This is the third (final) part of the interview included in the anthology The Playboy Interview: Moguls, which also includes conversations with Jeff Bezos, Sergey Brin, Larry Page, David Geffen and many others.
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Playboy: What did you do upon your return?
Jobs: The culture shock of returning was stronger than the shock of the trip. Atari wanted me to come back to work. I was not eager to return, but over time I was convinced to become a consultant. In his free time he had fun with Wozniak. He took me to Homebrew Computer Club meetings, where computer enthusiasts gathered and exchanged finds. Some of them were interesting, but overall I didn't find it very interesting. Wozniak attended the club with religious zeal.
Playboy: What did they say about computers then? Why are you interested?
Jobs: At the center of the discussion was a microcomputer called Altair. At that time, we could hardly believe that someone had learned to create computers that could be purchased as personal property. Previously this was impossible. When we were in high school, neither of us had access to mainframe computers. We had to go somewhere and beg a large company to let us use the computer. Now, for the first time in history, a computer could be purchased. The Altair came out around 1975 and cost less than $400.
Although it was relatively inexpensive, not all of us could afford it. This is how computer clubs were born.
Playboy: And what did you do with those primitive computers?
Jobs: There were no graphical interfaces, only alphanumeric indicators. I became interested in programming, basic programming. Back then, on early versions of computers, you couldn’t even type; characters were entered using switches.
Playboy: Then Altair introduced the concept of a home, personal computer.
Jobs: It was just a computer that you could buy. They didn't really know what to do with it. The first thing they did was add computer languages so they could write programs. Buyers began to use them for practical purposes only after a year or two, and for the most simple tasks like accounting.
Playboy: And you decided that you could do something better.
Jobs: It just so happened. At Atari, I worked a lot at night, and Woz often came to see me. Atari released a game called Gran Track, the first driving simulator with a steering wheel. Woz immediately became hooked on her. He spent tons of quarters on this game, so I let him into the office and he played all night long for free.
Whenever I had difficulties working on a project, I asked Woz to take a break from his road adventures for at least ten minutes and help me. Sometimes he would work on something too. One day he built a computer terminal with video memory. A little later, he bought a microprocessor, attached it to a terminal, and created the prototype for the Apple I. Woz and I assembled the circuit board ourselves. That's all.
Playboy: So you did it just out of interest?
Jobs: Certainly. Well, to have something to show your friends.
Playboy: How did you come to the next step - industrial production and sales?
Jobs: Woz and I raised $1300 by selling my VW minivan and his Hewlett-Packard calculator. A guy who worked at one of the first computer stores told us he could sell our creations. We didn’t think of this ourselves.
Playboy: How did you and Wozniak organize the work?
Jobs: He designed the computer almost completely. I helped with memory and turning the computer into a product. Woz is not good at sales, but he is a brilliant engineer.
Playboy: Apple I was intended for enthusiasts?
Jobs: One hundred percent. We only sold 150 or so. God knows what, but we earned about 95 thousand dollars, and I began to see our hobby as a business. The Apple I was just a circuit board - there was no case, no power supply, essentially no product. Buyers had to buy transformers and even a keyboard themselves [laughing].
Playboy: Did you and Wozniak quickly realize that you were doing something promising? Have you thought about how much you can achieve and how much computers will change the world?
Jobs: No, not particularly. We had no idea where this would lead us. Woz's motivation is to search for clues and solutions. He focused on the engineering part and soon created one of his greatest inventions - the disk drive, a key part of the future Apple II. I tried to organize a company, and to begin with, figure out what a company is. I don't think any of us could have achieved individually what we achieved together.
Playboy: How has your partnership changed over time?
Jobs: Woz was never particularly interested in Apple. He wanted to assemble an Apple II on a circuit board so that he could get one of the computers himself and carry it to the club without fear of something breaking along the way. He achieved his goal and moved on to other things. He had other ideas.
Playboy: For example, a rock festival combined with a computer show, where he lost about ten million.
Jobs: This project immediately seemed a little crazy to me, but Woz truly believed in it.
Playboy: What is your relationship like today?
