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

SUMMARY

Robert X. Cringely interviews Steve Jobs in 1995 on his early encounters with computers, founding Apple, innovations like Macintosh, departure from Apple, NeXT, and visions for technology's future.

STATEMENTS

Steve Jobs first encountered a computer at age 10 or 11 through a time-sharing terminal at NASA Ames Research Center, using a teletype printer to write programs in BASIC or Fortran.
Jobs called Bill Hewlett at Hewlett-Packard at age 12 for parts to build a frequency counter, leading to a summer job that shaped his view of a company valuing employees.
At Hewlett-Packard, Jobs attended Tuesday night meetings at Palo Alto Research Labs, where he first saw the HP 9100, the earliest desktop computer with a cathode ray tube display.
Jobs met Steve Wozniak around age 14 or 15, bonding over electronics and inspired by an Esquire article on Captain Crunch's blue boxing for free phone calls.
Jobs and Wozniak built a blue box after finding an AT&T technical journal at Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, realizing they could control billions in infrastructure with a small device.
The blue box allowed free international calls by mimicking signaling tones, teaching Jobs that small inventions could control large systems, influencing Apple's creation.
Jobs and Wozniak built a terminal for free time-sharing access, evolving it into the Apple I by adding a microprocessor, initially for personal use due to cost constraints.
They hand-built Apple I computers, taking 40 to 80 hours each, and helped friends build them, leading to the idea of printed circuit boards to save time.
Jobs sold his Volkswagen bus and Wozniak his calculator to fund printed circuit board artwork, selling boards to friends and then 50 assembled units to the Byte Shop.
They convinced parts distributors for net-30 credit, built and sold the first 50 Apple I units, paying suppliers on time and realizing profits from the remaining 50.
Mike Markkula joined as an equal partner after Jobs convinced him to invest time and money, enabling tooling for the Apple II's plastic case and higher ambitions.
The Apple II featured color graphics and was designed as a fully packaged personal computer for non-hobbyists, announced at the West Coast Computer Faire where it stole the show.
At age 21, Jobs learned business by questioning "why" practices, discovering much was folklore without deep thought, like standard costing in factories due to poor information systems.
Jobs automated Macintosh factories to know exact costs in real-time, eliminating antiquated concepts and emphasizing content over process in business.
Programming teaches thinking like law school, making computer science a liberal art that everyone should learn for a year to mirror thought processes.
Jobs became a millionaire at 23, $10 million at 24, and $100 million at 25, but money was secondary to company, people, products, and enabling user creativity.
At Xerox PARC in 1979, Jobs was blinded by the graphical user interface, recognizing its inevitability for all future computers despite flaws.
Xerox failed to commercialize innovations because sales and marketing people, not product visionaries, ran the company after monopoly success, eroding product sensibility.
IBM's entry scared Apple, but their initial PC was terrible; success came from ecosystem partners with vested interests improving it.
Apple engineers from HP resisted GUI ideas like mice and fonts, leading Jobs to outsource a reliable $15 mouse design in 90 days.
Companies confuse process for content when scaling, leading to downfall like IBM; great products come from content experts who are hard to manage.
The Lisa failed due to mismatch with Apple's culture and market, priced at $10,000 for channels expecting cheaper products.
After losing Lisa leadership, Jobs formed a small Macintosh team on a mission to save Apple, reinventing manufacturing, distribution, and marketing.
Macintosh development involved keeping 5,000 concepts in mind, evolving ideas through trade-offs and daily discoveries in design and engineering.
Jobs motivated teams by assembling A-players who self-police and attract more talent, creating dynamic ranges of 50-100:1 in software/hardware quality.
Direct feedback on work, not egos, drives excellence; Jobs admits wrongs quickly for success, not being right.
Apple pioneered desktop publishing with the first U.S. Canon laser printer engine, partnering with Adobe for software, becoming the world's largest printer company by revenue.
Jobs' departure from Apple in 1985 was painful due to hiring wrong CEO John Sculley, whose survival instincts blamed Jobs during recession.
Apple's 1995 state was dying from standing still, losing 10-year lead while spending billions on ineffective R&D without leadership.
Microsoft succeeded via IBM's boost and opportunism, iterating applications from Mac to Windows, but lacks taste, culture, and original ideas in products.
NeXT focuses on object-oriented software revolution, enabling 10x faster development, as software infiltrates business and society.
The web fulfills computers as communication devices, enabling direct sales, equalizing small/large companies, and sparking innovation outside Microsoft's control.
Humans are tool builders; the computer is the bicycle of the mind, amplifying abilities, and Jobs feels lucky to nudge its early vector.
Great products require taste from exposing to best human works; Macintosh team included musicians, poets, and artists bringing liberal arts to computing.
Jobs identifies as a hippie, seeking life's deeper spark beyond routine, infusing products with spirit that users sense and love.

