Steve Jobs: The Lost 1995 Interview

First Computer Encounter at Age 10-11

Jobs first saw a computer at NASA Ames Research Center as a time-sharing terminal—a teletype printer with a keyboard. Writing a program in BASIC or FORTRAN and seeing the machine execute his ideas was thrilling; the computer remained mysterious because he never saw the actual machine itself, only its output.

Bill Hewlett's Mentorship at Age 12

Jobs called Bill Hewlett directly from the phone book at age 12, asked for spare parts for a frequency counter, and received both the parts and a summer job at Hewlett-Packard. This experience shaped his understanding of company culture and employee treatment.

The HP 9100: First Desktop Computer

At Hewlett-Packard's Palo Alto Research Labs, Jobs encountered the HP 9100, a self-contained desktop computer about the size of a suitcase with a cathode ray tube display. He spent hours programming it in BASIC and APL, falling in love with the machine.

Meeting Steve Wozniak

Jobs met Wozniak around age 14-15; Wozniak was about 5 years older and the first person Jobs knew who understood electronics better than he did. They became fast friends and started doing projects together.

The Captain Crunch Discovery

Jobs and Wozniak read about Captain Crunch in Esquire magazine and became obsessed with understanding how free phone calls were possible. They found an AT&T technical journal in Stanford Linear Accelerator Center's library that revealed the secret: the telephone network used the same frequency band for computer signaling as for voice.

Building the Blue Box

Jobs and Wozniak built a device that could generate the tones used by AT&T computers to control the phone network. After three weeks of work, they created the best blue box in the world—all digital with no adjustments needed. They could route calls around the world through satellites and cables.

The Papal Call Prank

Jobs and Wozniak called the Vatican, with Wozniak pretending to be Henry Kissinger. They woke up Vatican officials and cardinals before bursting out laughing, revealing they were not Kissinger. They never actually spoke to the Pope.

The Core Lesson of Blue Boxing

The key insight from blue boxing was that two young people could build a small device that controlled billions of dollars worth of infrastructure. This taught Jobs that you don't need to be part of the establishment to influence giant systems—a lesson he believes was foundational to Apple's existence.

Building the First Terminal

Jobs and Wozniak needed a terminal to access free time-sharing computers but couldn't afford one, so they designed and built their own. This terminal became the foundation for the Apple I—essentially a microprocessor added to the back end of their terminal design.

Hand-Building Apple I Computers

Jobs and Wozniak built Apple I computers by hand in the garage, each taking 40 to 80 hours to construct. Friends wanted to build them too but lacked the skills, so Jobs and Wozniak helped them. The duo decided to create printed circuit boards to reduce build time and enable mass production.

Time to build one Apple I computer

Funding the First Production Run

Jobs sold his Volkswagen bus and Wozniak sold his calculator to pay a friend to create printed circuit board artwork. They then convinced electronics distributors to provide parts on net-30 credit, built 50 units, sold them to the Byte Shop in Palo Alto for twice the cost, and paid off the distributors in 29 days.

The Byte Shop Sale

Paul Terrell at the Byte Shop in Mountain View agreed to buy 50 fully assembled Apple I computers—the first time Jobs and Wozniak had considered selling assembled units rather than just circuit boards. This order forced them to think about distribution and scaling.

Wozniak's Vision for Apple II

Wozniak wanted to add color and graphics to the Apple II. Jobs' vision was different: he recognized that for every hardware hobbyist who could assemble a computer, there were a thousand people who wanted to program but couldn't build hardware. He wanted to create the first fully packaged personal computer.

Mike Markkula's Investment and Partnership

Jobs sought venture capital for tooling costs and met Mike Markkula, a retired Intel executive who had made about a million dollars on stock options. After initial hesitation, Jobs convinced Markkula not just to invest money but to join as an equal partner. Markkula brought business expertise and credibility.

West Coast Computer Fair Launch

Jobs, Wozniak, and Markkula announced the Apple II at the West Coast Computer Fair with a projection television displaying the computer's graphics—the most advanced graphics on any personal computer at the time. They stole the show and dealers and distributors lined up to buy.

Jobs' Age and Success at Launch

Jobs was 21 years old when Apple II launched and became a major success. He had no formal business training but learned quickly by questioning why things were done a certain way and discovering that most business practices were folklore rather than logical necessity.

