speed by 10 times, positioning it as a key enabler for business and society.
The web fulfills dreams of computers as communication devices, enabling direct sales, equalizing company sizes, and driving massive innovation outside Microsoft's control.
Humans are tool builders; the personal computer is the "bicycle of the mind," ranking among history's greatest inventions for amplifying abilities.
Great products require taste from exposure to the best human works; Apple's team included musicians, poets, and artists bringing liberal arts to computing.
Jobs identifies as a hippie, valuing a search for life's deeper meaning beyond routine, infusing products with spirit that users sense and love.

IDEAS

Encountering computers as mysterious background machines in movies fixated on tape drives sparked Jobs' early intrigue at age 10.
Calling a company CEO at 12 for parts led to a job, revealing how unlisted numbers and bold persistence opened elite worlds.
Blue boxing demonstrated that amateur devices could hijack global telecom networks, empowering youths to control billion-dollar infrastructures.
Building the Apple I from necessity evolved into a business when a store demanded assembled units, turning hobby into commerce overnight.
Selling personal vehicles to fund circuit boards highlights bootstrapping innovation through sacrifice and resourcefulness.
Venture capitalists dismissed Jobs as a "renegade from the human race," yet his charisma convinced Mike Markkula to join as partner.
Questioning business "folklore" like standard costing exposed superficial practices, enabling deeper systemic improvements.
Programming mirrors thought processes, teaching logical rigor comparable to law but uniquely amplifying personal idea execution.
Wealth accumulation by 25 felt secondary to product impact, as money merely enables long-term idea investment.
Xerox PARC's GUI blinded Jobs to other innovations like networking, yet its inevitability reshaped computing visions instantly.
Monopolies rot from within as sales "toner heads" sideline product geniuses, explaining Xerox's failure to dominate.
IBM's ecosystem strategy turned a terrible initial PC into success, showing vested interests can redeem flawed launches.
Resistance from HP transplants to mice and fonts forced Jobs to outsource prototyping, proving external agility beats internal inertia.
Scaling confuses process for content, dooming firms like IBM; true innovation demands content-savvy "pain-in-the-butt" experts.
Lisa's $10,000 price alienated Apple's hobbyist base, illustrating how elite pricing mismatches grassroots cultures.
Macintosh as a "mission from God" reinvented Apple via automation, volume pricing, and total ecosystem overhaul in four years.
Great ideas demand 10% inspiration but 90% craftsmanship, navigating trade-offs in materials, electronics, and factories daily.
Team friction like rocks in a tumbler polishes raw talents into refined products through arguments and collaboration.
A-player dynamics create self-policing excellence, where top talents reject mediocrity and propagate high standards organically.
Direct feedback on subpar work preserves confidence in abilities while refocusing on team goals, fostering growth without ego coddling.
Pioneering laser printing via Canon and Adobe bets transformed Apple into the top global printer firm, despite internal skepticism.
Sculley's Pepsi background ill-equipped him for tech's rapid cycles, prioritizing survival over visionary execution during recession.
Apple's 1995 stasis allowed Microsoft a 10-year catch-up, turning a lead into erosion through lack of bold advancement.
Microsoft's tasteless opportunism yields functional but soulless products, contrasting Apple's culturally infused enlightenment.
Object-oriented tech at NeXT accelerates software creation 10-fold, infiltrating businesses as a competitive weapon like MCI's billing revolution.
The web equalizes giants and startups visually while shifting catalog sales online, fulfilling computing's communication destiny sans Microsoft monopoly.
Bicycling's efficiency outperforming species symbolizes tools amplifying human potential, with computers as mind's ultimate bicycle.
Stealing great ideas shamelessly, per Picasso, integrates liberal arts into tech via diverse teams of poets and zoologists.
Hippie ethos seeks life's mystical "inrush" beyond materialism, channeling that spirit into beloved products evoking user passion.
Computers serve as mediums for sharing profound feelings, attracting non-nerds who sense deeper purpose in innovation.

