This is the second part of the interview included in the anthology The Playboy Interview: Moguls, which also features conversations with Jeff Bezos, Sergey Brin, Larry Page, David Geffen, and many others.
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Playboy: You are making a serious bet on Macintosh. It is said that the fate of Apple hinges on its success or failure. After the release of Lisa and Apple III, Apple shares plummeted, and there are rumors that Apple might not survive.
Jobs: Yes, we had a tough time. We knew that with Macintosh we needed to pull off a miracle, or our dreams about the products or the company itself would never come true.
Playboy: How serious were your problems? Was bankruptcy looming for Apple?
Jobs: No, no, and no. In fact, 1983, when all those predictions were made, turned out to be phenomenally successful for Apple. In 1983, we practically doubled our revenueâfrom $583 million to $980 million. Almost all sales were related to Apple II, and we wanted more. Even if Macintosh hadn't become popular, we would still have maintained around a billion a year, selling Apple II and its variations.
Playboy: So what were the talks about your downfall based on?
Jobs: IBM stepped up and started to take the initiative. Software developers began switching to IBM. Vendors were talking more and more about IBM. It was clear to us that Macintosh had to blow everyone away, change the entire industry. That was its mission. If Macintosh hadn't succeeded, I would have given up because I was profoundly mistaken in my vision of the industry.
Playboy: Four years ago, Apple III was supposed to be an improved, tuned version of Apple II, but it failed. You recalled the first 14,000 computers, and even the revised version was not successful. How much did you lose because of Apple III?
Jobs: Incredibly, infinitely much. I think if Apple III had been more successful, it would have been harder for IBM to enter the market. But that's life. I believe that experience made us much stronger.
Playboy: However, Lisa also turned out to be a relative failure. What went wrong?
Jobs: First of all, the computer was too expensive and cost around ten thousand. We strayed from our roots, forgetting that we were supposed to sell products to people, and we placed our bets on large corporations from the Fortune 500 list. There were other problems as wellâlong delivery times, software didnât work as we wanted, which caused us to lose momentum. The rise of IBM, plus our six-month delay, plus the high price, plus another strategic mistakeâdeciding to sell Lisa through a limited number of suppliers. There were about 150 of themâthis was a terrible blunder on our part that cost us dearly. We hired people who were considered experts in marketing and management. It seemed like a good idea, but our industry was so young that these professionals' views turned out to be outdated and hindered the project's success.
Playboy: Wasnât that a sign of uncertainty on your part? 'Weâve come this far, and things have taken a serious turn. We need reinforcements.'
Jobs: Donât forget, we were 23-25 years old. We didnât have that kind of experience, so the idea seemed reasonable.
Playboy: Were most decisions, good or bad, made by you?
Jobs: We tried to ensure that decisions were never made by one person alone. At that time, the company was led by threeâMike Scott, Mike Markkula, and me. Today, two are at the helmâApple's president John Scully and I. When we started, I often consulted with more experienced colleagues. Usually, they were right. In some important matters, it was worth following my instincts, and that would have been better for the company.
Playboy: You wanted to lead the Lisa division. Markkula and Scott (essentially your bosses, even though you participated in their appointment) didnât consider you worthy, right?
Jobs: After defining the core concepts, selecting key players, and planning technical directions, Scottie decided that I didnât have enough experience for such a project. It hurt meâthere's no other way to say it.
Playboy: Didnât it seem like you were losing Apple?
Jobs: Partly. But the most frustrating thing was that a lot of people who didnât share our original vision were invited to join the Lisa project. There was a serious conflict within the Lisa team between those who wanted to build something like the Macintosh and those who came from Hewlett-Packard and other companies, bringing ideas about large machines and corporate sales. I decided that to develop the Macintosh, I would need to take a small group of people and separate myself â essentially, go back to the garage. At that time, we werenât taken seriously. I think Scotty just wanted to comfort or pamper me.
Playboy: But you founded this company. Werenât you embittered?
Jobs: It's impossible to be angry at your own child.
Playboy: Even if that child tells you to go away?
Jobs: I didn't feel anger. Just deep sadness and frustration. But I got the best people at Apple â had that not happened, the company would have faced serious troubles. Of course, these people were responsible for creating the Macintosh. [shrugs] Just take a look at the Mac.
