Steve Jobs 1997 Interview: Defending His Commitment To Apple | CNBC

1997-10-0211:39English

Transcript

Machine transcript in the original language. It may contain errors. Select a timestamp to play that moment.

We don't predict our financials.
Yeah.
I think that there's a lot of things changing at Apple right now.
And some are going to show up in the financials positively.
Some are going to show up in the financials negatively.
And I think that we're going to get to a new trend.
But that new trend will not become evident for another quarter or so.
So I really don't think it helps to predict right now.
I think we have a very clear target on where we're going in that regards.
And we think profitability is very, very important.
What I said was that we examined the future product roadmap, not the products that are shipping today, the future ones that we were working on.
And what we found was that 30% of them were incredibly good.
And about 70% of them were either pretty good or things that we didn't really need to be doing, businesses we really didn't need to be in.
And so we've paired a lot of that back so we could focus the same amount of original resource even more on what was remaining and add a few new things in.
So the resources that we're investing are equal or greater than we have been, but it's on fewer things, so we're going to do a better job at them, I think.
There are not going to be any corporate massive layoffs.
What we're doing is we have, I think, a pretty clear direction now, and each group is looking at the work plans to do what they need to do to accomplish the pieces of that that they have to do.
And we are reorganizing some things a little bit differently, combining things in a few different ways.
And in some cases when the music stops, there'll be some people that don't have a chair.
But that'll be on a department-by-department basis.
It'll be, you know, a fairly low-key thing.
We're not talking about any massive layoffs.
Well, you know, again, we don't predict.
But what I will say is two things.
Number one, Apple's trading at around a third times its sales right now.
Many of Apple's competitors are trading at two to five times their sales.
So that's just one observation.
You can draw whatever conclusions you want.
And the second thing I would say is that somebody taught me a long time ago a very valuable lesson,
which is if you do the right things on the top line, the bottom line will follow.
And what they meant by that was if you get the right strategy, if you have the right people,
and if you have the right culture at your company, you'll do the right products, you'll do the right marketing,
you'll do the right things logistically and in manufacturing and distribution.
And if you do all those things right, the bottom line will follow.
So, yes, we have obviously plans about where we'd like to see the bottom line.
But we are focusing most of our energy not on financial re-engineering
because that's not what's been troubled at Apple.
We're focusing our energy on the right product strategies,
the right market strategies, the right communication strategies,
the right logistics and distribution strategies.
And the team is making, I think, very strong strides in these areas.
And you'll start to see some of this stuff appear in the next 90, 120 days.
So I'm actually really happy about this.
I sold my stock before I got the call from the board that they wanted me to come in and shepherd Apple for this period.
And that was unfortunate.
I wish the call had come a week earlier, but I wasn't a mind reader, so I didn't know.
And in terms of my own personal financial stuff, I usually don't discuss that with people except my family.
I'm working pretty hard, and so are a lot of people, but I'm one of them.
My car is there pretty early and it's in the parking lot pretty late and on weekends.
And I value my family time a lot.
So I'm pretty committed to this and seeing Apple turn around.
The company, I mean, I started the company with Steve Wozniak in my parents' garage
20 years ago, over 22 years ago.
And so there's a definite place in my heart for this.
I'm drawing a salary of, I think, a dollar per year.
So I hope I'm not burdening the shareholders too much.
And I very much want to see Apple get turned around, and I think it's going to.
So I don't know how much more committed I could be if people need these symbols.
Well, maybe that'll happen.
I don't know.
But my answer to them is I don't know how I could be working any harder.
We are starting to make some changes in the channel.
We are starting to talk to our major channel partners and see who's going to really make a big recommitment to Apple.
Who's going to put an investment in to really make sure that the buying experience is so much better than it has been.
And again, I'm incredibly pleased with the results we're getting.
The key channel partners are coming back saying, you know, I believe in you guys, what you've shown me.
I'm incredibly excited about it, and I want to clean up this retail experience for the customer.
I think it's going pretty well.
I mean, these things never happen overnight.
But we've had more people of very high quality be interested than I expected.
And the board, do you think the board agrees on what's right for Apple?
Or are they still in the getting to know me and each other?
Well, you know, you're talking about a very talented group of people on this board.
I mean, several CEOs.
And opinionated.
Very opinionated, which is great.
But, you know, great people.
When they have different opinions, they usually can convince each other that one of them is right or pick one that's better than all of them within a very short period of time.
So this is a group of people that is quite talented.
And you've got a lot of CEOs.
I mean, Larry Ellison, CEO of the second largest software company in the world.
Bill Campbell, CEO of Intuit, one of the largest consumer software companies in the world.
Ed Woollard, former CEO of DuPont.
I mean, you've got a lot of very high-powered people on this board.
Jerry York, you know, the CFO of both Chrysler and IBM during its turnaround.
So there's some very, very strong people on this board.
And I think they have really gelled, which is nice.
I've noticed something in my life, which is the people that are really good never worry about things like that.
The people that are really good want to work with the best people they can find.
Hopefully people that are even better than them, you know?
I mean, that's my view of things, is if you work with people that aren't as good as you, then, you know, you become a country of midgets.
If you work with people that are better than you, then you really grow.
So, I guess, what can I say?
If the CEO you find, you've got a great deal, a great person, you're ready to close the deal, and he says, or she says,
You know what, Steve, I just, I want your advice.
I don't want you on the board.
You go?
Oh, sure.
I've told the board if that was a problem, I would.
The reason that we recruited such a strong board is so that we have a strong board.
And this strong board is going to do the right thing for Apple.
They're not going to do the right thing for themselves.
They're not going to do the right thing for me.
They're not going to do the right thing for some new candidate they want to lure away.
They're going to do the right thing for Apple.
And whatever that is, I support that a thousand percent.
And every board member supports that a thousand percent.
So, you know, that's why we recruited such good people.
I mean, these are not, you know, old crony friends of one person or another.
These are very independent, very talented people.
And they're going to do the right thing for this company.
Well, I think, you know, I actually don't look at it as a deal.
I look at it as an event that was the beginning of putting the relationship between the two companies back on track.
Again, Apple and Microsoft together own 100% of the desktop computer market.
And it was crazy that these companies weren't working together.
Now, again, they're not going to see everything the same way.
We're very different than Microsoft.
So we're not, a lot of things, we're going to see things differently.
But that doesn't mean that there aren't a lot of things where we can see things the same
and work together for things that are good for the customer and where we both can make money.

