Live data from Hacker News

Playboy Interview: Steve Jobs (1985)

reprints.longform.org

1–10 of 122 posts

Re: Playboy Interview: Steve Jobs (1985)

#2
I'm amazed at how mature he sounds in this interview at age 29, like far more direct, honest, confident and smart than say, Zuckerberg. He was very prescient and when wrong (he didn't anticipate the clone makers, saying there wouldn't be another $200M+ PC company) it was an area he really didn't care to be involved in.

Re: Playboy Interview: Steve Jobs (1985)

#3
post #2

I'm amazed at how mature he sounds in this interview at age 29, like far more direct, honest, confident and smart than say, Zuckerberg. He was very prescient and when wrong (he didn't anticipate the clone makers, saying there wouldn't be another $200M+ PC company) it was an area he really didn't care to be involved in.

[deleted]

Re: Playboy Interview: Steve Jobs (1985)

#4
post #2

I'm amazed at how mature he sounds in this interview at age 29, like far more direct, honest, confident and smart than say, Zuckerberg. He was very prescient and when wrong (he didn't anticipate the clone makers, saying there wouldn't be another $200M+ PC company) it was an area he really didn't care to be involved in.

Compared to Zuckerberg, sure. But 29 is hardly that young to be this articulate and wise. I feel like sentiments like this is much more about hero worship than a statement about how unusually well spoken he his compared to most people his age.

Re: Playboy Interview: Steve Jobs (1985)

#5
post #2

I'm amazed at how mature he sounds in this interview at age 29, like far more direct, honest, confident and smart than say, Zuckerberg. He was very prescient and when wrong (he didn't anticipate the clone makers, saying there wouldn't be another $200M+ PC company) it was an area he really didn't care to be involved in.

Not to take away from your point but people have different strengths. Zuckerberg is bad at social skills but (evidently) a great hacker and amazing at business strategy. It took Jobs a long time to master business management that allowed Apple to become a hugely successful company. Zuckerberg (and others, e.g. Bill Gates) got it right away.

Re: Playboy Interview: Steve Jobs (1985)

#6
post #4
post #2

I'm amazed at how mature he sounds in this interview at age 29, like far more direct, honest, confident and smart than say, Zuckerberg. He was very prescient and when wrong (he didn't anticipate the clone makers, saying there wouldn't be another $200M+ PC company) it was an area he really didn't care to be involved in.

Compared to Zuckerberg, sure. But 29 is hardly that young to be this articulate and wise. I feel like sentiments like this is much more about hero worship than a statement about how unusually well spoken he his compared to most people his age.

Excellent point. Thank you for making me think about this.

Zuckerberg did some things to achieve success.

Jobs did some things to achieve success, one of which was speaking well.

Re: Playboy Interview: Steve Jobs (1985)

#7
> 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 find the rest room. I would have to describe it to you in very specific and precise instructions. I might say, “Scoot sideways two meters off the bench. Stand erect. Lift left foot. Bend left knee until it is horizontal. Extend left foot and shift weight 300 centimeters forward…” and on and on. If you could interpret all those instructions 100 times faster than any other person in this café, you would appear to be a magician: You could run over and grab a milk shake and bring it back and set it on the table and snap your fingers, and I’d think you made the milk shake appear, because it was so fast relative to my perception. That’s exactly what a computer does. It takes these very, very simple-minded instructions—“Go fetch a number, add it to this number, put the result there, perceive if it’s greater than this other number”—but executes them at a rate of, let’s say, 1,000,000 per second. At 1,000,000 per second, the results appear to be magic.

Wow, I don't know why but this explanation blows me away. So simple and yet so accurate.

Re: Playboy Interview: Steve Jobs (1985)

#8
post #4
post #2

I'm amazed at how mature he sounds in this interview at age 29, like far more direct, honest, confident and smart than say, Zuckerberg. He was very prescient and when wrong (he didn't anticipate the clone makers, saying there wouldn't be another $200M+ PC company) it was an area he really didn't care to be involved in.

Compared to Zuckerberg, sure. But 29 is hardly that young to be this articulate and wise. I feel like sentiments like this is much more about hero worship than a statement about how unusually well spoken he his compared to most people his age.

Well, it's not meaningful to compare Jobs to Zuck in any way than that they were founders of large, powerful companies.

I think the more interesting things is that Jobs embodies what Apple did best: being able to explain/present technology in a very understandable way. I felt that he didn't make you come to him, he brought it to you.

He was very intelligent, confident and opinionated. But what made him great was his salesmanship combined with the above. I have yet to see/hear another tech CEO/founder that made as much sense as Jobs for the things he cared about.

Re: Playboy Interview: Steve Jobs (1985)

#9

> 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 find the rest room. I would have to describe it to you in very specific and precise instructions. I might say, “Scoot sideways two meters off the bench. Stand erect. Lift left foot. Bend left knee until…

I always get this feeling as an excel power user
Post reply on HN