Playboy: There isnât a unanimous opinion yet. The Mac was introduced with as much fanfare as the Lisa, but the previous project didnât take off in the beginning.
Jobs: That's true. We had high hopes for the Lisa, which ultimately didnât materialize. The hardest part was knowing that the Macintosh was on the way, and it addressed almost all the issues of the Lisa. Its development was a return to our roots â we were once again selling computers to people, not corporations. We hit it big â and created an incredibly cool computer, the best in history.
Playboy: Do you have to be crazy to create incredibly cool things?
Jobs: Actually, the main thing in creating an incredibly cool product is the process itself, learning new things, embracing new ideas, and discarding old ones. But yes, the creators of the Mac are a bit touched.
Playboy: What distinguishes those who have incredibly cool ideas from those who can realize them?
Jobs: Let's take IBM as an example. How did it happen that the Mac team released the Mac, while IBM released the PCjr? We thought the Mac would sell in incredibly large quantities, but we didn't create it for anyone else. We created it for ourselves. We, as a team, wanted to determine if it was good or not. We weren't interested in market analysis. We just wanted to create the best computer possible. Imagine you're a carpenter building a beautiful cabinet. You wouldn't make the back from cheap plywood, even though it will rest against the wall and no one will ever see it. You will know it's there, and you'd use the best wood. Aesthetics and quality must be top-notch, or you won't be able to sleep at night.
Playboy: Are you saying that the creators of the PCjr aren't proud of their creation?
Jobs: If that were the case, they wouldn't have released it. Itâs clear to me that they developed it based on research of a specific market segment for a specific type of buyer, expecting all those buyers to rush to the store and hand them a lot of money. Thatâs a completely different motivation. The Mac team wanted to create the greatest computer in the history of humanity.
Playboy: Why do predominantly young people work in the computer industry? The average age of an Apple employee is 29.
Jobs: This trend pertains to any fresh, revolutionary fields. With age, people become set in their ways. Our brains are akin to electrochemical computers. Your thoughts create patterns similar to scaffolding. Most people get stuck in familiar patterns and continue moving only along them, like a record needle follows the grooves of a record. Few can abandon their habitual perspectives and forge new paths. It is very rare to see an artist over thirty or forty create truly amazing works. Of course, there are those whose innate curiosity allows them to remain children forever, but that is a rarity.
Playboy: Our forty-year-old readers will appreciate your words. Letâs move on to another topic often mentioned in relation to Apple â the company, not the computer. It evokes the same sense of messianism in you, doesn't it?
Jobs: I feel like weâre changing society not just through computers. I think Apple has the potential to become a Fortune 500 company by the late eighties or early nineties. Ten to fifteen years ago, if you made a list of the top five most impressive companies in the U.S., the overwhelming majority would include Polaroid and Xerox. Where are they today? What happened to them? As companies become multibillion-dollar giants, they lose their unique vision. They start to create layers between executives and those who are actually doing the work. They lose their passion for their products. True creators, those who care, have to navigate five levels of management just to do what they think is right.
Most companies cannot retain brilliant specialists in an environment where individual achievements are not encouraged, and even condemned. These specialists leave, and mediocrity remains. I know this because Apple was built this way. We were like Ellis Island, welcoming refugees from other companies. In other organizations, these bright individuals were seen as rebels and troublemakers.
You know, Dr. Edwin Land was also a rebel. He left Harvard and founded Polaroid. Land was not just one of the greatest inventors of our time â he saw where art, science, and business intersected, and he established an organization that would reflect that intersection. For a while, Polaroid succeeded at this, but then Dr. Land, one of the great rebels, was asked to leave his own company â one of the most foolish decisions I know of. At the age of 75, Land focused on true science â for the rest of his life, he tried to unravel the mystery of color vision. This man is our national treasure. I donât understand why such people arenât held up as examples. People like that are far cooler than astronauts and football stars; no oneâs cooler than them.
In general, one of the main objectives by which John Sculley and I will be judged in five to ten years is turning Apple into a massive company with revenues of ten or twenty billion dollars. Will it retain its current spirit? We are venturing into uncharted territory. There are no foreign examples to draw upon -- neither in terms of growth nor in terms of fresh management solutions. So we will have to forge our own path.
