SUMMARY

In a 1995 interview by Robert X. Cringely, Steve Jobs recounts his early fascination with computers, founding Apple with Wozniak, innovations like the Macintosh, clashes with Sculley, departure from Apple, and visions for technology's future.

STATEMENTS

Steve Jobs first encountered a computer at age 10 or 11 through a time-sharing terminal at NASA Ames Research Center, sparking his lifelong passion.
Jobs joined Hewlett-Packard at age 12 after calling Bill Hewlett for parts, shaping his early view of a company that valued employees.
At Hewlett-Packard's Palo Alto labs, Jobs discovered the first desktop computer, the HP 9100, which fueled his programming enthusiasm.
Jobs met Steve Wozniak around age 14 or 15, bonding over electronics and becoming fast friends who collaborated on projects.
Inspired by an Esquire article, Jobs and Wozniak built blue boxes to make free phone calls by mimicking AT&T signaling tones.
The blue boxing experience taught Jobs and Wozniak that young innovators could control vast infrastructure with simple devices.
Necessity drove Jobs and Wozniak to build their own terminal for free time-sharing access, leading to the Apple I as an extension.
The Apple I was hand-built in garages, taking 40 to 80 hours each, and initially shared with friends who lacked assembly skills.
To save time, Jobs and Wozniak created printed circuit boards for the Apple I, selling them to recover costs from personal assets.
Paul Terrell of the Byte Shop ordered 50 assembled Apple I units, prompting Jobs and Wozniak to secure parts on credit and enter business.
Mike Markkula joined Apple as an equal partner, providing funding and expertise to tool the Apple II for mass production.
The Apple II debuted at the West Coast Computer Faire in 1977, showcasing advanced color graphics and attracting distributors.
Jobs learned business by questioning "why" practices are done, uncovering folklore like standard costing due to poor information systems.
Jobs advocated programming as a liberal art, teaching structured thinking akin to law school, essential for everyone.
Becoming rich young—over $100 million by 25—mattered less to Jobs than building great products and enabling innovation.
At Xerox PARC in 1979, Jobs was inspired by the graphical user interface, recognizing its inevitability for all future computers.
Xerox failed to commercialize innovations due to sales-driven leadership eroding product sensibility, missing dominance in computing.
IBM's entry scared Apple, but its initial poor product succeeded through ecosystem partnerships vesting interests in its improvement.
Apple's Macintosh team faced resistance from HP-recruited engineers who dismissed mice and proportional fonts as impractical.
Jobs bypassed internal doubts by outsourcing mouse design to David Kelley, achieving a reliable $15 version in 90 days.
Institutionalizing processes confuses companies, prioritizing management over content, as seen in IBM's and Apple's missteps.
The Lisa project failed by drifting from Apple's roots, pricing at $10,000 mismatched to its hobbyist culture and channels.
After losing leadership of Lisa to John Couch, Jobs formed a "mission from God" team for Macintosh to save Apple.
Macintosh development reinvented manufacturing with an automated factory, negotiating cheaper chips for high-volume $1,000 pricing.
Great products require craftsmanship bridging ideas to reality, involving daily trade-offs in design, materials, and production.
Jobs likened team innovation to a rock tumbler, where friction among talented people polishes ideas into beautiful results.
Success stems from assembling A-players who self-select and propagate excellence, unlike settling for average performers.
Direct feedback on poor work, focusing on the output not the person, keeps high-caliber teams on track without ego coddling.
Apple pioneered desktop publishing by partnering with Adobe and Canon for the LaserWriter, dominating printer revenue briefly.
Jobs' 1985 marketing blunder announced the full Macintosh Office instead of focusing solely on desktop publishing.
Jobs' departure from Apple in 1985 was painful, blaming Sculley's survival instincts for scapegoating him amid recession leadership vacuum.
Apple's post-Jobs stagnation eroded its 10-year lead, with minimal R&D innovation despite billions spent, leading to decline.
Microsoft succeeded via IBM's boost and opportunism, dominating apps but lacking taste, culture, or original ideas in products.
NeXT focused on object-oriented software, enabling 10x faster development and becoming the largest supplier for business tools.
The web represents computing's shift to communication, enabling direct sales and equalizing small and large companies online.
Jobs viewed computers as the "bicycle of the mind," amplifying human abilities like no other tool in history.
Innovation direction relies on taste, stealing great ideas from arts and liberal fields to infuse products with spirit.
Jobs identified as a hippie, drawn to life's deeper mysteries beyond materialism, which hippies sought in the 1960s-70s.
Macintosh users loved the product for its infused spirit, not just functionality, transmitted through computers as a medium.

