史蒂夫乔布斯遗失的访谈
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I’m Bob Cringley,
16 years ago when Iwas making my television series Triumph of the nerds , I interviewed SteveJobs.
That was in 1995,10 years earlier Steve had left Apple, following a bruising struggle with JohnSculle the CEO he had brought into the company.
At the time of ourinterview, Steve was running NeXT, the niche computer company he founded afterleaving Apple.
Little bit we knowwas within 18 months he would sell NeXT to Apple, and 6 month later he’d berunning the place.
The way thingswork in television we use only a part of that interview in the series.
And for years wethought the interview was lost for forever.
Because the mastertape were missing while being shipped fromLondon to US in the 1990s.
Then just a fewdays ago, series director Paul Sen found a VHS copy of that interview in hisgarage.
There are very fewTV interviews with Steve Jobs and almost no good ones.
They rarely showthe charisma, candor and vision that this interview does.
And so to honor anamazing man , here’s that interview in its entirety,
Most of these hasnever been seen before.
BOB:So, how didyou get involved , uh , with personal computers?
JOBS: Well , I raninto my first computer when I was about 10 or 11, And it’s hard to rememberback then but I’m, I’m no fossil now, I’m no fossil… So when I was 10 or 11,that was about 30 years ago and no one had ever seen a computer. To the extentthey’d seen them, they’d seen them in the movies, And they were really bigboxes with… For some reason the fixated it on the tape drives, as being theicon of what the computer was, or flashing light somehow.
And , so nobodyhad ever seen (?) mysterious ,verypowerful things that did something in the background. And so to see one andactually get to use one was a real privilege back, and I got into NASA AmesResearch Center and I got to use a time sharing terminal. And so I didn’tactually see a computer but I saw a time sharing terminal. And in those days it’shard to remember how primitive it was, There were no such things as a computerwith a graphics video display.
It was literally aprinter , it was a teletype printer with keyboard on it.
So you wouldkeyboard this commands in and you would wait for a while, and then things wouldgo tatatatatata and it would tell you something else.
But ever withthat, it was still remarkable, especially for a 10-year-old,
That you couldwrite a program in BASIC, let’s say, or FORTRAN.
And actually thismachine would sort of take your idea, and it could sort of execute your idea andgive you back some results.
And if they werethe results you predicted, your program really work, and it was incrediblythrilling experience. So I became very err….captivated by computer.
And a computer tome was still a little mysterious, cause it’s at the other end of wire, I handnever really seen the actual computer itself.
I think I gottowards computers after that, saw the in sides, and then I was part of thisschool by Hewlett-Packard when I was 12, I called up Bill Hewlett who lived inHewlett-Packard at the time.
And again it dazedme…But there was no such thing as unlisted telephone number then, so I can justlook into the book and look his name up. And he answered the phone, and I saidHi, My name is Steve Jobs. You don’t know me, but I’m 12 years old, and I’mbuilding a frequency counter, and I’d like some spare parts. And so he talkedto me for about 20 minutes,
I will neverforget as long as I live , he gave me the parts, but he also gave me a jobworking in Hewlett-Packard that summer. And I was 12 years old, and that reallymade a remarkable influence on me, Hewlett-Packard was really the only company I’d ever seen in my life at that age. And it forms my view of what a company wasand how well they treated their employees.
You know , at thattime, I mean they didn’t know about cholesterol back then.
And then at thattime they used to bring a big car full of donuts and coffee out at 10 o’clockevery morning, and everyone take a coffee and have a donut break, just littlethings like that. It was clear that the company recognized its true values wasits employees. So anyway, since with HP and I started going up to their PaloAIto Research Labs every Tuesday night, with a small group of people to meetsome of the researchers and staffs. And I saw the first desktop computer evermade which was the HP was that as big as a suitcase but it actually hada small cathode Ray Tube(CRT) displayed in it.
And it wascompleted self-contained , There was no wire going off behind the curtainsomewhere, and I fell in love with it. And you could program BASIC in APL. And Iwould just, for hours, you know, get right up to HP and just hang around thatmachine and write programs for it.
So that was theearly days . And I met Steve Wozniak around that time a littleearlier, when I was about 14, 15 years old. And we immediately hit if off, andhe was the first person I met who knew more electronics than I did. So I likehim a lot and he was, uh, maybe 5 years older than I, He gone off to collegeand got kicked out for pulling pranks.
And he was livingwith his parents and going to the ends of the local junior college. So webecame best friends and started doing projects together. We read about thestory in Esquire magazine about this guy named Captain Crunch, who couldsupposedly make free telephone calls ,you heard about this I’m sure. And weagain, we were captivated, How could any body do this? And we thought it mustbe a hoax. And we started looking through libraries , looking for the secrettones that would allow you to do this. And it turned out that we were at StanfordLinear Accelerate Center one night.
And way in vaultsof their technical library, way down at the last bookshelf in the corner bottomrack. We found an AT&T Technical Journal that laid out the whole thing. Andthat’s another moment I’ll never forget. We saw this journal and we thought MyGod! It’s all real.
And so we set out to build a device to make thesetones.
And the way itwork was, you know when you make long distance call you used to hear dududududuright in the background. They were tones that sound like the touch tone youmake on your phone, but with different freguencies so you can make them.
It turned out thatwas the signal from one telephone computer to another.
Controlling thecomputers in the networks.
And AT&T madea fatal flaw when they designed an original telephone network, digitaltelephone network was they put the signal in from computer to computer in thesame band as your voice.
7分钟左右。
Which meant if youcould make those same signals, you could put it right into the handset, andliterally , the entire AT&T international phone net work would think thatyou were an AT&T computer. So after three weeks we finally built a box likethis , it worked. And I remember the first call we made was down to , un, LA,one of Woz’s relatives Dianna (??).
We dialed the wrong number, but we woke some guy up inthe middle of the night. We were yelling at him like‘Don’t you understand we made this call for free!’and this person didn’t appreciate that. But it wasmiraculous. And we build these llittle boxes to do blue box as it was called. Andwe put a little note in the bottom of them, and our logo was he’s got the wholeworld in his hands, hahaha. And they work, we built the best blue box in theworld, it was all digital, no adjustments. And , so you could go to the payphone, you could, you know, take a trunk over the white plane, and take a satelliteover the Europe, and then go to turkey, take a cable back to Atlanta.
You could goaround the world , you could go around the world 5 or 6 times cause we learnedall the codes and how to get on the satellite and stuff. And then you couldcall the pay phone next doors, so you could shout at the phone, after about a minute it wouldcome to another phone, it was , it was miraculous.
And you might askwhat so interesting about that. What so interesting is that we were young, andwhat we learned was that we could build something , ourselves, that couldcontrol billions of dollars worth of infrastructure in the world. That was whatwe learned , was that, us, two, you know, we didn’t know much, could build thelittle thing that could control a giant thing. And that was an incrediblelesson. I don’t think there would have ever been an Apple computer had therenot been Blue box. Woz said you called the Pope? Yeah , we did call the , uh, he pretended to be Henry we get the number of the Vaticanand we called the pope. They started waking people up in the hierarchy , youknow, (???) like that. And they actually sent someone to wake up the Pope.
When finally weburst out laughing they realized that we weren’t Henry Kissinger.
And , so we nevergot the talk to the Pope but it was very funny, so …
So the jump fromBlue Boxes to personal computers, what sparked that?
Well , a sense that there was time sharing computers available, and there was atime sharing computers available, and there was a time sharing company inMountain View that we could get free time on. So , but we need is a terminal. Andwe couldn’t afford one. So we designed and built one. And that was the firstthing we ever did, we built this terminal. So what an Apple I was , was reallyan extension of this terminal, putting a micro process around the back what it was. It’s really a kind of two separate projects put together. Sofirst we built the terminal and then we built the Apple I, And we , we reallybuilt it for ourselves because we couldn’t afford to buy anything.
And we scavengeparts here and there and stuff. And there and stuff.
And we built thisall by hand. I mean it take, you know, 40 to 80 hours to build one, and itwould always be breaking cause all these little tiny wires. So it turned outthat a lot of our friends want to build them, too. And although they couldscavenge most of the parts as well, they didn’t have the sort of skills tobuild them that we had acquired by training ourselves through building them.
So we ended uphelping them build most of their computers and it was really taking up all ofour time. And we thought ,you know , if we could make, what’s called printedcircuit board, which is a piece of fabric glass with copper on both sides thatetch to form the wires, so that you can build a computer, you know, you can buildan Apple I in a few hours instead of 40 hours. If we only had one of those, wecould sell them to all of our friends for, you know as much as it cost to makethem, make our money back and everybody would be happy, we say, we get a lifeagain. So we did that. I sold my Volkswagen bus and Steve sold his calculator,we got enough money to pay a friend of us to make the art work to make aprinted circuit board. And we made some printed circuit boards, and we soldsome to our friends, and I was trying to sell the rest of them so we can getmicro bus and calculator back…
And I walked intothe first computer store in the world, which was the byte shop of a MountainView, I think, on ET metamorphosized within an adult bookstore, butat this point, it was the byte shop.
And the person Iran into , I think his name was Paul Terrell. He said you know, I’ll take 50 ofthose, I said this is great.
But I want themfully assembled.
We never thoughtof this before, so we then kicked this around.
We thought whynot? Why not try this?
And so I spent thenext several days on the phone talking with electronic parts distributiors, wedidn’t know what we were doing, and we said, look, here is the parts that weneed.
We figured we’dbuy a hundred sets of parts, build 50,
Sell them to thebyte shop for twice what they cost us to build them, therefore paying for thewhole hundred and thenm we have 50 left so we could make our profits by sellingthose.
So we convincethese distributors to give us the parts on next 30 days credit.
We have no ideawhat that meant… 30? Sure…sign in there, so we have 30 days to pay them.
So we bought theparts, we built the products and we sold 50 of them to the Byte Shop in PaloAlto, and got paid in 29 days and went to pay off the parts people in 30 days. Andso we were in business, but we have the classic Marxian profit realizationcrisis, the profit wasn’t in liguid currency, our profit was in 50 computerssitting in the corner. So then all of a sudden, we had to think , wow , how wegonna realize our profit?
So we startedthinking about distribution, are there any other computer stores?
We started callingthe other computer stores we had heard across the country. We just kind ofeased into business that way.
The third keyfigure in the creation of Apple was the former Intel executive Mike Markkula. Iask steve how he came aboard.
We were designingthe Apple II.
And we really hadsome, some much higher ambitions for the Apple II.
Woz’s ambitionswere he wanted to add color graphics.