Playboy: If Apple is indeed so unique, why does it need this twenty-fold growth? Why not remain a relatively small company?
Jobs: Our industry is structured such that to remain one of the key players, we need to become a ten billion dollar company. Growth is necessary to maintain competitiveness. This is what concerns us; the monetary benchmark itself is irrelevant.
Apple employees work 18 hours a day. We gather exceptional people â those who do not want to wait five or ten years for someone to take risks for them. Those who truly want to achieve more and leave a mark in history. We know we are creating something significant and special. We are at the beginning of our journey and can define the route ourselves. Each of us feels that we are changing the future right now. Mostly, people are consumers. Neither you nor I make our own clothes, we do not grow our own food, we speak a language created by someone else, and we use mathematics designed long before us. It is very rare that we manage to give the world something of our own. Right now, we have that opportunity. And no, we do not know where it will lead us â but we know we are part of something larger than ourselves.
Playboy: You mentioned that it is important for you to capture the enterprise market with Macintosh. Can you outplay IBM in this field?
Jobs: Yes. This market is divided into several sectors. I like to think that there is not only the Fortune 500, but also the Fortune 5000000 or Fortune 14000000. In our country, there are 14 million small businesses. It seems to me that many employees of medium and small companies need work computers. We plan to provide them with worthy solutions in the coming year, 1985.
Playboy: What kind?
Jobs: Our approach is to view not enterprises, but teams. We aim to create significant changes in their workflow. We are not just helping them with word selection or speeding up arithmetic. We want to change how they interact with each other. Memos that used to span five pages can be reduced to one, as a picture can express the main idea. Less paper, more quality communication. And itâs much more fun that way. There has always been a stereotype that even the most fun and interesting people at work turn into tedious robots. This is simply not true. If we can bring this free spirit into the serious business world, it will be a valuable contribution. Itâs hard to imagine how far things can go.
Playboy: But in the business segment, you face even the name IBM. IBM is associated with efficiency and stability in peopleâs minds. Another new player in the computer field, AT&T, is also a contender. Apple is a relatively young company and may seem unproven to potential clients, large corporations.
Jobs: Gaining entry into the business segment will be facilitated by Macintosh. IBM operates with businesses on a top-down basis. To succeed, we must take the opposite approach, starting from the lower ranks. Let me illustrate this with network deployment â we should focus on small workgroups, rather than connecting entire companies at once, as IBM does.
Playboy: One expert stated that for the industry to thrive and benefit the end-user, a unified standard must exist.
Jobs: This is absolutely untrue. To say we need one standard today is like saying in 1920 that we need one type of car. If that were the case, we wouldnât have seen automatic transmissions, power steering, and independent suspension. Freezing technology is the last thing we should do. Macintosh is a revolution in the computer world. Thereâs no doubt that Macintosh technology surpasses IBM technology. IBM needs an alternative.
Playboy: Does your decision not to make the computer compatible with IBM stem from a reluctance to submit to a competitor? Another critic believes that the only reason for your arrogance is that Steve Jobs is telling IBM to take a hike.
Jobs: No, through individuality we did not try to prove our masculinity.
Playboy: So what is the reason?
Jobs: The main argument is that the technology we developed is too good. It wouldnât be so good if it were compatible with IBM. Of course, we donât want IBM to dominate our industry, thatâs true. Many felt that creating a computer incompatible with IBM was pure madness. Our company took this step for two key reasons. The first â and life seems to prove us right â is that itâs easier for IBM to âcrushâ companies producing compatible computers.
The second and most important reason is that our company is driven by a unique view of the product we make. We believe that computers are the most remarkable tools ever invented by humans, and people are essentially tool users. This means that by supplying computers to many people, we will bring about significant changes in the world. We, the employees of Apple, want to make computers everyday household appliances and introduce them to tens of millions of people. That is what we want. We could not achieve this goal with IBM technologies, so something of our own needed to be created. Thus, the Macintosh was born.
Playboy: From 1981 to 1983, your share of the personal computer market fell from 29 to 23 percent. IBMâs share increased from 3 to 29 percent during the same period. How do you respond to these numbers?