IDEAS

Encountering computers as mysterious giants in youth ignites profound curiosity, turning abstract power into personal thrill.
Calling industry leaders like Bill Hewlett at 12 reveals unlisted numbers' openness, opening doors to mentorship and jobs.
Blue boxing demonstrates how niche knowledge can hijack global systems, empowering individuals against corporate monoliths.
Building devices from scavenged parts fosters self-reliance, blurring lines between hobby and viable business inception.
Selling personal assets like a bus for circuit boards shows bootstrapping's grit, transforming scarcity into opportunity.
Assembling on credit with net-30 terms risks everything but validates demand, birthing a company from garage optimism.
Vision for packaged computers democratizes tech, shifting from hobbyist kits to accessible tools for software explorers.
Questioning business folklore uncovers inefficiencies, like standard costing masking poor data, enabling streamlined operations.
Programming mirrors thought processes, training logical rigor essential for all, elevating it beyond tech to liberal arts.
Wealth accumulation pales against product impact, where money fuels long-term ideas over short-term gains.
Xerox's GUI revelation blinded Jobs to other innovations, yet its inevitability reshaped computing's trajectory universally.
Monopolies rot innovation by promoting sales over products, turning pioneers into "toner heads" blind to potential.
IBM's ecosystem strategy vested allies in success, turning a flawed product into industry dominance through collaboration.
Outsourcing radical ideas like mice to outsiders bypasses internal skepticism, accelerating breakthroughs against naysayers.
Process obsession kills content focus, as companies scale by replicating success formulas that become bureaucratic traps.
Losing internal battles spurs skunkworks teams on divine missions, reinventing companies from the ground up.
Automated factories and volume deals slash costs, making premium tech affordable and scalable for mass adoption.
Team friction as rock tumbling polishes raw ideas, where arguments among elites yield refined, beautiful outcomes.
Dynamic range in software talent—50:1 or 100:1—demands hunting A-players who self-perpetuate excellence bubbles.
Blunt critiques on work quality, detached from personal doubt, realign top talent toward collective goals efficiently.
Pivoting hardware projects to software partnerships, like with Adobe, leapfrogs internal efforts for market leadership.
Marketing blunders dilute focus, as broad announcements scatter attention from killer apps like desktop publishing.
Survival instincts in leaders scapegoat innovators during crises, fracturing visions and derailing company trajectories.
Stagnant R&D post-departure erodes leads, proving leadership voids evaporate institutional knowledge and momentum.
Microsoft's opportunism via IBM's rocket built app empires, but tasteless products peddle pedestrian tools without soul.
Object-oriented tech revolutionizes software creation, speeding development 10x while infiltrating business warfare.
Web as communication metamorphosis fulfills computing dreams, birthing direct channels that level global commerce.
Bicycles outpacing condors illustrate tools' amplification, positioning computers as humanity's ultimate enhancer.
Stealing from Picasso's ethos—great artists steal—infuses tech with liberal arts' subtlety, elevating mundane to magical.
Hippie essence seeks life's ineffable beyond materialism, channeling mystical sparks into products that resonate deeply.
Computers as mediums transmit unspoken feelings, attracting artists who repurpose tech for poetic expression.