IDEAS

Early computer access at NASA sparked Jobs' thrill in executing ideas through programming, turning abstract thoughts into tangible results.
Calling Bill Hewlett directly at 12 showed unlisted numbers era's openness, leading to mentorship and job that humanized corporations.
Blue boxing revealed how simple devices could hijack vast networks, empowering youth to challenge giants.
Hand-building Apple I from scavenged parts democratized computing for hobbyists lacking skills.
Selling bus and calculator to fund PCBs illustrated bootstrapping innovation from personal sacrifice.
Byte Shop's order for assembled units pivoted from kits to products, birthing scalable business.
Apple II's plastic packaging targeted software enthusiasts, expanding market 1,000-fold beyond hardware tinkerers.
Questioning business folklore like standard costing exposed inefficiencies rooted in poor data systems.
GUI at Xerox PARC was inevitable, blinding Jobs to other innovations like networking and object-oriented programming.
Xerox's "toner heads" eroded product genius by prioritizing sales over craftsmanship in monopolies.
IBM's ecosystem vested interests turned a flawed PC into success, unlike isolated efforts.
Outsourcing mouse design bypassed internal resistance, proving external expertise accelerates breakthroughs.
Process institutionalization confuses means for ends, dooming companies like IBM by forgetting content.
Lisa's $10,000 price alienated Apple's affordable image and channels.
Macintosh as "mission from God" reinvented Apple via automation, volume pricing, and new systems.
Product design juggles 5,000 concepts with endless trade-offs in materials and engineering.
Team friction polishes ideas like rocks in a tumbler, yielding beautiful outcomes from passionate collisions.
A-player teams self-perpetuate, rejecting B/C players for 50-100:1 quality edges in tech.
Firing signals work inadequacy without doubting talent, redirecting for team goals.
LaserWriter partnership with Adobe and Canon created desktop publishing ecosystem accidentally.
Sculley's Pepsi background favored sales over product evolution, crashing Apple's trajectory.
Apple's paralysis in 1985 stemmed from leadership vacuum, destroying values post-Jobs.
Microsoft as "Ford LTD" lacks Cadillac taste, copying without cultural depth like fonts from books.
Object-oriented tech at NeXT revives software creation revolution, 10x faster amid infiltration.
Web equalizes companies, shifts catalogs to digital, defining social computing moment.
Bicycle analogy: computers amplify human locomotion efficiency, ranking as top invention.
Stealing great ideas shamelessly, per Picasso, infuses tech with liberal arts breadth.
Hippie ethos seeks life's mystical gaps, channeling into products with sensed spirit.