Jobs: Numbers have never concerned us. Apple focuses primarily on products, because the product is the most important thing. IBM emphasizes service, support, security, mainframes, and practically a motherly care. Three years ago, Apple realized that it was impossible to provide a mother with each of the ten million computers sold in a year â even IBM doesnât have that many mothers. So, motherhood must be built into the computer itself. A significant part of the essence of the Macintosh is just that.
It all comes down to the confrontation between Apple and IBM. If for some reason we make fatal mistakes and IBM wins, then Iâm sure weâll face a dark age for computers for the next 20 years. Once IBM captures a segment of the market, innovation stops. IBM hinders innovation.
Playboy: Why?
Jobs: Let's take an interesting company like Frito-Lay as an example. They handle over five hundred thousand orders a week. You can find a Frito-Lay display in every store, and in larger ones, there may even be several. Frito-Lay's main issue is lost product, or in simple terms, bad chips. They have about ten thousand employees who run back and forth replacing the bad chips with good ones. They communicate with managers to ensure everything is fine. Such service and support give them an 80% share in every segment of the chip market. No one can challenge them. As long as they continue to do this job well, no one will take 80% of the market from themâthey don't have enough salespeople and technical staff. They can't hire them because they lack the funds. They lack the funds because they don't have 80% of the market. It's a catch-22. No one can shake such a giant.
Frito-Lay doesn't need any special innovations. They simply observe the new offerings from small chip manufacturers, study these products for a year, and after another year or two, release a similar product, providing it perfect support and capturing the same 80% of the new market.
IBM does exactly the same thing. Look at the mainframe sectorâsince IBM started dominating this sector 15 years ago, innovation has practically come to a halt. The same will happen in all other segments of the computer market if IBM is allowed to put its hands on them. The IBM PC did not bring a single drop of new technology to the industry. It's just a repackaged and slightly modified Apple II, and they're trying to capture the entire market with it. They definitely want the whole market.
Whether we like it or not, the market depends on just two companies. I'm not fond of it, but everything hinges on Apple and IBM.
Playboy: How can you be so sure when the industry changes so quickly? Macintosh is on everyone's lips now, but what will happen in two years? Doesn't that contradict your philosophy? Are you trying to take IBM's place? Are there not smaller companies wishing to take Apple's spot?
Jobs: When it comes to computer sales, everything is in the hands of Apple and IBM. I don't think anyone will challenge for third, fourth, sixth, or seventh place. Most young, innovative companies are mostly focused on software. I think we can expect breakthroughs from them in the software area, but not in hardware.
Playboy: IBM can say the same about 'hardware', but you won't forgive them for it. Whatâs the difference?
Jobs: I believe our business sector has grown so much that launching something new will be difficult for anyone.
Playboy: Billion-dollar companies will no longer be born in garages?
Jobs: Computer companies â I seriously doubt it. This places special responsibility on Apple â if we expect innovations from anyone, it can only be from us. This is our only way to compete. If we move fast enough, no one will catch up to us.
Playboy: When do you think IBM will finally 'overwhelm' the companies producing IBM-compatible computers?
Jobs: Companies imitating in the range of 100-200 million dollars may survive, but that level of revenue means you're fighting for survival, and innovation is no longer your priority. I believe IBM will eliminate the imitators with programs that they won't have, and eventually present a new standard that won't even be compatible with today's â itâs too limited.
Playboy: But you did the same thing. If someone has software for Apple II, they can't run it on Macintosh.
Jobs: That's true, Mac is a completely new device. We understood that we could attract those interested in existing technologies â Apple II, IBM PC â since they would still be glued to their computers day and night trying to master them. But most people will remain inaccessible to us.
: To equip tens of millions of people with computers, we needed technology that would radically simplify computer use and at the same time make it more powerful. We needed a breakthrough. We wanted to do everything in our power because Macintosh could be our last chance to start over. I am very pleased with what we have achieved. Macintosh will give us a solid foundation for the next decade.
Playboy: Let's go back to the origins, to the predecessors of Lisa and Mac, to the very beginning. How much did your parents influence your interest in computers?
JobsThey encouraged my interest. My dad was a mechanic and was brilliant with his hands. He can fix any mechanical device. This gave me my first push. I started getting interested in electronics, and he began bringing me things that I could disassemble and reassemble. He was transferred to Palo Alto when I was fiveâthatâs how we ended up in the Valley.
