Playboy Interview with Steven Jobs Circa 1985

http://www.playboy.co.uk/print/print-article/item77251/

by drey • 16 years ago

125 39 16 years ago

playboy.co.uk

mcav• 16 years ago

Interesting retrospective future-predicting-ish:

Playboy: More important, are you ignoring your potentially biggest rival, A.T.&T.?

Jobs: A.T.&T.. is absolutely going to be in the business. There is a major transformation in the company that's taking place right now. A.T.&T. is changing from a subsidized and regulated service-oriented company to a free-market, competitive-marketing technology company. A.T.&T.'s products per se have never been of the highest quality. All you have to do is go look at their telephones. They're somewhat of an embarrassment. But they do possess great technology in their research labs. Their challenge is to learn how to commercialize that technology. Also, they have to learn about consumer marketing. I think that they will do both of those things, but it's going to take them years.

---

and this:

Jobs: I'll always stay connected with Apple. I hope that throughout my life I'll sort of have the thread of my life and the thread of Apple weave in and out of each other, like a tapestry. There may be a few years when I'm not there, but I'll always come back.

CamperBob• 16 years ago

A.T.&T.'s products per se have never been of the highest quality. All you have to do is go look at their telephones. They're somewhat of an embarrassment

Huh. That's weird. AT&T phones were built like brick shithouses, for the most part. I wonder what model(s) he had in mind when he said that?

ma2rten• 16 years ago

He prolly meant in terms of design.

rradu• 16 years ago

Funny how much has changed in 25+ years, yet most of Steve's ideas are just as relevant today.

jackvalentine• 16 years ago

I love his answer to "Maybe we should pause and get your definition of what a computer is. How do they work?"

It would be really interesting to see how he would answer that question now.

joshes• 16 years ago

"At 1,000,000 per second, the results appear to be magic.

That's a simple explanation, and the point is that people really don't have to understand how computers work. Most people have no concept of how an automatic transmission works, yet they know how to drive a car. You don't have to study physics to understand the laws of motion to drive a car. You don't have to understand any of this stuff to use Macintosh--but you asked [laughs]."

Jobs has been on point for a while now; he's a man with ideals and beliefs about technology and its role in society. He has been on point with this message for literally decades and he has seen his ideas through to creation time and time again.

That's worthy of respect.

justinph• 16 years ago

Jesus, I never realized how on message the guy has been for 30 years. If you showed that 1985 Steve Jobs an iPhone, I don't know if he would be impressed or be nonplused and see it as some obvious progression that he's had in mind for a long time.

celoyd2• 16 years ago

His consistency seems really important to me, but it isn’t as remarked upon as, for example, his perfectionism.

When you look at Apple’s product timeline, you can see he’s always thinking several years ahead. Plenty of good products were just bridges to great products. Some products didn’t make any sense until later.

Probably one reason that people like to speculate about Apple’s plans is that Apple actually uses plans, as opposed to hopes. I doubt Microsoft or Google could give more accurate pictures of where they’ll be in 10 years.

patrickaljord• 16 years ago

> I doubt Microsoft or Google could give more accurate pictures of where they’ll be in 10 years.

I doubt that 10 years ago SJ could have guessed Apple would make money mostly on phones and music player.

Homunculiheaded• 16 years ago

not to be overly nit-picky but I think you're using 'nonplused' to mean the opposite of what it does. The word means to be bewildered or at a loss for words, in this context you seem to be saying that Steve Jobs would be 'unfazed' or 'unimpressed'

eddanger• 16 years ago

What a great article. There is a lot of insight into what makes him tick. Reading this article 25 years into the future makes me think his "reality distortion field" is no distortion at all, just the reality!

brc2• 16 years ago

I love the absolute irony of an article, printed in its day to carefully explain to people what Silicon Valley was, what a computer was, and what it was all about. Preserved for eternity on the internet and readable only on computers.

epo2• 16 years ago

Sorry, that's not irony either, you perhaps mean an amusing coincidence.

Not being a gramar nazi but the word "irony" has a very precise meaning, misusing it devalues the language. Explicit in the notion of irony is contradiction, e.g. saying one thing while meaning the opposite (such as saying about the Kin mobile phone "now there was a successful product").