Jobs: When you work so closely with someone and go through thick and thin together, you form an unbreakable bond. Despite all the squabbles, this connection remains forever. And although over time you cease to be best friends, something even stronger than friendship remains between you. Woz has his own life - he moved away from Apple five years ago. But what he created will remain for centuries. Now he speaks at various computer events. This is what he loves.
Playboy: The computer revolution began with the Apple II you two created. How did it all happen?
Jobs: We didn’t work together, other people also helped us. Wozniak designed the system logic, an important part of the Apple II, but there were other key parts. The power supply is the key element. The body is the key element. The main breakthrough of the Apple II was that it was a complete product. It was the first computer that was not a construction kit. It was fully equipped, had its own case and keyboard - you sit down and work. That's what made the Apple II stand out—it looked like a real product.
Playboy: Were your first consumers enthusiasts?
Jobs: The main difference was that to use the Apple II you didn’t have to be a hardware fanatic. You could be a fan of the programs. That's one of the breakthrough things about the Apple II—it showed that a lot more people wanted to have fun with computers, like Woz and I, rather than build their own cars. That's what the Apple II was all about. But despite this, in the first year we only sold three or four thousand copies.
Playboy: Even this number seems pretty solid - after all, its creators didn’t really know what they were doing.
Jobs: It was gigantic! In 1976, when we were still sitting in the garage, we earned about two hundred thousand. In 1977 - already seven million. This is fantastic, we thought. In 1978 we earned 17 million. In 1979 - $47 million. That's when we all truly realized what was happening. 1980 - 117 million. 1981 - 335 million. 1982 - 583 million. 1983 - 985 million... it seems. This year we expect one and a half billion.
Playboy: You keep all these numbers in your head.
Jobs: Basically, these are just marks on a ruler. The coolest thing is that already in 1979, I sometimes went into school classrooms with 15 Apple computers and watched how the children worked. These are the kinds of things that I consider important milestones.
Playboy: So we're back to your latest milestones - the release of the Mac and your fight with IBM. In this interview, you have made it clear more than once that you do not see other players in this area. But although you share about 60 percent of the market between the two of you, can you really write off the other forty - Radio Shack, DEC, Epson, etc.? Are they insignificant to you? And most importantly, is it possible to ignore a potential competitor in AT&T?
Jobs: AT&T will definitely work in this field. The company is undergoing a major transformation. AT&T ceases to be a subsidized, top-down service enterprise and becomes a competitive technology company, a free market player. AT&T products themselves have never been of the highest quality - look at their phones, they're ridiculous. But their scientific laboratories contain brilliant technology. The main task of the company is to put them on a commercial footing. They will also have to learn consumer marketing. I think they can handle both tasks, but solving them will take years.
Playboy: You don't think AT&T is a threat?
Jobs: I don't think they should be considered for the next two years - but they will get better over time.
Playboy: How about Radio Shack?
Jobs: Radio Shack will definitely remain out of business. Radio Shack tried to squeeze the computer into its retail model, which, in my opinion, boils down to selling second-rate or low-end products in military-style stores. The company never realized that sophisticated consumers were interested in computers. Its market share has fallen through the roof. I don't think they will recover and become a leading player again.
Playboy: What about Xerox? Texas Instruments? DEC? Wang?
Jobs: You can forget about Xerox. TI is not doing as well as they think. Other large companies like DEC or Wang may sell personal computers to existing customers as part of advanced terminals, but that market is about to dry up.
Playboy: What about budget computers from Commodore and Atari?
Jobs: I take them as an additional reason to buy an Apple II or Macintosh. I think that consumers have already realized that computers under five hundred dollars are not very effective. They either spark the user's interest in more or scare them away forever.
Playboy: How do you feel about small portable PCs?
Jobs: They are suitable, for example, for journalists who want to write down thoughts on the run. But they are of no use to the average person - very few programs are written for them. As soon as you get the software you want, a new model will come out with a slightly larger display, and your programs will be outdated. That's why no one writes them. Wait for our models - Macintosh power in a pocket!
Playboy: And Epson? What about other Japanese manufacturers?
Jobs: I already said: Japanese computers washed up on our shores like dead fish. They're just dead fish. Epson failed in this market.
Playboy: Car manufacturing is another American industry in which some argue that we are inferior to the Japanese. Now they say the same about our semiconductor manufacturers. How do you plan to maintain leadership?