21

Steve's age at Apple II launch

Jobs' age when Apple II became a major commercial success

Rapid Wealth Accumulation

Jobs became worth over a million dollars at age 23, over $10 million at 24, and over $100 million at 25. However, he emphasizes that money was never the primary motivation—the company, people, and products mattered far more. He never sold any stock, believing the company would do well long-term.

Steve Jobs' net worth by age

Money as Enabler, Not Goal

Jobs views money as wonderful because it enables investment in ideas without short-term payback requirements. At that point in his life, however, the company, people, and products were far more important than personal wealth.

The Three Xerox Innovations

Colleagues urged Jobs to visit Xerox Palo Alto Research Center in 1979. Xerox showed him three things: object-oriented programming, networked computers with email, and the graphical user interface (GUI). Jobs was so captivated by the GUI that he barely noticed the other two innovations.

What Jobs saw at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (1979)

The Inevitability of GUI

Within 10 minutes of seeing the GUI, Jobs knew that all computers would eventually work this way. The technology was flawed and incomplete, but the core idea was obvious and inevitable. Paul Allen (Microsoft co-founder) used the exact same words to describe his reaction.

Why Xerox Failed to Capitalize

Xerox had a monopoly in copiers, so sales and marketing people—not product people—ran the company and got promoted. When product people made better products, the company didn't become more successful because of the monopoly. This meant product sensibility rotted out, and leadership couldn't recognize the value of the GUI. Xerox employees called leadership 'toner heads' because they understood copiers but not computers.

The Lisa Failure

Jobs wanted to build a packaged computer using the GUI, but the Lisa project went in the wrong direction. It was priced at $10,000—impossible for Apple's distribution channels and customer base. The Lisa had moments of brilliance but was far ahead of its time and a complete mismatch for Apple's culture and market. Jobs lost the internal battle over Lisa's direction.

$10,000

Lisa's price point

Lisa was too expensive for Apple's market and distribution channels

Forming the Macintosh Team

After losing the Lisa battle, Jobs realized the Apple II was running out of gas and Apple might cease to exist. He formed a small team on a mission to save Apple with the Macintosh. The team was composed entirely of A-players—extraordinarily talented people who had never had the chance to work together before.

Reinventing Everything for Macintosh

The Macintosh project reinvented manufacturing, design, and distribution. Jobs visited 80 automated factories in Japan and built the world's first automated computer factory in California. The team negotiated a price for the 68000 microprocessor that was one-fifth of what Lisa paid by committing to higher volume. The goal was to sell Macintosh for $1,000, though it launched at $2,500.

Macintosh negotiated 1/5 the price of Lisa's microprocessor through volume commitment

The Gap Between Idea and Product

A great idea is only 90% of the work; the remaining 10% is craftsmanship—the tremendous amount of work to turn an idea into a product. As a product evolves, it changes and grows based on learning and trade-offs. Designing a product means keeping 5,000 concepts in your brain and fitting them together in new ways every day.

The Rock Tumbler Metaphor for Teams

Jobs describes a childhood memory of a man with a rock tumbler who put ugly rocks in with grit and liquid, and after the motor ran overnight, beautiful polished rocks emerged. This is his metaphor for a team of talented people working on something they're passionate about—through friction, arguments, and collaboration, they polish each other and the ideas, producing beautiful results.

The 50-to-1 Talent Ratio in Software

In most fields, the dynamic range between average and best is 2-to-1 (e.g., best taxi driver vs. average is maybe 30% faster). In software and early hardware, the difference between average and best is 50-to-1 or even 100-to-1. Jobs built his career on finding truly gifted A-players and refusing to settle for B and C players.

Dynamic range between average and best performance

Self-Policing A-Player Culture

When you assemble enough A-players, they enjoy working with each other because they've never had that opportunity before. They don't want to work with B and C players, so the culture becomes self-policing. A-players only want to hire more A-players, creating pockets of excellence that propagate.

The Cost of Excellence

Working on the Macintosh team was the hardest work many people had ever done. Some say it was the happiest time of their lives; all agree it was one of the most intense and cherished experiences. The intensity is not sustainable for everyone, but it produces extraordinary results.

