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

we don't predict their financials yeah I think that there's a lot of things changing to Apple right now and some are gonna show up in the financials positively some are gonna show up in the financials negatively and I think that we're gonna get to a new trend but that new trend will not become evident for another quarter 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 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 adds 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 gonna do a better job at the moment 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 that 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 like you know again we don't predict but what I will say is two things number one apples trading at around 1/3 times its sales right now many of Apple's competitors are trading at 2 to 5 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 whole trick culture at your company you'll do the right products you'll do the right marketing you'll do the right logistically in a 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 reengineering because that's not what's been 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 we the team is making I think very strong strides in these areas and you'll start to see some of the stuff appear in the next 90 hundred twenty 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 this period and that was unfortunate I wish to call it come a week earlier but I wasn't a mind reader so I didn't know and in terms of my own you know personal financial stuff I usually don't discuss that with people except my family I'm working pretty hard and so there are a lot of people but I'm one of them my cars they're pretty early and it's in the parking lot pretty late and on weekends so and I value my family time a lot so I I'm pretty committed to this and seeing Apple turn around the company I mean it's I started the company with Steve Wozniak in my parent's garage you know 20 years ago and over 22 years ago and so there's a definite place in my heart for this I'm drawing a salary if I think $1 per year so I hope I'm not burdening the shareholders too much and and I'm I very much want to see Apple get turned around and I think it's gonna 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 but you know my answer to them is I don't know how I could be working any harder and we are starting to make some changes in the channel we are starting to 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 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 it's going pretty well I mean these things are never never happened overnight but we've had more people of very high quality be interested than than I expected and the board do you think the board agrees on what's right for Apple or are you still in the getting to know me and each other as well you know you're talking about a very talented group of people on this board I mean several CEOs very opinionated which is great but you know great people when they have different opinions they they 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 this is a group of people that is quite talented and you've got a lot of CEOs I mean Larry Ellison's CEO the second largest software company in the world Bill Campbell CEO of Intuit one of the largest consumer software companies in the world Ed Willard former CEO of DuPont you've got a lot of very high-powered people on this board Jerry York you know the the CFO of both Chrysler and IBM during its turnaround so there's some very very strong people on this board you guys I think they have really gelled which is nice what's the 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 as if 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 the great person 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 no you go oh sure I've told the board I that was a problem I would the reason that we recruited such a strong board so that we have a strong boy 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 from me they're not going to do the right thing for some new candidate they want to lure away they're gonna 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 these are not you know old crony friends of one person or another these are very independent very talented people and they're gonna 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 owned a hundred percent of the desktop computer market and it was crazy that these companies weren't working together now again they're not gonna see everything the same way we're very different than Microsoft so we're not weird a lot of things we're gonna 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 so what we've tried to do is normalize the relationship with Microsoft so that we can be very different but still do business together and do things that are right for the customers and I think that were the the relationship had been so polarized that that wasn't taking place since that event we've started a lot of things with Microsoft that I think will be really good for customers you know clearly putting the relationship back together was Bill and Steve because bill and I go way back and as you know when I was at Apple there was not a hostile relationship between the two companies as a matter of fact Macintosh was the first platform that brought Microsoft into the applications business so my feeling is is that you know Bill and Steve have have ignited a relationship but now it is it has really permeated fairly far in the organization's and there's a lot of stuff going on we still see things very differently in some ways and so don't expect us to become like Microsoft and don't expect Microsoft to become like us but there's a lot of things we can be doing together nonetheless as the two people that really are responsible for the desktop computer industry I think this I I think the situation it becomes polarized that I wasn't that surprised emotionally I was little surprised but intellectually I wasn't but you know it takes people a little time to get used to new things and and what we have to do is is to change Apple in those ways that makes sense and to vigorously not change Apple in those ways that that Apple is great so I think that you know you're gonna see some of each you're gonna see Apple remaining absolutely recommit it to its values you know and you're gonna see Apple change and some things that it just either are outdated or haven't worked or don't make sense anymore to the customers did it hurt what's that did it hurt to have your people the people who you know love you boo you like that is C huh I didn't know this was people People magazine no well this is this is there is well I and I'd like you you brought it up yourself you said emotion you know emotionally you know different you know I mean I I don't feel my job is to win a popularity contest right now you know I feel my job is to help the team at Apple do the right things to turn this company around so that it can really prosper again and and I think that's gonna happen and if something you know some people I mean the markets we're talking markets now that are so large that there's you know someone or some group of people that aren't gonna like just about anything we do but my job's not to win a popularity contest but I think it's what Apple stands for you know it's it's a very rare thing in this world when a company can really bring sort of the right and a left brain together and say we're about doing you know the right things to make money in a successful business but we also have the passion and the creativity and the inventiveness to push this industry forward and to work with our customers to take these tools in in ways they've never been before to help them go change the world and Apple has a history a track record of doing just that and I think that that's that's got a place in people's hearts and I think Apple still has a lot of that and we're gonna get rid of a lot of the bramble in the brush around that so that that can shine again no I think Apple has delivered some pretty good stuff I think Apple is going to get back to deliver some great stuff life is long but as far as we see we really like the powerpc we think they're an incredibly wonderful place in the curve right now the PowerPC chips are really outperforming the Intel chips and we really like what's coming down the pike there so who knows what the future will bring but we're extremely happy with the PowerPC working very closely with IBM Motorola hey there thanks for checking out CNBC on YouTube be sure to subscribe to stay up-to-date on all of the day's biggest stories you can also click on any of the videos around me to watch the latest from CNBC thanks for watching

Channel: CNBC

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Keywords: CNBC, Mad Money, Squawk Box, Power Lunch, Opening Bell, Closing Bell, Financial News, Finance News, Stock News, Stocks, Trading, Investing, Stock Market, US News, World News, steve jobs, steve jobs interview, apple, apple ceo, apple inc, steve jobs 1997, steve jobs 1998, steve jobs 1999, steve jobs 1996, steve jobs 1995, steve jobs 1997 interview, steve jobs cnbc, steve jobs cnbc interview, young steve jobs, steve jobs starting apple, steve jobs history, steve jobs bio

Id: xchYT9wz5hk

Length: 11min 40sec (700 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 27 2018