Complete Apple WWDC | Steve Jobs talk and answer developers questions | 1997
Transcript
Machine transcript in the original language. It may contain errors. Select a timestamp to play that moment.
I set out running but it took my time
A friend of the devil is a friend of mine
I get home before daylight
Just might get some sleep tonight
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome back David Crathwall
Good morning. It's Friday already. I don't know how that happened.
We have a new record. Mark Johnson and Eric Solden both wore ties the entire week. That's news.
You know, yeah, I hear it. I hear it. That's the way I feel. I'm with you.
I have to tell you a little story this morning to introduce our special guest, and I promise to make it short, so I will.
in 1979 I was a sixth grade teacher and I saw an Apple II and I had to have the Apple II so I bought
one and took it home started programming which turns out was was probably the most interesting
thing you could do with a computer back in 1979 and it really changed my life and about 10 years
later I found myself at Apple Computer, moved out from Boston and took a job out here. And
I was out in the first week doing that sort of relocation thing and having dinner at a
restaurant. My family was still in Boston. And I saw Steve Jobs across on the other side
of the restaurant having dinner. And I thought, I really should just sort of walk over and
interrupt his dinner and tell him, you know, thank you and, you know, you've changed my life.
And I sort of thought about that for a while. I thought, that's really rude.
And it probably happens to him all the time. And I don't want to be like that. So I didn't do it.
And in a way, I'm kind of glad that I hesitated because it gives me an opportunity to thank him
this morning in a public setting among people who probably understand that better than anyone
else on the planet. So it's a special pleasure this morning to introduce and thank a person
who has changed so many of our lives, Steve Jobs.
How about it?
Thank you.
You're welcome.
Good morning. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you very much. I really appreciate that.
And I really appreciate your not interrupting me for my dinner with
what was hopefully a beautiful woman.
I wanted to come and just have a chat this morning.
I know you've been getting lots of presentations all week,
so I didn't want to do a big fancy presentation.
But what I want to do is just chat.
And so we get to spend 45 minutes or so together,
and I want to talk about whatever you want to talk about.
I have opinions on most things,
so I figured if you just want to start asking some questions,
we'll go to some good places.
Just to set the tone a little bit,
I'm actually pretty excited about the way things are going.
I think that there are some really good people whom you met this week
running the key areas of Apple now.
And I think they're making enormous progress towards executing what is a pretty clear strategy.
And that strategy revolves around one fundamental concept,
which is to make some really great products.
and I believe very firmly that there is still a very sizable market for some really great products
and there are some giant holes that we can fill with your help.
So I think we are embarked down a course to, after a hiatus of several years,
turning this thing around to make some really good and unique products.
We need a lot of software for them. That's where you come in.
So I am open to entertaining any of your questions and hope you have some good ones this morning.
What about OpenDoc?
What about OpenDoc?
Yeah.
Yeah.
What about it?
It's dead, right?
Huh?
It's dead, right?
I don't know.
I spent a lot of time working on it.
Yeah.
Well, let me say something that's sort of generic.
I know some of you spend a lot of time working on stuff.
that we put a bullet in the head of.
I apologize.
I feel your pain.
But...
Apple suffered for several years
from lousy engineering management.
I have to say it.
And there were people that were going off in 18 different directions
doing arguably interesting things in each one of them.
one of them. Good engineers. Lousy management. And what happened was you look at the farm
that's been created with all these different animals going in different directions, and
it doesn't add up. The total is less than the sum of the parts. And so we had to decide
what are the fundamental directions we're going in, and what makes sense and what doesn't.
And there were a bunch of things that didn't. And microcosmically, they might have made
sense, macro cosmically they made no sense. And you know the hardest thing is, when you
think about focusing, right, you think well focusing is saying yes, no. Focusing is about
saying no. Focusing is about saying no. And you've got to say no, no, no, no. And when
you say no, you piss off people. And they go talk to the San Jose Mercury and they write
a shitty article about you. You know? And it's really a pisser. Because you want to
be nice? You don't want to tell the San Jose Mercury, the person that's telling you this,
you know, just was asked to leave or this or that or this or that. So you take the lumps.
And Apple's been taking their share of lumps for the last six months in a very unfair way.
And it's been taking them, you know, like an adult. And I'm proud of that. And there's more
to come, I'm sure. There's more to come. I mean, some of these, I read these articles about some
of these people that have left. I know some of these people. They haven't done anything in seven
years. And they leave and it's like the company's going to fall apart the next day. And so I
think there'll be stories like that that come and go. But focus is about saying no. And
the result of that focus is going to be some really great products where the total is much
greater than the sum of the parts. And OpenDoc, I mean, I was for putting a bullet in the
head of OpenDoc. A, I didn't think it was great technology. But B, it didn't fit. The
rest of the world isn't going to use OpenDoc. And I think as a container strategy, there's
some stuff in the Java space that's much better. And even the OpenDoc guys were basically trying
to rewrite the whole thing in Java anyway, which was a restart. So it didn't make sense.
Yes, sir. Steve, what do we do about the press? I mean, the Wall Street Journal reporters get up
in the morning, sell Apple short, and then go write stories about us. And it's clear that it's
perception versus reality problem. They don't know shit about operating systems, they don't
know anything about tools, they don't know what's going on in the future. They don't
know that we're building icebergs and you build them from the bottom up.
Sure. You know, I'm sure that a lot of you have had this experience where you're changing,
you're growing as a person, and people still, people tend to treat you like you were 18
months ago. And it's really frustrating sometimes when you're growing up and you're becoming
more capable and you've solved, you know, maybe you had some personality quirks you've
kind of gotten over, whatever it may be, and people still treat you like you were a year
to 18 months ago, it can be very frustrating.
Well, it's the same with a company.
It's the same with the press.
The press is going to have a lag time.
And the best thing that we can do about the press is to, you know, embrace them, do the
best we can to educate them about the strategy, but to keep our eye on the prize.
and that is turning out some great products,
communicating directly with our customers as best we can,
getting the community of people
that are going to make this stuff successful like yourselves
in the loop so you know everything