Skip to main content

Steve Jobs interview from 1990, recently surfaced

 

Steve Jobs talks about the future of computing in a rare 50 minute TV interview aired on PBS. 

When asked how computers have changed civilization, Steve begins by noting how humans were able to leapfrog the more efficient locomotion of other animal species by using tools, or technology. 

Offering the example of how a human on a bicycle could easily surpass the locomotive advantage of the most efficient animal, a condor, Jobs concludes: 

"We humans are tool-builders. And we can fashion tools that amplify these inherent abilities that we have to spectacular magnitudes. So for me, a computer has always been a bicycle of the mind: something that takes us far beyond our inherent abilities. I think we're just at the early stages of this tool."

You can see by the re-do of his 1st interview response that Steve was always "on message" and rehearsing and delivering the exact points he wanted to make when selling his vision of how we use technology and Apple products. 

It also highlights the fact that modern TV interviews are often actually rehearsed, taped, and edited performances, rather than the more spontaneous give-and-take than the finished product tries to convey.. Steve could see this, and he crafted his message to the medium, whether he was out on his own at NeXT or selling to a larger consumer market for Apple. 

Enjoy the discussion and insights, and see our related posts for more on Steve Jobs.

Related articles and posts

1. Interview: Steve Jobs and Bill Gates at D5 conference - Finance Trends.

2. In Charts: Apple (AAPL) vs. Microsoft (MSFT) - Finance Trends.

Popular posts from this blog

Lessons from Hedge Fund Market Wizards: Scott Ramsey

Today we continue our series, "Lessons from Hedge Fund Market Wizards" , with a look at Jack Schwager's interview with Scott Ramsey of Denali Asset Management.  Ramsey, a futures trader and CTA who works on the island of St. Croix, spoke to Schwager about his first foray into the markets, his evolution as a trader, and the process he stands by to protect and grow his clients' money. 1) . Ramsey started trading in college. He was roped into the OTC metals market via a broker's ad in the Wall St. Journal. The broker charged customers a flat fee to buy and sell as much as they wanted in a particular market for six month. At the time, Scott was a novice and didn't know about futures, so he traded metals in this fashion through the inflationary run-up of the late 1970s. 2) . Scott had to rethink his trading strategy after he bought silver at $50 an oz., only to watch it collapse to $26 following a long string of limit-down days. He sold as soon as the market...

Finance Trends 2019 Mid-Year Markets Review

Email subscribers of the Finance Trends Newsletter receive the first look at new articles and market updates, such as the following piece, sent out to our email list on Sunday (6/14).   Hello and welcome, everyone! If you received our last email notice over the July 4th holiday, you'll know that this weekend's newsletter will serve as a mid-year market update and a follow-up to issue #29, " How to Reinvest in a Rising Market ".   Ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, let's start the show...  Finance Trends Newsletter: Our Mid-Year Market Review When we last spoke, back in February, the U.S. stock market was rallying off its December-January lows. As the S&P 500 and Nasdaq reclaimed their 200 day moving averages in February and March, it became increasingly apparent that a lot of retail investors (and perhaps some institutional investors) were left under-invested while watching this recovery move from the sidelines.  The U.S. stock ...

How to "Pull the Trigger" on Your Trading Ideas

In our last post, I quoted hedge fund manager, Jim Leitner on the importance of following up on your investment ideas.  Today I'd like to follow up and share some thoughts on how you can learn to consistently "pull the trigger" on your best trading setups and investing ideas. In order to help you do that, we'll take from the best and offer up key insights from interviews with top traders and trading psychologists like Alan Farley, Brett Steenbarger, and Doug Hirschhorn .  Now before we get to their key insights on overcoming trading anxiety and pulling the trigger on your trading ideas, let's remember what Jim Leitner said in his interview: "Learn to love to listen to people and when you hear something interesting, follow up on it. Don't just think, "Well that's an interesting idea" only to find out a year later that the company you could've bought shares in is now up 500-fold. You never want to say woulda, coulda, shoulda...