INSIGHTS

Early hands-on tech exposure demystifies power, instilling confidence to command vast systems through ingenuity.
Corporate cultures valuing employees, like HP's breaks, imprint lifelong models of humanistic business operations.
Hacking infrastructures teaches asymmetric power: small inventions can sway billion-dollar empires profoundly.
Bootstrapping demands sacrificing assets, but validates ideas through real-world sales, sustaining momentum.
Questioning conventions exposes archaic practices, fostering adaptive learning that outpaces rote business education.
Programming cultivates precise thinking, a universal skill bridging disciplines like logic and creativity.
True wealth lies in enabling innovation, not accumulation, prioritizing societal impact over personal fortune.
Revolutionary interfaces seem inevitable post-exposure, demanding swift adaptation to avoid obsolescence.
Monopolistic complacency breeds sales dominance that erodes product genius, dooming once-innovative giants.
Ecosystems amplify weak entries, turning corporate alliances into unstoppable forces beyond solo efforts.
Internal resistance to visions requires external alliances and skunkworks to prototype futures rapidly.
Scaling confuses process for essence, where bureaucratic replication stifles the content driving true progress.
Failures like overpriced products mismatch cultures, highlighting alignment's necessity between innovation and markets.
Intense teams self-optimize through elite friction, emerging polished via shared passion's transformative grind.
A-player clusters create virtuous hiring cycles, exponentially boosting output in high-dynamic-range fields.
Candid feedback preserves talent confidence while enforcing standards, vital for mission-critical pursuits.
Strategic pivots to collaborations accelerate dominance, outpacing siloed developments in fast-evolving arenas.
Leadership vacuums in crises invite scapegoating, where survival trumps vision, fracturing foundational values.
Complacency post-success dissipates leads, as absent direction turns R&D investments into hollow expenditures.
Opportunistic leverage of platforms builds empires, but cultural voids yield soulless products lacking enlightenment.
Software paradigms like objects unlock exponential efficiencies, weaponizing code in competitive landscapes.
Communication shifts redefine computing, empowering direct access and innovation unbound by gatekeepers.
Tools like computers amplify innate potentials, steering humanity's vector toward amplified flourishing.
Taste as directional compass draws from arts, stealing broadly to infuse technology with humanistic depth.
Mystical pursuits beyond routine infuse creations with spirit, attracting souls who elevate mediums transcendentally.

QUOTES

"Nobody had ever seen one [computer]; they're very mysterious very powerful things that did something in the background."
"That was an incredibly thrilling experience... that you could write a program... and actually this machine would sort of take your idea and... execute your idea."
"We could build something ourselves that could control billions of dollars worth of infrastructure in the world."
"I don't think there would have ever been an Apple computer had there not been blue boxing."
"If you're willing to sort of ask a lot of questions and think about things and work really hard you can learn business pretty fast."
"I think everybody in this country should learn how to program a computer... because it teaches you how to think."
"The most important thing was the company, the people, the products we were making what we were going to enable people to do with these products."
"It was obvious... that all computers would work like this someday... you couldn't argue about the inevitability of it."
"Companies forget what it means to make great products... the product sensibility... gets rotted out by people running these companies who have no conception of a good product."
"It's not process it's content... the best people... are the ones that really understand the content and they're a pain in the butt to manage."
"Designing a product is keeping 5,000 things in your brain... and every day you discover something new that is a new problem or a new opportunity."
"A team of people doing something they really believe in is... like... a rock tumbler... through... friction... they polish each other and they polish the ideas."
"I've built a lot of my success off finding these truly gifted people and not settling for B and C players but really going for the A players."
"When you say someone's work is shit, you really mean I don't quite understand it would you please explain it to me."
"There's a tremendous amount of craftsmanship in between a great idea and a great product."
"He basically got on a rocket ship that was about to leave the pad... and thought that he built a rocket ship."
"Apple's dying... a very painful death... on a glide slope to die."
"Microsoft... just have no taste... their products have no spirit of enlightenment about them; they are very pedestrian."
"The web is going to be the defining technology... breathed a whole new generation of life into personal computing."
"The personal computer was the bicycle of the mind."
"Good artists copy, great artists steal."
"Computers are the medium that is best capable of transmitting some feeling that you want to share with other people."

