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Playboy Interview: Steve Jobs (1985)

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Re: Playboy Interview: Steve Jobs (1985)

#31

Post by takatin »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #18
ulyssesgrant wrote: post #3

Great read. Haven't finished it yet, but this answer was really perfect: "Jobs: Let me compare it with IBM. How come the Mac group produced Mac and the people at IBM produced the PCjr? We think the Mac will sell zillions, but 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 researc…

We weren’t going to go out and do market research. We just wanted to build the best thing we could build. So is this only a good response because apple succeeded so well or should they have done market research and done even better? I ask because the logic for every startup is do market research (now called validation) in some fashion - even if it is the landing page approach. I guess I am asking, prior to the succes…

Coming up with products is a bit like coming up with songs or paintings. Market research won't get you Van Gogh's Starry Night or any of the Beatles' songs. Instead it gives you autotune as music and photo filters as art. If you need to come with a genuinely once-in-a-lifetime product, music, painting or anything creative, it has to come from satisficing a basic need in a unique way (often with a personal touch i.e., "soul"). Current startup landscape dominated by validation is basically the autotune model built for quick iterations and easy profits as opposed to the old-school "soul" model which is more of a personal endeavour that transforms into a mass-movement of sorts. Bitcoin would be a modern example of something coming out of the "soul" model.

edit: One place where Market Research does have value in the "soul" model is for refining the product to fit the market better. The germ of the idea is still intensely personal to the founder.

Re: Playboy Interview: Steve Jobs (1985)

#32

Post by coldtea »

joshmlewis wrote: post #13

> Playboy: Then for now, aren’t you asking home-computer buyers to invest $3000 in what is essentially an act of faith? I'm sure a lot of people were and still are asking that about Tesla. His response is basically he doesn't know how the future will respond to the computer but he knows it will definitely change the world and before long it won't be an act of faith.

Only the Tesla won't change the world. It's just an electric car.

Re: Playboy Interview: Steve Jobs (1985)

#33

Post by treblig »

Jobs, conceptually articulating what would become the Internet in 1985:

"The most compelling reason for most people to buy a computer for the home will be to link it into a nationwide communications network. We’re just in the beginning stages of what will be a truly remarkable breakthrough for most people—as remarkable as the telephone."

Re: Playboy Interview: Steve Jobs (1985)

#34

Post by npinguy »

ivanca wrote: post #20
urs2102 wrote: post #14

> Jobs: I think that the scale of the business has gotten large enough so that it’s going to be very difficult for anyone to successfully launch anything new. Playboy: No more billion-dollar companies hatched in garages? Jobs: No, I’m afraid not in computers. And this puts a responsibility on Apple, because if there’s going to be innovation in this industry, it’ll come from us. It’s the only way we can compete with t…

Tesla. But yeah, your definition of "Hardware" may vary.

Tesla was launched with the investment and vision of a man who's already made billions in the industry, not some teenagers with an idea and a garage.

Re: Playboy Interview: Steve Jobs (1985)

#35

Post by maroonblazer »

takatin wrote: post #31
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We weren’t going to go out and do market research. We just wanted to build the best thing we could build. So is this only a good response because apple succeeded so well or should they have done market research and done even better? I ask because the logic for every startup is do market research (now called validation) in some fashion - even if it is the landing page approach. I guess I am asking, prior to the succes…

Coming up with products is a bit like coming up with songs or paintings. Market research won't get you Van Gogh's Starry Night or any of the Beatles' songs. Instead it gives you autotune as music and photo filters as art. If you need to come with a genuinely once-in-a-lifetime product, music, painting or anything creative, it has to come from satisficing a basic need in a unique way (often with a personal touch i.e.,…

>One place where Market Research does have value in the "soul" model is for refining the product to fit the market better.

That's all anyone asks of Market Research.

Re: Playboy Interview: Steve Jobs (1985)

#36

Post by AndrewKemendo »

ivanca wrote: post #20
urs2102 wrote: post #14

> Jobs: I think that the scale of the business has gotten large enough so that it’s going to be very difficult for anyone to successfully launch anything new. Playboy: No more billion-dollar companies hatched in garages? Jobs: No, I’m afraid not in computers. And this puts a responsibility on Apple, because if there’s going to be innovation in this industry, it’ll come from us. It’s the only way we can compete with t…

Tesla. But yeah, your definition of "Hardware" may vary.

Jobs: No, I’m afraid not in computers.

His definition was focused on computing.

Even then, Tesla was decidedly not hatched in a garage.

Re: Playboy Interview: Steve Jobs (1985)

#38

Post by adamnemecek »

treblig wrote: post #33

Jobs, conceptually articulating what would become the Internet in 1985: "The most compelling reason for most people to buy a computer for the home will be to link it into a nationwide communications network. We’re just in the beginning stages of what will be a truly remarkable breakthrough for most people—as remarkable as the telephone."

Pff that will never take off http://www.newsweek.com/clifford-stoll-why-web-wont-be-nirva...

Re: Playboy Interview: Steve Jobs (1985)

#39

Post by ekianjo »

> Jobs: my personal feeling is that we are going to enter sort of a computer Dark Ages for about 20 years. Once IBM gains control of a market sector, they almost always stop innovation. They prevent innovation from happening.

I'm very glad that IBM and its compatible equivalents won the market, we would certainly be in much Darker Ages should Apple have won the desktop war, with their close-minded view on the world and its strict control on contents, peripherals and whatever gravitates around the Brand.

Re: Playboy Interview: Steve Jobs (1985)

#40

Post by ekianjo »

joshvm wrote: post #6
ddebernardy wrote: post #2

Quite prescient: > Jobs: The most compelling reason for most people to buy a computer for the home will be to link it into a nationwide communications network. We’re just in the beginning stages of what will be a truly remarkable breakthrough for most people—as remarkable as the telephone.

He even alludes to smartphones: > Jobs: The developments will be in making the products more and more portable, networking them, getting out laser printers, getting out shared data bases, getting out more communications ability, maybe the merging of the telephone and the personal computer.

That's so generic it could simply refer to laptops and not smartphones or tablets. Btw I don't know why people think Smartphones are so innovative, they simply are evolved versions of PDAs that we started to have already in the 90s. The "future" was already out there for a long time, it just took many steps to reach an optimal form.
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