My ambition wasthat, it was very clear to me that (??)a bunch of hardware hobbists, they couldassemble around the computers, or at least take our board, and add thetransformers for the power apply, the case ,the keyboard, and go get, and etc.
You know, go get restof the stuff.
For everyone ofthose, there were a thousand of people, they couldn’t do that but wanted tomess around with programming, software hobbists, just like I had been, youknow, when I was 10, discovering my computer. And so my dream for the apple IIwas to sell the first real packaged computer , packaged personal computer. Youdidn’t have to be a hardware hobbist at all. And so combining both of thosedreams, we actually designed a product. And I found the designer and wedesigned the packaging and everything. And we wanted to make it out of plasticand we had the whole thing ready to go. But we needed some money for toolingthe cases and things like that. We needed a few thousand of dollars. And thiswas way beyond me.
So I went lookingfor some venture capital.
And I ran acrossone venture capitalist name Don Valentine, who came over to the garage and helater said I look like a renegade from the human race, that was his famousquote. And he said he wasn’t willing to invest us but he recommended a fewpeople to me.
One of those wasMike Markkula .
So I called Mikeon the phone and he came over. And Mike had retired for about 30 or 31 from theInter, he was a product manager there and got a little bit stock.
And , you know,like made a million bucks on stock options, which at that time was quite a lotof money. And he a bit invest in oiling and gas deals and kind of staying athome, doing that sort of thing. And he , I think , was ,was kind of ask him getback into something .
And Mike and I hitit off very well. And so Mike said, ok , I’ll invest, after a few weeks, and Isaid No, we don’t want your money, we want you. So we convince Mike to actuallythrow in with us, as an equal partner. And so Mike put in some money, and Mikeput in himself, and three of us went off. We took this design, and it wasvirtually done as an Apple II, and tooled it up, and announced it, a few monthslater at the West Coast Computer Faire. What was that like? It was great. Wegot the best. You know this West Coast Computer Faire was small at that time,but to us it was very large, and so we had this fantastic booth there, er, wehad a projection television showing the Apple II and showing its graphics whichtoday look very cool but at that time were by far the most advanced graphics onthe personal computer. And I think , you know, my recollection is that we stolethe show, and a lot of dealers and distributors started lining up and we wereoff and running.
How old were you?-21.
21？You were 21 and you were a big success, you have just sort ofdone it by the seat of you pants, you don’t have any particular training onthis. How do you learn to run a company?
Er… you know,throughout the years in business, I found something, which was I always ask whywe do things, and the answers you inevitably get are “oh , that’s just the wayit’s done”, nobody knows why they do what they do , nobody thinks about thingsvery deeply in business, that’s what I found . I’d like to give you an we were building our Apple is in the garage, we knew exactly what thecost. When we got into factory in the Apple II days, the accounting had thisnotion of the standard cost, where you kind of set a standard cost at the endof a quarter, and you adjust with the varies, and I kept asking why do we dothis? And the answer just t the way it’s done. And after about 6 months ofdigging into this , what I realized was the reason you do it is because you don’treally have good enough controls to know about how much cost, so you guess, andyou fix your guess at the end of the quarter. And the reason why you don’t knowhow much it cost is because your information systems aren’t good enough. So …but nobody said it that way.
So later on whenwe design this automatic factory for Mackintosh, we were able to get rid of alot of these antiquated concepts,
And know exactlywhat something costs to the second. So in business, a lot of things are… I callit folklore, they are done because they were done yesterday, and the daybefore. And… so what that means is that if you are willing to sort ofquestions, think about things and work really hard, you can learn businesspretty fast, not the hardest thing in the world.
Not rocketscience?
It’s not rocketscience. No
Now … when youwere first coming in contact with these computers and inventing them before theHP1900, you do talk about writing programs.
What sort ofprograms? What do people actually do with these things?
See what we didwith them, well, I would give you a simple example…
When we weredesigning our blue-box we used… we wrote a lot of custom programs to help usdesign it.
You know to do alot of the dog work for us in terms of calculating. Master frequencies with subdevisor to get the other frequencies and things like that…
We use computerquite a bit to calculate how much error we would get in the frequencies, andhow much can be tolerated.
So we use them inthe work, but much more importantly, it does nothing to do with using them foranything practical…have to do with using them to be a mirror of your thoughtprocess, to actually learn how to think. I think the greatest value of learninghow to think,
I think everybodyin this country should learn how to program a computer, should learn a computerlanguage, because it teaches you how to think, it’s like going to law school, Idon’t think anybody should be a lawyer, but I think going to law school mayactually be useful coz it teaches you how to think in a certain way. In thesame way the computer programming teaches you in a slightly different way howto think…
And so … I viewcomputer science as a liberal art .
It should besomething everybody takes in a year in their life, one of the courses they takeis, you know learning how to program.
I learned APL, youknow, obviously, is part of the reason why I’m going through life sideways.
Was it you lookback and consider it, enriching experience that taught you to think in adifferent way, or not?
Err… No, not thatparticularly. Other language perhaps more so, I started with APL.
So I mean,obviously, the Apple II was a terrific success, just incredibly so .
And the companygrew like topsy and eventually went public.
And you guys gotreally rich, what’s it like to get rich?
It’s veryinteresting. I was worth , err, about over an million dollars when I was 23,and over 10 million dollars when I was 24, and over a hundred million dollarswhen I was 25.
And it wasn’t thatimportant, because I never did it for the money.
I think money iswonderful thing because it enables you to do things,
It enables you toinvest ideas that don’t have a short term pay back and things like that. Butespecially at that point in my life, it was not the most important thing. Themost important thing was the company, the people ,the products we were making,what we were going to enable people do with these products. So I didn’t thinkabout it a great deal and I never sold any stock,
And just reallybelieve the company would do very well over the long term.
Central to thedevelopment of the personal computers was the pioneering work being done atXerox Palo Alto Research Center, which Steve FIRST visited in 1979.
I had 3 or 4people who kept bugging me that I get my rear over the Xerox Park and see whatthey are doing. And so I finally did, I went over there, and they were verykind and they showed me what they were working on.
And they showed mereally three things, but I was so blinded by the first one that I didn’t everreally see the other two. One of the things they show me was object orientedprogramming, they show me that. But I didn’t even see that.
The other one theyshow me was really a network computer system, they had over hundred Altocomputers all network using e-mail, etc, I didn’t even see that.
I was so blindedby the first thing they showed me, which was graphically user interface.
I thought it wasthe best thing I had ever seen in my life.
Now , remember ,it was very flawed, when we saw it, it was incomplete,
They had donebunch of things wrong, but we didn’t know that at that time, it’s still thoughthey have the germ of the idea was there , and they had done it very well…
And within, youknow, 10 minutes, it was obvious to me that all computers would work like thissomeday, it was obvious, I mean you can argue about how many years it wouldtake , and you can argue about who the winners and losers might be, but youcouldn’t argue about the inevitability it was so obvious, you would have feltthe same way had you been there.
You know , that’s …thosewere exactly words Paul Allen used. It’s really interesting .
Yeah, it’sobvious.
But there were twovisits… you saw and you brought some people back with you,
And what happenedthe next time, they made you cool your heels for a while.
No.
Someone woman? Saidsomething.
What do you mean?Well , she did the demo when the group came back,
She said that sheargued against doing it for 3 hours,
And they took youto other places showing you other things while she was arguing.
Oh … you mean theywere reluctant to show us the demo
OH, I have noidea. I don’t remember that, I thought you meant something else.
So they were veryskillful,
Yeah, but they didshow us.
And it’s good theyshowed us because the technology crashed and burned Xerox, they used to call…
Why? What’s that? Why?
Yeah , why?
I actually thoughta lot about that, and I learned more about that with John Sculley later on and Ithink I understand that now pretty well,
What happens is ,like with John Sculley, err…
John came fromPepsi co, and they almost would change their product once every 10 years,
to them, newproduct is like a new size of bottle, so if you are a product person, youcouldn’t change the course of that company very much, so who influences thesuccess of Pepsi co？
The sales andmarketing people, therefore they would once get promoted and therefore teywould once run the company, well, for Pepsi co, that might have been okay.
But it turns outthe same thing can happen in technology companies, that they get nonopolies,like old IBM and Xerox. If you are a product person at IBM or Xerox, So youmake a better copy or a better computer, so what?
When you have amonopolies market share, the company is not any more successful, so the peoplewho can make the company more successful are sales and marketing people. Andthey end up running the companies, and the product people get driven out ofthis decision making forms. And the companies forget what it means to makegreat products. It … sort of the product sensibility,
And … the productgenius brought them to that monopolistic position gets rotted out by peoplerunning this companies who have no conception of a good product versus a badproduct,
They have noconception of craftsmanship that’s required, … that take a good idea and turnit into a good product, and they really have no feeling in their hearts usuallyabout wanting to really help the customers.
So that’s whathappens in Xerox, the people in Xerox PARC used to call the people who runs theXerox tonerheads, and these tonerheadswould come out to the Xerox and PARC says they have no clue of what they aresaying.
For our audience,toner is what?
Toner is what youput in a copier, you know the toner you add to an industrial copier?
The black stuff?
The black stuff,yeah..
Basically theywere copier heads, just have no clue about what a computer can do, and so theyjust grabbed the feed from great victory of the computer industry, Xerox couldhave owned the entire computer industry, could have been company 10 times of itssize,
Could have beenIBM, could have been IBM in the 1990’s , …could have been the Microsoft in the1990’s , so …but anyway that’s all ancient history, doesn’t really matteranymore.
Sure, Youmentioned IBM, when IBM entered the market, was that a daunting thing for youat Apple?
Oh sure, I mean…here was apple ,you know a 1 billion dollar company, and here was IBM, at thattime, probably about 30 some billion company entering the market,
Sure, it was veryscary.
Err… we made avery big mistake though, that IBM’s first product was terrible. It was reallybad .
We made a mistakeof … not realizing that a lot of other people have strong vested interests tohelp IBM to make it better.
So … If it hasjust been IBM, it would have crashed and burned.
But IBM did have Ithink a genius in their approach, which was to have a lot of people have vestedinterests in their success. And that’s what saved them in the end. So you cameback from visiting Xerox PARC with a vision, and how do you implement thevision?
Well , I got ourbest people together and started to get them working on this, the problem waswe hired a bunch of people from HP, and they didn’t get this idea, they didn’tget it.
I remember havingdramatic arguments with some of these people, who thought the coolest thing inuser interface was the soft keys at the bottoms of the screen, you know. Theyhad no concept of proportionally spaced fonts, no concept of the mouse. As amatter of fact, I remember arguing with these folks, people screaming at me, itcould take us 5 years to engineer a mouse and it would cost 300 dollars tobuild. I finally got fed up and just went outside and found david Kelly design,
I asked him todesign me a mouse in 90 days and we had a mouse that we can build for 15 bucksand that was phenomenally reliable. So I found that, in a way… Apple did nothave the caliber of people that was necessary to seize this idea in many ways. Thatwas core team did, but there was a larger team that mostly had come from hpthat didn’t have a clue.