HABITS

Persistently question "why" behind business practices to uncover inefficiencies and innovate beyond folklore.
Scavenge parts and build prototypes by hand to overcome financial barriers and gain practical skills.
Call industry leaders directly for advice or opportunities, leveraging openness in early professional networks.
Collaborate with superiors in electronics weekly at labs to expose oneself to cutting-edge developments.
Read magazines like Esquire for inspiration on unconventional hacks, sparking joint projects with peers.
Sacrifice personal possessions like vehicles to fund initial production tools, embracing bootstrapping.
Form small, mission-driven teams of elite talent to tackle ambitious goals with intense focus.
Visit global factories extensively to learn automation, informing domestic manufacturing revolutions.
Provide direct, work-focused feedback to A-players, emphasizing improvement without ego damage.
Steal ideas shamelessly from arts and other fields, integrating liberal arts perspectives into tech.
Expose oneself to humanity's best creations to cultivate taste guiding product direction.
Seek deeper life's mysteries beyond materialism, infusing personal and product spirit with hippie ethos.

FACTS

Jobs was worth over $100 million by age 25, yet never sold Apple stock believing in long-term success.
Blue boxes allowed worldwide calls looping five or six times via satellites, shouting to adjacent payphones.
Apple I boards took 40-80 hours to hand-build, often breaking due to tiny wires.
Jobs and Wozniak funded initial PCBs by selling a Volkswagen bus and HP-65 calculator for $1,300 total.
Apple II's color graphics at 1977 West Coast Computer Faire stole the show, lining up dealers.
Xerox PARC demoed GUI in 1979; Jobs saw it as inevitable, though flawed and incomplete.
Macintosh mouse prototyped in 90 days for $15 by David Kelley, countering engineers' 5-year $300 estimate.
Lisa priced at $10,000, unaffordable for Apple's core market, leading to commercial failure.
Apple became world's largest printer company by revenue when Jobs left in 1985, later overtaken by HP.
IBM was a $30 billion giant entering PC market against Apple's $1 billion valuation in early 1980s.
NeXT in 1995 had 300 employees, $50-75 million revenue, leading object-oriented software supply.
Web in 1995 poised to shift 15% of US catalog/TV sales online, totaling tens of billions annually.
Human bicycle efficiency surpassed condor's in Scientific American study, amplifying locomotion dramatically.
Macintosh applications dominated by Microsoft post-1984, springboarding to PC leadership via Windows.

REFERENCES

NASA Ames Research Center time-sharing terminal.
Hewlett-Packard frequency counter project.
Bill Hewlett phone call and summer job.
HP Palo Alto Research Labs Tuesday nights.
HP 9100 desktop computer.
Steve Wozniak electronics collaboration.
Esquire magazine Captain Crunch article.
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center technical library.
AT&T technical journal on phone signaling.
Blue box device with "He's Got The Whole World in His Hands" logo.
Time-sharing company in Mountain View.
Apple I terminal and microprocessor extension.
Byte Shop in Mountain View, Paul Terrell.
Electronics parts distributors net-30 credit.
Mike Markkula Intel executive investment.
West Coast Computer Faire 1977 booth.
Xerox PARC Alto computers, GUI, object-oriented programming, networked systems.
David Kelley mouse design.
Lisa project and John Couch leadership.
Macintosh automated factory in California.
Canon laser printer engine.
Adobe software partnership, 19.9% stake.
LaserWriter printer controller.
John Sculley PepsiCo background.
NeXT object-oriented technology.
World Wide Web and internet communication.
Scientific American locomotion efficiency article.
Picasso saying on copying and stealing.
Rock tumbler metaphor from elderly neighbor.