INSIGHTS

Early bold outreach, like cold-calling CEOs, unlocks opportunities in unlisted eras, teaching persistence trumps hierarchy.
Hacking infrastructures via simple boxes reveals empowerment's thrill, birthing companies from perceived impossibilities.
Bootstrapping with personal assets funds pivotal leaps, but assembled demand forces rapid professionalization.
Folklore in business hides inefficiencies; relentless "why" questioning dismantles them for precise, automated truths.
Coding as liberal art hones thinking's structure, democratizing logical prowess beyond lawyers or engineers.
Wealth pales against product legacy; it funds ideas, not defines purpose, in visionary pursuits.
Revolutionary interfaces blind to adjunct innovations, yet their core germ predicts industry inevitabilities.
Monopolies erode via promotion mismatches, exiling creators for sales drones ignorant of craftsmanship.
Ecosystems redeem flawed entries; external allies amplify internal weaknesses into triumphs.
Institutionalizing success's process kills content; scale demands prioritizing unruly geniuses over tidy managers.
Elite mismatches doom products; align pricing and culture to grassroots origins for resonance.
Crises birth saviors; sidelined visions spawn underground missions reinventing from roots.
Craftsmanship bridges idea to reality amid endless trade-offs, where daily discoveries refine the magic.
Talented friction forges excellence; teams of elites self-evolve, rejecting dilution for propagation.
Blunt critique sustains A-players by targeting work, not worth, enabling quick pivots to rightness.
Partnerships eclipse solo efforts; betting on external software like PostScript unlocks unforeseen dominions.
Survival instincts in vacuums scapegoat visionaries, prioritizing self over unified execution.
Stasis forfeits leads; bold nudges early in vectors yield exponential societal amplifications.
Taste elevates tools; infusing culture via arts crafts enlightened products spreading human subtlety.
Mystical quests infuse tech with spirit; hippies' depth creates loved mediums transmitting soul.

QUOTES

"It was an incredibly thrilling experience... that you could write a program... and actually this machine would sort of take your idea and... execute your idea."
"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 been an Apple computer had there not been blue boxing."
"Nobody knows why they do what they do. Nobody thinks about things very deeply in business."
"I think everybody in this country should learn how to program a computer... because it teaches you how to think."
"It's not rocket science... if you're willing to sort of ask a lot of questions and think about things and work really hard you can learn business pretty fast."
"All computers would work like this someday. It was obvious... you couldn't argue about the inevitability of it."
"The product sensibility... that brought them to that monopolistic position gets rotted out by people running these companies who have no conception of a good product."
"It's not process, it's content... the best people... understand the content and they're a pain in the butt to manage."
"A great idea is 90% of the work... but there's a tremendous amount of craftsmanship in between."
"It's through the team... bumping up against each other, having arguments, having fights... they polish each other and they polish the ideas."
"In software... the difference between average and the best is 50 to one, maybe 100 to one."
"When you get enough A players together... they only want to hire more A players and so you build up these pockets of A players."
"The most important thing... is to point out to them when their work isn't good enough... without calling into question your confidence in their abilities."
"I don't really care about being right... I just care about success... I'll admit that I'm wrong a lot."
"Microsoft... just have no taste... their products have no spirit of enlightenment about them, they are very pedestrian."
"The web is the ultimate direct to customer distribution channel... the smallest company in the world can look as large as the largest."
"The personal computer was the bicycle of the mind... the computer is going to rank near if not at the top as history unfolds."
"Good artists copy, great artists steal... we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas."
"A hippie... there's something more going on... another side of the coin that we don't talk about much."

HABITS

Persistently question business practices by asking "why" to uncover and dismantle unfounded folklore.
Learn programming early to train structured thinking, treating it as essential liberal arts education.
Bootstrap ventures by selling personal assets and negotiating credit without formal experience.
Assemble diverse A-players from arts and sciences, fostering self-policing teams of excellence.
Provide direct, work-focused feedback to talented individuals, preserving their confidence while demanding excellence.
Admit wrongs quickly upon evidence, prioritizing success over ego in decision-making.
Expose oneself to the best human creations across fields to cultivate taste for innovative products.
Seek deeper life's "inrush" beyond materialism, infusing work with spiritual passion.
Visit global factories and outsource prototyping to overcome internal resistance swiftly.
Reinvent ecosystems holistically—manufacturing, distribution, marketing—for product launches.
Partner aggressively with innovators, canceling internal projects to leverage external strengths.
Channel hippie curiosity into products, attracting non-traditional talents to transmit profound feelings.

FACTS

In 1971, unlisted phone numbers were rare, allowing a 12-year-old Jobs to directly call Bill Hewlett.
Blue boxes mimicked AT&T's 2600 Hz tones in the voice band, exploiting a design flaw in the phone network.
The Byte Shop was the world's first computer store, later becoming an adult bookstore.
Apple II debuted at the 1977 West Coast Computer Faire with the most advanced personal computer graphics then.
Jobs reached $100 million net worth by age 25 after Apple's 1980 IPO.
Xerox PARC in 1979 demonstrated GUI on Alto computers, networked with email among over 100 units.
IBM's 1981 PC was initially terrible but improved via open architecture and third-party support.
Macintosh mouse prototyped in 90 days for $15, versus internal estimates of five years and $300.
Apple's automated Fremont factory in 1984 was the world's first for computers.
LaserWriter, introduced 1985, used Canon's first U.S. engine and Adobe PostScript, making Apple top printer firm by revenue.
Apple bought NeXT in 1996 for $429 million, integrating its OS into Mac OS X.
By 1995, Macintosh had changed only 25% since 1985 despite billions in R&D.
Web commerce potential included shifting 15% of U.S. catalog sales, worth tens of billions annually.
Condor has highest natural locomotion efficiency at 0.15 kcal/km; bicycling humans achieve 0.04 kcal/km.