Jobs: Japan is a very interesting country. Some people say that the Japanese only know how to copy something else, but I don’t think so. I think they're rethinking it. They take someone else's inventions and study them until they fully understand them. Sometimes they manage to understand them better than the inventor himself understands. This is how they create a second, improved generation of products. This strategy works when the product doesn't change much over the years, such as audio systems or cars. But if the target is moving very quickly, then it is not easy for them to keep up with it - the cycle of such updating takes years.
If the nature of the personal computer continues to change at the same rate as today, the Japanese will have a difficult time. Once the process slows down, the Japanese will hit the market with all their might because they want to take the lead in the computer business. There can be no doubt here - this is their national priority.
It seems to us that in 4-5 years the Japanese will finally learn how to assemble decent computers. And if we're going to maintain America's leadership on this front, Apple has four years to become a world-class manufacturer. Our production technologies must be on par with or superior to Japanese ones.
Playboy: How do you plan to achieve this?
Jobs: When we developed the Macintosh, we also developed a machine for making cars. We spent $20 million to create the world's most automated computer factory. But this is not enough. Instead of retiring it after seven years, as most companies would do, we use it for two years. We will abandon it by the end of 1985 and build a new one, use it for two years and also replace it with a new one. So in three years we will have our third automated plant. This is the only way we can learn quickly enough.
Playboy: The Japanese are not only competitors for you - for example, you buy your disk drives from Sony.
Jobs: We purchase many components from Japan. We are the world's largest consumer of microprocessors, high-tech RAM chips, disk drives and keyboards. We don't have to spend a lot of effort on designing and manufacturing floppy disks or microprocessors, and we spend it on software.
Playboy: Let's talk about software. What revolutionary changes have you seen in its development in recent years?
Jobs: Of course, the real breakthrough was the early stage - recording the programming language on the microprocessor chip. Another breakthrough is VisiCalc, which for the first time made it possible to use a computer for doing business and showed tangible advantages of this application. Before this, you had to program your own applications, and the percentage of people who want to program is no more than a percentage. The ability to display information graphically is very important, which is why Lotus was an important breakthrough.
Playboy: You are talking about things that our readers may not be familiar with. Please tell us more details.
Jobs: Lotus has combined a good spreadsheet editor with a graphics program. When it comes to word processing and database processing, Lotus is not the best program on the market. The main advantage of Lotus is the combination of a table and graphics editor and the ability to quickly switch between them.
Another breakthrough is happening right now with the Macintosh, which provides Lisa technology at an affordable price. Revolutionary software has been written and will be written for it. But you can really talk about a breakthrough only a few years after it happened.
Playboy: What about word processing? You didn’t mention it in the list of breakthroughs.
Jobs: You're right. It should have gone right after VisiCalc. Word processing is the most common of tasks and one of the easiest to understand. This is probably the first thing most people need a computer for. Text editors existed before personal computers, but a text editor for a personal computer was, rather, an economic breakthrough - but there were no analogues of VisiCalc before the advent of the PC.
Playboy: Have there been any breakthroughs in the field of educational software?
Jobs: Quite a lot of good programs were created, but there was no breakthrough at the level of VisiCalc. I think it will come, but hardly in the next two years.
Playboy: You emphasized that education is a priority for you. How do computers influence its development?
Jobs: Computers themselves and a software notation not yet developed will bring a revolution in the learning process. We have created an education fund and will provide equipment and several million dollars to educational software developers and schools that cannot afford computers. We also wanted to make the Macintosh the mainstay computer in colleges, just as the Apple II became the mainstay computer in schools. We decided to find six universities that would be willing to make a large purchase—by large I mean in excess of a thousand computers. Instead of six, twenty-four responded. We asked colleges to invest two million dollars to join the Macintosh program. All twenty-four, including all the Ivy Leaguers, agreed. Thus, the Macintosh became standard equipment for college education in less than a year. Every Macintosh we made this year could go to one of these colleges. Of course, this is impossible, but there is such a demand.
Playboy: But are there programs?
Jobs: Some. Those that do not yet exist will be written by specialists in the colleges themselves. IBM tried to stop us - I heard that a task force of 400 people was formed to do this. The company was going to give them an IBM PC. But college leaders were farsighted. They realized that the software they would receive was much more important and did not want to spend money on old IBM technology. So in some cases they turned down IBM's offer and bought Macintoshes. Some even used grants received from IBM for this.