Giving Direct Feedback on Work Quality

When Jobs tells someone their work isn't good enough, he means the specific work product is not meeting the team's goals—not that the person is incapable. He delivers this feedback clearly and directly without questioning the person's abilities, leaving no room for misinterpretation. Really good people appreciate this clarity because it helps them get back on track.

Apple's First Laser Printer Engine

Apple received the first Canon laser printer engine shipped to the United States and had it hooked up to the Lisa before anyone else, including Hewlett-Packard. However, Jobs learned that some people in a garage (later Adobe) were doing better work and wanted to become a hardware printer company.

Convincing Adobe to Stay Software-Focused

Jobs convinced Adobe to remain a software company rather than become a hardware printer manufacturer. Within two or three weeks, Apple cancelled its internal printer project (despite internal resistance) and cut a deal with Adobe. Apple bought 19.9% of Adobe for financing and control purposes.

The LaserWriter Launch

Apple introduced the LaserWriter, the first laser printer on the market, at $7,000. Most of the company thought a $7,000 printer was crazy because the last expensive thing they tried to sell was the Lisa. Jobs pushed it through despite resistance. The printer used AppleTalk networking, allowing multiple computers to share it.

$7,000

LaserWriter price

First laser printer on the market, enabled desktop publishing

Apple Becomes the World's Largest Printer Company

When Jobs left Apple, it was the largest printer company in the world by revenue. It lost this distinction to Hewlett-Packard about 3-4 years after Jobs' departure. Desktop publishing became the Macintosh's killer app.

Marketing Misstep: Macintosh Office

In January 1985, Jobs announced the 'Macintosh Office' instead of focusing solely on desktop publishing. While desktop publishing was a major component, the broader announcement included networking and other products. Jobs later reflects this was probably the largest marketing blunder of his career—they should have focused exclusively on desktop publishing.

The Recession and Leadership Vacuum

In late 1984, the industry entered a recession and sales contracted seriously. John Scully, Apple's CEO, didn't know what to do and created a leadership vacuum. Strong division managers (including Jobs running Macintosh) had competing visions, and problems accumulated in a pressure cooker environment.

Scully's Survival Instinct

The board was unhappy with Scully and he was probably not long for the company. Scully had a strong survival instinct from his PepsiCo days and decided to make Jobs the root of Apple's problems. Scully had cultivated a close relationship with the board, so they believed him.

Jobs' Vision vs. Scully's Survival

Jobs believed Apple needed much stronger leadership to unite divisions, that Macintosh was the future, and that Apple needed to dramatically reduce Apple II expenses while heavily investing in Macintosh. Scully's vision was simply to remain CEO of the company. Jobs was 30 years old and lacked experience running a $2 billion company; Scully lacked a product vision.

Forced Out with No Alternative

Jobs was told in no uncertain terms there was no job for him at Apple. He offered to start a research division with a few million dollars a year to hire great people and do the next great thing, but was rejected. His office was taken away. He describes the experience as very painful and emotional.

Apple's Glide Slope to Irrelevance

By 1995, Jobs observes that Apple is dying on a glide slope. When he left, Macintosh had a 10-year lead on the industry. Microsoft took 10 years to catch up, but Apple stood still. Despite spending hundreds of millions annually on R&D (probably over a billion total), Apple's understanding of how to move forward evaporated. Good people left because there was no leadership to bring them together.

Apple's competitive position

Loss of Differentiation

Apple's differentiation has been eroded by Microsoft. The company has an installed base that's not growing and slowly shrinking, which will provide good revenue for several years but represents a slow decline. Jobs believes this trajectory is not reversible at that point in time.

Microsoft's Rise via IBM

Microsoft's orbit was made possible by IBM as a Saturn 5 booster. Microsoft took a gamble writing applications for the Macintosh in the early 1980s when they weren't in the applications business (Lotus dominated). They made terrible applications initially but kept improving, eventually dominating the Mac application market. They then used Windows as a springboard to dominate PC applications.

Microsoft's Strengths and Weaknesses

Microsoft has two characteristics: they are strong opportunists and they persist like the Japanese, always coming back. However, they have absolutely no taste. They don't think of original ideas and don't bring culture into products. They are pedestrian—like McDonald's. Jobs is saddened not by Microsoft's success but by the fact that their products lack spirit, insight, and creativity.

