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

SUMMARY

In a rediscovered 1995 interview, Steve Jobs reflects on his childhood fascination with computers, co-founding Apple, key innovations like the Macintosh, corporate challenges, and the transformative potential of technology.

STATEMENTS

Steve Jobs first encountered a computer at age 10 or 11 through a time-sharing terminal at NASA Ames Research Center.
Early computers were mysterious, seen in movies as large boxes with tape drives or flashing lights, inaccessible to most people.
Jobs used a teletype printer with a keyboard to write programs in BASIC or Fortran, finding it thrilling when results matched predictions.
At age 12, Jobs called Bill Hewlett of Hewlett-Packard for parts and ended up with a summer job there.
Hewlett-Packard treated employees exceptionally well, providing coffee and donut breaks, emphasizing their value as the company's true asset.
Jobs visited HP's Palo Alto Research Labs weekly, where he first saw the HP 9100, the world's first desktop computer with a CRT display.
He met Steve Wozniak around age 14 or 15, bonding over electronics and starting joint projects.
Inspired by an Esquire article about Captain Crunch and free phone calls, Jobs and Wozniak built blue boxes to hack the phone network.
They discovered AT&T's technical journal at Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, revealing tones that mimicked phone system signals.
After three weeks, they built a working blue box, using it for free international calls, including a prank to the Pope pretending to be Henry Kissinger.
Building the blue box taught them they could create something small to control vast infrastructure, a lesson pivotal to Apple's founding.
Necessity drove their shift to personal computers; they built a terminal for free time-sharing access since they couldn't afford one.
The Apple I was an extension of that terminal with a microprocessor added, built by hand for personal use with scavenged parts.
Friends wanted their own but lacked skills, so Jobs and Wozniak helped build them, leading to the idea of printed circuit boards.
They sold personal items to fund PCB artwork, then sold boards to friends and approached the Byte Shop, the world's first computer store.
Paul Terrell ordered 50 assembled Apple I units, prompting them to source parts on 30-day credit and assemble in Jobs' garage.
They sold 50 to the Byte Shop, paid suppliers, and had 50 left as profit, realizing the need for wider distribution.
Mike Markkula, a former Intel executive, joined as an equal partner, investing money and expertise to fund Apple II production.
The Apple II aimed for color graphics and a fully packaged computer for non-hobbyists, debuted at the West Coast Computer Faire.
Jobs learned business by questioning "why" practices, discovering much is folklore without deep thought.
In factories, standard costing was a guess due to poor information systems; Jobs later enabled real-time costing in Macintosh production.
Programming teaches structured thinking, akin to law school, and should be a liberal arts requirement for everyone.
Jobs became worth over a million at 23, $10 million at 24, and $100 million at 25, but money enabled ideas, not motivated him.
At Xerox PARC in 1979, Jobs saw the graphical user interface, networked systems, and object-oriented programming, but GUI captivated him most.
Xerox failed to commercialize innovations because sales and marketing dominated, eroding product sensibility in monopolies.
IBM's entry scared Apple, but their open architecture allowed others to improve the PC, turning it into a success.
Implementing GUI at Apple required overriding HP hires who dismissed mice and fonts; Jobs sourced a cheap, reliable mouse in 90 days.
Companies fail by institutionalizing process over content; great products come from understanding content, not just management.
The Lisa failed due to mismatch with Apple's market and culture; Jobs lost leadership fight, leading to Macintosh skunkworks.
Macintosh reinvention included automated factories, cheaper chips, new distribution, and marketing, launched at $2,500.
Great ideas require craftsmanship and trade-offs; product design juggles thousands of concepts daily.
Jobs' rock tumbler metaphor: teams of passionate people polish ideas through friction, like rough stones becoming gems.
Success in tech comes from A-players who self-select and propagate excellence, with dynamic range up to 100:1.
Direct feedback on work is essential for A-players, focusing on output without ego, and Jobs changes opinions quickly for success.
Apple pioneered desktop publishing with first U.S. Canon laser printer engine, partnering with Adobe for software.
Jobs' departure from Apple in 1985 was painful; he hired wrong CEO John Sculley, who prioritized survival over vision.
Apple's 1985 crisis stemmed from recession, leadership vacuum, and Sculley's survival instincts scapegoating Jobs.
By 1995, Apple was dying due to stagnation, losing its 10-year lead while Microsoft caught up.
Microsoft succeeded via IBM's boost, opportunism, and persistence, but lacks taste, culture, and enlightenment in products.
NeXT focuses on object-oriented software, revolutionizing development 10 times faster for business applications.
The web fulfills dreams of computers as communication devices, enabling direct sales and equalizing small/large companies.
Humans are tool builders; the computer is the bicycle of the mind, ranking among history's greatest inventions.
Direction in innovation comes from taste, stealing great ideas from arts, and liberal arts backgrounds in teams.
Jobs identifies as a hippie, valuing pursuit of deeper meaning beyond materialism, infusing spirit into products.

