Interview of Steve Jobs

again tinkering with electronics as a child and did most of his early work on this bench in his parent's garage by the time he was 20 the first Apple computer emerged and in 1976 when he was barely 21 Jobs co-founded Apple Computer Incorporated with his high school buddy Steve Wozniak Apple grew quickly attracting a loyal following among early personal computer enthusiasts on the day Apple went public in 1980 the 15% share held by Jobs then just 25 was valued at 217 million dollars and some ordinary investors did well too if you were smart or lucky enough to invest $10,000 in Apple Computer at its low in August 1985 your stock would have been worth more than 10 times that less than 6 years later even if you didn't know a bit about Bites Jobs was center stage when he unveiled the highly successful Macintosh computer in 1984 [Music] but by 1985 jobs relationship with Apple had turned sour and he resigned to run not one but two other businesses the first he called next a company he built around an ambitious new personal computer that was released with much fanfare in 1988 but sales were less spectacular and the sophisticated but expensive black box never caught on the project was abandoned and next still privately held moved on to developing a new software writing technique that some technology buffs believe will eventually turn the internet into an indispensable tool for doing online business while next was evolving jobs was careful to diversify he quietly invested 50 million of his own dollars in Pixar a computer animation company in Richmond California that he had purchased from film producer George Lucas in 1986 for 10 million jobs as Pixar employees including former Disney animator John Lasseter spent most of the next decade developing new 3d animation software which they fine-tuned by producing some memorable television commercials and short animated films this one entitled tin toy won the Academy Award for best animated short film in 1988 through all that computer-generated fun Pixar developed the ability to take crafted models and reliably turn them into dynamic three-dimensional computer images 20 million Americans bought tickets to see the result last year when Disney released Pixar's first feature-length computer-animated film Toy Story a blockbuster hit that has taken in more than 175 million dollars in domestic box office alone and what was perhaps the best time to initial public offering in modern memory Pixar made its market debut last November just as Toy Story publicity generated by Disney was at its peak when the stock soared close to $50 a share on the first day of trading Steve Jobs at stake was briefly worth just under one and a half billion dollars not bad for an entrepreneur who began by tinkering in his parent's garage and is still barely old enough for a midlife crisis Pixar stock has tumbled since then even after gaining nearly 2 points today it is still only 24 and a quarter less than half where it traded on that giddy first day was that initial excitement all just a fictitious if thrilling children's story or is the next chapter for Steve Jobs likely to be his gaudiest what should we expect next from Pixar well you know a Toy Story has really exceeded our expectations it's about 180 million right now I think it's a mystic box office it's being released internationally as we speak and we're coming out with some CD ROMs based on Toy Story starting in April and they're dynamite I think they're gonna pretty much set a new benchmark for what can be done with CD ROMs home video was expected later on this year and we're well at work on our second film we're about a year into development on it so I think we have a business model which is that we make feature films and surround them with a suite of related products in addition to merchandise and home video there's CD ROMs and potentially you know sequels at some point in time you know first came to public attention with Apple in recent weeks it's been one of the failure stories of Wall Street and indeed of the American economy what went wrong in Apple oh gosh you know Apple haven't been there in a long time but my perception you won't blame you for what's happened West thank you no I mean my perception may not be complete but from the way I see I mean Apple was a company that was based on innovation when I left Apple that 10 years ago we were 10 years ahead of anybody else it took Microsoft 10 years to copy Windows the problem was is that that Apple stood still even though it invested cumulatively billions in R&D the output has not been there and people have caught up with it and it's differentiation has eroded in particular with respect to Microsoft and so the way out for Apple and I still think Apple has a future there's some awfully good people there and there's a tremendous brand loyalty to that company I think the way out is not to slash and burn is to innovate that's how Apple got to its glory and I think that's how Apple could return to it next which is your private venture specializes in what's called object based software could you explain that to someone who is not a computer nerd sure the way that we most people still build software today they built everything's custom really everything's built by hand and everything's custom there's no ability to reuse software that you had written prior or that somebody else had written and objects are a way to basically allow people to reuse software an order of magnitude or to more efficiently than they can today it's sort of the industrial revolution of software is this on a grander scale the equivalent of coin up a macro on the computer it's even much beyond that it's sort of interchangeable parts much like the Industrial Revolution brought to the manufacturing of hard goods you have talked about Apple somewhat gently you've also mentioned Microsoft much of your current efforts seem directed at constraining Microsoft is that accurate me no well I've read some of these computer nerd publications lately and seems to me that the fight for the Internet you envision as anybody but Bill Gates well I think there's a lot of people working on stuff for the internet and and next is one of those those companies as well and for me the most exciting thing you know in the software area is the internet and part of the reason for that is no one owns it it's a free-for-all it's it's much like the early days of the personal computer and the rate of innovation is very high and we we know from experience now that if anyone opening it gets a dominant position in it no matter who that is the rate of innovation is going to drop precipitously and we'd like to not see that happen for ever and or at least for quite some time I assume is a good entrepreneur you want the market to limit him not the government is that correct yeah I I don't get into that so much I you know I think I admire Microsoft for their achievements and I think though that the net may be something that is you know we're gonna see innovation contain them and I'm hoping that's the case I wonder if Steve Jobs is relaxing on this holiday weekend or figuring out how to make his next trillion I guess it's tough at the top but it can be beautiful too last Christmas we gave our viewers a sneak advanced peek at some items from the most publicized auction in history Sotheby's sale if Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis is property the CEO of Sotheby's didi Brooks brought down some special treasures for your eyes only now before we meet tonight's special get

Channel: Antoine Vignau

Views: 239,811

Rating: 4.9107571 out of 5

Keywords: Apple, Computer, Next, Pixar, Steve, Jobs

Id: CGciAnjEf0g

Length: 8min 53sec (533 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 12 2010