Playboy: Can you name these colleges?
Jobs: I can not. I don't want to get them into trouble.
Playboy: When you yourself were in college in the pre-computer era, what did you and your classmates see as the main perspective? In politics?
Jobs: None of my gifted college friends went into politics. They all felt that in the late sixties and seventies politics was not the right field for changing the world. Today they are all in business, and it's funny because at one time these same people were traveling around India on foot or searching for the meaning of life in their own way.
Playboy: Wasn't business and the pursuit of profit the simplest of solutions?
Jobs: No, none of these people care about money. I mean, a lot of them have made a ton of money, but they don't really care. Their way of life has hardly changed. Business became an opportunity for them to try to achieve something, to experience failure, to succeed, to grow as a person. For those who wanted to prove themselves in the last ten years, a political career was not an option. As a person who has not yet turned thirty, I can say: at twenty you need to be impatient, want something new, and in politics the idealism of these people would dull and wither.
I think America only awakens in times of crisis. And it seems to me that in the early nineties we are facing a serious crisis - the problems that our politicians were supposed to solve are beginning to come to the surface. When this crisis comes, many of these people will be able to apply their practical skills and idealism to the political sphere. The generation most ready for it in history will enter politics. These people know how to select personnel, how to achieve their goals, and how to lead.
Playboy: But that’s what every new generation says?
Jobs: We live in different times. The technological revolution is becoming increasingly intertwined with our economy and society as a whole. More than half of the US GNP comes from information-based industries—and most political leaders have played no part in this revolution. More and more key decisions - resource allocation, education of our children, and so on - will be made by people who understand technical issues and the direction in which progress is moving. Not yet. The situation in the education sector is close to a national catastrophe. In a world where information and innovation are at the forefront, America faces serious risks of becoming an industrial underdog if it loses its technological momentum and existing leadership talent.
Playboy: You talk about investing in education, but isn't it a challenge to find funds in an era of soaring deficits?
Jobs: In the next five years, America will spend more on weapons than any country in history has spent. Our society has decided that this is a worthy use of our money - hence the growing deficit, and therefore the rising cost of our capital. Meanwhile, Japan, our main competitor at the forefront of technological progress - that is, in the semiconductor industry - has revised tax policies and the structure of the entire society in such a way as to maximize capital for investment in this area. It seems that few people in America see the connection between spending on weapons and the possible loss of its own semiconductor production. We need to realize what a threat this is.
Playboy: And you believe that computers will help in this process.
Jobs: I'll tell you a story. I received a video recording that was not intended for my eyes and was created for the Committee of Chiefs of Staff. From this post I learned that every tactical nuclear weapon we have deployed in Europe is targeted using an Apple II. At least that's how it was a few years ago. We did not supply computers to the army - they must have been purchased through dealers. Knowing that our computers were being used for such purposes did not sit well with my colleagues. The only thing that consoles us is that at least the military does not use the TRS-80 from Radio Shack. Glory to you, Lord.
My point is that any tool will always be used for not the most pleasant things. And people themselves must ensure that they are used productively and work for the benefit of society.
Playboy: What direction will computers and software go in the near future?
Jobs: At this stage, we treat the computer as a good servant. We ask them to perform a task, such as taking our keystrokes and composing a letter accordingly or constructing a table, and they do a great job of it. This aspect - the computer as a servant - will be improved more and more. The next step is to turn the computer into an intermediary or conductor. Computers will get better at predicting what exactly we want and giving us what we want, noticing relationships and patterns in our actions, asking us if we want to make these actions permanent. So, something like triggers will be introduced. We will be able to ask computers to monitor certain things - and under certain conditions, computers will take certain actions and inform us after the fact.
Playboy: For instance?
Jobs: The simplest example is hourly or daily monitoring of stocks. As soon as the price of the shares reaches one or another limit, the computer itself will contact my broker, sell the shares electronically, and then notify me about it. Or let's say that at the end of each month, the computer will search the database for sellers who have exceeded the target by 20 percent or more, and send them a personalized email on my behalf. I will receive a report on who received such a letter this month. Someday our computers will be able to carry out at least a hundred such tasks - the computer will begin to resemble our intermediary, representative. The process will be launched in the next 12 months, but in general it will take about three more years to achieve this goal. This will be our next breakthrough.