It comes to thisissue of professionalism, there’s dark side and light side? Isn’t it?
No, you know whatit is … No, it’s not dark and light.
People getconfused , companies get confused, when they started getting bigger, they wantto replicate their initial success, and a lot of them think well somehow thereare some magic in the process, of how success is created…
So they started totry to institutionalize process across the company.
And before verylong, people get very confused that the process is the content…
That’s ultimatelythe downfall of IBM.
IBM has the bestprocess people in the world, they just forgot about the content.
And that’s so whathappened a little bit at apple too, we had a lot of people who are great atmanagement process, they just didn’t have a clue at the content, and in mycareer, I found that the best people you know are the ones who reallyunderstand the content,
And they are painin the butt to manage, you know but you put up with it because they are sogreat at the content, and that’s what makes a great product, it’s not process,it’s content.
So we had a littlebit of that problem at apple. And that problem eventually resulted in the Lisa,which had its moment of brilliance, in a way it was very far ahead at its time…
But that was notenough fundamental content understanding. Apple drifted too far away from itsroots. To these HP guys, 10,000 dollars was cheap, to our market, to ourdistribution channels, 10,000 dollars was impossible.
So we produced theproduct which completely mismatch for the culture of our company, for the imageof our company, for the distribution channels of our company, for the currentcustomers. None of them could afford a product like that. And it failed.
Like you and JohnCouch fought for leadership?
Absolutely , and Ilost . that’s correct.
How did they comeabout ?
Well…
I thought lisa wasin serious trouble, and I thought Lisa was going off this very bad direction asI have just described, and err… I couldn’t convince enough people and thesenior management of Apple, but that was the case… we ran the places as teamfor most part.
So I lost, and atthat point of time, you know I bruted for a few months…
But it was a verylong after that it really occurred to me that if we didn’t do something here, theApple II was running out of gas, and we needed to do something with thistechonology fast, or else Apple might cease to exist as the company that itwas. So I formed a small team to do the Mackintosh, and we were on a missionfrom God to save Apple. No one else though so , but it turned out we wereright. And as we evolved the Mac, it became very clear that, this was also away of re-inventing Apple. We re-invented everything, we re-inventedmanufactures, I visited probably 80 automatic factories in Japan, and we builtthe world’s first automatic computer factory in the world, in California here,so we adopted the 16,000 Micro Processors that leads ahead, we negotiated theprice that was 1/5 of what lisa was going to pay for, because we were usingmuch higher volume, and we really started to design this product that can besold for a thousand dollars, called the Mackintosh, and we didn’t make it . wecould have sold it at 2000 dollars, but we came out 2500, and we spent 4 yearsin our lives doing that and we built the product, we built the automaticfactory, the machine to build the machine, we built a completely newdistribution system, and we built a completely different marketing approach,and I think we worked pretty well. Now , you motivated this team , I mean youhave to guide them…
we built the team.
You built theteam, motivated , guided them dealt with them.
We haveinterviewed just lots and lots of people from the Mackintosh team, and you knowwhat keeps coming down to is your passion , and you vision, how do you orderyour priorities in there? What’s important to you in the development of aproduct?
You know … one ofthe things that really hurt Apple was after I left, John Sculley got a veryserious “disease”, and that “disease”, I have seen other people get it too, it’sthe “disease ” of thinking that a really great idea is 90% of the work, and ifyou just tell all these other people , “here is this great idea!” , then ofcourse they can go off and make it happen. And the problem with that is thatthere is just tremendous amount of craftsmanship in between a great idea and agreat product. And as you evolve the great idea, it changes and grows, it nevercomes out like it starts. Because you learn a lot more, you get into thesubtleties, you also find … there’s tremendous trade-offs that you have tomake, I mean you know there are just certain things you can’t make electronsdo,
And…or factoriesdo, robots do, and you get into all these things , designing a product iskeeping 5000 things in your brain. These concepts , and fitting them alltogether in … and kind of continuing to push and fit them together and in newand in different ways to get what you want.
And everyday youdiscover something new that is new problem or new opportunity to fit thesethings together a little differently. It’s that process that is the magic.
So we had a lot ofgreat ideas when we started, but what I always felt that a team of people doingsomething that’s really believing is like….
When I was a youngkid, there was a widowed man lived up the street. And he was in his eighties,he was a little scary looking, and I got to know him a little bit… I think hemight pay me for cutting now his lawn or something…One day he said “come alongto my garage, I want to show you something .”
And he pulled outhis dusty old rock tumbler, that was a motor and a coffee can and a little bandbetween them, and he said “come out with me”, we went out to the back, and wegot some just rocks , some regular old ugly rocks, and we put them in the canwith a little bit of liguid and a little bit of grits powder, and we closed thecan up and he turned this motor on, and he said , come back tomorrow.
And this can wasmaking rack of his stones and I came back the next day, and we opened the can,and we took out these amazingly beautiful polished rocks, err…
The same commonstones that go in through rubbing against each other like this,
Creating a littlebit of friction, creating a little bit of noise, had come out these beautifulpolished rocks.
And that’s alwaysbeen in my mind that, my metaphor for a team working really hard on somethingthey’re passionate about.
It’s that throughthe team, through that group of incredibly talented people bumping up againsteach other, having arguments, having fights sometimes , making some noise, andworking together they polish each other
39：08分
And they polishthe ideas , and what comes out are these really beautiful stones, so it’s hardto explain, and it’s certainly not the result of one person, I mean people likesymbols, so I am the symbol of certain things , but it’s really the team efforton the Mac.
Now , in my life Iobserved something fairly early on at Apple, which… I didn’t know how toexplain it then, I felt a lot about sense. If you, most things in life, thedynamic range between average and the bast , is at most 2 to 1, like you are inNew York city, you get an average Taxi cab driver versus the best Taxi cabdriver, you know you would probably get to your destination with the best cabmaybe 30% faster, you know in automobile.
What’s thedifference between an average and the best? Maybe, I don’t know 20%?
The best CD playerand average CD player, I don’t know, 20%?
So 2 to 1 is a big…big dynamic range in most life.
In software, andit used to be the case with hardware too, the difference between average andthe best is 15 to 1, maybe a 100 to 1, Okay?
very few things inlife are like this.
But what I waslucky enough to spend my life in , is like this, and so I built lots of mysuccess of finding these truly gifted people, and not setting for being Cplayers, really going for A players. And I found something, I found when youget enough A players, when you go through the incredible work to find you know5 of these A players, they really like working with each other, because theynever had a chance to do that before.
And they don’twant to work with being C players, so they become self-policing, they only wantto hire more A players.
So you built upthese pochets of A players and it propagates,
And that’s whatthe Mac team was like, they were all A players, and these were extraordinarilytalented people.
But there werealso people who now say that they don’t have the energy any more to work foryou .
Huh, true.
I think if youtalk to a lot of people on the Mac team, they would tell you it was the hardestthey have ever worked in their lives, some of them would tell you it was theirhappiest they ever had in their lives, but all of them would tell you that itcertainly is one of the most intense and cherished experiences they would everhave in their lives.
Yeah, they did. So… err… you know, it’s a … some of those things are not sustainable for somepeople.
What does it meanwhen you tell someone they work a shit?
I… it usuallymeans they work a shit, sometimes it means I think you work a shit , and I amwrong.
But… it usuallymeans that their work is not anywhere near good enough.
I have this greatquote from Bill Atkinson, who says” when you say get someone to work a shit,you really mean… I don’t quite understand , would you please explain it to me?”
No , that’s notusually what I meant.
I… you know, whenyou get really good people , they know they are really good, and you don’t haveto baby people’s ego so much, and what really matters is the work, thateverybody knows that and that all that matters is the work, so people are beingcounted on to do specific pieces of little puzzle, and the most important thing, I think you can do for somebody who’s really good, and who’s really beingcounted on is to point out to them when their work isn’t good enough, and to doit very clearly and to articulate why, and to get them back on track. And youneed to do it in a way that doesn’t call in questions about your confidence andabilities, but… leaves not tooo much room for interpretation that the work theyhave done for the particular thing is not good enough… to support the goal ofthe team. And that’s a hard thing to do . Err… I always take a very directapproach, so I think if you talk to people who worked with me , err… the reallygood people have found it beneficial, some people hated it you know, but… I amalso one of these people, I don’t really care about being right, I just careabout success. So you will find a lot of people that would tell you that I hada very strong opinion and they present evidence in contrary and 5 minutes laterI can change my mind, because I’m like that, I don’t mind being wrong, and Iadmit that I am wrong a lot, doesn’t really matter to me too much. What mattersto me is that we do the right thing.
So how and why didApple get into desktop publishing. Which will become Mac’s killer-app?
I don’t know ifyou know this, but we got the first canon laser printer engine shipped to US atApple, and we had it hooked up to a Lisa actually imaging pages before anybody,long before HP, long before Adobe. But I heard few times people tell me “heythere’s these guys over the garage in Xerox PARC…”let’s go and see them.
And I finally wentand saw them , I saw what they were doing, and it was better than what we weredoing, They were gonna be a hardwarecompany they wanted to make printer and the whole thing. So I talked to thembeing a software company,
45:25
Andwithin 2 or 3 weeks , we had cancelled our internal project,
A bunchof people wanted to kill me over this , but , we did it.
And Ihad cut a deal with Adobe User soft ware, and we bought 19.9% of Adobe toApple, they needed financing and we want a little bit control, we were off tothe races so we got the engine from Canon, and we desianed the first laserprinter controller at Apple, we got the software from Adobe, we introduced thelaser writer. No one at the company wanted to do it , but a few of us in theMac group, everybody thought a 7000-dollar printer was crazy, what they didn’tunderstand was that you can share it with Apple Talk, I mean they understoodintellectually, but they don’t understand visionary. Because the last reallyexpensive thing we tried to sell was Lisa. So we pushed this through, and I hadbasically do it through over a few dead bodies , but we pushed this thingthrough and it was the first laser printer on the market as you know, and therest of history.
When Ileft Apple, apple was the largest printer company, measure by revenue in theworld.
Didyou envision desktop publishing, was that a no-brainer?