REFERENCES

Triumph of the Nerds (TV series by Robert X. Cringely, 1995).
NASA Ames Research Center time-sharing terminal.
Hewlett-Packard 9100 desktop computer.
Esquire magazine article on Captain Crunch.
AT&T Technical Journal on phone signaling tones.
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center technical library.
Apple I and Apple II computers.
Byte Shop (Mountain View computer store).
Mike Markkula (former Intel executive).
West Coast Computer Faire (1977).
Xerox PARC Alto computer and GUI demo.
PepsiCo (John Sculley's background).
Lisa computer project.
Macintosh project and team.
Canon laser printer engine.
Adobe PostScript software (19.9% stake).
LaserWriter printer.
NeXT Computer and object-oriented software.
MCI Friends and Family billing software.
World Wide Web and Internet.
Scientific American article on locomotion efficiency.
Picasso's saying on artists stealing ideas.
Rock tumbler metaphor from elderly neighbor.

HOW TO APPLY

Start with bold outreach: At young ages, cold-call experts for parts or advice to gain entry into professional realms.
Bond over shared passions: Seek collaborators deeper in a field, like electronics whizzes, to accelerate joint projects.
Prototype hacks ethically: Experiment with mimicking systems, like tones for networks, to grasp control over large infrastructures.
Build from necessity: Design personal tools, such as terminals, then evolve them into marketable products.
Scavenge and assemble manually: Use garage setups with scavenged parts to create initial versions, refining skills iteratively.
Fund via sacrifice: Sell personal items to prototype circuit boards, enabling small-batch production for cost recovery.
Pitch assembled solutions: Approach stores with boards but pivot to full assembly on demand to scale quickly.
Negotiate credit naively: Convince suppliers for net-30 terms without experience, using sales projections to buy and build.
Form equal partnerships: Recruit retired experts not just for money but active involvement in design and tooling.
Debut with spectacle: Use projection TVs at fairs to showcase graphics, attracting dealers and distributors.
Question folklore deeply: Probe "why" in accounting or processes for months to eliminate inefficiencies.
Automate for precision: Design factories knowing costs second-by-second, ditching variance-adjusted standards.
Learn coding as thinking tool: Spend a year programming to mirror and refine thought processes logically.
Prioritize content over process: Hire "pain-in-the-butt" experts understanding products, enduring management friction.
Outsource resistance: When internals balk, like on mice, hire externals for fast, cheap prototypes.
Form crisis teams: In leadership vacuums, assemble small groups on "missions" to reinvent core lines.
Infuse craftsmanship: Evolve ideas through daily trade-offs in materials and factories for magical fits.
Assemble A-players only: Seek top 1% talents who self-select and hire similarly, building excellence pockets.
Give direct feedback: Articulate why specific work fails team goals, without doubting overall abilities.
Partner boldly: Visit garages, cancel internals, and invest in software like PostScript for killer apps.
Nudge vectors early: In emerging tech like web, slight direction changes yield massive long-term impacts.

ONE-SENTENCE TAKEAWAY

Steve Jobs' journey reveals innovation thrives through bold persistence, talented teams, and infusing technology with humanistic taste.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Cultivate curiosity by accessing early tech like terminals, turning mystery into personal experimentation.
Persist in outreach to industry leaders, leveraging naivety for unexpected opportunities and mentorships.
Collaborate with deeper experts to co-create hacks revealing infrastructure control's empowerment.
Evolve personal necessities into products, starting with manual assembly to build irreplaceable skills.
Sacrifice assets to fund prototypes, then sell to recover and scale via assembly demands.
Negotiate boldly with suppliers for credit, basing on projected sales to bootstrap production.
Partner with retirees or experts for holistic input, not just capital, in ambitious designs.
Showcase innovations spectacularly at events to draw ecosystems of dealers and supporters.
Dismantle business myths by exhaustive "why" questioning, automating for real-time insights.
Mandate programming education universally to sharpen logical thinking like a core discipline.
Shun money as end-goal; use it to fuel long-term ideas prioritizing people and impact.
Visit pioneering labs like PARC to absorb germinal ideas, foreseeing their inevitabilities.
Guard against monopoly rot by elevating product creators over sales in decision-making.
Leverage ecosystems to improve flawed launches, vesting allies in your success.
Overcome internal inertia by outsourcing prototypes when teams resist visions.
Avoid scaling pitfalls by valuing content experts over process managers always.
Align products with cultural roots, pricing accessibly to match grassroots audiences.
Launch underground missions in crises to reinvent companies from visionary cores.
Embrace trade-offs daily in craftsmanship, evolving ideas through material constraints.
Build friction-rich teams of elites, where arguments polish raw potentials beautifully.
Self-police hiring with A-players, creating organic propagation of excellence.
Deliver precise critiques on work quality, enabling quick corrections without ego harm.
Admit errors swiftly upon evidence, focusing solely on collective success.
Bet on external innovators like Adobe for apps transforming hardware strengths.
Infuse taste by stealing liberally from arts, crafting enlightened products elevating users.