Playboy: Can we do all these tasks on today's hardware? Or will you sell us a new one?
Jobs: All? This is a dangerous word, I will not use it. I just don't know the answer. The Macintosh was definitely designed with these capabilities in mind.
Playboy: You are very proud of Apple's leadership. What do you think about older companies being forced to play catch-up with younger ones or perish?
Jobs: It's just inevitable. This is why I believe that death is the greatest invention of life. It cleanses the system of all ancient, outdated models. This is one of the challenges facing Apple. When two guys come along with the next great invention, what are we going to do - embrace it and say it's great? Will we abandon our models or will we find an excuse, a reason not to do this? I think we will do the right thing - we will understand everything and make the right step our priority.
Playboy: When thinking about your success, have you ever hit your head against the wall trying to understand what was happening? In the end, this success came almost overnight.
Jobs: I was thinking about how to sell a million computers a year - but I was just thinking about it. When this happens in reality, it’s a completely different matter: “No damn thing, it’s all for real.” It's hard for me to explain, but I don't feel like success came overnight. Next year will be my tenth year in the company. Before, I had never devoted myself to any activity for more than a year. When it all started, even six months was a long time for me. It turns out that I have been working at Apple my entire adult life. Every year at Apple is so full of problems, successes, new knowledge and impressions that it feels like a whole life. So I've lived ten full lives.
Playboy: Do you know what you want to devote the rest of your life to?
Jobs: I often think of an ancient Hindu saying: “The first thirty years of your life are where you form your habits. For the last thirty years of your life, habits shape you.” Since I turn thirty in February, I think about it a lot.
Playboy: So what do you think?
Jobs: That I'm not sure. I will forever be associated with Apple. I hope that the threads of our lives will intertwine more and more and we will continue to walk hand in hand. I may even leave for a few years, but someday I will definitely return. That's probably what I'll do. It is necessary to remember that I still have a lot to learn. I advise those who are interested in my thoughts not to forget about this. Don't take them too seriously. If you want to live your life creatively, like an artist, you can't constantly look around. You have to be willing to give up everything you have created and are. What are we? Most people think that we are collections of habits, patterns, things we like and things we don’t like. Our values are embedded in our nature, and the actions and decisions we make reflect those values. That's why it's so difficult to give interviews, to be a public figure. The more you grow and change, the more persistently the world around you tries to prove that your image is a reflection of you, the more difficult it is to remain an artist. This is why artists so often want to escape: “Goodbye, I need to leave. I’m going crazy and that’s why I’m getting out of here.” They escape and hibernate in their burrows. Sometimes they come back, but a little different.
Playboy: You can afford it. You definitely don't need to worry about money. Are you still working...
Jobs: [laughing] Because of the feeling of guilt about the money earned.
Playboy: Let's talk about money. You became a millionaire at the age of 23...
Jobs: Within a year my fortune exceeded 10 million, and after two - 100 million.
Playboy: What is the main difference between owning a million dollars and owning hundreds of millions?
Jobs: Visibility. The number of people whose wealth exceeds a million dollars is measured in tens of thousands in the United States alone. Those with more than 10 million are several thousand. Those who have a hundred million or more, there are several hundred.
Playboy: What does money really mean to you?
Jobs: I haven't figured it out yet. Earning more than you can spend in the rest of your life is a huge responsibility. I feel like I have to spend this money. Leaving a huge inheritance to your children is a bad idea. That kind of money will ruin their lives. And if you die childless, the government takes the money. Almost everyone believes that they can use money to benefit society more effectively than the government could. You need to figure out how to live with this condition and how to reinvest it back into the world - that is, either give it away or use it to express your values and anxieties.
Playboy: And how do you do it?
Jobs: I don’t want to talk about this side of my life. As soon as I have time, I will organize a public fund. I am currently working on several private projects.
Playboy: Giving away all your wealth would take up all your time.
Jobs: Yes, but nothing can be done. I am convinced that giving a dollar away is more difficult than earning it.