Youknow … yes
But wealso envisioned really the network office, and so in January, 1995 when we hadour annual meeting and introduced our new products, I made probably the largestmarketing blunder of my career,
1985
1985sorry
Madeprobably the largest marketing blunder in my career by announcing theMackintosh Pffice instead of just desk top publishing,
And wehad desk top publishing as a major component of that, but we announced a bunchof other stuff as well, and I think we should just focus on desktop publishingat that time.
Afterseries of disagreements with Apple’s CEO, John Sculley, Steve left the companyin 1985.
Tellus your departure from Apple.
Oh itwas very painful and I am not even sure if I want to talk about it.
Whatcan I say? I hired the wrong guy.
Thatwas Scually.
Yeah,and he destroyed something I spent 10 years working for.
Startingwith me , but that wasn’t the saddest part,
Iwould have gladly left Apple if Apple had turned out like I wanted it to .
Hebasically got on a rocket ship that is about to leave the pad, and the rocketship left the pad,
And hekind of went into his head , and he got confused and thought he built therocket ship,
And hekind of changed the trajectory, so that it’s inevitably gonna crash to theground,
But therewas always… in Pre mackintosh days and early Mackintosh days, there was alwaysSteven and John show.
Youknow you two were kinda joined at the hip for a while there.
That’sright.
Andthen something happened to spilt you, what was that, what was that?
Well ,what happened was… that the industry went in to a recession in late 1984, salesstarted seriously contracted.
Andjohn didn’t know what to do , and he hand not a clue.
Andthere was a leadership vacuum at the top of Apple.
Therewere fairly strong general managers running the divisions,
And Iwas running the Mackintosh division, somebody else was running the Apple IIdivision etc,
Therewere some problems with some of the divisions, and there was a person runningthe storage division that was completely out of lunch.
Abunch of things needed to be changed.
Butall those problems got put into a pressure cooker, because of this contrctionin the market place, and there was no leadership, and john was in a situationwhere the board was not happy, and where he was probably not long for thecompany.
Andone thing I did not ever see about John, until that time was, he had incrediblesurvival instinct, someone oonce told me “this guy didn’t get to be the thisyou know president of Pepsi co without these kind of instincts”, and it wastrue.
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AndJohn decided that a really good person to be the root of all the problems wouldbe me, and so we came to loggerheads, and John had cultivated a very closerelationship with the board , and they believed him, so that’s what happened.
Sothere were competing visions for the company?
Ohclearly…well…not so much competing visions for the company. Because I don’tthink John had a vision for the company.
Well ,I guess I’m sure I was asking what was your vision that lost out in sentence.
It wasn’tan issue of vision, it was an issue of execution.
In thesense that my belief was that Apple needed much stronger leadership to shrt ofunite these various factions that we created with divisions that Macintosh wasthe future of Apple , that we needed to ram back expenses dramatically in theApple II area…
Thatwe needed to be spending very heavily in the Macintosh area, err… things likethat.
John’svision was that he should remain the CEO of the company, and anything thatwould help him do that would be acceptable.
So youknow I think that … you know Apple is in a state of paralysis in the early partof 1985, and I wasn’t at that time capable… of running the company as a whole. Youknow I was 30 years old .
And I don’t think I had enough experiences to run a 2 billion dollar company. Unfortunatelyjohn didn’t either. And so anyway… I … I was told on certain terms that there’sno job for me, it’s really tragic.
Siberia
Yeah,it would have been far more smarter for Apple to sort of let me ork on the next…
Ivolunteered why not I start research division, you know give me a few millionsbucks a year and I would go hire some really great people and we would do thenext great thing.
And Iwas told there is no opportunity to do that, oh well.
So myoffice was taken away, it was it was…. I mean I will get really emotional if Ikeep talking about this,
Soanyway… but that’s irrelevant, I am just one person and the company is a lotmore people than me , that’s not the most important part.
Theimportant part was the values of Apple over the nest several years weresystematically destroyed.
I thenasked Steve for his thoughts on the state of Apple. Remember this was 1995, ayear before he would go back to Apple. Remember too when Apple bought Next ayear after this interview, Steve immediately sold the Apple stock he receivedas part of the sale.
Appleis dying today, Apple is dying a very painful death, it’s on a glide slope too,to die!
Andthe reason is because…
Youknow when I walked out the door of apple , we had 10 years lead on everybodyelse in the industry, Macintosh was 10 years ahead. We watched Microsoft take10 years to catch up with it.
Well,the reason that they could catch up with it was because Apple stood still, Imean the Macintosh shipping today is like 25% different than the day I left!
Theyspent hundreds of millions of dollars a year on R&D, you know total ofprobably 5 millions of dollars a year on R&D, you know total of probably 5billion dollars on RD, what did they get for?
I don’tknow!
But itwas…what happened was the …understanding of how to move these things forward,and how to create these new products, somehow evaporated, and I think a lot ofgood people stuck around for a while, but there wasn’t an opportunity to gettogether and do this, because there wasn’t any leadership to do that, so whathappens with Apple now is that they had fallen behind in many aspects certainlyin market share, and most importantly their differentiation has een eroded by Microsoft,and so what they have now is that they have their installed base, which is notgrowing, which is shrinking slowly, but would provide a good revenue stream forseveral years, but it’s a glide slope, it’s just gonna go like this. So it’sunfortunate and I don’t really think it’s reversible at this point of time.
Whatabout Microsoft? I mean that’s the jog not now, and it’s kind of Ford-LTD goinginto the future, it’s definitely not Cadillac, it’s not BMW it’s just… you know…what’s going on there, how did these guys do that?
Well,Microsoft’s orbit was made possible by a Saturn 5 booster called IBM. And Iknow bill would get upset with me for saying this, but of course it was true. Andmuch to bill and Microsoft’s credit they used that fantastic opportunity tocreate more opportunities for themselves.
Mostpeople don’t remember but until 1985 with the Mac, Microsoft was not in theapplication business, which dominated by Lotus. And Microsoft took a big gambleto write for the Mac.
Andthey came out with applications that were terrible.
Butthey kept at it and make them better. And eventually, they dominated theMacintosh application market, and then used the spring board of Windows to getinto the PC market with the same applications.
Andnow they dominated the application business in the PC space too.
Sothey have 2 characteristics. I think they are very strong opportunists. And Idon’t mean that in a bad way.
Andtwo , they are like the Japanese. They just keep on coming. And now , they wereable to do that because of the revenue stream from the IBM deal. But nonetheless the made the most of it and I gave them a lot of credit for that.
Theonly problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste.
Theyare absolutely no taste, and what that means is … I don’t mean that in a smallway, I meant that in a big way in the sense that they don’t think of originalideas , and they don’t bring much culture into their products.
And yousay why is that important, well , proportionally spaced fonts come fromtypesetting and beautiful books. That’s where one gets the idea. If it were.
T forthe Mac, they would have never had that in their products.
And ,so I guess, I’m saddened not by Microsoft’s success. I have no problem withtheir success. They ’ve earned their success, for the most part. I have theproblem with the fact that they just make really third-rate products.
Theirproducts have no spirit to them. Their products have no…sort of spirit ofenlightenment about them they are very pedestrian. And the sad part is thatmost customers don’t have a lot of that spirit either. But the way we are goingto ratch it up… our species, is to take the best , and to spread it aroundeverybody so that everyone grows up with better things , and start tounderstand the subtleties of these better things. And Microsoft is just …McDonalds. And that’s what saddens me.. not the Microsoft has won, but thatMicrosoft products don’t displayed more insight and more creativtity.
Sowhat are you doing about it? Tell us about Next. Well , I am not doing anythingabout it.
Ok
BecauseNeXT is too small a company to do anything about that, I am just watching it,and there’s really nothing I can do about it.
Nextwe talked about NeXT, the company Stevewas running is 1995, which Apple was soon to buy. NeXT software would becomethe heart of Mac in the form of OS10.
Youdon’t really want to hear about NeXT, do you?
Yes, Ido.
You do? okay.
Well…maybethe best things take so much time, I just tell you what next is today. Therehasn’t been …clearly the innovation of computer industry is happening insoftware right now, and there hasn’t been a revolution in how we createsoftware in a long…(sneeze)
Sorry,the innovation in the industry is in software, and there hasn’t ever been areal revolution how we created soft ware, certainly nonetheless in 20 years.
Sorry,the innovation in the industry is in software, and there hasn’t ever been areal revolution how we created software, certainly nonetheless in 20 years.
As amatter of fact, it’s getting worse. Well , Macintosh was a revolution for theend users to make it easier to use, it was the opposite for the developer, thedeveloper pays the price , and the software got more complicated to write, asit became easier to use for the end user, so software is impetrating everythingwe do these days, in businesses software is one of the most important popcompetitive weapons,
I meanit’s the most successful business war was MCI friends and family in the last 10years, and what was that ? it was a brilliant idea it was custom-billingsoftware, AT&T didn’t respond for 18 monthes yielding millions of dollarsfor the market share to MCI, not because they are stupid, but because theycouldn’t get the billing software done. So in ways like that, in smaller ways,software is becoming an incredible force in this world, to provide new goodsand services to people whether it’s over the internet or what have you,software is going to be a major enabler in our society. We have taken another…oneof those brilliant original ideas from Xerox PARC that I saw in 1979, but didn’tsee really clearly then,
Calledobject oriented technology, and we have perfected it and commercialized it,here and become the biggest supplier ever to the market, and this abjecttechnology let you build softeware 10 times faster, and it’s better.
Sothat’s what we do , and we got a small to medium sized business, a largesupplier of objects, you know we were 50 to 75 million dollar company, gotabout 300 people, and that’s what we do.
Andthe end of the 3rd show, actually is one moment that we do look intothe future, because channel 4 has asked us to do that,
Sowhat’s your vision of 10 years from now, with this technology that you aredeveloping? Well , you know I think the internet and the web…there are twoexciting things happening in software and in computing, one is objects, and theother is the web, the web is incredibly exciting because it fulfilled a lot ofour dreams, that the computer would ultimately not primarily a device forcomputation but metamorphoses a device for communication, and with the web that’sfinally happening, Secondly it’s exciting because the Microsoft doesn’t knowit, and therefore it’s tremendous amount of innovation happening, so I thinkthe web is going to be profound in what it does to our society, as you knowabout 15% of the goods and services in the us were sold by catalog over TV, allthat would go on the web and more, billions and billions…soon tens of billionsof dollars of goods and services are going to be sold on the web. A way tothink about it is ultimately directed customer distribution channel, andanother way to think about it is the smallest companyin the world can look aslarge as the largest company in the world on the Web, so I guess… I think theweb, if we look back 10 years back now, the web is going to be a definingtechnology a defining social moment for computing, I think it’s going to behuge and I think it brews a whole new generation of life into personalcomputing , I think it’s going to be huge.