The Software Revolution

The real innovation in the computer industry is happening in software. There hasn't been a revolution in how software is created in the last 20 years; in fact, it's gotten worse. While the Macintosh was a revolution for end users (making computers easier to use), it was the opposite for developers—software became much more complicated to write.

Object-Oriented Technology at NeXT

NeXT took object-oriented technology (one of the three innovations Jobs saw at Xerox Park in 1979 but didn't fully appreciate) and perfected and commercialized it. Object technology lets you build software 10 times faster and better. NeXT is the largest supplier of object technology to the market.

NeXT's Market Position

NeXT is a 50-75 million dollar company with about 300 people. It's a small to medium-sized business but the largest supplier of object-oriented technology. The company focuses on making software development faster and better through object technology.

300

NeXT employees

NeXT company size in 1995

Software as Competitive Weapon

Software is becoming one of the most potent competitive weapons in business. MCI's 'Friends and Family' billing software was a brilliant idea that AT&T couldn't respond to for 18 months, costing them billions in market share. Software is infiltrating everything and becoming a major enabler in society.

Two Exciting Developments in Software

Two things are exciting in software and computing: object-oriented technology and the web. The web is the fulfillment of the dream that computers would metamorphosize from computation devices into communication devices. It's exciting because Microsoft doesn't own it, so tremendous innovation is happening.

The Web's Economic Impact

About 15% of goods and services in the US are sold via catalogs and television. All of that will move to the web, plus billions and billions more—tens of billions of dollars in goods and services. The web is the ultimate direct-to-customer distribution channel where the smallest company can look as large as the largest company.

15%

US goods/services currently sold via catalogs and TV

All expected to move to the web, plus much more

The Web as Defining Technology

Looking back 10 years from 1995, the web will be the defining technology and defining social moment for computing. It will breathe new life into personal computing and be huge. It's obvious once it happens, but five years earlier, who would have guessed?

The Bicycle of the Mind

Jobs read an article in Scientific American measuring locomotion efficiency for various species. The condor was most efficient, humans were unimpressive—until someone tested a human on a bicycle, which blew away all other species. This inspired Apple's early ad: the personal computer is the bicycle of the mind. Humans are tool builders who dramatically amplify their innate abilities through tools.

Computers as Humanity's Greatest Tool

Jobs believes that of all human inventions, the computer will rank near the top as history unfolds. It is the most awesome tool humans have ever invented. He feels incredibly lucky to be in Silicon Valley at exactly the right historical moment when this invention took form. Small changes in direction at the beginning can have dramatic effects as the vector progresses.

Taste as the Guide

The question of what's the right direction ultimately comes down to taste. Taste comes from exposing yourself to the best things humans have done and bringing those into what you're doing. Picasso said 'good artists copy, great artists steal.' Jobs and his teams have always been shameless about stealing great ideas.

Liberal Arts in Technology

The Macintosh team included musicians, poets, artists, zoologists, and historians who also happened to be the best computer scientists in the world. They brought a liberal arts attitude, pulling in the best from other fields. If it hadn't been for computer science, these people would have done amazing things in other fields. This interdisciplinary approach is what made the Macintosh great.

Hippies vs. Nerds

Jobs identifies as a hippie rather than a nerd. The spark of the hippie movement was recognizing something beyond everyday life—beyond just job, family, cars, and career. There's another side to the coin that people experience in gaps when things aren't ordered and perfect. This same spirit that makes people want to be poets instead of bankers can be put into products that people sense and love.

Computers as a Medium for Expression

The best people Jobs has worked with didn't work with computers for their own sake; they worked with computers because it was the best medium to transmit a feeling they wanted to share with others. Before computers were invented, these people would have done other amazing things, but computers arrived and became the medium through which they could say something.

Computer Programming Teaches Thinking

Jobs believes everybody in the country should learn how to program a computer because it teaches you how to think. It's like going to law school—not everyone should be a lawyer, but law school teaches you to think in a certain way. Computer programming teaches thinking in a slightly different way. Jobs views computer science as a liberal art that everyone should study for a year.

The Mirror of Your Thought Process

The greatest value of learning to program is using the computer as a mirror of your thought process to learn how to think. When designing the blue box, Jobs and Wozniak used computers to do calculations and determine tolerances—but more importantly, they used computers to think through problems and learn.