Quotes from 1995 Steve Jobs Interview

[ed209]

One of my fav Jobs quotes (not catchy, but practical) is:

"...there needs to be someone who is the keeper and reiterator of the vision..."

If you have your own project/startup, then that's you. Even if you just reiterate it to yourself.

It features in this video that's making the rounds at the moment http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOlqqriBvUM&feature=youtu...

[technoslut]

The one I found most interesting is:

"Learning to program teaches you how to think. Computer science is a liberal art."

It's clear that Jobs had viewed the iPad as being a way to help change education. Though you can't program on the iPad currently, I have no doubt that it will eventually come in the future.

Jobs also shared the same belief as Alan Kay. Kay was angered that Scratch wasn't currently possible under Apple's rules and viewed the Dynabook as a way to teach children how to code. A comment like this shows that Jobs probably had this in his mind but wanted to take baby steps with what he probably viewed as the future of Apple. It could also be that he wanted to get the foundation of iOS correct before moving into something more complicated as programming.

I wonder if Jobs felt the same way in his later years. I'm guessing he did. With traditional blue collar jobs disappearing, computer science is becoming an ever-increasing necessity for the future workforce.

[avk]

My favorite quote: "What causes people to be poets instead of bankers? When you put that into products people can sense that. And they love it."

[augustl]

Is it possible to watch the actual interview somewhere?

EDIT: So it's only available in the US? That's pretty old school.

[askedrelic]

http://www.stevejobsthelostinterview.com/

I guess it's doing a limited theater run for awhile, in SF and Austin. I saw it last week in SF and Cringely showed up and did a Q&A afterwards, he mentioned wanting to have the interview seen in a shared setting.

[gwern]

In theaters, I understand.

[namank]

Anyone know where I can watch this interview?

I'm not in the US...

[rbanffy]

It will undoubtedly be available on DVD eventually. It will probably also be online (Amazon, iTunes) and on various torrents.

[hack_edu]

"Learning to program teaches you how to think. Computer science is a liberal art."

Imagine all the hate the source of this quotation would receive on here if this didn't come from The Steve.

[tesseract]

Three of the traditional seven liberal arts (grammar, logic, rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy) are today considered branches of mathematics - is it really so hard to imagine computer science taking a place among these?

[nolanw]

Well it's certainly not a science as the scientific method is nowhere to be found. The closest thing to it at most universities is the math department, which seems to end up in the arts faculty as often as not. I'd argue there's widespread acceptance that neither math nor computer science are sciences (in the sense that, say, physics or biology are), and if something isn't a science, it's either an art or its own thing.

Who did you have in mind as the source of hatred?

[dylangs1030]

I don't agree. I think the quotes listed are sufficiently universal, but not implicitly obvious, that they would be appreciated from just about any source. Unless of course that source was being hypocritical. I don't think this is a case of Jobs worship - it just seems like the sort of advice Paul Graham would have given. Good, solid advice.

[billpatrianakos]

I'm sorry but these weren't all that great. I'm glad you appreciated them, though, and I have to point out that there are definitely some typos in there but we can get the meaning anyway. They kind of seemed like repeats of quotes I'd read before but worded differently. Its too bad because I usually go all fanboy for anything Steve related.

[leak]

Glad I read the comments before I posted but exactly this. I'm definitely not a Steve hater but this isn't gospel. These "quotes" you hear on a daily basis if you have ever been around a small business, startup, or worked with others.

[lysol]

Just keep in mind every quote needs 'sic' after the end of it, because these transcriptions are pretty bad.

[bravura]

'sic' means the exact opposite of that:

"Sic—generally inside square brackets, [sic], and occasionally parentheses, (sic)—when added just after a quote or reprinted text, indicates the passage appears exactly as in the original source. The usual purpose is to inform readers that any errors or apparent errors in the copied material are not from transcription—that they are reproduced exactly from the original writer or printer. A bracketed sic may also be used as a form of ridicule or as a humorous comment, typically by drawing attention to the original writer's mistakes."

[VMG]

Am I too much of a conspiracy theorist when I doubt that the tape was really "lost"?

[troels]

"Don't attribute to malice which can be explained by incompetence" - or something like that ..

[kmfrk]

When the BBC don't mind taping over their Monty Python archive and other precious troves of TV and websites, I think any kind of incompetence is possible in the TV channel industry.

[funkah]

yes