Transcript

Machine transcript in the original language. It may contain errors. Select a timestamp to play that moment.

We don't predict our financials.

Yeah.

I think that there's a lot of things changing at Apple right now.

And some are going to show up in the financials positively.

Some are going to show up in the financials negatively.

And I think that we're going to get to a new trend.

But that new trend will not become evident for another quarter or so.

So I really don't think it helps to predict right now.

I think we have a very clear target on where we're going in that regards.

And we think profitability is very, very important.

What I said was that we examined the future product roadmap, not the products that are shipping today, the future ones that we were working on.

And what we found was that 30% of them were incredibly good.

And about 70% of them were either pretty good or things that we didn't really need to be doing, businesses we really didn't need to be in.

And so we've paired a lot of that back so we could focus the same amount of original resource even more on what was remaining and add a few new things in.

So the resources that we're investing are equal or greater than we have been, but it's on fewer things, so we're going to do a better job at them, I think.

There are not going to be any corporate massive layoffs.

What we're doing is we have, I think, a pretty clear direction now, and each group is looking at the work plans to do what they need to do to accomplish the pieces of that that they have to do.

And we are reorganizing some things a little bit differently, combining things in a few different ways.

And in some cases when the music stops, there'll be some people that don't have a chair.

But that'll be on a department-by-department basis.

It'll be, you know, a fairly low-key thing.

We're not talking about any massive layoffs.

Well, you know, again, we don't predict.

But what I will say is two things.

Number one, Apple's trading at around a third times its sales right now.

Many of Apple's competitors are trading at two to five times their sales.

So that's just one observation.

You can draw whatever conclusions you want.

And the second thing I would say is that somebody taught me a long time ago a very valuable lesson,

which is if you do the right things on the top line, the bottom line will follow.

And what they meant by that was if you get the right strategy, if you have the right people,

and if you have the right culture at your company, you'll do the right products, you'll do the right marketing,

you'll do the right things logistically and in manufacturing and distribution.

And if you do all those things right, the bottom line will follow.

So, yes, we have obviously plans about where we'd like to see the bottom line.