IDEAS

Encountering computers as a child felt like a privilege, demystifying powerful machines through hands-on programming.
Calling a CEO at 12 for parts led to a job, showing bold initiative opens unexpected doors in tech.
HP's employee perks like donut breaks highlighted how valuing people drives company culture and innovation.
The HP 9100 sparked love for self-contained computing, free from remote wires, inspiring portable tech dreams.
Blue boxing revealed how simple devices could hijack global networks, empowering individuals against giants.
Pranking the Pope with free calls demonstrated playful rebellion and the thrill of technological mischief.
Necessity birthed the Apple I as a homemade terminal, blending hobby with practicality in bootstrapping innovation.
Selling buses and calculators to fund PCBs showed personal sacrifice fueling entrepreneurial leaps.
Assembling in garages with credit from distributors exemplified scrappy, credit-leveraged business starts.
Markkula's involvement turned a garage operation into a venture-backed powerhouse with professional polish.
Questioning business "whys" uncovers folklore, allowing fresh approaches over rote traditions.
Programming as a liberal art sharpens thinking, mirroring law's logic without needing to practice it.
Wealth accumulation was secondary; products and people mattered more than financial windfalls.
Xerox PARC's GUI vision was inevitable, blinding Jobs to other breakthroughs like networking.
Monopolies rot from within as sales eclipse product genius, turning innovators into bureaucrats.
IBM's open ecosystem invited collaboration, transforming a flawed product into an industry standard.
Sourcing a $15 mouse in 90 days bypassed skeptics, proving rapid prototyping trumps doubt.
Process institutionalization confuses means with ends, dooming companies like IBM to forget content.
Macintosh as a "mission from God" saved Apple, reinventing from hardware to holistic ecosystem.
Rock tumbler analogy illustrates team friction polishing raw ideas into refined brilliance.
Tech's 100:1 excellence range rewards hunting A-players who self-perpetuate high standards.
Blunt feedback sustains top talent by refocusing on work, not coddling egos.
Pioneering laser printing via garage hackers accelerated desktop publishing revolution.
Sculley's Pepsi background ill-suited tech's pace, prioritizing survival over bold execution.
Apple's stagnation post-Jobs let Microsoft erode its lead through persistent iteration.
Object-oriented tech at NeXT enables 10x faster software, infiltrating business warfare.
Web democratizes commerce, turning catalogs into interactive, bias-free global markets.
Bicycles outperform natural locomotion, symbolizing tools like computers amplifying human potential.
Taste guides innovation by stealing from arts, blending liberal pursuits with tech rigor.
Hippie ethos seeks life's deeper spark, infusing products with soul beyond utility.
Computers as medium transmit personal feelings, attracting artists over pure technicians.

