Playboy Interview with Steven Jobs Circa 1985

Interesting retrospective future-predicting-ish:<p>Playboy: More important, are you ignoring your potentially biggest rival, A.T.&#38;T.?<p>Jobs: A.T.&#38;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.&#38;T. is changing from a subsidized and regulated service-oriented company to a free-market, competitive-marketing technology company. A.T.&#38;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.<p>---<p>and this:<p>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.

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.

Compare &#38; contrast, Playboy Interview with Bill Gates (1994): <a href="http://www.playboy.com/articles/bill-gates-playboy-interview/index.html?page=2" rel="nofollow">http://www.playboy.com/articles/bill-gates-playboy-interview...</a><p>Of particular interest are the somewhat different take on the established giants like IBM, as well as this new "information highway" development.

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!

Talking about Commodore &#38; 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."<p>Seems like he's believed that you can't make a good computer at the $500 price point for a <i>long</i> time now (his take on netbooks is pretty much the same).

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.

This parenthetical caught my eye:<p>"(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.) "<p>My, how things have changed.

I love his answer to "Maybe we should pause and get your definition of what a computer is. How do they work?"<p>It would be really interesting to see how he would answer that question now.

Some really amazing quotes in there including some off the cuff observations that became truly prescient:<p>"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."<p>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.

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

"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?"<p>Make fart apps.

<i>It's rare that you see an artist in his 30s or 40s able to really contribute something amazing</i><p>It is interesting to note that Steve Jobs' biggest hits came in his 30's, 40's and <i>gasp</i> 50's dwarfing what he did in his 20's.<p>30's - NEXT and foundation for MacOS X<p>40's - iPod, iTunes<p>50's - iPhone, iPad

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

Interesting article. I might subscribe to Playboy.