Andyou are making software that…
Ofcourse, so is everybody, I mean forget about what we are doing, as an industry,the web is going to open a whole new door to this industry.
It’sanother one of those things that it’s obvious once it happens, but 5 years ago,who would have guessed?
That’sright. Isn’t this a wonderful place we are in.
I waskeen to know about Steve’s passion,
Whatdrove him?
I readan article when I was very young in the Scientific American, and it measuresthe efficiency of locomotion for various species on the planet, so for you knowfor bear, Chimpanzee, raccoons and birds, and fish, how many calories perkilometer they spend to move, and humans was measured too, the condor won, itwas the most efficient, and the mankind, the crowned creation, came in withrather unimpressive showing about 3rd way down the list, butsomebody there had the brilliance to test a human riding a bicycle.
Blewaway the condor, all the way off the charts,
And Iremember this really had an impact on me, I really remember this- humans weretool builders, and we build tools that can dramatically amplity our humanabilities.
And tome, we actually went an ad line earlier with Apple, that the personal computerwas the bicycle of mind, and I believe that with every bone in my body, that ofall the inventions of humans, the computer is going to rank near, if not at thetop, as history unfolds if we look back , and it is the most awesome tool thatwe ever invented, and I feel incredibly lucky to be at exactly the right placein silicon valley, at exactly the right time, historically where this inventionhas taken form. As you know when you set vector off in space, if you can changedirection a little bit at the beginning, it’s dramatic when it gets few mileson space.
I feelwe are still really at the beginning of that vector, and if we can nudge itinto right directions, it would be a much better thing as progresses on.
And Ilook, you know we had the chance to do that a few times, and it brings all ofus associated with tremendous satisfaction.
And howdo you know what’s the right direction？
Youknow ultimately it comes down to taste, it comes down to taste,
Itcomes down to trying to expose yourself to the best things that humans havedone,
Andtry to bring these things in to what you are doing.
Picassohad saying “ good artists copy, great artists steal”,
Wehave always been shameless about stealing great ideas,
And Ithink part of what made the Macintosh great was that people working on it weremusicians.
Andpoets and artists, and zoologists and historians, who also happened to be the bestcomputer scientists in the world. But if it hadn’t been computer science, thesepeople would have all been doing amazing things in other fields, and they allbrought with them, we all brought to this effort a very liberal arts sort ofair, a very liberal arts attitude that we want to pull in the best that we sawin other fields into this field,
And Idon’t think you’ll get that if you are very narrow.
One ofthe questions I asked everyone in the series was are you a hippie or a nerd?
Oh if Ihad to pick one out of these wto, I am clearly the hippie, all the people Iwork with were clearly that category too,
Really?
Yeah.
Why? Youseek out hippies? They are attracting to you?
Well,ask yourself what’s hippie？
I meanthis word has a lot of connotations, but to me. Remember the 60’s happens inthe early 70’s , we have to remember that, that’s sort when I came of age, so Isaw a lot of these,
And alot of things happened in our backyard here.
So tome the spark of that was that there was something beyond, sort of what you seeeveryday,
Thereare something going on here in life beyond just a job, a family, 2cars in thegarage and a career, there’s something more going on, there’s another side ofthe coin, that we don’t talk about much, and we experience when there are gaps,when we kind of aren’t… when everything is not ordered or perfect and whenthere’s a kind of gap, you experience this inrush of something, and a lotpeople have set off to find out what that was, you know whether it’s the roador the Indian mystics, whatever it might be, and the hippie movement got alittle bit like that, they want to find out what that was about, and life wasn’tabout what they saw their parents doing,
And ofcourse the pendulum swung too far the other way , that was too crazy. But therewas a germ of something there, and it’s the same thing that causes people towant to be poets instead of bankers, and I think that’s a wonderful thing, and Ithink that’s some spirit can be put into products, and the products can bemanufactured and given to people, they can sense that spirit,
If youtalk to the people who use the Macintosh, they love it, you don’t hear peopleloving products very often , you know, really, but you can feel it in there,there were something really wonderful there, so I don’t think that most ofthose really best people that I had worked with , had worked with computers forsake of orking with computers, they workwith computers because they are the medium that is best capable of transmittingsome feelings that you have, you want to share with other people, does thatmake any sense to you ?
Oh,yeah.
Andbefore they invented these things all of these people would have done otherthings,
Butcomputers were invented and they did come along, all these people did getinterested in school or before school, and say hey this is the medium that Ithink I can really say something in.
In1996, a year after this interview, Steve Jobs sold NeXT to Apple.