MEMO

In 1995, as Silicon Valley hummed with the promise of digital frontiers, Steve Jobs sat for a rare, unfiltered interview with journalist Robert X. Cringely, unearthed years later from a dusty garage. Conducted amid Jobs' exile from Apple, where he helmed the boutique NeXT, the conversation peeled back layers of the man behind the Mac revolution. Jobs, then 40 and battle-scarred from corporate wars, recounted his improbable odyssey from a 10-year-old mesmerized by a teletype terminal at NASA Ames to co-founding a company that redefined personal computing. No longer the wide-eyed dropout, he reflected with raw candor on triumphs, betrayals, and the intoxicating power of building tools that amplify human potential.

Jobs' origin story bursts with youthful audacity: at 12, he cold-called Hewlett-Packard's Bill Hewlett for frequency counter parts, netting a summer job that imprinted ideals of employee-centric firms—think coffee carts and donut breaks fostering loyalty. Teaming with electronics savant Steve Wozniak, they dove into blue boxing, crafting devices to hijack AT&T's network for free global calls. This prankish hack, circling the world via satellites and cables, crystallized a profound lesson: two kids could command billion-dollar infrastructures with ingenuity. From there, necessity birthed the Apple I—a garage-hacked terminal morphed into circuit boards sold from a Volkswagen bus's proceeds. A pivotal Byte Shop order for assembled units ignited commerce, teaching Jobs to negotiate net-30 credits and realize profits in unsold stock nationwide.

The Apple II's launch at the 1977 West Coast Computer Faire, with its color graphics dazzling crowds, vaulted them to stardom. At 21, Jobs amassed fortunes—$100 million by 25—yet dismissed wealth as mere enabler for ideas, eyes fixed on empowering users. A 1979 Xerox PARC visit sealed his GUI epiphany, glimpsing a mouse-driven future inevitable as gravity. Xerox's "toner heads"—sales suits blind to innovation—squandered it, a monopoly malaise Jobs later saw in Apple's own drifts. Internal battles over the overpriced Lisa exposed scaling's traps: HP transplants clung to soft keys while Jobs outsourced a $15 mouse in 90 days. Ousted in the Macintosh's shadow, his "mission from God" team reinvented everything, from Japan's factory tours yielding automation to Adobe partnerships birthing desktop publishing's LaserWriter empire.

Yet glory soured under CEO John Sculley, a Pepsi import whose 10-year product cycles clashed with tech's velocity. A 1984 recession exposed leadership voids; Sculley's survival instincts scapegoated Jobs, fracturing their "Steve and John" duo. Banished to Siberia, Jobs founded NeXT, championing object-oriented software to revolutionize coding 10-fold. By interview's end, he lamented Apple's stasis— a 10-year lead frittered as Microsoft, boosted by IBM, churned tasteless juggernauts. "They have no taste," Jobs quipped, decrying pedestrian spirits devoid of enlightenment, contrasting the Mac's soulful aura.

Peering ahead, Jobs hailed the web as computing's communicative dawn, equalizing startups with titans in direct sales revolutions. Software, he insisted, infiltrates society as MCI's billing blitz proved, outpacing AT&T's laggard code. Humans as tool-builders shone in a Scientific American tale: bicycling trumps condors in efficiency, mirroring the PC as "mind's bicycle." Taste, drawn from Picasso's thefts and liberal arts teams of poets-cum-coders, nudges this vector toward subtlety's spread. A self-proclaimed hippie, Jobs sought life's mystical "inrush" beyond materialism, channeling it into products users adore—not mere utilities, but vessels of deeper feeling.

This lost dialogue, unseen for decades, captures Jobs' incandescent passion at art-technology's crossroads. Before iPods and iPhones restored his throne, he warned of complacency's glide to oblivion, urging relentless nudges. In an era of AI ascendance, his blueprint endures: assemble A-players, embrace friction, steal boldly, and infuse machines with human spirit to elevate our species.