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People talk about CEOs with "vision", and usually it's a substitute for a more concrete explanation of what the value-add of non-technical upper management is.

People talk about CEOs with "vision", and usually it's a substitute for a more concrete explanation of what the value-add of non-technical upper management is. Reading this exchange is fascinating. Jobs doesn't spell out the future - he doesn't know it either - but he has an unwavering faith that computers will be central to it, and can even quite effectively explain how and why. The interviewer seems in retrospect hopelessly naive, but he no doubt represented the mainstream opinion of the time. For Jobs to understand this and bet his career on it (remember, most people betting their careers on computers would have been able to find work even if they had never left the science lab or big corporations - Jobs was speculating on a completely different future) shows, I think, that he deserves the place and high-regard in technological history he has been given.

taude 7y ago
I'd probably use the term quaint over naive, in 1985, only the most hardcore of households had an Apple IIe, IIc, IBM PC, etc. And no cell phones, so it really was so early on. Consumer tech hadn't really come into its own yet. It pre-dated CD (for music), and the Sony Walkman with cassettes and an Atari/Intellivision game console were about the extent most people had with computers. I'm not even sure if there was traditional tech journalism at the time? I mean, my family had some Apple-centric magazine that came every now an then....
- codehalo 7y ago
  Not sure what your context of "traditional" is, but Computer Shopper and Dobbs were around then. 1985 is also the year the Amiga came out. Got chills when I saw the commercial.
lisper 7y ago
"Jobs: The most compelling reason for most people to buy a computer for the home will be to link it into a nationwide communications network. We’re just in the beginning stages of what will be a truly remarkable breakthrough for most people—as remarkable as the telephone." Steve saw the internet coming in 1985. Wow.
- Mediterraneo10 7y ago
  Besides the fact that the internet was already around by 1985, and e-mail and Usenet groups were a known thing in nerd circles, in France a network for the masses, Minitel, had already been rolled out. Jobs was not so much prescient as simply aware of what was going on around him.
  - rpmisms 7y ago
    Which is still leaps and bounds ahead of today's C-level exec
    - whatshisface 7y ago
      Every C-level tech executive schedules two hours a day of reading HackerNews, right?
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
    - mnky9800n 7y ago
      that depends on the exec, but on average? sigh.
      - rpmisms 7y ago
        In my experience, it's a rare and desired trait.
  - lisper 7y ago
    > the internet was already around by 1985 Sort of. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Internet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Internet "In 1986, the NSF created NSFNET, a 56 kbit/s backbone to support the NSF-sponsored supercomputing centers." That was a year after the interview. I think you have to give the man some credit for forecasting that this particular technology would be the one to break out of the geek circle to really change the world for everyone.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
namirez 7y ago
>For Jobs to understand this and bet his career on it ... he deserves the place and high-regard in technological history he has been given I'm sure Jobs was brilliant, but this kind of praise still reminds of this Enrico Fermi's story [1]: During the "Manhattan project" (the making of nuclear bomb), physicist Enrico Fermi asked General Leslie Groves, the head of the project, what is the definition of a "great" general. Groves replied that any general who had won five battles in a row might safely be called great. Fermi then asked how many generals are great. Groves said about three out of every hundred. Fermi conjectured that if the chance of winning one battle is 1/2 then the chance of winning five battles in a row is 1/2^5 = 1/32 = 3%. "So you are right, General, about three out of every hundred. Mathematical probability, not genius." [1] https://arxiv.org/pdf/physics/0607109.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/physics/0607109.pdf
- burntoutfire 7y ago
  I can't believe that a brilliant man like Fermi would actually say that. The outcomes of battles are not random events. It's equivalent to saying that Floyd Mayweather, who so far has won 50 out of 50 of his fights, is not a great boxer, because, out of millions of people boxing, there mathematically ought to be one person who just won 50 times in a row. The thing is winning battles (or boxing fights) is not flipping a coin - it involves little more skill than that.
  - namirez 7y ago
    What Fermi is saying is that if 3 out of every 100 generals are great, these 3 should be able to win more than 5 consecutive battles in order to beat the statistical noise. In your example, Mayweather's chance of winning 50 fights by sheer luck is 10^-15. We don't have 10^15 fighters around, so his achievement cannot be attributed to chance.
- tompccs 7y ago
  Unlike a general, Jobs didn't enter into a series of battles with binary outcomes. He built a company - Apple - from scratch which changed the shape of the world. I'm not saying that Jobs was the only person with that vision and that he was rewarded accordingly, but that his vision and insight were obvious to anyone who cared to listen, and that he followed through on that vision with incredible success. Imagine instead of a general a tank designer whose tanks went on to change the face of warefare. That's Steve Jobs.

