The Full Walter Isaacson/Steve Jobs Interview From 60 Minutes

http://www.macrumors.com/2011/10/23/the-full-walter-isaacsonsteve-jobs-interview-from-60-minutes/

by sachitgupta • 15 years ago

147 62 15 years ago

bgramer2• 15 years ago

It's great that CBS put this online for everyone to view, but I really wish they added captions/subtitles to the video clips. If it's hard to do, why not just add a text transcript so that deaf people like me can understand what's being said?

willifred• 15 years ago

Your wish has been granted. There's a full text transcript here: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-20124391/steve-jobs-re...

bgramer2• 15 years ago

Thank you so much for this great find! I really appreciate it.

js2• 15 years ago

Sigh, Videos require Flash.

andrewpi• 15 years ago

Here are the official CBS YouTube links for those that prefer that method:

One: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jqSK8Qv4ZY&feature=chann... Two: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXcfDN6L9d8&feature=chann...

davidmathers• 15 years ago

Three: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7385608n

lichengcai• 15 years ago

Thanks you, very useful!

DonnyV• 15 years ago

What I get from this interview is that Steve Jobs was a self centered control freak. That eventually died because of it. Not sure why anyone worships this man.

davidcollantes• 15 years ago

Why anyone worships Jesus, or a god? Are you sure of that? Note: I do not worship Jobs, just pointing out the --rather-- obvious.

adrianwaj• 15 years ago

Note for hackers: your hero was a non-technical co-founder.

adgar5• 15 years ago

Few hackers - by which I assume you mean engineers or developers - consider Steve Jobs a "hero." Most would agree he created wonderful products that changed the world, but he isn't much of a hero to a software or hardware hacker. Because as you note, he wasn't technical. Woz is the geek god of the two, because he was building cheap, full fucking computers in a damn garage, by himself. Dennis Ritchie was a hero. Not Steve Jobs.

If anything, hackers are more likely than most to respond negatively to Steve's recent approach toward mobile platforms and use of IP in business... which are the sorts of alienating decisions a technical co-founder can make.

If by "hackers" you meant "people who want to make product(s) for a startup and learned a few things about code to hack out a prototype," you might be more on-target.

GHFigs• 15 years ago

More and more it seems like "hacker" is a religious or ideological term and not an occupational description.

codex• 15 years ago

I might be hauled before the Politcal Committee for the Advancement of the Revolution for saying this, but please speak for yourself. I am a hacker and by boyhood hero was Steve. He was an artist whose medium was technology. It doesn't get more hacker-like than that to me.

nirvana9• 15 years ago

I built my first computer from scratch because we couldn't afford an Apple //. (maybe I spent more in the end doing it, but I learned a lot.)

When I say, "From scratch", I mean, I designed it (Z80 based) laid out the printed circuit board, exposed it, etched it, populated it, debugged it, and then I did it all over again to get a video board to connect the computer to a TV set. Then, after all of that, I taught myself Z80 assembly in order to get a minimal ROM OS on it.

I soon decided that software was a lot easier to debug than hardware, and that startups were a lot more fun than big companies.

I've learned a great many disciplines and how to hack them, from economics and investing, to marketing and business, as well, as physics, electronics, materials science, metal working, and of course, every bit of software I could learn.

As a political rebel, someone who took LSD when he was young in order to hack his mind, and a full fledged engineer, startup junkie and capitalist... Steve Jobs is, in fact, my hero.

In fact, I think he's the greatest hero this country as had in my lifetime, bar none.

Being a hacker isn't about sitting in a basement making code that nobody will ever use. Or at least, that's not the only way to be a hacker.

Good engineering means solving problems, and the problems that separate Apple products from the abject crap that everybody else puts out, are as worthy of hacker's efforts as any other engineering problems.

In fact, I question the engineering expertise of anyone who pooh-poohs apple's products. I find the tendency here on HN for people to pretend like Apple isn't innovative to be a sure sign that those posters are really not actually hackers. Because hackers know how hard it is, to not only make something work, but make it work well, and make it work well in a way that is really usable.