Sorry, personal bugbear, my problem.

segabach• 16 years ago

Actually it doesn't have to be the opposite. It just has to be something repurposed into a context not intended by the original meaning.

brc2• 16 years ago

The irony is that the article takes pains to describe what a computer is. Now, the only way to read the article is on an online version, and you obviously must know what a computer is in order to read the article. You're unlikely to find old back issues of Playboy in a library. I know what you mean, a more solid use would be if the article had said 'computers will never take off' and now the article is availabe only on computers. Whether it's an amusing coincedence or hard core irony as you describe, I think it's fair use of the term.

erikpukinskis2• 16 years ago

Are you trolling? Because your post is the very definition of irony.

CoreDumpling• 16 years ago

Compare & contrast, Playboy Interview with Bill Gates (1994): http://www.playboy.com/articles/bill-gates-playboy-interview...

Of particular interest are the somewhat different take on the established giants like IBM, as well as this new "information highway" development.

aarlo• 16 years ago

Yeah! This interview is great. Get to know bill gates and his take on microsoft strategy in the 80s and 90s.

comatose_kid• 16 years ago

Talking about Commodore & Atari 8 bit machines: "I consider those a brochure for why you should buy an Apple II or Macintosh. I think people have already determined that the sub-$500 computers don't do very much. They either tease people to want more or frustrate people completely."

Seems like he's believed that you can't make a good computer at the $500 price point for a long time now (his take on netbooks is pretty much the same).

frou_dh• 16 years ago

Thing is, you can do essentially everything on a netbook, just not in Aluminium & Aqua luxury.

joezydeco• 16 years ago

$500 in 1985 dollars is roughly $1,000 today.

jamesbritt2• 16 years ago

" I think people have already determined that the sub-$500 computers don't do very much."

They got a lot of people into the game.

I couldn't afford an Apple, but I could afford a C64.

Learned C on it.

delackner• 16 years ago

Some really amazing quotes in there including some off the cuff observations that became truly prescient:

"If, for some reason, we make some giant mistakes and IBM wins, my personal feeling is that we are going to enter sort of a computer Dark Ages for about 20 years."

iPhone, OS X growing like wild today. About... 20 years after he said that. And Mac OS 9 (yes, the mac also started to suck), Windows 3.1, Windows 95, Windows XP, Windows Vista, what better description than a dark age.

patio11• 16 years ago

what better description than a dark age.

The largest, fastest, most important rollout of technology in the history of mankind. Seriously.

sudont• 16 years ago

Yeah, but .NET, IE6 and a lack of any UNIX underpinnings scares a lot of us. It was pretty impressive, though.

ckuehne• 16 years ago

He has problems with the metric system though: "Extend left foot and shift weight 300 centimeters forward.". :)

flannell• 16 years ago

Interesting article. I might subscribe to Playboy.

kemiller• 16 years ago

This parenthetical caught my eye:

"(It is also worth noting that of the 100 Americans named by Forbes, Jobs is one of only seven who made their fortunes on their own.) "

My, how things have changed.

chunkbot• 16 years ago

Now how many people are on the Forbes' list of 100 richest Americans who made their fortunes "on their own"?

(Not to diminish the work of those who started with "more" in life.)

jon_hendry2• 16 years ago

"(Not to diminish the work of those who started with "more" in life.)"

Assuming they've done any work?

vinhboy• 16 years ago

"yet our Macintosh computer takes less power than a 100-watt light bulb to run and it can save you hours a day. What will it be able to do ten or 20 years from now, or 50 years from now?"

Make fart apps.

np3000• 16 years ago

It's rare that you see an artist in his 30s or 40s able to really contribute something amazing

It is interesting to note that Steve Jobs' biggest hits came in his 30's, 40's and gasp 50's dwarfing what he did in his 20's.

30's - NEXT and foundation for MacOS X

40's - iPod, iTunes

50's - iPhone, iPad

jon_hendry2• 16 years ago

Also: Toy Story was made at the tail end of his 30s. (It came out the year he turned 40).

Playboy Interview with Steven Jobs Circa 1985

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