INSIGHTS

Youthful curiosity unlocks corporate doors, shaping lifelong views on employee value and innovation.
Small inventions control large infrastructures, teaching empowerment over scale.
Bootstrapping personal assets funds scalable ideas, turning hobbies into businesses.
Targeting non-hobbyists expands markets exponentially, prioritizing accessibility.
Deep questioning dismantles business myths, revealing systemic flaws for reinvention.
Monopolies rot from within when sales eclipse product vision, grabbing defeat from victory.
Ecosystems amplify flawed starts, vesting partners in collective success.
Internal resistance demands external pivots, accelerating against entrenched mindsets.
Content over process sustains excellence; institutionalization breeds confusion.
High-price mismatches erode brand culture and channel fit.
Passionate teams evolve through friction, polishing raw ideas into refined products.
A-player dynamics create self-reinforcing excellence cycles in high-variance fields.
Direct, work-focused feedback preserves talent confidence while enforcing standards.
Accidental partnerships seed industries, like printing ecosystems from shared tech.
Survival instincts in crises scapegoat visionaries, paralyzing execution.
Standing still erodes leads; ineffective R&D without leadership wastes fortunes.
Opportunism plus persistence turns boosts into dominance, but taste elevates beyond.
Software revolutions enable societal shifts, from billing to web commerce.
Tools like computers amplify innate abilities, nudging humanity's vector profoundly.
Taste from diverse arts infuses products with spirit, fostering user love.

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 ever 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... it teaches you how to think."
"Within 10 minutes it was obvious to me that all computers would work like this someday."
"The product sensibility... gets rotted out by people running these companies who have no conception of a good product versus a bad product."
"It's not process, it's content... the best people... understand the content and they're a pain in the butt to manage."
"Designing a product is keeping 5,000 things in your brain... and fitting them all together."
"The same common stones that had gone in... through rubbing against each other... had come out these beautiful polished rocks."
"In software... the difference between average and the best is 50 to one, maybe 100 to one."
"When you say someone's work is shit... it usually means their work is not anywhere near good enough."
"I don't really care about being right... what matters to me is that we do the right thing."
"They just have no taste... they don't think of original ideas and they don't bring much culture into their product."
"Software is becoming an incredible force in this world to provide new goods and services to people."
"The web is the ultimate direct to customer distribution channel... the smallest company... can look as large as the largest."
"The personal computer was the bicycle of the mind."
"Good artists copy, great artists steal."

HABITS

Questioning "why" behind every business practice to uncover folklore and inefficiencies.
Visiting 80 automated factories in Japan to study and adapt manufacturing innovations.
Assembling small, passionate teams of A-players who self-motivate and attract talent.
Providing direct, clear feedback on work quality without coddling egos.
Admitting wrongs quickly and changing opinions based on evidence for team success.
Exposing oneself to diverse arts, music, and history to infuse taste into products.
Stealing great ideas shamelessly from other fields to enhance computing.
Building prototypes hands-on, like early terminals, to test and iterate personally.
Scavenging parts and bootstrapping with personal assets to fund initial projects.
Forming "missions from God" teams during crises to reinvent core operations.

FACTS

In 1971, unlisted phone numbers were rare, allowing a 12-year-old Jobs to call Bill Hewlett directly.
Blue boxes mimicked AT&T tones at 2600 Hz, exploiting voice-band signaling flaws in the network.
Apple I boards took 40-80 hours to hand-build, with frequent breaks from tiny wires.
Byte Shop ordered 50 assembled Apple I units for $500 each in 1976, kickstarting production.
Xerox PARC demonstrated GUI on Alto computers in 1979, networked with email across 100 machines.
Macintosh mouse was designed for $15 in 90 days by David Kelley, countering internal 5-year/$300 estimates.
Apple became the world's largest printer company by revenue when Jobs left in 1985.
In 1995, Apple had spent about $1 billion on R&D but only 25% improved Macintosh from 1985.
Object-oriented programming at NeXT enabled 10x faster software development.
About 15% of U.S. goods/services were catalog/TV-sold in 1995, poised for web shift.
Human bicycle efficiency surpasses condors, per Scientific American locomotion study.
Macintosh team included non-CS experts like musicians and zoologists.