Hethen took control of his old company at a time when it was 90 days frombankruptcy.
Whatfollowed was a corporate renaissance unparalleled in American business history.
Whatfollowed was a corporate renaissance unparalleled in American business innovative products like iMac, iPod, iTunes , iPhone, IPad, and Applestores, Jobs turned an almost bankrupt Apple into the most valuable company inAmerica.
As hesaid in this interview, he took the best and spread it around so that everybodygrws up with better things,
STEVEJOBS
1955-2011
The ywere gonna be a hardware company they wanted to make printer and the wholething, so I talked to them being a software company, and within 2 or 3 weeks,we had cancelled our internal project, a bunch of people wanted to kill me overthis, But, we did it.
And Ihad cut a deal with Adobe User Software , and we bought 19.9% of Adobe toApple, they needed financing and we want a little bit control, we were off tothe races so we got the engine from Canon, and we designed the first laserprinter controller at Apple, we got the software from Adobe, we introduced thelaser writer.
中文版：
我是Bob Cringely。16年前(1995年)，我制作《书呆子的胜利》节目时采访了乔布斯。1985年乔布斯被他自己引荐的CEO John Sculley排挤出苹果，接受采访时，乔布斯正在经营他创办的NeXT公司。18个月后苹果收购了NeXT，又过了半年乔布斯重新掌管苹果。
当年的节目只用了一小段采访，九十年代末采访母带从伦敦运往美国途中遗失。多年来我们一直以为再也看不到完整的采访，然而几天前导演Paul Sen在车库里发现了一份VHS拷贝。
乔布斯生前很少接受电视采访，如此精彩的访谈更是罕见，它记录了乔布斯的坦率、非凡的魅力和独特的视野。为了向这位奇人致敬，我们几乎一刀未剪，大部分内容是首次公布于众。
一、结缘计算机与创业搭档
Bob：你是怎么与个人计算机结缘的？
乔布斯：我第一次见到计算机是10或11岁，很难回忆当年的情景，我可不是故作老成……大约30多年前，见过电脑的人不多，即使见到，也是在电影里。电影里的计算机都是装有开盘机的大柜子，闪闪发光，真正了解计算机功能和原理的人不多，有机会接触计算机的人更是寥寥无几。
我有幸在NASA Ames研究中心见到一台，那不是一台完整的计算机，只是一台分时共享的终端机。设备非常简陋，连显示器都没有，只是一台带键盘的电传打印机：你在键盘上输入指令耐心等待，然后它会哒哒哒地输出结果。
即便如此这玩意也太奇妙了，尤其是对十岁的男孩而言。你可以用Basic语言或Fortran语言编写程序，机器接受并执行你的设想，然后把结果告诉你，如果结果和设想的一样，说明程序见效了。这太让人激动了，我完全给计算机迷住了，当然计算机对我而言仍然有些神秘，因为真正的计算机藏在电缆的另一端，而我从未见过。
打那以后我总想着计算机，后来我参加了在惠普组织的兴趣小组，12岁时我打电话给Bill Hewlett(惠普创始人比尔·休利特)，他当时住在惠普。当时所有电话号码都印在号码簿里，只要翻电话号码簿，就能查到他的电话。他接了电话，我说我叫Steve Jobs，你不认识我，我12岁，打算做频率计数器，需要些零件。我们聊了大概20分钟，我永远记得他不但给了零件，还邀请我夏天去惠普打工。
我才12岁，这件事对我产生了不可思议的影响。惠普是我见过的第一家公司，它让我懂得了什么是公司，如何善待员工。那时还没有胆固醇偏高一说，每天上午十点公司拖来满满一卡车的甜面圈和咖啡，大家停下工作喝杯咖啡，品尝甜面圈，很明显惠普明白公司真正的价值在于员工。
之后我每周二晚都去惠普的Palo Alto实验室，与一些研究人员见面。我见到了第一台台式计算机——HP9100，大概有行李箱那么大，装着小小的CRT显示器。它是一台可以独立工作的一体机，我很喜欢。它使用Basic或APL编程，我常常数小时地守着它编程。
差不多也是在那时我认识了Steve(Woz，苹果联合创始人斯蒂夫·沃兹尼亚克)，我大约十四五岁，可能还要小些，我俩很投缘。他是我遇到的第一个比我更懂电子知识的人，他大概比我大五岁，我很喜欢他。他因为制造恶作剧被大学开除，刚刚回到父母家，正在修大专的结业课程，我们成了最要好的朋友，开始一起做项目。
当时《Esquire》杂志报道有个叫Captain Crunch的人，据说他有办法打免费电话，你肯定也听说过，我们很好奇，怎么可能做到呢？多半是吹牛。我们开始泡图书馆，寻找打免费电话的秘密。一天晚上我们去了斯坦福线性加速中心，在科技图书馆角落的最后一排书架上，我们找到一份AT&T技术手册，揭开了所有的秘密。
我永远忘不了那一刻，我们看着这份手册，心想老天这一切都是真的，于是我们着手制作能够发出这种音频的装置。原理是这样的：我们打长途电话时会听到嘟嘟的声音，听起来像拨电话的按键音，只是频率不同，但可以模拟，实际上那是从一台计算机传到另一台计算机的信号，它可以控制交换机的工作。AT&T公司设计的数字电话网络有严重漏洞，他们使用与声音相同的频段来发送控制信号，也就是说只要你模拟出相同的音频信号，通过听筒发送出去，整个AT&T国际电话网就会把你当成一台AT&T计算机。
三周后我们做出了这样的一个装置，真的管用。我记得第一个电话想打给Woz住在洛杉矶的亲戚，我们拨错了号码，大半夜把某个家伙吵醒了，我们兴奋地冲他嚷嚷：打这个电话是免费的，对方一点也不感激我们，但这已经是奇迹了。
我们做出了这个称为“蓝盒子”的装置，盒底部贴着我们的logo，写着“世界握在手中”。这是世界上最好的“蓝盒子”，全数字化、简便易用。你可以拿着它去电话亭轻松拨打长途电话，打卫星电话去欧洲去土耳其，然后接有线电话打回亚特兰大；你可以满世界跑，跑五六趟，因为我们知道所有的交换密码；你可以给家门口的电话亭打电话，在家喊话，隔一会电话亭就能听到，真是奇妙。
你也许会问这样做有意思吗？它的意义在于虽然我们年纪还小，但已经意识到我们有能力做出控制庞大系统的工具，这就是我们得到的启发。我们两个人尽管懂得不多，但我们制造的小玩意可以控制庞然大物，这是不可思议的经历，没有“蓝盒子”就不会有苹果电脑。
Bob：Woz说你们给教皇打了电话？
乔布斯：没错，他冒充亨利·基辛格给教皇打电话。我们弄到梵蒂冈的电话号码，打电话给教皇，教会的重要人物逐个被叫醒，最后终于派人把教皇叫起来，要不是我们憋不住哈哈大笑起来，他们还真以为是基辛格。虽然没跟教皇通上话，但实在是搞笑。
Bob：你们是怎么从‘蓝盒子’想到做个人电脑的？
乔布斯：这很自然。当时MountainView有分时共享计算机，我们可以免费上机，但我们需要一个终端，买不起就自己动手设计制作，这个终端是我们的第一件作品，Apple I 乔布斯《遗失的访谈》中英双语字幕媒体来源：新浪公开课是这台终端的扩展。它用微处理器代替了后台主机，就像是把两个独立的项目整合在一起。一开始是做终端，然后才是Apple I，自己动手做完全是因为我们买不起。
我们四处收集零件，全部手工制作，做一台大概要40~80小时，那些小零件太难安装了。后来周围很多朋友也想要，虽然他们也能弄到零件，但他们不具备制作经验和技能，我们只好替他们做。这事占用了我们所有时间，于是我们想到制作印刷电路板，就是在镀铜的玻璃纤维板两面腐蚀出铜导线，采用印刷电路板，只要几小时就能做出一台Apple I。
我们打算把电路板以成本价卖给朋友，把钱赚回来，这样皆大欢喜，我们也可以休息休息。说干就干，我把大众Microbus卖了，Woz卖了他的计算器，我们凑够了钱，请朋友设计印刷电路板。电路板做出来后，卖了一部分给朋友，我想把剩下的也卖了，把Microbus和计算器赎回来。
我去了最早的计算机商店，Mountain View的字节商店，那时它藏在一家成人书店里。我见到了老板Paul，Paul说“我预订50套”，我说“太好了”，“但我要完全组装好的计算机”。
我们从没想过出售整机，不过还是答应了，何乐而不为呢？我花了好几天打电话联系电子元件批发商，告诉对方需要哪些零件，我们完全是摸着石头过河。我们打算买100套零件，做好后以两倍的成本价卖给字节商店50台，剩下50台就是我们的利润。我们说服批发商赊给我们零件，30天后还款，我俩就这样懵懵懂懂地拿到了零件。Apple I做好后，卖了50台给字节商店，第29天才收到账款，第30天正好付清赊零件的钱。
我们就这样做起了生意，不过也碰到利润危机。我们的利润不是现金，而是堆在角落的50台电脑，我们不得不考虑如何实现利润，我们想继续寻找批发商，是不是还有其他计算机商店？我们打电话给全国的计算机商店，就这样做起了生意。
Bob：苹果的第三位创始人是英特尔前高管Mike(迈克·马库拉，曾任苹果CEO、董事长)，他是怎么入伙的？
乔布斯：当时我们正在设计Apple II，对它充满了期待，Woz希望增加彩色图形界面，我希望……当时有一大群硬件爱好者，他们自己组装电脑，或者用我们的主板，自己安装电源、键盘等等。还有许多人是软件爱好者，只想写程序，就像我10岁刚刚接触计算机那样。所以我希望Apple II成为第一款功能齐备的个人电脑，就算你不懂硬件也能轻松使用，这就是我们对Apple II的基本设想。
我找到设计师，设计了所有细节，我们还打算使用塑料机身，什么都想好了，可我们资金不足，还缺几万美元，于是我开始寻找风险投资。我找到Don Valentine，他还来参观了我的车库，他说我看起来像人类的叛逆者，这话成了他的名言。虽然他不打算投资，但推荐了几个人给我，其中就有Mike Markkula，于是我约了Mike。
Mike以前是英特尔的产品经理，他大概30岁离开英特尔，手里有英特尔的股票，他靠股票期权赚了一百多万，当时非常富有，他在家投资石油、天然气之类的生意，我感觉他想干一番大事业。我俩聊得很投机，最后Mike答应投资，我说我们不光要钱，还希望你入伙，于是Mike成了我们的合作伙伴。他不仅投资，还参与创业，我们就这样起步了。
我们拿出Apple II的设计，召开新闻发布会，几个月后Apple II首次在西海岸计算机展览会上露面。——“情况怎么样？”——妙不可言，当时西海岸展览会规模不大，但我们觉得已经很大了，我们在展台上用投影展示Apple II和图形界面，现在看有些简单，但当时是PC上最先进的图形界面，我们出尽了风头，批发商和经销商蜂拥而至，进展非常顺利。
二、如何学会“做生意”：多问为什么
Bob：当时你多大？
乔布斯：21岁。
Bob：21岁就这么大成功，可你从来没有这方面的经验，完全是凭直觉，你是怎么学会管理公司的？
乔布斯：在生意场多年，我发现一个现象。我做事前总问为什么，可得到答案永远是“我们向来这样做”，没人反思为什么这么做。
我给你举个例子，我们在车库里组装Apple I时，成本算得清清楚楚，可工厂生产Apple II时，财务部门用的是标准成本，每个季度估算标准成本，然后根据实际情况调整。于是我不断追问，为什么要这样做？得到的答复是，这是一贯的做法，6个月后我发现其实是因为无法精确计算成本，所以只能先估算，然后进行修正，根本原因是信息管理系统不够完善，但没人承认这一点。
后来设计Macintosh的自动化工厂，我们抛开这些陋习，做到了精确控制所有成本。生意场上有很多约定俗成的规定，我称为陈规陋习，因为以前这样做，所以就一直这样做下去。所以只要你多提问多思考，脚踏实地工作，你很快就能的学会经商，这不是什么难事。
Bob：不是什么深奥的技术？
乔布斯：不是。
Bob：最早接触HP1900时，你谈到自己编程的事，都是些什么样的程序？用途是什么？
