Steve Jobs Insult Response
Transcript
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Yes.
Mr. Jobs, you're a bright and influential man.
Here it comes.
It's sad and clear that on several accounts you've discussed, you don't know what you're
talking about.
I would like, for example, for you to express in clear terms how, say, Java, in any of
its incarnations, addresses the ideas embodied in open-deck.
And when you're finished with that, perhaps you could tell us what you personally have been doing for the last seven years.
You know, you can please some of the people some of the time.
But...
One of the hardest things when you're trying to affect change
is that people like this gentleman are right in some areas.
I'm sure that there are some things OpenDoc does, probably even more that I'm not familiar with,
that nothing else out there does.
And I'm sure that you can make some demos, maybe a small commercial app that demonstrates those things.
The hardest thing is, how does that fit in to a cohesive, larger vision that's going to allow you to sell $8 billion, $10 billion of product a year?
and one of the things I've always found is that you've got to start with the customer
experience and work backwards to the technology you can't start with the technology and try to
figure out where you're going to try to sell it and I've made this mistake probably more
than anybody else in this room and I've got the scar tissue to prove it and I know that
it's the case.
And as we have tried to come up with a strategy and a vision for Apple, it started
with what incredible benefits can we give to the customer?
Where can we take the customer?
Not starting with, let's sit down with the engineers and figure out what awesome technology
we have and then how are we going to market that.
And I think that's the right path to take.
I remember with the laser writer, we built the world's first small laser printer as
you know.
And there was awesome technology in that box.
We had the first Canon cheap laser printing engine in the world in the United States
here at Apple.
We had a very wonderful printer controller that we designed.
We had Adobe's PostScript software in there.
We had AppleTalk in there.
Just awesome technology in the box.
And I remember seeing the first printout come out of it and just picking it up and
looking at it and thinking, you know, we can sell this because you don't have to
know anything about what's in that box.
All we have to do is hold this up and go, do you want this?
And if you remember back to 1984 before laser printers, it was pretty startling to see that.
People went, wow, yes.
And that's where Apple's got to get back to.
And, you know, I'm sorry that Open Doc's a casualty along the way.
And I readily admit there are many things in life that I don't have the faintest idea what I'm talking about.
So I apologize for that too.
But there's a whole lot of people working super, super hard right now at Apple.
You know, Avi, John, Garino, Fred.
I mean, the whole team is working, burning the midnight oil, trying to, and people, you know, hundreds of people below them,
to execute on some of these things, and they're doing their best.
And I think that what we need to do, and some mistakes will be made, by the way.
Some mistakes will be made along the way.
That's good because at least some decisions are being made along the way.
And we'll find the mistakes.
We'll fix them.
And I think what we need to do is support that team
going through this very important stage as they work their butts off.
They're all getting calls, being offered three times as much money to go do this,
because the valley's hot.
None of them are leaving.
And I think we need to support them and see them through this
and write some damn good applications to support Apple out in the market.
That's my own point of view.
Mistakes we made, some people will be pissed off, some people will not know what they're talking about,
but I think it is so much better than where things were not very long ago.
And I think we're going to get there.
So, I think we've got time for just a few minutes.