INSIGHTS

Early access to technology ignites lifelong passion, turning mystery into mastery for innovators.
Bold outreach to leaders yields opportunities, as vulnerability meets mentorship in nascent fields.
Valuing employees as core assets fosters loyalty and creativity, contrasting exploitative models.
Self-contained devices democratize power, shifting computing from elite to personal realms.
Hacking systems teaches control over infrastructure, birthing companies from youthful audacity.
Personal stakes like selling assets fund dreams, blending sacrifice with calculated risk.
Questioning norms exposes inefficiencies, enabling streamlined processes in scaling ventures.
Structured thinking from coding rivals legal training, essential for problem-solving across disciplines.
Financial success serves ideas, not ends, prioritizing impact over accumulation.
Inevitable interfaces like GUI redefine industries, but execution separates vision from legacy.
Monopolistic complacency erodes innovation, elevating sales over substance fatally.
Collaborative ecosystems amplify weak starts, as openness invites collective improvement.
Rapid prototyping overrides naysayers, validating ideas through action over debate.
Content mastery trumps procedural rigidity, sustaining excellence amid growth pains.
Passionate teams evolve through conflict, refining ideas via interpersonal dynamics.
Elite talent clusters self-reinforce, magnifying outputs in high-stakes domains.
Direct critique preserves confidence while demanding excellence, fueling breakthroughs.
Strategic partnerships with innovators like Adobe accelerate market dominance quietly.
Leadership vacuums in crises breed scapegoating, derailing visionary trajectories.
Stagnation invites erosion, as competitors iterate relentlessly on borrowed foundations.
Revolutionary tools like objects streamline creation, empowering software's societal permeation.
Communication over computation fulfills tech's promise, with web as ultimate equalizer.
Tools amplify innate abilities, positioning computers as history's pinnacle invention.
Aesthetic taste, drawn from humanities, elevates products beyond functionality.
Seeking transcendence infuses spirit into creations, resonating emotionally with users.

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."
"In business a lot of things are I I call it folklore they're done because they were done yesterday."
"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 Macintosh that's shipping today is like you know 25% different than the day I left."
"They just have no taste they have absolutely no taste and and and what that means is I don't mean that in a small way."
"Their products have no spirit of Enlightenment about them they are very pedestrian."
"The personal computer was the bicycle of the mind and I believe that with every bone in my body."
"Good artists copy great artists steal."
"There's something more going on there's another side of the coin that we don't talk about much."
"Computers are the medium that is best capable of transmitting some feeling that you have that you want to share with other people."
"The web is going to be the defining technology the defining social moment for computer."
"Humans are tool Builders and we build tools that can dramatically amplify our innate human abilities."
"It comes down to taste it comes down to trying to expose yourself to the best things that humans have done."

HABITS

Regularly question established business practices to uncover and eliminate unnecessary folklore.
Dedicate time to hands-on programming from a young age to sharpen logical thinking.
Build personal projects with scavenged parts to foster resourcefulness and innovation.
Network boldly by cold-calling industry leaders for advice or opportunities.
Visit research labs and demos weekly to stay ahead of emerging technologies.
Sacrifice personal assets to fund prototypes, committing fully to ideas.
Assemble products manually in small spaces like garages to iterate quickly.
Hire A-players and let them self-select, avoiding B or C talent.
Provide direct, work-focused feedback without ego considerations.
Study arts, history, and liberal fields to infuse taste into technical work.
Pursue deeper life meanings beyond materialism to inspire passionate creations.
Change opinions rapidly based on evidence, prioritizing success over being right.

FACTS

The interview was conducted in 1995 for "Triumph of the Nerds," with most footage lost until rediscovered in a garage.
Jobs first used a computer 30 years before 1995, via a teletype at NASA Ames.
At 12, Jobs got a job at HP after calling Bill Hewlett directly.
Blue boxes exploited AT&T's flaw of mixing voice and signaling frequencies.
Apple I took 40-80 hours to build by hand, leading to 50-unit orders from Byte Shop.
Apple went public after explosive growth from Apple II success.
Xerox PARC developed GUI, networking, and object-oriented programming in the 1970s.
IBM PC launched in 1981 with open architecture, valued at $30 billion company.
Macintosh launched in 1984 at $2,500, with automated factory in Fremont, California.
Jobs left Apple in 1985 after conflicts with CEO John Sculley from PepsiCo.
By 1995, Apple had spent about a billion on R&D but stagnated.
Microsoft entered applications via Mac in 1984, dominating by Windows era.
NeXT in 1995 had 300 employees, revenue of $50-75 million, focusing on objects.
Web in 1995 was nascent, but 15% of U.S. goods sold via catalogs poised for shift.
Humans on bicycles expend fewer kilocalories per kilometer than condors.