Frankly, if Steve Jobs is not one of your heroes, you're not a hacker in my book.

ebiester• 15 years ago

Why do all of our heroes have to be hackers, anyway? I aspire to be an entreprenuer as well. He's not a bad hero to have in that arena. (And not because Jobs was this wonderful human being, either!)

dpe82• 15 years ago

If we say hackers are those who use their skills and technology to accomplish something difficult, Steve Jobs is one of the greats. He used technology to make technology usable, and that's one of the greatest hacks of all.

protomyth3• 15 years ago

I think any technical cofounder would be ecstatic over having a "non-technical" cofounder with his level of technical ability.

Be honest, what % of HN readers actually know more about electronics than Steve Jobs did?

defen2• 15 years ago

My understanding is that Jobs didn't really have much practical knowledge about contemporary electronics, and that all the "work" he did at Atari was actually done by Wozniak, who came in during the night shift and played video games with Jobs.

badclient• 15 years ago

Emphasis on co-founder.

Some will argue "but woz left!". Cofounders leaving is pretty common. It doesn't diminish their importance so much especially since part of what a tech cofounder can do is ensure the company can run without him.

protomyth3• 15 years ago

To be fair to Wozniak, the accident pretty much took him out of circulation for a while.

ghshephard2• 15 years ago

Well, except for the fact that the blue box Woz and Jobs built in 1971 were tested using a frequency counter built by Steve Jobs in prior years.

Maybe building a frequency counter is something that your average non-technical teenager does these days - but I have to believe it was a little more rarified in 1971.

Just because Jobs wasn't as elite a hacker as Woz, doesn't classify him as non-technical.

nirvana9• 15 years ago

Also, it's not a zero sum game. We don't have to denigrate anyone to recognize the skills of someone else.

Revering Jobs for what he did, does not in any way diminish the contributions of Woz or Dennis Ritchie or dozens of others.

mbesto2• 15 years ago

Note for hackers: it doesn't matter.

Quite frankly I'm getting sick of these "rules" for what constitutes the best way to do something. Isn't that the manifesto of "hacking"...that there is no one way to do something? We all see countless articles on here "How to do this, How to do that". The fact is, all of these rules are just frameworks and how you implement them is up to you as a person. So my note for hackers is: your hero was passionate about what he wanted, that's a good co-founder

The recent story about PG and Dropbox said it best: "This is why one of our rules is that we’ll break any of our rules."

[1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/bruceupbin/2011/10/18/paul-graha...

nirvana9• 15 years ago

In fact, one of the inspirations of the use of the word "hacker" was that they broke the rules.

This could just be "engineer news", but it is "hacker news" because PG is celebrating those who took unconventional approaches.

That's what a hack is.

The problem is, when a site becomes mainstream popular it brings in a lot of people outside of its core demographic. In this case, there are a lot of people who are not engineers who think that engineering is cool, and want to think that they are elite.

And when someone is a poser, they know they don't measure up, so they try and define who the "legit" ones are.

You see this posturing among teenagers a lot. (maybe a lot of Hacker News visitors are just out of their teens?)

6ren• 15 years ago

  We specifically picked you out.

Awesome parents.

cantbecool• 15 years ago

That episode of 60 Minutes was fantastic, and the audio from Walter's interviews with Jobs was surprising. The best part of the program was the fact that Steve Jobs actually met his biological father years before knowing who his biological father truly was.

baddox• 15 years ago

Could that video player have been any worse? To click the fullscreen button, you literally have to click on the darkened pixels of the icon. It's not a rectangular click area.

Steko3• 15 years ago

Not to rain on Walter Isaacson's parade as he sells more copies of this then all biographies combined over the last 10+ years* but when asking Steve about how he didn't care about money that might have been a great time for a professional journalist (head of CNN, Time) to follow up and ask why he cheated Woz out of a few hundred dollars on Breakout (or Kottke, I'm sure there are others).

I haven't read the book yet so he maybe he does and there are some obvious answers (like "that was a mistake and part of why I later rejected my wealth") but that question really should have been asked.