REFERENCES

NASA Ames Research Center time-sharing terminal.
Hewlett-Packard 9100 desktop computer.
Esquire magazine article on Captain Crunch.
AT&T technical journal at Stanford Linear Accelerator Center.
Blue box device with "He's Got The Whole World in His Hands" logo.
Apple I and Apple II computers.
Byte Shop in Mountain View.
Mike Markkula's Intel stock options.
West Coast Computer Faire.
Xerox PARC Alto computer and GUI.
Lisa computer.
Macintosh automated factory in California.
Canon laser printer engine.
Adobe PostScript software.
LaserWriter printer.
NeXT object-oriented software platform.
Web and Internet as communication devices.
Scientific American article on locomotion efficiency.
Picasso's saying on copying vs. stealing.
Rock tumbler metaphor from widowed neighbor.

HOW TO APPLY

Encounter computing early: Access terminals or basic machines to experience programming's thrill in executing ideas.
Network boldly: Call industry leaders directly for parts or advice, turning curiosity into opportunities.
Build hacking devices: Experiment with tone generators like blue boxes to grasp controlling large systems.
Design terminals: Create custom interfaces for free resources, extending to microprocessor integration.
Scavenge and assemble: Gather parts affordably, hand-build prototypes to refine skills iteratively.
Fund via sacrifice: Sell personal items like vehicles to prototype PCBs, enabling sales to peers.
Pitch to stores: Approach early retailers with assembled units, negotiating bulk orders on credit.
Secure net-30 terms: Convince suppliers for delayed payment, using sales to cover costs timely.
Partner equally: Recruit experienced executives like Markkula for investment and active involvement.
Package accessibly: Design plastic cases for non-hobbyists, targeting software users at fairs.
Question folklore: Probe "why" in accounting or processes, automating for real-time insights.
Assemble A-players: Hire top talent who self-select, fostering friction to polish products.
Outsource resistance: Bypass internal doubts by external experts for quick innovations like mice.
Form crisis teams: Launch small groups on missions to reinvent during threats.
Joggle concepts: Maintain 5,000 design elements mentally, adapting daily to trade-offs.
Feedback directly: Critique work clearly, preserving confidence while realigning to goals.
Partner ecosystems: Collaborate on printers/software, canceling internals for better fits.
Infuse taste: Expose to arts, stealing ideas to add cultural depth.
Nudge vectors: At tech's dawn, subtly direct toward communication over computation.
Channel hippie spark: Seek life's deeper meanings, embedding spirit into creations.

ONE-SENTENCE TAKEAWAY

Steve Jobs' journey reveals passion, bold risks, and taste-driven innovation as keys to revolutionizing personal computing for human amplification.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Learn programming early as a liberal art to sharpen logical thinking like law school.
Question all business practices deeply to eliminate folklore and innovate processes.
Build small devices that control larger systems to grasp empowerment's thrill.
Bootstrap startups with personal assets and supplier credit for low-risk launches.
Hire A-players exclusively to create self-perpetuating excellence in high-variance fields.
Visit innovators like Xerox PARC to steal inevitable ideas before competitors.
Outsource resistant projects to external experts for faster, cheaper breakthroughs.
Prioritize content understanding over process in scaling companies.
Form passionate teams that argue and polish ideas through creative friction.
Provide direct work critiques to maintain high standards without ego damage.
Partner with complementary firms like Adobe to build ecosystems accidentally.
Reinvent during crises with small, mission-driven groups.
Infuse products with liberal arts taste from diverse inspirations.
View software as a competitive weapon infiltrating all services.
Embrace the web for direct distribution and equalizing small businesses.
Use tools like computers to amplify innate human abilities profoundly.
Seek life's deeper sparks beyond routine to add spirit to creations.
Admit errors quickly, prioritizing success over being right.
Commercialize overlooked ideas like object-oriented tech for revolutions.
Nudge technology's vector toward communication and societal uplift.