Playboy: Is this why you are in no hurry to engage in charitable projects?
Jobs: No, the real reason is simple. To do something well, you need to learn from mistakes. To allow for error, there must be an accurate scale. But in most types of philanthropy there is no such scale. You give someone money for this or that project and often do not know for sure whether your hopes for this person, his ideas or their implementation were justified or not. If you can't achieve success or make mistakes, it's very difficult to improve. Besides, most people who come to you don't come with the best ideas, and finding the best ideas on your own takes a lot of time and effort.
Playboy: If you're going to use your publicity to set a positive example, why don't you want to discuss that side of your life?
Jobs: Because I haven't achieved almost anything yet. In this area, first of all, your actions speak for you.
Playboy: Are you absolutely chaste or do you sometimes allow yourself to be wasteful?
Jobs: More than anything in the world I love books, sushi and... My favorite things don't cost a lot of money. It is obvious to me that the most valuable thing we have is time. In fact, I pay for success with my personal life. I don’t have time to have affairs or fly to Italy and sit in a cafe there, eating mozzarella and tomato salad. Sometimes I spend a little money to save myself the trouble and buy myself a little time. That's all. I bought an apartment in New York simply because I love this city. I'm trying to educate myself - I'm from a small town in California, and unfamiliar with the delights and culture of the big city. I consider this part of my education. You know, there are a lot of Apple employees who can buy everything they want, but spend almost nothing. I hate talking about it like it's a problem. Readers will probably say: oh, I wish I had your problems. They'll think I'm a pompous little asshole.
Playboy: Your wealth and accomplishments allow you to dream big in a way that the vast majority of people cannot. Does this freedom scare you?
Jobs: As soon as you have the means to realize your dreams and this realization depends only on you, life becomes much more difficult. It's easy to dream about something wonderful when the chance of achieving what you want is slim. Once you have the opportunity to bring your ideas to life, you have additional responsibility.
Playboy: We've talked about how you see the near future, but what about the more distant future? If computers are in nurseries, how do you imagine the potential changes in our lives as they grow older?
Jobs: When I returned from India, I asked myself a question - what was the main truth I learned for myself? I think it is that rational thinking of Western man is not his innate property. We learn this way of thinking. Before, I didn’t think that if we weren’t taught it, we would think differently. But everything is as it is. Obviously, one of the most important tasks of education is to teach us to think. We are now beginning to understand that computers will impact the quality of thinking of our children who have access to these tools. People are users of tools. The most impressive thing about the book is that you can read what Aristotle wrote for yourself. You don't have to listen to some teacher's interpretation. You can listen to him if you wish, but you can read Aristotle on your own. This direct transmission of thoughts and ideas is one of the key building blocks of today's society, of us. The problem with the book is that you can't ask Aristotle a question. I think that the computer can help us in some way... to capture the fundamental, basic principles of processes, experienced events.
Playboy: For instance?
Jobs: Let me give you a very rough example. The original Pong game reflected the principles of gravity, angular momentum, and so on, and each successor game reflected the same basic principles, but was different from the original - just like in life. This is the simplest example. Programming can reflect the basic principles, the basic essence and, thanks to the existing understanding, facilitate thousands of different processes, experiences, impressions. What if we could capture Aristotle's complete picture of the world, the basic principles of his worldview? Then we could ask him a question. Of course, you might say that this is not the same as talking to Aristotle himself. We might have gotten something wrong. But maybe not.
Playboy: At least it would be an interesting conversation.
Jobs: Exactly. Part of the challenge is getting this tool into the hands of millions, tens of millions of people, and making it ever more sophisticated. Then, over time, we can learn, first roughly, and then more and more precisely, to create images of Aristotle, Einstein or Land - while he is alive. Imagine how great it would be to hang out with them as a teenager. And not only in teenagers - in our mature ones! This is one of our tasks.
Playboy: Are you planning to solve it yourself?
Jobs: It will go to someone else. This is the task of the next generation. I think that in our field of intellectual research one of the most interesting problems is graceful aging. I mean, things are changing so quickly that by the end of the eighties we would like to hand over the reins to a new generation with cutting-edge fundamental ideas. So that they stand on our shoulders and fly up. Interesting question, don't you think? How to grow old with grace.
Source: habr.com