HOW TO APPLY

Start with personal curiosity: Encounter tech early, like a terminal at 10, to fuel lifelong passion through hands-on use.
Network boldly: Call experts like Bill Hewlett at 12 for parts, turning outreach into jobs and insights.
Collaborate deeply: Partner with electronics whizzes like Wozniak from age 14, co-building projects for mutual growth.
Hack creatively: Replicate Esquire's blue box after library research, learning to control infrastructures innovatively.
Build necessities: Design terminals for free access, extending to full computers when affordability demands it.
Bootstrap resources: Sell assets like buses for PCBs, assembling by hand to test market without capital.
Secure orders first: Pitch assembled units to stores like Byte Shop, using demand to negotiate credit terms.
Recruit wisely: Bring in partners like Markkula for funding and expertise, equalizing stakes for commitment.
Prototype ambitiously: Design packaged Apple II with plastics, tooling via venture intros despite "renegade" looks.
Question rigorously: Probe business "whys" like costing, ditching folklore for precise, automated tracking.
Learn programming universally: Treat it as liberal arts, mirroring thoughts to enhance all decision-making.
Visit inspirations: Tour Xerox PARC despite bugs, extracting GUI inevitability for immediate team mobilization.
Bypass skeptics: Outsource mice to Kelley when internals predict delays, validating in 90 days affordably.
Form elite teams: Assemble A-players for Macintosh, enduring friction to polish ideas via rock tumbler dynamics.
Reinvent holistically: Build factories, negotiate chips, and market Macintosh as $1,000 future-saver.
Provide blunt feedback: Critique work directly on specifics, realigning without doubting core abilities.
Pivot strategically: Shift to Adobe software for LaserWriter, canceling internals for faster dominance.
Focus marketing: Avoid blunders like Macintosh Office; laser on apps like desktop publishing for impact.
Endure departures: Channel pain from Sculley clashes into NeXT, preserving values amid corporate rot.
Champion web: Develop objects for software revolution, fulfilling communication dreams beyond computation.

ONE-SENTENCE TAKEAWAY

Steve Jobs' journey reveals that passionate innovation, fueled by curiosity and elite teams, amplifies humanity through tasteful technology.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Immerse in tech young to demystify it, building terminals or programs that execute personal ideas thrillingly.
Call unlisted leaders for parts or advice, forging early corporate ties valuing employee potential.
Bond with superior electronics minds, co-creating hacks like blue boxes to master global systems.
Question every business practice deeply, replacing folklore with data-driven efficiencies for faster learning.
Learn programming as a core skill, treating it like law school to sharpen logical thinking universally.
Prioritize products and people over money, using wealth to invest in long-term societal enablers.
Visit innovation hubs like Xerox PARC, seizing GUI-like germs despite flaws for inevitable adoption.
Critique monopolies' sales rot, ensuring product sensibility drives decisions over marketing promotions.
Build ecosystems vesting allies, turning flawed launches like IBM's into dominant forces collaboratively.
Outsource bold ideas against internal doubt, prototyping mice or printers swiftly and cheaply.
Shun process worship, hiring content-savvy pains who outshine bureaucratic managers in creation.
Launch skunkworks for misaligned projects, reinventing manufacturing and pricing to match cultures.
Foster team friction among A-players, polishing ideas through arguments into refined masterpieces.
Hunt relentlessly for gifted talent, creating self-policing excellence that propagates dynamically.
Deliver direct work critiques, focusing on output gaps to realign without eroding confidence.
Partner externally for leaps, like Adobe for publishing, over internal drags for market speed.
Avoid broad marketing; concentrate on killer apps like desktop publishing for breakthrough impact.
Navigate crises with vision, not survival scapegoating, to unite factions and execute futures.
Invest R&D in leadership-directed momentum, preventing stagnation that erodes pioneering leads.
Infuse taste from arts, stealing Picasso-style to add spirit and subtlety to tech products.
Champion web's communication shift, developing objects to enable direct, innovative commerce.
View computers as mind bicycles, nudging their vector early for humanity's amplified flourishing.