But we are focusing most of our energy not on financial re-engineering

because that's not what's been troubled at Apple.

We're focusing our energy on the right product strategies,

the right market strategies, the right communication strategies,

the right logistics and distribution strategies.

And the team is making, I think, very strong strides in these areas.

And you'll start to see some of this stuff appear in the next 90, 120 days.

So I'm actually really happy about this.

I sold my stock before I got the call from the board that they wanted me to come in and shepherd Apple for this period.

And that was unfortunate.

I wish the call had come a week earlier, but I wasn't a mind reader, so I didn't know.

And in terms of my own personal financial stuff, I usually don't discuss that with people except my family.

I'm working pretty hard, and so are a lot of people, but I'm one of them.

My car is there pretty early and it's in the parking lot pretty late and on weekends.

And I value my family time a lot.

So I'm pretty committed to this and seeing Apple turn around.

The company, I mean, I started the company with Steve Wozniak in my parents' garage

20 years ago, over 22 years ago.

And so there's a definite place in my heart for this.

I'm drawing a salary of, I think, a dollar per year.

So I hope I'm not burdening the shareholders too much.

And I very much want to see Apple get turned around, and I think it's going to.

So I don't know how much more committed I could be if people need these symbols.

Well, maybe that'll happen.

I don't know.

But my answer to them is I don't know how I could be working any harder.

We are starting to make some changes in the channel.

We are starting to talk to our major channel partners and see who's going to really make a big recommitment to Apple.

Who's going to put an investment in to really make sure that the buying experience is so much better than it has been.

And again, I'm incredibly pleased with the results we're getting.

The key channel partners are coming back saying, you know, I believe in you guys, what you've shown me.

I'm incredibly excited about it, and I want to clean up this retail experience for the customer.

I think it's going pretty well.

I mean, these things never happen overnight.

But we've had more people of very high quality be interested than I expected.

And the board, do you think the board agrees on what's right for Apple?

Or are they still in the getting to know me and each other?

Well, you know, you're talking about a very talented group of people on this board.

I mean, several CEOs.

And opinionated.

Very opinionated, which is great.

But, you know, great people.

When they have different opinions, they usually can convince each other that one of them is right or pick one that's better than all of them within a very short period of time.

So this is a group of people that is quite talented.

And you've got a lot of CEOs.

I mean, Larry Ellison, CEO of the second largest software company in the world.

Bill Campbell, CEO of Intuit, one of the largest consumer software companies in the world.

Ed Woollard, former CEO of DuPont.

I mean, you've got a lot of very high-powered people on this board.

Jerry York, you know, the CFO of both Chrysler and IBM during its turnaround.

So there's some very, very strong people on this board.

And I think they have really gelled, which is nice.

I've noticed something in my life, which is the people that are really good never worry about things like that.

The people that are really good want to work with the best people they can find.

Hopefully people that are even better than them, you know?

I mean, that's my view of things, is if you work with people that aren't as good as you, then, you know, you become a country of midgets.

If you work with people that are better than you, then you really grow.

So, I guess, what can I say?

If the CEO you find, you've got a great deal, a great person, you're ready to close the deal, and he says, or she says,

You know what, Steve, I just, I want your advice.

I don't want you on the board.

You go?

Oh, sure.

I've told the board if that was a problem, I would.

The reason that we recruited such a strong board is so that we have a strong board.

And this strong board is going to do the right thing for Apple.

They're not going to do the right thing for themselves.

They're not going to do the right thing for me.

They're not going to do the right thing for some new candidate they want to lure away.

They're going to do the right thing for Apple.

And whatever that is, I support that a thousand percent.

And every board member supports that a thousand percent.

So, you know, that's why we recruited such good people.

I mean, these are not, you know, old crony friends of one person or another.

These are very independent, very talented people.

And they're going to do the right thing for this company.

Well, I think, you know, I actually don't look at it as a deal.

I look at it as an event that was the beginning of putting the relationship between the two companies back on track.

Again, Apple and Microsoft together own 100% of the desktop computer market.

And it was crazy that these companies weren't working together.

Now, again, they're not going to see everything the same way.

We're very different than Microsoft.

So we're not, a lot of things, we're going to see things differently.

But that doesn't mean that there aren't a lot of things where we can see things the same

and work together for things that are good for the customer and where we both can make money.