乔布斯：我举个简单的例子，我们设计“蓝盒子”时，写了很多程序，用来处理繁琐的计算工作，计算主频、分频之类的东西，还计算不同频率的差错率和容错性，编程可以帮助我们完成工作，它没有明确的实用性，重要的是我们把它看作思考的镜子，学习如何思考，我认为学习思考最大的价值在于……
所有美国人都应该学习编程，学习一门编程语言，学习编程教你如何思考，就像学法律一样。学法律的人未必都成为律师，但法律教你一种思考方式。同样，编程教你另一种思考方式，所以我把计算机科学看成基础教育，是每个人都应该花一年时间学习的课程。
Bob：我学了APL，很明显它丰富了我的人生。
乔布斯：你有没有觉得它教给你独特的思考方式？
Bob：其他语言也许更明显些，我最先学的APL。显然Apple II很成功，公司飞速发展，成功上市，你们都成了富翁，富有的感觉如何？
乔布斯：很有趣，我23岁拥有超过100万美元的财产，24岁超过了一千万，25岁超过了一亿。但这不重要，我不是冲着钱去的。钱允许你做想做的事，钱让你实现那些短期内看不到效益的创意，但钱不是最重要的，重要的是公司、人才、产品，是产品带给客户的价值。所以我不太看重金钱，我从不出售苹果的股票，我相信公司会发展得越来越好。
Bob：1979年乔布斯第一次拜访施乐PaloAlto研究中心，在PC成形之初，Palo Alto研究中心起到了关键作用。
乔布斯：同事一直怂恿我去施乐公司，看看他们在做什么，于是我去了。对方非常友好地展示了他们的研究，他们展示了三个项目，但我完全被第一个项目吸引了，另两个没怎么看。我记得有一个项目是面向对象编程，我没怎么看；还有一个是计算机网络系统，当时他们已经有上百台联网的电脑，可以互发email，也没有吸引我。
吸引我的是图形用户界面，那是我见过的最漂亮的东西，虽然现在看来它还很粗糙，有瑕疵，但是当时我们还看不出来，这个创意太棒了，他们做得很好。很快我就意识到所有计算机都应该变成这样，我们可以争论要多久后能现实、谁会是最后的赢家，但是没人会质疑图形界面是必然的发展方向，如果你当时在场，你也会这样想的。
Bob：Paul Allen(微软联合创始人保罗·艾伦)也说过同样的话，真有趣。
乔布斯：是的，显而易见。
Bob：听说你去参观了两次，第二次你带了些人去，对方是不是让你们坐了冷板凳？
乔布斯：没有。
Bob：她说她负责向你们展示的图形界面，起先她拒绝展示，大约僵持了3个钟头。这期间对方只好先带你们参观其他的项目。
乔布斯：你是说他们不太乐意让我们参观？这个我一点不知道，没印象了。
Bob：看来对方掩饰得很巧妙。
乔布斯：是的，不过他们还是让我们参观了，还好他们让我们参观了，因为施乐后来被拖垮了。
三、科技公司衰落的原因：产品不再主导，人才因循守旧
Bob：为什么施乐垮了？
乔布斯：我一直在思考这个问题。认识Sculley以后，我现在有了清晰的答案(编者注：约翰·斯考利，前百事可乐CEO，被乔布斯那句著名的“想卖糖水还是想改变世界”请到苹果当CEO)。就像Sculley一样，他以前在百事可乐工作，他们的产品可以数十年不变，顶多更换一下可乐瓶子，所以产品部门的人说话没什么份量。
在百事公司谁最有发言权？是营销部门的人，他们很容易升职从而掌管公司。对百事来说，这不是件坏事，问题是垄断科技公司也有这种情况，比如IBM和施乐，即便IBM和施乐的产品经理能做出更棒的产品，那又怎么样？这些已经垄断市场的公司很难再提高业绩，要想提高业绩还得依靠营销部门，于是他们逐渐控制公司，而产品部门的人被边缘化，公司就丧失了打造优秀的产品热情和能力。产品部门的功臣慢慢被不懂产品的人排挤，后者通常缺少研发产品的技术和能力，而且也并非打心底愿意替客户解决问题。
施乐公司就是这样。施乐研究院的人私底下把管理层叫做墨粉脑袋，而这些管理人员完全不明白为什么被嘲笑。
Bob：观众可能不清楚墨粉是什么？
乔布斯：就是复印机里用的墨粉。
Bob：那种黑色的东西？
乔布斯：是的，这些墨粉脑袋压根不知道计算机能做什么，他们不过是碰巧赶上了计算机产业的顺风车。施乐本来有机会把规模扩大10倍，独占整个行业，就像90年代的IBM或微软，不过都已经过去了，不重要了。
Bob：确实，你提到IBM，IBM进入PC市场是不是对苹果构成了威胁？
乔布斯：那当然，苹果当时的市值只有10亿，而IBM大约是300亿，确实让人胆寒，尽管IBM的第一款产品十分糟糕，但我们太轻敌了，我们忽略了很多人的利益与IBM捆绑在一起，如果没有这些帮助，IBM早就输了。IBM的确很高明，它建立了强大的同盟阵营，终于救了它一命。
Bob：你从施乐研究中心找到了灵感，如何付诸行动呢？
乔布斯：马上召集身边的骨干来实现这个创意，问题是从惠普跳槽来的几个人不理解图形界面，我跟他们大吵过几次。他们觉得图形界面就是在屏幕下方加上几个按钮，完全不明白比例字体和鼠标的重要性。我记得他们和我争执不下，冲我大嚷大叫，说什么研发鼠标至少要5年，成本不会低于300美元，把我搞烦了。我找到David Kelly设计公司，对方90天后设计出了质量稳定的鼠标，成本只要15美元。
我这才发现苹果没有足够人才来实现这个创意，核心团队有这个能力，但是许多从惠普跳槽来的员工不行。
Bob：这涉及到职业分工的问题，每个人特长不同，不是吗？
乔布斯：不，这不是擅长与否的问题，而是他们犯糊涂，公司在犯糊涂。公司规模扩大之后，就会变得因循守旧，他们觉得只要遵守流程，就能奇迹般地继续成功，于是开始推行严格的流程制度，很快员工就把遵守流程和纪律当作工作本身。
IBM就是这样走下坡路的，IBM的员工是世界上最守纪律的，他们恰恰忽略了产品。苹果也有这个问题，我们有很多擅长管理流程的人才，但是他们忽略了产品本身。
经验告诉我，优秀的人才是那些一心想着产品的人，虽然这些人很难管理，但是我宁愿和他们一起工作，光靠流程和制度做不出好产品。苹果也有这方面的问题，这些问题最终导致Lisa电脑失败。
Lisa是一款非常超前的产品，但是它过于超前了，以致偏离了产品的宗旨。在这些从惠普跳槽来的人眼里，1万美元的零售价不贵，但是市场和经销商觉得这个价格太离谱了，Lisa的定位彻底背离了苹果的企业文化，背离了公司的形象，也背离了经销商与消费者的期待，苹果的老顾客根本买不起这么贵的产品，所以它失败了。
Bob：就如同你同John Couch对领导权的争夺一般？
乔布斯：是的，我输了。
Bob：为什么会起争执？
乔布斯：我认为Lisa当时面临困境，而且越陷越深，我没能争取到大多数高管的支持，所以我也无能为力，只能服从团队的决定。我失败了，那段时间我很消沉，但我很快意识到如果不振作起来，Apple II会重蹈覆辙，应该尽快利用这些新技术，否则苹果将止步不前。所以我组织了一个小组研发Macintosh，就像是奉了上帝的旨意来拯救苹果，其他人并不这样想，但事实证明我们做的没错。
在研发Mac的过程中，我越发觉得我们是在重建苹果。我们大刀阔斧地改革，重新设计了生产线；我去日本参观了大约80家自动化工厂，回加州建了世界上第一条生产计算机的自动生产线；我们采购了1万6千颗最先进的微处理器，由于数采购量大，价格不到Lisa的1/5。我们打算把Macintosh打造成一款平价产品，可惜没成功，原定价格是2000美元，最终价格是2500美元，这款产品花了我们4年时间，搭建了自动化工厂和生产线，采用了全新的销售渠道和营销方法，我觉得我们干得很出色。
四、什么对产品最重要：创意的具体实现、团队人才碰撞
Bob：是你在鞭策这个团队，引导他们……
乔布斯：团队是我们建立的。
Bob：你建立了团队，而且负责鞭策和引导它，我们采访过很多Macintosh团队成员，他们都提到你的工作热情和独特的想法，你如何处理工作的轻重缓急，你觉得什么对产品最重要？
乔布斯：(思考很久)我离开苹果以后，发生了一件几乎毁掉苹果的事。Sculley有个严重的毛病，我在其他人身上也见到过，就是盲目乐观，以为光凭创意就能取得成功，他觉得只要想到绝妙的主意，公司就一定可以实现。
问题在于，优秀的创意与产品之间隔着巨大的鸿沟，实现创意的过程中，想法会变化甚至变得面目全非，因为你会发现新东西，思考也更深入。你不得不一次次权衡利弊，做出让步和调整，总有些问题是电子设备解决不了的，是塑料、玻璃材料无法实现的，或者是工厂和机器人做不到的。设计一款产品，你得把五千多个问题装进脑子里，必须仔细梳理，尝试各种组合，才能获得想要的结果。每天都会发现新问题，也会产生新灵感。这个过程很重要，无论开始时有多少绝妙的主意。
我一直觉得团队的合作就像是……我小时候，街上住着一位独居老人，他大概80岁，看上去凶巴巴的，我认识他，我想让他雇我帮他修剪草坪。有一天他说“到我车库来，我给你看点东西”，他拖出一台布满灰尘的磨石机，一边是马达，一边是研磨罐，用皮带连着。他说“跟我来”，我们到屋后捡了些很普通的石头，我们把石头倒进研磨罐，加上溶剂和沙砾，他盖好盖子，开动电机，对我说“明天再来”。磨石机开始研磨石头。第二天我又去了，我们打开罐子，看到了打磨得异常圆润美丽的石头，看上去普普通通的石头就像这样互相磨擦着，互相碰撞，发出噪音，最终变成了光滑美丽的石头。
我一直用这件事比喻竭尽全力工作的团队。正是通过团队合作，通过这些精英的相互碰撞，通过辩论、对抗、争吵、合作，相互打磨，磨砺彼此的想法，才能创造出美丽的“石头”。这很难解释，但显然这并不是某个人的成就。人们喜欢偶像，大家只关注我，但为Mac奋斗的是整个团队。
我以前在苹果就发现一种现象，很难表达出来，更像是一种感觉：生活中多数东西，最好与普通之间的差距不超过两倍。好比说纽约的出租车司机，最棒的司机与普通司机之间的差距大概是30%，最好与普通之间的差距有多大呢？20%？最棒的CD机与普通CD机的差距有多大？20%？这种差距很少超过两倍。但是在软件行业，还有硬件行业，这种差距有可能超过15倍，甚至100倍。这种现象很罕见。能进入这个行业，我感到很幸运。
我成功得益于发现了许多才华横溢，不甘平庸的人才。而且我发现只要召集到五个这样的人，他们就会喜欢上彼此合作的感觉，前所未有的感觉，他们会不愿再与平庸者合作，只招聘一样优秀的人。所以你只要找到几个精英，他们就会自己扩大团队。Mac团队就是这样，大家才华横溢，都很优秀。
Bob：但是有人说他们再也不愿意为你工作了。
乔布斯：呃，的确，大多数人认为那是他们这辈子最辛苦的日子，有些人觉得那是一生中最幸福的日子，但是没人否认那是这辈子最难忘、最珍贵的经历。
Bob：没错。
乔布斯：只是有些人无法长时间忍受这样的工作。
Bob：你说别人“工作很烂”时，想表达什么？
乔布斯：嗯……就是他们干得很烂。有时是我认为你干得很烂，也许我错了。一般是说他们的工作很不合格。
Bob：Bill Atkinson说这话的真正含义是‘我听不懂，请再解释一遍’。
乔布斯：哈哈，不是的，我不是这个意思。与优秀自信的人合作，不用太在乎他们的自尊。大家的心思都放在工作上，每个人负责一块很具体的任务。如果他们的工作不合格，你要做的无非是提醒他们，清晰明了地提醒他们恢复工作状态，同时不能让对方怀疑你的权威性。要用无可置疑的方式告诉他们工作不合格，这很不容易，所以我总是采取最直截了当的方式。有些同事觉得这种方式很好，但有些人接受不了。
我是那种只想成功，不在乎是非的人，所以无论我原来的想法多么顽固，只要反驳的人拿出可信的事实，五分钟内我就会改变观点。我就是这样，不怕犯错。我经常承认错误，没什么大不了的，我只在乎结果。
Bob：苹果为什么研发桌面排版，Mac最受欢迎的应用？
乔布斯：我们是全美第一个试用佳能激光打印引擎的公司，早在惠普和Adobe之前，我们就已经把它用在Lisa上了。后来我听说有人在施乐的车库里捣腾类似的玩意，我去参观，发现他们比我们做得更好，他们打算成立一家硬件公司，生产打印机。我劝他们成立一家软件公司，就是Adobe。
两三周后我撤消了苹果内部的桌面出版项目，有些人恨死我了，但还是撤消了。苹果和Adobe达成协议，买下了他们19.9%的股份，然后买下佳能的激光打印引擎，自己开发驱动软件，接着从Adobe购买排版软件，激光打印机就这样面市了。
除了Mac团队，公司其他人都不看好激光打印机，他们觉得一台打印机定价7000美元太贵，可他们忘了客户可以通过Apple Talk共享打印机，虽然他们知道这项功能，但看不到它的潜力，毕竟他们对Lisa电脑糟糕的市场表现记忆犹新。
我们坚持上马打印机项目，得罪了不少人，第一台激光打印机就这样面市了。我离开时，苹果是世界上最大的激光打印机公司，只过了三四年惠普就追上来了，真可惜。
Bob：你预见到桌面出版的前景吗，还是显而易见的？
乔布斯：是的，我预见到了，但是我们同时还想推广网络办公，所以1995年发布新产品时，我犯了这辈子最大的营销错误。
Bob：是1985年。
乔布斯：1985年，对不起。我们发布了Macintosh Office办公系统，其中包括桌面出版。当时应该集中力量推桌面出版，而不是所有功能一拥而上。
五、被逐出苹果的往事
Bob：1985年被CEO JohnSculley排挤，离开了苹果。说说你离开苹果的情况？
乔布斯：很痛苦，我都不太愿意聊这事。怎么说呢？我招错了人。
Bob：是指Sculley?
