Steve Jobs on Innovation and Technology

Yes.

Mr. Jobs, you're a bright and influential man.

Here it comes.

It's sad and clear that on several accounts you've discussed,

you don't know what

you're talking about.

I would like, for example, for you to express in clear terms

how, say, Java, in any of its incarnations,

addresses the ideas embodied in OpenDoc.

And when you're finished with that, perhaps you could tell us what you

personally

have been doing for the last seven years.

Ouch.

Uh...

Open ninety-eight!

You know,

you can please some of the people-

... some of the time,

but...

One of the hardest things when you're trying to affect change

is that

people like this gentleman

are right

in some areas.

I'm sure that there are some things OpenDoc does,

probably even more that I'm not

familiar with, that nothing else out there does.

And I'm sure that you can make some demos,

maybe a small commercial app that demonstrates those things.

The hardest thing is

what sh- how does that fit in to a cohesive,

larger vision that's gonna allow you to sell,

um,

eight billion dollars, ten billion dollars of product a year?

And

one of the things I've always found is that

you've got to start with the customer experience and work

backwards to the technology. You can't start with the

technology and try to figure out where you're gonna try to sell it,

and I've made this mistake probably more than anybody else in this room,

and I've got the scar tissue to prove it, and I know that it's the case.

And as we have tried to

come up with a strategy and a vision for Apple,

um,

it started with

what incredible benefits can we give to the

customer? Where can we take the customer?

Not,

not starting with, let's sit down with the engineers and,

and figure out what awesome technology we have and then how are we gonna

market that.

Um,

and I think that's the right path to take.

Uh, I remember

with the LaserWriter,

we built the world's first small laser printers, you know,

and there was awesome technology in that box.

We had the first Canon laser printing, cheap laser printing engine in the world,

in

the United States here at Apple. We had a very wonderful printer

controller that we designed. We had Adobe's PostScript software in

there.

We had AppleTalk in there. Just awesome technology in the box,

and I remember

seeing the first, uh, printout come out of it,

and just picking it up and looking at it and thinking, "You know,

we can sell this," 'cause you don't have to know anything about what's in that box.

All we have to do is hold this up and go, "Do you want this?"

And if you can remember back to nineteen eighty-four, before laser printers, it was

pretty startling to see that. People went, "Whoa!

Yes."

And

that's,

that's where Apple's got to get back to.

And, you know, I'm sorry that OpenDoc's a casualty along the way,

and

I readily admit there are many things in life

that I don't have the faintest idea

what I'm talking about. So I apologize for that, too.

But there's a whole lot of people

working super, super hard right now at Apple.

You know, Avi, John, Guarino, Fred.

I mean, the whole team is working, burning the midnight oil,

trying to... And, and, and people, you know, hundreds of people below

them, to execute, uh, on some of

these things, and they're, they're doing their best.

And I think that what we need to do... And some mistakes will be made,

by the way.

Some mistakes will be made along the way.

That's good, 'cause at least some decisions

are being made along the way.

And we'll find the mistakes. We'll fix them.

And I think what we need to do is support that team going through

this very important stage as they work their butts off.

They're all getting calls, being offered three times as much money to

go do this,

to that. The valley's hot. None of them are leaving.

And I think we need to support them and see them through this and write some

damn good applications, uh,

to support Apple out in the market. That's my own point of view.

Mistakes will be made. Some people will be pissed off.

Some people will not know what they're talking about.

But it's--

I think it is so much better than where things were not very

long ago, and I think we're gonna get there.