REFERENCES

Triumph of the Nerds (TV series by Robert X. Cringely).
NASA Ames Research Center time-sharing terminal.
Hewlett-Packard (HP) 9100 desktop computer.
Esquire magazine article on Captain Crunch.
AT&T technical journal from Stanford Linear Accelerator Center.
Byte Shop (first computer store in Mountain View).
Apple I and Apple II computers.
West Coast Computer Faire.
Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) innovations: GUI, Alto computers, object-oriented programming.
Lisa computer project.
Macintosh computer and automated factory.
Canon laser printer engine.
Adobe software (19.9% stake by Apple).
LaserWriter printer.
PepsiCo (John Sculley's background).
NeXT software and object-oriented technology.
MCI's Friends and Family billing software.
Internet and World Wide Web.
Scientific American article on locomotion efficiency.
Pablo Picasso's saying on artists copying/stealing.
Bill Atkinson quote on simplicity in design.

HOW TO APPLY

Start with hands-on tech access young: Seek terminals or kits to program simple tasks like BASIC scripts.
Build bold connections: Cold-call experts for parts or advice, preparing a concise pitch.
Value team morale: Implement daily breaks with treats to recognize employee contributions.
Tinker relentlessly: Visit labs weekly, experiment with prototypes like the HP 9100 for inspiration.
Hack ethically: Study systems deeply, like phone tones, to understand control mechanisms.
Bootstrap prototypes: Scavenge parts, build manually, then scale to PCBs with personal funding.
Pitch assembled products: Approach stores with demos, negotiate credit for bulk parts.
Question processes: Ask "why" repeatedly in operations to eliminate folklore and optimize costs.
Learn coding as thinking tool: Dedicate a year to a language, applying logic to daily problems.
Invest in vision: Prioritize product impact over money, reinvesting gains into ideas.
Demo innovations boldly: Showcase at fairs with visuals to attract partners and dealers.
Assemble elite teams: Hunt A-players, foster self-policing through challenging work.

ONE-SENTENCE TAKEAWAY

Steve Jobs' journey reveals technology's power to amplify human potential when infused with passion, taste, and relentless innovation.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Expose children to computers early via accessible terminals to spark lifelong curiosity.
Cold-call industry leaders fearlessly to secure resources and mentorship.
Foster company cultures valuing employees through simple, thoughtful perks.
Prototype self-contained devices to break from centralized computing dependencies.
Experiment with system hacks to grasp infrastructure control, ethically.
Sacrifice personal items to fund initial ventures, committing deeply.
Design for non-experts: Package tech accessibly to broaden user base.
Challenge business folklore by probing "why" in every process.
Mandate programming education as a core liberal art for thinking skills.
View wealth as enabler for long-term ideas, not primary goal.
Visit research hubs like PARC to absorb breakthrough concepts quickly.
Build open ecosystems inviting collaboration to accelerate improvements.
Override skeptics with rapid prototypes, like cheap mice, for validation.
Prioritize content understanding over rigid processes in scaling.
Form skunkworks teams for mission-driven rescues of core projects.
Embrace team friction as polishing force for idea refinement.
Recruit only A-players to create self-sustaining excellence pockets.
Deliver direct work critiques to refocus top talent effectively.
Partner with innovators for complementary tech, like Adobe for printing.
Nudge tech vectors early toward humanistic, tasteful directions.

