#390 Rare Steve Jobs Interview

Key takeaways

The importance of hiring top talent is crucial for success, as demonstrated by the experiences of Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos.
The information revolution is compared to past revolutions, with computers serving as transformative tools for society.
Great products arise from passion and commitment to excellence, rather than direct market demands.
Cultivating a culture that encourages creativity and questioning the status quo is essential for innovation.
Historical perspectives on technology can guide current and future innovations, underlining the unpredictable nature of progress.

Summary

The Power of Hiring the Best

Both Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos emphasized the critical importance of surrounding oneself with top talent. Bezos articulated in his shareholder letters how recruiting A-players is integral to Amazon's success. Similarly, Jobs noted in an interview that a small team of A-players can outperform a much larger team of average performers. This principle is reflected in Ramp's hiring approach, where only 0.23% of applicants are hired, ensuring that customers benefit from exceptional talent working on their financial operations.

Steve Jobs on the Technological Revolution

Jobs speaks about the information revolution as a transformative force comparable to the petrochemical revolution. He highlights that computers are not just tools for tasks, but a revolutionary platform that can redefine human experience. Jobs predicts the eventual change in how users interact with computers, envisioning them as future guides or agents that anticipate needs—ultimately leading to a greater societal shift.

Product Development Philosophy

A central theme in Jobs' philosophy is his commitment to building products for excellence rather than market demands. He believes that great products stem from passion and dedication rather than market research. Jobs famously stated that he and his team built the Mac for themselves, with no compromise on quality and an emphasis on aesthetic integrity throughout the product development process.

The Nature of Innovation

Jobs brilliantly articulates the need to question norms and approach problems innovatively, advocating for a culture that encourages inquiry and imaginative thought. He posits that the business world tends to stifle great contributors with layers of bureaucracy, and stresses the need for companies to retain passionate innovators and ‘troublemakers’ who think differently and drive genuine progress.

Historical Context of Inventions

Throughout the conversation, Jobs draws parallels between historical inventions and the computer revolution, arguing that innovation often leads to unforeseen applications that fundamentally reshape society. He uses the telephone's evolution from telegraphy as a metaphor to explain how computers too will eventually integrate into daily life, emphasizing his belief that no one can predict the full extent of their impact.

Show notes

I've read this interview probably 10 times. It's that good. Steve Jobs was 29 when this interview was published, and with remarkable clarity of thought Steve explains the upcoming technological revolution, why the personal computer is the greatest tool humans have ever invented, how the computer compares to past inventions, why software needs to be simplified (You shouldn't have to read a novel to write a novel!) why the future is always exciting and unpredictable, what soul in the game looks like and why his competitors don't have any, why slightly insane people are the ones who make great products, the importance of questioning things and how doing so produces novel insights, why it's dangerous to have layers of middle management between the people running the company and the people doing the work, the importance of hiring troublemakers, why more people should aspire to be like Edwin Land, and how if he every leaves Apple he will always come back.

Read the full interview here

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Highlights from this episode:

We’re living in the wake of the petrochemical revolution of 100 years ago. The petrochemical revolution gave us free energy—free mechanical energy, in this case. It changed the texture of society in most ways. This revolution, the information revolution, is a revolution of free energy as well, but of another kind: free intellectual energy. This revolution will dwarf the petrochemical revolution. We’re on the forefront.

A computer is the most incredible tool we’ve ever seen. It can be a writing tool, a communications center, a supercalculator, a planner, a filer and an artistic instrument all in one, just by being given new instructions, or software, to work from. There are no other tools that have the power and versatility of a computer. We have no idea how far it’s going to go

The hard part of what we’re up against now is that people ask you about specifics and you can’t tell them. A hundred years ago, if somebody had asked Alexander Graham Bell, “What are you going to be able to do with a telephone?” he wouldn’t have been able to tell him the ways the telephone would affect the world. He didn’t know that people would use the telephone to call up and find out what movies were playing that night or to order some groceries or call a relative on the other side of the globe. That is what Macintosh is all about. It’s the first “telephone” of our industry.

Ad campaigns are necessary for competition; IBM’s ads are everywhere. But good PR educates people; that’s all it is. You can’t con people in this business. The products speak for themselves.

We didn’t build Mac for anybody else. We built it for ourselves. We were the group of people who were going to judge whether it was great or not. We weren’t going to go out and do market research. We just wanted to build the best thing we could build. When you’re a carpenter making a beautiful chest of drawers, you’re not going to use a piece of plywood on the back, even though it faces the wall and nobody will ever see it. You’ll know it’s there, so you’re going to use a beautiful piece of wood on the back. For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through.

The people in the Mac group wanted to build the greatest computer that has ever been seen.