乔布斯：是的，他毁了我十年的心血，他逼我离职，但这还不是最糟糕的。如果苹果能按我的设想发展，我会很开心。他侥幸登上了一艘正要发射的火箭，他还以为自己建造了火箭，轻率改变火箭的飞行轨道，结果是箭毁人亡。
Bob：可是在Macintosh时期，你俩总是一起出现在媒体上，几乎形影不离。
乔布斯：没错。
Bob：后来怎么会产生矛盾呢？
乔布斯：1984年底IT行业进入萧条期，销售业绩大幅下降，John开始惊慌失措。这时苹果公司正好群龙无首，各个部门的负责人都很强势，互不相让。我管理Macintosh部门，有人管理Apple II部门，还有些部门已经濒临关闭，比如存储部门。公司百废待兴，市场疲软又进一步激化了公司的内部矛盾，大家各自为阵。
董事会对公司业绩很不满意，John的职位岌岌可危。那时我才发现John有一种很强烈的自救本能，有人曾提醒我百事前总裁绝非善茬儿，他说得没错。John把一切问题都归咎到我头上，我们因此反目。董事会一向很信任John，所以我被扫地出门了。
Bob：你们对公司的发展有不同的看法？
乔布斯：是，也不是，因为John根本没有自己的看法。
Bob：我想问的是，你当时的愿景是什么？
乔布斯：这不是愿景的问题，而是执行的问题。我认为苹果应该有一位强势的领袖，团结各个部门，Mac才是苹果的未来，应该削减Apple II的项目开支，加大对Mac的投资力度。John的愿景是不惜一切代价保住他的CEO位置。1985年苹果处在一种瘫痪的状态，我那时才30岁，觉得自己没有能力打理苹果。我担心自己无法管理20亿资产的公司，可惜John也没这个能力。总之他们说没有适合我的职位了，太悲剧了。
Bob：像是流放西伯利亚？
乔布斯：是的，他们完全可以让我留下的，我申请过成立研发部门，每年给我几百万预算，网罗优秀人才干一番大事业。他们拒绝了我的申请。
Bob：真可惜。
乔布斯：我被赶出自己的办公室，再聊下去我会发狂的，但这还不是最糟的，毕竟公司是大家的，不是我的，最糟糕的是苹果的企业文化在随后几年里被毁了。
Bob：(补充旁白)接着我问他怎么看苹果的现状。请注意当时是1995年，是他重返苹果的前一年，苹果收购NeXT之后，他马上卖掉了到手的苹果股票。
乔布斯：苹果正在衰落，非常痛苦地衰落，原因在于……我离开时，苹果领先业界整整10年，微软10年后才赶上我们，他们能赶上来是因为苹果止步不前。今天的Macintosh与10年前的几乎没有区别。苹果每年的研发费用数千万，累计已经超过50亿，有什么效果？我没看到。
他们不懂如何利用新技术，不懂如何创造新产品，优秀的员工被困在公司里，束手无策。因为缺少有眼光的管理者，所以苹果在各个方面都落后了，包括市场份额，产品的优势已经被微软赶超，现在只剩下一群老用户，而且数量在缓慢递减。老用户带来的收益还能再撑几年，但是逐年减少，很糟糕，而且我现在看不到挽回的希望。
六、工作的动力：追求极致，人类才能共同进步
Bob：你觉得微软怎么样？它的处境有点像福特，肯定不是凯迪拉克，也不是宝马，他们干得怎么样？
乔布斯：微软起家全靠了IBM，比尔听我这么说会很生气，但这是事实。比尔和微软抓住了机会，创造成了更多机会，人们忘了微软在1984年之前根本不做应用软件，那时是Lotus的天下。微软确实很有胆量，冒险为Mac编写应用程序。刚开始他们的应用程序非常糟，但他们不断改进，最终占领了Mac的应用市场，然后借助Windows这块跳板，打开了PC市场的大门。
现在他们已经占领了PC市场，我觉得他们有两大优势：首先，擅长扑捉机会；其次，像日本人一样锲而不舍。他们起家全靠跟IBM合作，但是他们很擅长利用机会，这一点我很佩服。微软唯一的问题是没品位，完全没有品位可言，只会一味模仿，产品缺少文化和内涵。为什么这很重要？比例字体的灵感来自字体设计和精美书籍，如果没有Mac，微软永远不会想到这些。
让我难过的并非微软的成功，我一点不嫉妒他们，他们的成功基本上是靠勤奋工作换来的。我难过的是他们做的是三流产品，他们的产品没有灵魂和魅力，太平庸，更让人难过的是用户居然毫无察觉。但人活着是要追求极致，并分享给同类的，这样人类才能共同进步，学会欣赏更美的东西。微软不过是另一个麦当劳，这才是我难过的原因，不是因为微软赢了，而是因为微软的产品缺少创意。
Bob：你打算改变这种局面吗？NeXT有什么计划？
乔布斯：暂时没有。NeXT太小了，我只能眼睁睁看着，无能为力。
Bob：(补充旁白)接着我们聊到乔布斯正在经营的NeXT公司。NeXT被苹果收购后，很快成为Mac OS 10的研发主力。
乔布斯：你大概没兴趣听我聊NeXT吧？
Bob：我想听。
乔布斯：好吧，我直接说NeXT目前在做什么吧。很显然，计算机产业创新要靠软件，但是长久以来，软件开发方式没有本质变化，对不起，软件开发方式20年来一直没有变化。不但没有变化，反而越来越糟。Macintosh降低了用户的使用难度，这是一项创举，但增加了程序员的工作难度，软件开发越来越复杂。
软件正在向各行各业渗透，成为重要的商业竞争武器。MCI与AT&T十年来的竞争是就是最好的例证，MCI做了什么？不过是率先采用客户账单软件，18个月内就抢走了AT&T数百万美元的市场份额。AT&T并非毫不知情，可就是搞不定软件。软件正在释放不可思议的力量，新的软件产品和软件服务将改变我们的社会。
我们借鉴了施乐PARC的另一项研究成果，也是1979年看到的，当时只了解一点皮毛，这项研究叫面向对象编程。NeXT已经将其商业化，成为最大的供应商，它可以将软件开发速度提高十倍，而且质量更好。这就是NeXT目前做的事，公司有300人，资产是5000~7500万美元。
Bob：第四频道要求三期节目结束前请嘉宾展望一下未来，你怎么看未来10年的技术发展趋势？
乔布斯：我看好互联网和Web。软件行业正在发生两件激动人心的事：一个是面向对象编程，另一个就是Web。Web将实现我们盼望已久的梦想，计算机不再仅仅充当计算工具，开始承担通信功能。可喜的是微软还没发现这一点。
创新的机会很多，Web将深刻改变我们的社会。你知道美国有15%的商品是通过电视购物销售的，电视购物很快会被Web取代。网络销售的潜力巨大，网络将成为最直接的销售渠道，而且在网络上小公司与大公司看起来没有区别。如果将来回顾计算机发展历史，Web技术必然成为重要的里程碑，它的潜力很大，会吸引更多年轻人进入计算机行业。
Bob：你们正在开发……
乔布斯：不仅是我们，Web为IT行业开启了新的大门。
Bob：放在5年之前，谁能想象得到呢？
乔布斯：没错，多么奇妙的行业呀！
Bob：(补充旁白)我很想知道他的工作热情来自哪里？是什么在激励他？
乔布斯：我小时候读过《科学美国人》杂志的一篇文章，杂志比较了地球上不同物种的移动效率，比如熊、猩猩、浣熊、鸟类、鱼类等，计算它们每移动一公里消耗的热量，还有人类。最后秃鹫赢了，它的移动效率最高，作为万物之灵的人类，排在倒数第几位。但是杂志特地测量了人类骑自行车的效率，结果把秃鹫远远甩在了身后，在排名上遥遥领先。这篇文章给我留下了深刻的印象，人类擅长发明工具，工具赋予我们奇妙的能力。
苹果以前有一条广告：计算机是思想的自行车。我坚信如果将来回顾人类历史，计算机将是人类最伟大的发明之一，我觉得自己非常幸运，在硅谷参与这项发明。这就好比画几何向量，开始时失之毫厘，结果会谬以千里，我们刚刚起步，只要找对方向，以后就会非常顺利，我们已经尝试了几次，结果让人非常满意。
Bob：你怎么知道哪个方向是正确的？
乔布斯：最终得由你的品味来决定。你要熟悉人类在各种领域的优秀成果，尝试把它们运用到你的工作里。毕加索说过：拙工抄，巧匠盗。我从来不觉得借鉴别人的创意可耻。
Macintosh团队里有音乐家，有诗人、艺术家、动物学家、历史学家，这些人也懂计算机，所以Macintosh才这么出色。如果没有计算机，他们也会在其他领域造创奇迹。大家各自贡献自己的专业知识，Macintosh因此吸收了各个领域的优秀成果，否则的话，它很可能是一款非常狭隘的产品。
Bob：最后我问一个规定问题：你是嬉皮士，还是书呆子？
乔布斯：如果必须二选一的话，我肯定是嬉皮士，我所有的同事都属于嬉皮士。
Bob：真的吗？
乔布斯：是的。
Bob：为什么？你有意招聘嬉皮士吗？他们吸引你？
乔布斯：你觉得什么是嬉皮士？不同的人有不同的理解，但是对我来说，60~70年代的嬉皮士运动给我留下了深刻印象，有些活动就是在我家后院举行的，嬉皮士运动启发了我。
有些东西是超越日常忙碌琐碎的生活的。生活不仅仅是工作、家庭、财产、职业，它更丰富，就像硬币还有另一面。虽然大家嘴上不说，但在生活的间隙，尤其是在不如意的时候，我们都能感受到某种冲动，许多人想找回生活的意义。有人去流浪，有人在印度神秘仪式里寻找答案。
嬉皮士运动大概就是这样，他们想寻找生活的真相，生活不应该是父母过的那样。当然，后来运动变得太极端了，但是他们的出发点是可贵的。正是因为这种精神，有人宁愿当诗人也不愿做银行家。
我很欣赏这种精神，我想把这种精神溶入产品里，只要用户使用产品，就能感受到这种精神。Macintosh的用户真心喜欢我们的产品，在此之前，你很少听人说真心喜欢商业产品，但你可以从Macintosh感受到某种奇妙的东西，我觉得优秀的同事都不是为了计算机而工作，而是因为计算机是传达某种情感的最佳媒介。他们渴望分享，你理解吗？
Bob：当然。
乔布斯：如果没有计算机，我们可能会从事其他行业，是计算机让我们这些从小接触它的人走到了一起，计算机就是我传达情感的媒介。
结语：
采访结束一年后(1996年)，Steve将NeXT出售给苹果。在苹果即将破产之际，乔布斯重新掌管了公司，随后展开了美国商业史上绝无仅有的拯救行动，随着iMac、iPod、iTunes、iPhone、iPad等创新产品的推出，乔布斯将一家濒临破产的企业改造成全美最有价值的公司。
正如他在采访中所言，他追求极致，分享给同类，这样人类才能共同进步。