MEMO

In 1995, as Steve Jobs sat for a rare interview with journalist Robert X. Cringely, he peeled back the layers of his improbable rise. At 10, a teletype terminal at NASA Ames ignited his fascination with computers—mysterious behemoths reduced to thrilling executors of code. This spark led to a audacious 12-year-old phone call to Hewlett-Packard's Bill Hewlett, yielding not just parts for a frequency counter but a summer job that shaped his view of humane companies. Weekly visits to HP labs introduced the suitcase-sized 9100, the first desktop computer, fueling nights of solitary programming. Meeting Steve Wozniak soon after, their bond over electronics birthed blue boxes—devices hacking AT&T's network for free global calls, including a prankish Vatican summons. This lesson in small tools taming giants foreshadowed Apple.

Necessity propelled their pivot to personal computing. Lacking funds for a terminal, they built one, evolving it into the Apple I—a microprocessor-extended board assembled in garages with scavenged parts. Friends clamored for replicas, prompting Jobs to sell his Volkswagen bus and Wozniak a calculator to fund printed circuit boards. A fateful walk-in to the Byte Shop secured 50 orders, assembled on 30-day credit, launching a bootstrapped empire. Mike Markkula's infusion of capital and savvy elevated the Apple II: color graphics, plastic casing, and hobbyist-proof packaging debuted at the West Coast Computer Faire, stealing the show and igniting explosive growth. By 21, Jobs was a millionaire, but riches paled against the thrill of enabling human creativity through products.

Jobs' philosophy crystallized in relentless questioning: business folklore, he found, masked poor systems, like quarter-end cost variances hiding real inefficiencies. Programming, to him, was no mere skill but a liberal art, teaching structured thought akin to law school—essential for all. Xerox PARC's 1979 demo blinded him to networking and objects, fixating on the graphical user interface's inevitability. Yet Xerox squandered it, monopolistic rot elevating "toner heads" over innovators, a caution echoed in Sculley's Pepsi-honed focus on sales. IBM's PC entry terrified Apple but thrived via open alliances, a genius Jobs admired despite the threat. Implementing GUI meant battling HP transplants' myopia; Jobs sourced a $15 mouse in 90 days, proving vision trumps doubt.

The Macintosh emerged from exile after losing Lisa leadership—a $10,000 mismatch for Apple's ethos. A skunkworks "mission from God" reinvented everything: automated Fremont factory, slashed chip costs, fresh marketing. Jobs likened the team to a rock tumbler—raw ideas polished through friction among A-players, whose 100:1 excellence range dwarfed most fields. Direct feedback, unsparing yet confidence-preserving, kept them sharp; Jobs flipped opinions swiftly for success. Desktop publishing? Apple snagged the first U.S. Canon laser engine, partnering Adobe to birth LaserWriter, crowning it the world's top printer firm—until post-departure drift.

Departure in 1985 stung: Sculley's recession panic scapegoated Jobs, eroding Apple's values amid leadership vacuum. By interview time, stagnation had squandered a decade's lead; Microsoft, boosted by IBM, iterated relentlessly into dominance, though Jobs decried their tasteless, spiritless products—McDonald's to Apple's potential enlightenment. NeXT, his niche haven, perfected object-oriented software for 10x faster builds, arming businesses against software's rising potency, like MCI's billing triumph over AT&T.

Peering ahead, Jobs hailed the web's communicative promise—democratizing sales, equalizing firms, breathing vitality into computing beyond Microsoft's grasp. Humans as tool-builders shone in a Scientific American insight: bicycles outpace condors, mirroring computers as the mind's bicycle, history's apex invention. Nudging its vector early, via taste stolen from arts—Picasso's maxim—infused Mac with liberal soul: musicians, poets as coders.

A self-proclaimed hippie, Jobs sought life's deeper "inrush" beyond materialism, the 1970s' backyard rebellion against parental drudgery. This ethos animated products users loved, not just used—transmitting unspoken feelings through silicon. In Silicon Valley's perfect storm, Jobs felt lucky to steer tech's dawn, blending hippie spark with nerd rigor for humanity's uplift.