MEMO

In 1995, as Silicon Valley hummed with the promise of digital frontiers, journalist Robert X. Cringely unearthed a forgotten gem: a full interview with Steve Jobs, conducted a decade earlier amid the personal computing revolution. Jobs, then steering NeXT after a bitter exit from Apple, reflected candidly on his improbable path from a 10-year-old mesmerized by a teletype terminal at NASA Ames to co-founding a company that redefined technology. That initial encounter with a distant machine—executing BASIC code like a thought made real—ignited a passion that propelled him to Hewlett-Packard labs, where a 12-year-old's cold call to Bill Hewlett yielded not just parts for a frequency counter, but a summer job imprinting a humane corporate ethos.

Jobs' partnership with Steve Wozniak, forged in teenage electronics fervor, epitomized youthful audacity. Inspired by an Esquire tale of "Captain Crunch" phreaking, they dissected AT&T's signaling in a Stanford library, crafting blue boxes that commandeered the global phone network for free calls—even pranking the Vatican as Henry Kissinger. This lesson in asymmetric power—"we could build a little thing that could control a giant thing"—birthed Apple. Necessity drove their first terminal for free time-sharing; the Apple I fused it with a microprocessor, hand-soldered in garages over grueling hours. Friends clamored for replicas, leading to printed circuit boards funded by Jobs' Volkswagen bus and Wozniak's calculator, and a fateful pitch to the Byte Shop that netted 50 orders on credit.

With Mike Markkula's investment, Apple II emerged as the first packaged personal computer, its color graphics dazzling at the 1977 West Coast Computer Faire. Jobs dissected business as folklore, questioning costing rituals to pioneer real-time tracking. He championed programming as a liberal art, teaching structured thought akin to law school, while amassing $100 million by 25—yet fixating on products' societal enablement over riches. Xerox PARC's 1979 GUI demo blinded him to networked systems but crystallized computing's future: inevitable, elegant interfaces. Xerox's sales-driven "toner heads" squandered this, a cautionary rot Jobs later saw in monopolies like IBM, whose ecosystem alliances salvaged a flawed PC debut against Apple's dread.

Internal Apple battles honed Jobs' resolve. HP transplants scoffed at mice (deemed a five-year, $300 folly) and proportional fonts, prompting him to outsource a $15 prototype in 90 days. Process obsession confused content for success, birthing the mismatched $10,000 Lisa after Jobs lost to John Couch. Undeterred, he rallied a "mission from God" Macintosh team, reinventing automation via Japanese factory tours and chip deals for $1,000 accessibility. Craftsmanship bridged ideas to reality—juggling 5,000 trade-offs daily—while team friction, like a rock tumbler polishing stones, yielded brilliance. A-players self-perpetuated, their 50-to-1 dynamic range fueling output; blunt feedback kept them sharp.

Desktop publishing crowned the Mac via Adobe's PostScript and Canon's LaserWriter—Apple briefly the world's top printer firm—yet a 1985 marketing gaffe diluted focus. Clashes with Sculley, whose Pepsi instincts scapegoated Jobs amid recession, shattered their alliance; by 1985, he departed a company adrift. Apple's glide to decline stemmed from evaporated leadership, squandering billions in R&D on stagnation while Microsoft opportunistically rode IBM's rocket to app dominance—tasteless, pedestrian triumphs sans enlightenment. NeXT, with 300 souls pioneering object-oriented software, promised 10x efficiencies infiltrating business warfare.

The web, Jobs foresaw, would metamorphose computing into communication, supplanting catalogs with direct channels where minnows rival whales—billions in sales, innovation unbound by Microsoft. Drawing from a Scientific American bicycle-condor insight, he cast computers as the "bicycle of the mind," humanity's pinnacle tool. Nudging its vector demanded taste: stealing from Picasso, infusing Mac with artists' and poets' spirits. A self-proclaimed hippie, Jobs sought life's ineffable beyond materialism, channeling 1960s mysticism into products users loved. Computers, he insisted, transmitted unspoken feelings—mediums for souls who might've been zoologists or historians, now elevating tech transcendentally.

This lost interview, rediscovered in a garage, captures Jobs' incandescent vision at technology's crossroads with art—a prelude to his Apple return, iPhone era, and enduring legacy.