MEMO

In 1995, as the personal computer revolution reshaped the world, journalist Robert X. Cringely unearthed a "lost" interview with Steve Jobs, conducted a decade earlier amid Apple's turbulent ascent. Jobs, then steering NeXT after a bitter exit from the company he co-founded, reflected on his improbable path from a curious kid in Silicon Valley to a tech visionary. At age 10, he stumbled upon a teletype terminal at NASA Ames, where typing BASIC commands yielded real results—a thrill that hooked him on machines as extensions of thought. This early fascination evolved into audacious tinkering: at 12, he cold-called Hewlett-Packard's Bill Hewlett for parts, landing a job that instilled a reverence for employee-centric companies, complete with coffee-and-donut breaks.

Jobs' partnership with Steve Wozniak ignited Apple's spark. Inspired by an Esquire tale of phone phreaker Captain Crunch, they reverse-engineered AT&T's network with a blue box, a pocket-sized gadget that hijacked billions in infrastructure for free global calls. "We learned we could build something ourselves that could control billions of dollars worth of infrastructure," Jobs recalled, a lesson in youthful audacity that birthed the Apple I—a circuit board extension of their terminal, hand-soldered in a garage. Selling their Volkswagen bus and calculator funded prototypes; a pivotal order from the Byte Shop for 50 assembled units, secured on net-30 credit, transformed hobbyism into business. By the Apple II's 1977 debut at the West Coast Computer Faire, Jobs, at 21, had packaged color graphics and accessibility for everyday users, stealing the show and catapulting Apple to billions.

Yet innovation demanded relentless questioning. Jobs decried business "folklore," like vague standard costing masking poor data controls, later banished in Macintosh's automated factories for second-by-second precision. A 1979 pilgrimage to Xerox PARC dazzled him with the graphical user interface—mouse, windows, icons—obvious destiny for computing, though Xerox's "toner heads" squandered it, prioritizing sales over craftsmanship in their monopoly haze. Apple, too, faltered: HP transplants resisted the GUI, prompting Jobs to outsource a $15 mouse in 90 days. The Lisa's $10,000 price alienated Apple's affordable ethos, clashing with channels and culture, while internal battles cost Jobs leadership.

Undeterred, Jobs rallied a rogue Macintosh team—"a mission from God"—reinventing everything from Japan's factory tours to volume-priced chips. Juggling 5,000 concepts, they navigated trade-offs in electrons, plastic, and robots, where ideas evolved through daily epiphanies. Team friction, like rocks in a tumbler, polished brilliance: A-players, drawn from poets to zoologists, self-policed excellence in software's 100:1 dynamic range. Direct feedback honed work without ego strokes, admitting wrongs for success. The LaserWriter, born from a garage demo and Adobe pact, accidentally spawned desktop publishing, crowning Apple the world's top printer firm by revenue.

Jobs' 1985 ouster by CEO John Sculley—hired with the infamous "dent in the universe" pitch—devastated him. Sculley's Pepsi-honed survival instincts scapegoated Jobs amid recession, eroding Apple's values in a leadership vacuum. By 1995, Jobs lamented Apple's "glide slope to die," its 10-year lead squandered on stagnant R&D while Microsoft, boosted by IBM's PC, iterated opportunistically into dominance—though soulless, lacking "taste" from books or arts. NeXT, meanwhile, perfected Xerox's object-oriented software, promising 10x faster creation as code infiltrated society, from MCI's billing wars to web commerce.

Looking ahead, Jobs hailed the web as computing's social fulcrum: a communication metamorphosis, shifting catalogs to digital direct sales, equalizing startups with giants, and fostering innovation beyond Microsoft's grasp. Humans, he mused, are tool-builders; the PC, the "bicycle of the mind," amplifies us like cycling outpaces condors. At this vector's dawn, nudging toward enlightenment—stealing shamelessly from Picasso to hippies—could elevate humanity. Jobs embodied that hippie-nerd fusion, infusing Macs with a sensed spirit users adored, proving technology's deepest potential lies in shared wonder, not mere computation.