taude 7y ago

I'd probably use the term quaint over naive, in 1985, only the most hardcore of households had an Apple IIe, IIc, IBM PC, etc. And no cell phones, so it really was so early on. Consumer tech hadn't really come into its own yet. It pre-dated CD (for music), and the Sony Walkman with cassettes and an Atari/Intellivision game console were about the extent most people had with computers. I'm not even sure if there was traditional tech journalism at the time? I mean, my family had some Apple-centric magazine that came every now an then....

codehalo 7y ago
Not sure what your context of "traditional" is, but Computer Shopper and Dobbs were around then. 1985 is also the year the Amiga came out. Got chills when I saw the commercial.

lisper 7y ago

"Jobs: The most compelling reason for most people to buy a computer for the home will be to link it into a nationwide communications network. We’re just in the beginning stages of what will be a truly remarkable breakthrough for most people—as remarkable as the telephone." Steve saw the internet coming in 1985. Wow.

Mediterraneo10 7y ago
Besides the fact that the internet was already around by 1985, and e-mail and Usenet groups were a known thing in nerd circles, in France a network for the masses, Minitel, had already been rolled out. Jobs was not so much prescient as simply aware of what was going on around him.
- rpmisms 7y ago
  Which is still leaps and bounds ahead of today's C-level exec
  - whatshisface 7y ago
    Every C-level tech executive schedules two hours a day of reading HackerNews, right?
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - mnky9800n 7y ago
    that depends on the exec, but on average? sigh.
    - rpmisms 7y ago
      In my experience, it's a rare and desired trait.
- lisper 7y ago
  > the internet was already around by 1985 Sort of. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Internet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Internet "In 1986, the NSF created NSFNET, a 56 kbit/s backbone to support the NSF-sponsored supercomputing centers." That was a year after the interview. I think you have to give the man some credit for forecasting that this particular technology would be the one to break out of the geek circle to really change the world for everyone.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

namirez 7y ago

>For Jobs to understand this and bet his career on it ... he deserves the place and high-regard in technological history he has been given I'm sure Jobs was brilliant, but this kind of praise still reminds of this Enrico Fermi's story [1]: During the "Manhattan project" (the making of nuclear bomb), physicist Enrico Fermi asked General Leslie Groves, the head of the project, what is the definition of a "great" general. Groves replied that any general who had won five battles in a row might safely be called great. Fermi then asked how many generals are great. Groves said about three out of every hundred. Fermi conjectured that if the chance of winning one battle is 1/2 then the chance of winning five battles in a row is 1/2^5 = 1/32 = 3%. "So you are right, General, about three out of every hundred. Mathematical probability, not genius." [1] https://arxiv.org/pdf/physics/0607109.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/physics/0607109.pdf

burntoutfire 7y ago
I can't believe that a brilliant man like Fermi would actually say that. The outcomes of battles are not random events. It's equivalent to saying that Floyd Mayweather, who so far has won 50 out of 50 of his fights, is not a great boxer, because, out of millions of people boxing, there mathematically ought to be one person who just won 50 times in a row. The thing is winning battles (or boxing fights) is not flipping a coin - it involves little more skill than that.
- namirez 7y ago
  What Fermi is saying is that if 3 out of every 100 generals are great, these 3 should be able to win more than 5 consecutive battles in order to beat the statistical noise. In your example, Mayweather's chance of winning 50 fights by sheer luck is 10^-15. We don't have 10^15 fighters around, so his achievement cannot be attributed to chance.
tompccs 7y ago
Unlike a general, Jobs didn't enter into a series of battles with binary outcomes. He built a company - Apple - from scratch which changed the shape of the world. I'm not saying that Jobs was the only person with that vision and that he was rewarded accordingly, but that his vision and insight were obvious to anyone who cared to listen, and that he followed through on that vision with incredible success. Imagine instead of a general a tank designer whose tanks went on to change the face of warefare. That's Steve Jobs.