Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Playboy Interview: Steve Jobs (1985)

longform.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 157 posts

Re: Playboy Interview: Steve Jobs (1985)

#141

Post by graeme »

Interesting comment about the petrochemical revolution here:

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. It’s very crude 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? This revolution will dwarf the petrochemical revolution. We’re on the forefront.

---------

What I think is interesting is that the computer revolution is, and will continue to be, dependent on the petrochemical revolution.

We are in the process of finding out whether we can replace petrochemicals with renewables. If we can't, or only partially can, computing gets more expensive. This goes contrary to our expectations of more and cheaper computer, indefinitely.

Re: Playboy Interview: Steve Jobs (1985)

#142

Post by mentos »

"...That is why it’s hard doing interviews and being visible: As you are growing and changing, the more the outside world tries to reinforce an image of you that it thinks you are, the harder it is to continue to be an artist, which is why a lot of times, artists have to go, “Bye. I have to go. I’m going crazy and I’m getting out of here.” And they go and hibernate somewhere. Maybe later they re-emerge a little differently."

Apropo today given Notch's announcement.

Re: Playboy Interview: Steve Jobs (1985)

#143

Post by Diamons »

robg wrote: post #115
pptr1 wrote: post #111

I can't think of someone else right now who could come up with such an easy way to understand computers. "Playboy: Maybe we should pause and get your definition of what a computer is. How do they work? Jobs: Computers are actually pretty simple. We’re sitting here on a bench in this café [for this part of the Interview]. Let’s assume that you understood only the most rudimentary of directions and you asked how to fin…

It's a great answer but, a minor quibble, we have thousands of hours studying physics and the laws of motion before we ever drive a car. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Na%C3%AFve_physics

You completely missed his point

Re: Playboy Interview: Steve Jobs (1985)

#145

Post by robg »

Diamons wrote: post #143
robg wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a great answer but, a minor quibble, we have thousands of hours studying physics and the laws of motion before we ever drive a car. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Na%C3%AFve_physics

You completely missed his point

Not in physics, I didn't. Infants start testing gravity. They watch how objects move and collide. Physics is built-in. We do understand it. A decade and half later that "understanding" is exactly what's necessary for driving a car.

The problem isn't that I missed his point. It's that he makes the wrong one. We understand physics just fine. But I bet most folks have little understanding of how a combustion engine works, but they drive the car just fine. That's the analogy he's going for.

Re: Playboy Interview: Steve Jobs (1985)

#146

Post by graeme »

robg wrote: post #145
Diamons wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You completely missed his point

Not in physics, I didn't. Infants start testing gravity. They watch how objects move and collide. Physics is built-in. We do understand it. A decade and half later that "understanding" is exactly what's necessary for driving a car. The problem isn't that I missed his point. It's that he makes the wrong one. We understand physics just fine. But I bet most folks have little understanding of how a combustion engine work…

Your error is that people don't study physics to get their understanding of physical laws. We learn, from trial and error.

Jobs was clearly talking about studying theoretical physics from a textbook.

Re: Playboy Interview: Steve Jobs (1985)

#147

Post by robg »

graeme wrote: post #146
robg wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not in physics, I didn't. Infants start testing gravity. They watch how objects move and collide. Physics is built-in. We do understand it. A decade and half later that "understanding" is exactly what's necessary for driving a car. The problem isn't that I missed his point. It's that he makes the wrong one. We understand physics just fine. But I bet most folks have little understanding of how a combustion engine work…

Your error is that people don't study physics to get their understanding of physical laws. We learn, from trial and error. Jobs was clearly talking about studying theoretical physics from a textbook.

There's a theory of epistemology that's tied to naive physics. We're built to study physics.

The same is not true of computer science except in the vaguest possible uses of "language".

Re: Playboy Interview: Steve Jobs (1985)

#148

Post by leoc »

drblast wrote: post #137
zurn wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These predictions were very commonplace by then. In 1983, TCP/IP came along and MILNET was split off. This is commonly considered to mark the start of the Internet. First .com domain was registered in 1985.

Remember "The Network Is The Computer?" 1984. http://www.tcse-k12.org/pages/network.pdf

The further twist is that just a few months after this interview, Jobs left Apple and founded a company to build graphical, Ethernet-connected, UNIX-based personal workstations: in other words to compete on Sun's turf. I think the Sun/Apple and Sun/NeXT relationship is an interesting, underexplored part of an overtold story, especially since by 2000 Apple had more or less stolen Sun's original clothes as a profitable vendor of Unix workstations.

Re: Playboy Interview: Steve Jobs (1985)

#149

Post by ekianjo »

kbruner wrote: post #140
ekianjo wrote: post #39

> 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 a…

I couldn't disagree more. There was indeed a very dark age due to Microsoft. I often wonder what a world full of scientist and engineers that had the highest quality software available to them would have been like. Instead we got Microsoft's monopolistic and predatory business and consequently we have all suffered. If you perceive Apple as being controlling then you must not have lived through this Dark Age like I di…

I was not referring to Microsoft, I was referring to the PC as a hardware platform. Besides, in Microsoft's OS, there were very few restrictions as to what you could do and develop and distribute, so de facto Windows was a very open OS as well in that sense. Not very good maybe, but a space everyone could use without restrictions.

And despite Microsoft and its practices, the fact that the PC was open, hardware-wise, made it possible for Linux to exist. That's how flexible the PC platform is.

Re: Playboy Interview: Steve Jobs (1985)

#150

Post by mehrdada »

utopkara wrote: post #42
jordhy wrote: post #4

In this interview, Jobs' obssesion with fighting IBM is quite present. A decade later, the obsession was to defeat Microsoft, or at least to gain substantial market share from them. It's quite funny that Apple became the most valuable company in the planet when they let go of this obsession and instead focused on beating the old Apple.

It is a great observation. I wonder if it is true though. We have seen Apple obsess over Google's competition in mobile as they were rising this time.

> We have seen Apple obsess over Google's competition in mobile as they were rising this time

How so? I'm actually surprised how little they seem to have reacted to the competitive pressure of Android than pursuing their agenda at their own pace.

Post reply on HN