PlayboyYou were adopted, right? How much did that impact your life?
JobsIt's hard to say. Who knows?
PlayboyHave you ever tried to search for your biological parents?
JobsI think it's natural for adopted children to be curious about their originsâmany want to understand where certain traits come from. But I believe that environment is primary. Your upbringing, values, and worldview come from childhood. However, some things can't be explained by the environment. I think itâs perfectly natural to have that curiosity. I had it too.
PlayboyWere you able to find your biological parents?
JobsThat's the only topic Iâm not ready to discuss.
PlayboyThe Valley you moved to with your parents is now known as Silicon Valley. What was it like growing up there?
JobsWe lived in the suburbs. It was a typical American neighborhoodâthere were lots of kids living nearby. My mom taught me to read before I even started school, so I got bored there and began terrorizing the teachers. If you had seen our third grade, we behaved terriblyâwe released snakes, blew up bombs. But everything changed in fourth grade. One of my personal guardiansâmy teacher Imogen Hill, who taught an advanced class. She figured me out and my situation in just a month and ignited my passion for learning. That school year, I learned more new things than in any other. By the end of the year, they even wanted to move me straight to high school, but my wise parents were against it.
PlayboyDid the place where you lived influence you as well? How did Silicon Valley come about?
JobsThe Valley is strategically located between two major universities, Berkeley and Stanford. These universities not only attract many studentsâthey draw in a lot of excellent students from all over the country. They come, fall in love with the place, and stay. This results in a constant influx of fresh, talented people.
Before World War II, two Stanford graduates, Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard, founded an innovative company called Hewlett-Packard. Then, in 1948, the bipolar transistor was invented at Bell Telephone Laboratories. One of the three co-inventors, William Shockley, decided to return to his hometown of Palo Alto to establish his own small company â Shockley Labs, it seems. He brought along about a dozen physicists and chemists, the most prominent figures of their generation. Little by little, they began to break away and start their own businesses â like seeds of flowers and weeds scattering in all directions at the slightest breath of wind. Thus, the Valley was born.
Playboy: How did you first encounter a computer?
Jobs: One of our neighbors was Larry Lang, who worked as an engineer at Hewlett-Packard. He spent a lot of time with me, teaching me various things. I first saw a computer at Hewlett-Packard. Every Tuesday, they hosted groups of kids and allowed us to work on the computers. I was about twelve years old and vividly remember that day. They showed us their new desktop computer and let us play on it. I immediately wanted my own.
Playboy: What captured your interest in computers? Did you see potential in them?
Jobs: Nothing in particular; I just thought computers were cool. I wanted to have fun with one.
Playboy: Later, you even worked at Hewlett-Packard. How did that happen?
Jobs: When I was twelve or thirteen, I needed some parts for a project. I picked up the phone and called Bill Hewlett â his number was in the Palo Alto phone book. He picked up and was very kind. We talked for about twenty minutes. He didnât know me at all, but he sent me the parts and invited me to work over the summer â I was placed on the assembly line, where I assembled frequency counters. Perhaps 'assembled' is too strong a word; I was just tightening screws. But it didn't matter, I was in heaven.
I remember how, on my first day of work, I was beaming with enthusiasm â I had been hired by Hewlett-Packard for the entire summer. I eagerly told my boss, a guy named Chris, that I loved electronics more than anything in the world. When I asked him what he loved most, Chris looked at me and said, 'Sex'. [laughs] It was an enlightening summer.
Playboy: How did you meet Steve Wozniak?
Jobs: I met Woz when I was thirteen in a friend's garage. He was about eighteen. He was the first person I knew who understood electronics better than I did. We became great friends thanks to our shared interest in computers and sense of humor. We pulled all sorts of pranks together!
Playboy: For example?
Jobs: [smirking] Nothing special. For example, we made a huge flag with this giant [flipping the bird]. We wanted to unfurl it in the middle of the graduation ceremony. One time, Woz built some ticking device that looked like a bomb and brought it to the school cafeteria. We also made blue boxes together.
Playboy: Those are illegal devices that could make long-distance calls?
Jobs: Exactly. There's a famous story about how Woz called the Vatican and pretended to be Henry Kissinger. The Pope was woken up in the middle of the night and only later realized it was a prank.