* Mao and Jesus not included. Go crazy with that, Apple haters.

mahyarm• 15 years ago

Just like after a certain point, money doesn't make you happier, but before that point it makes you more happier, I think Steve was at a point in his finances that more money would make him happier. That set point is usually what gives you a comfortable life, transportation, a private space you can call your own and the reasonable ability to buy what you need, and security that you'll always be able to have that. A nice upper middle class life style basically.

kitsune_• 15 years ago

Well, that is true with almost everyone. It doesn't lead many people to cheat on their business partners however.

ghshephard2• 15 years ago

Issacson puts that question directly to a number of people in the book, including Steve Jobs - Jobs claims not to remember having shorted Woz on the bonus. At the time, Jobs likely needed the money for a trip to All One Farm to help prepare for the apple harvest.

I think Woz summarized it best: "Jobs is a complex person and being manipulative is just the darker facet of the traits that make him successful"

Steko3• 15 years ago

Great quote by Woz and I stand corrected. Guess I should read the darn book I bought.

Not to go all Most Interesting Man in the World on this tangent but I don't buy many biographies but when I do it's for Steve Jobs.* I imagine many people are doing the same and I think the meta idea of how many copies it will sell will be interesting (not shockingly high because I mean who reads anymore) but 5+ million by xmas might be possible I'd guess. I also wonder how many ipad owners broke their Kindle lock in and bought it on iTunes.

* Technically I guess I also bought Marcus Allen Super Raider when I was 9 or 10 years old in the mid 80s. Here's hoping this is half as good as Marcus Allen Super Raider was to me when I was 9 or 10.

tolmasky• 15 years ago

Regardless of what the book says (I see there are some comments here that it is addressed), have you ever considered that its because he was a 21 year old kid at that point -and shock- people make stupid mistakes throughout their lives? Turns out, people's priorities are allowed to change as they grow and mature.

This seems like such a silly straw man argument and I'm so surprised every time I hear someone make it earnestly. I'm sure Steve stole a cookie when he was 5 years old too, that doesn't mean his whole life was a scheme to acquire cookies.

mbesto2• 15 years ago

> Turns out, people's priorities are allowed to change as they grow and mature.

I am reading Anthony Kiedes's autobiography in which he states that he ripped off so many people in his past (mainly drug related) and then later went back to right his wrong. So if anything this could have been an avenue and opportunity for Steve to say "ya know what, I did screw Woz over and we agreed on XYZ"

Furthermore, you are simply assuming and drawing ill-informed conclusions. The OP is basically asking that this question be raised, regardless of whether he is insinuating it's truth. It's disingenuous to make conclusions like "it's not about the money" when there are sources that state otherwise.

Steko3• 15 years ago

"and shock- people make stupid mistakes throughout their lives?"

If you had actually read my comment you might have seen where I said maybe the answer was "that was a mistake and part of why I later blah blah" which isn't so different from your shocking idea.

hopeless2• 15 years ago

I'm not familiar with the "60 Minutes" programme, but is there really only 28mins of content? (15min + 13min videos)

yardie• 15 years ago

The Isaacson interview is the first half hour, the second half is the use of iPads in helping autistic kids communicate (it says tablets but it appears all or most of the software is iOS based).

hopeless2• 15 years ago

Cool, thanks. I really couldn't believe that it was 32minutes of ad breaks!

blinkingled• 15 years ago

I am 16% into my Kindle copy of the biography and so far the only thing that has bugged me is how cold Steve was with Daniel Kottke. He just flat out refused giving him any stock and seemed to discourage others too when they tried giving part of their own stock.

I could understand why he might not have given Wozniak the bonus - at least he gave half of the rest and may be he needed money badly. But the Kottke thing is just unexplainable. Wozniak finally ended up giving some of his options to many other neglected ones including Kottke.

The book is definitely worth a read just in case anyone was still on the fence.

The Full Walter Isaacson/Steve Jobs Interview From 60 Minutes

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