I’m not a fanboy, but I have a couple of those shiny iStuff. I’m not a fan of Steve Jobs either, but I love to learn from everyone. And he’s nothing short of inspirational figure for most of us, despite anything you might hate of him. In 1995, during the making of “Triumph of the Nerds”, TV series about the birth of the PC, Bob Cringely did an interview with Steve Jobs.
During the interview, Jobs was at his charismatic best—witty, outspoken, visionary. In the end, only a part of the interview was used in the series and the rest was thought lost. But recently a VHS copy was found in the series director’s garage. Now, the entire interview has been cleaned up with modern technology, and put into context by Cringely. Here’s some of the quotes from the interview.
“No one thinks about why they do things very deeply.”
“Learning to program teaches you how to think. Computer science is a liberal art.”
“Money is wonderful because it allows you to invest in things without having to worry about short term gain.”
“Many companies forget what it means to make great products. After initial success, sales and marketing people take over and the product people eventually make their way out.”
“When companies get bigger they try to replicate their success. But they assume their magic came from process. They try to use processes to substitute content.”
“The best people are the ones that understand content. They are a pain in the butt to manage but you put up with it because they are so good at content.”
“It’s that through the team, through that group of incredibly talented people bumping up against each other, having arguments, having fights sometimes, making some noise, and working together they polish each other and they polish the ideas, and what comes out is really beautiful.”
“The way to ratchet up our species is to the get better things to more people to. Products with spirit and creativity.”
“Humans are tool builders. We create things to amplify ourselves. The computer will rank at the top. It’s awesome tool ever.”
“What causes people to be poets instead of bankers? When you put that into products people can sense that. And they love it.”