Playboy: Did you get into trouble for such antics?
Jobs: A few times I was expelled from school.
Playboy: Can we say you were 'obsessed' with computers?
Jobs: I was working on one thing and then another. There was so much around me. After reading 'Moby Dick' for the first time, I signed up for creative writing classes again. By senior year, I was allowed to spend half my time at Stanford, attending lectures.
Playboy: Did Woz have periods of obsession?
Jobs: [laughs] Yes, but he was not only obsessed with computers. I think he lived in some world of his own that no one understood. No one shared his interests â he was a bit ahead of his time. He often felt very lonely. He was driven primarily by his own internal views of the world, not by anyone's expectations, so he managed. Woz and I are quite different in many ways, but similar and very close in some. We are like two planets with their own orbits that occasionally intersect. I'm not just talking about computers â Woz and I both loved the poetry of Bob Dylan and reflected on it a lot. We lived in California â California is infused with the spirit of experimentation and openness to new possibilities.
Besides Dylan, I was interested in Eastern spiritual practices that had just begun to reach our shores. When I was studying at Reed College in Oregon, various people would frequently visit us â Timothy Leary, Ram Dass, Gary Snyder. We were constantly questioning the meaning of life. At that time, every student in America was reading "Be Here Now," "Diet for a Small Planet," and a dozen other similar books. Nowadays, you won't find them on campus even if you look hard. It's neither good nor bad; it's just different now. Their place has been taken by the book "In Search of Excellence."
Playboy: How has all this influenced you today?
Jobs: This entire period had a huge impact on me. It was clear that the sixties were behind us, and many idealists had not achieved their goals. Since they had completely abandoned discipline, there was no worthy place for them. Many of my friends absorbed the idealism of the sixties but along with it, also practicality and an unwillingness to work as a cashier at forty-five, as often happened with their older peers. Not that it's an undignified occupation; itâs just very sad to do something far from what youâd hope for.
Playboy: After Reed, you returned to Silicon Valley and responded to the ad "Earn While Having Fun," which became famous.
Jobs: Thatâs right. I wanted to travel, but I didn't have enough money. I returned to find work. I was browsing ads in the newspaper, and one of them really said: "Earn While Having Fun." I called. It turned out to be Atari. I had never worked anywhere before â except as a teenager. Somehow, they called me in for an interview the next day and hired me.
Playboy: This must be the earliest period in Atari's history.
Jobs: There were about forty people besides me; the company was very small. They had created Pong and two other games. I was assigned to help a guy named Don. He was developing a terrible basketball game. At the same time, someone was working on a hockey simulator. Due to the incredible success of Pong, they were trying to model all their games after different sports.
Playboy: Yet you never forgot your motivation â you needed the money for traveling.
Jobs: Once, Atari sent a batch of games to Europe, and it turned out they had engineering defects. I figured out how to fix them, but it had to be done manually â someone needed to travel to Europe. I volunteered to go and asked for unpaid leave after the business trip. Management had no objections. I visited Switzerland, then went on to New Delhi and spent quite a bit of time in India.
Playboy: There you shaved your head.
Jobs: It wasn't quite like that. I was walking in the Himalayas and accidentally stumbled upon a religious festival. There was a baba â a righteous old sage, the patron of this festival â and a huge group of his followers. I caught a whiff of delicious food. I hadn't smelled anything tasty for a long time, so I decided to check out the festival, pay my respects and grab a bite.
I was having lunch. For some reason, this baba immediately approached me, sat down beside me, and burst into laughter. He spoke almost no English, I knew a bit of Hindi, but we still tried to chat. He was just roaring with laughter. Then he grabbed my hand and dragged me up a mountain path. It was amusing â there were hundreds of Indians around who had come from thousands of kilometers away just to spend even ten seconds with this guy, and I wandered in looking for food, and he immediately led me somewhere into the mountains.
Half an hour later, we reached the summit. There was a small stream flowing there â the baba dipped my head in the water, pulled out a razor, and started shaving me. I was astonished. I was 19 years old, in a foreign country, somewhere in the Himalayas, and some Indian sage was shaving my head at the top of a mountain. I still don't understand why he did that.
Source: habr.com
