Ondrej Holzman An allegedly never-before-seen video of Steve Jobs from 1994 has been released to the public, or rather to YouTube. The not even two-minute video captures Jobs during his so-called wild years at NeXT, and in it the overgrown co-founder of Apple explains why he thinks he is After a while, no one will remember...
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Jobs was originally to be interviewed by the Silicon Valley Historical Association, but only now has the video reached the general public. Steve Jobs is very skeptical in it, unusually for his self-confident nature. He claims that before long his ideas will be obsolete:
By the time I'm fifty, everything I've done so far will be obsolete... This is not an area where you lay the foundations for the next 200 years. This is not an area where someone paints something and others will look at his work for centuries, or build a church that people will look up to for centuries.
This is an area where someone will create something, and in ten years it will be obsolete, and in ten or twenty years it won't even be usable.
Steve Jobs explains his statement using the example of the Apple I and Apple II computers. There was no software for the first one at the time, so it could not be used, and the second one would disappear a few years later.
Jobs then compares the entire development and history to rock deposits. Everyone can contribute their part (layer) to the building of a mountain that is constantly growing in height, but the one standing at the very top (presence) will never see that one part somewhere far below. "Only a few rare geologists will appreciate it," said Jobs, saying that others would forget his contribution to humanity.
These are really rather surprising words for an egocentric and charismatic visionary. It's possible that if Steve Jobs watched his twenty-year-old video now, he'd change his mind with just a smile on his face.
I haven't seen the video, but from the transcript it doesn't sound like Jobs is saying he's going to be forgotten. He claims that what he has done now will be obsolete and useless in decades, which is true.
It's about how you connect it. My understanding is that he will be forgotten along with his products.
What you are saying is stupid. Do you use a Primo Bell telephone or an Edison light bulb? But you still haven't forgotten about them..
It is quite clear what he is talking about. I really don't understand how anyone can understand the video in any other way than that it talks about how the products in his business get old quickly and become unusable over time.
I agree.
Exactly. It's a misunderstanding. Jobs always had the same self-confidence. This was not his weakest moment :) he was talking about something completely different than himself
Who is Steve Jobs? :- Mr
Precisely because he was aware of how electronics become obsolete, he wanted his contribution to be even greater, to leave as deep a mark as possible. Perhaps most of us have this desire, but some have it much stronger than just procreating offspring :)