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Steve Jobs Insult Response (1997) [video]
- twobitshifter 4y agoSome context, all from wikipedia: OpenDoc In March 1992, the historic AIM alliance was launched with OpenDoc as a foundation.Taligent adopted OpenDoc, and promised somewhat similar functionality although based on very different underlying mechanisms. While OpenDoc was still being developed, Apple confused things greatly by suggesting that it should be used by people porting existing software only, and new projects should instead be based on Taligent since that would be the next OS. In 1993, John Sculley called Project Amber (a codename for what would become OpenDoc) a path toward Taligent.[5][6] Taligent was considered the future of the Macintosh, and work on other tools like MacApp was considerably deprioritized. CyberDog Cyberdog included email and news readers, a web browser and address book management components, as well as drag and drop FTP. OpenDoc allowed these components to be reused and embedded in other documents by the user. For instance, a "live" Cyberdog web page could be embedded in a presentation program, one of the common demonstrations of OpenDoc. A serious problem with the OpenDoc project that Cyberdog depended on, was that it was part of a very acrimonious competition between OpenDoc consortium members and Microsoft. The members of the OpenDoc alliance were all trying to obtain traction in a market rapidly being dominated by Microsoft Office and Internet Explorer. At the same time, Microsoft used the synergy between the OS and applications divisions of the company to make it effectively mandatory that developers adopt the competing Microsoft Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) technology. OpenDoc was forced to create an interoperability layer in order to allow developers to use it, and this added a great technical burden to the project. Kaleida Kaleida Labs formed in 1991 to produce the multimedia cross-platform Kaleida Media Player and the object oriented scripting language ScriptX that was used to program its behavior. The system was aimed at the production of interactive CD ROM titles, an area of major effort in the early 1990s. When the system was delivered in 1994, it had relatively high system requirements and memory footprint, and lacked a native PowerPC version on the Mac platform. Around the same time, rapid changes in the market, especially the expansion of the World Wide Web and the Java programming language, pushed the interactive CD market into a niche role. The Kaleida platform failed to gain significant traction and the company was closed in 1996. Taligent Taligent OS and CommonPoint mirrored the sprawling scope of IBM's complementary Workplace OS, in redundantly overlapping attempts to become the ultimate universal system to unify all of the world's computers and operating systems with a single microkernel. From 1993 to 1996, Taligent was seen as competing with Microsoft Cairo and NeXTSTEP, even though Taligent didn't ship a product until 1995 and Cairo never shipped at all. From 1994 to 1996, Apple floated the Copland operating system project intended to succeed System 7, but never had a modern OS sophisticated enough to run Taligent technology. In 1995, Apple and HP withdrew from the Taligent partnership, licensed its technology, and left it as a wholly owned subsidiary of IBM. In January 1998, Taligent Inc. was finally dissolved into IBM. Taligent's legacy became the unbundling of CommonPoint's best compiler and application components and converting them into VisualAge C++[5][6] and the globally adopted Java Development Kit 1.1 (especially internationalization).[7] In 1996, *Apple instead bought NeXT and began synthesizing the classic Mac OS with the NeXTSTEP operating system.*
- jebronie 4y agostaged, I assume
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- emmanueloga_ 4y agohonestly, staging the question is something I can see Steve Jobs doing. Does anybody know who the guy that asked the question is?
- dannyobrien 4y agoHere's one report about who it was: https://www.quora.com/History-of-Apple-Inc-Whos-the-guy-who-insults-Steve-Jobs-in-this-clip-of-WWDC-1997 https://www.quora.com/History-of-Apple-Inc-Whos-the-guy-who-...
- emmanueloga_ 4y agoThank you! Sad the what I think is one of the most useful contributions in this thread is buried on the bottom of the page... Also found this short article that also discusses the clip [1]. Would be nice if someone could find the guy and verify it was him, and also ask him how he feels now about the whole thing. 1: https://kottke.org/15/10/focus-means-saying-no https://kottke.org/15/10/focus-means-saying-no
- OriginalPenguin 4y agoHe was part of the Silicon Valley Linux User Group in the late nineties.
- kieloo 4y agoWhat makes you think that?
- pstuart 4y agoJobs was a flawed man in many ways, but the way he handled and addressed that is a succinct glimpse into why he is rightfully seen as a titan in the computing industry.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- racl101 4y agoI'm guessing for every mean comment he handled in public, behind the scenes Steve ripped apart some poor soul in private for doing much less or some soul for not even trying to incite anything.
- pstuart 4y agoNo doubt. It's clear that he could be a real asshole. I think we're well-served to acknowledge the good and the bad (i.e., not deifying him or others of his ilk). Apple would not exist today without his efforts.
- CharlesW 4y agoThat 10 second pause before he responds — 25 seconds if you don't count the reference to the famous quote, which buys him a bit more time — is amazing. What may be less well understood by people who weren't there is that he's addressing Apple employees just as much as he is Apple developers. Many Apple employees had the same question. [Source: Was at Apple at the time.] "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." — Steve Jobs
- eloff 4y agoI’d be better off in my relationships if I could master that technique.
- 22289d 4y agoSetting emails to a long waiting period, during which you can undo them, has been a game changer for me in that regard. Too bad you can't take back words that came out of your mouth. Or many instant messages.
- simmerup 4y agoYou’d likely be less real and more distant
- eloff 4y agoA very human thing is to say I don’t need to change and then rationalize it in some way. I think that’s what you’re doing here. Talking a pause before escalating with something hurtful could only be helpful, no matter if it’s “Less real” and has nothing to do with being distant at all.
- kirse 4y agothat 10 second pause I repeatedly learn this lesson just by being on accidental mute on Zoom calls.
- 4y ago
- alar44 4y agoSalesmen gonna sell. Not sure what the value of this video is.
- LASR 4y agoThe value is the approach that sales and product are integrated so much it comes from the mind of a single person. Remember that this is the early days of technology products. While most of the industry was working from the tech and finding usecases for it, Jobs’ approach was the opposite. Sales is not just about dollars. It’s about earning the delight and trust of your customer that you have something of value that they want. The dollars flow automatically from that.
- alar44 4y agoI don't think this video sells that though. It comes off as a pivoting non answer to me.
- mturmon 4y agoSuch a great clip. I’ve been on both sides of that one. Plenty of times where I’m trying to get some advanced tech into a given component, and the manager says No, it’ll increase our risk. “But this tech will enable advanced features A, B, and C.” And the reply: “We don’t need to have A, B, or C … we need the product to deliver on our earlier promise of the baseline capability.” And a few times when I’m on the other side, shutting someone else down. Never as clearly or succinctly as this, of course. Definitely makes me feel like a turncoat in the tug of war between technologists and product people.
- paultopia 4y agoThat is... so much nicer than I expected.
- bloodyplonker22 4y agoThe title is "insult response" because he is responding to an insult. Not that he is responding with an insult. At least that is how I interpreted it.
- paultopia 4y agoOh same here, but Jobs's reputation was for... not suffering fools gladly. Based on that reputation, I expected him to come down on the guy like a hammer.
- rootusrootus 4y agoJobs was a showman. And a leader. He was hard on fools at close range, mostly behind closed doors. He had a really high bar of excellence. But punching down at someone in the audience, whether a fan or an employee, that isn't anything he was ever really known for.
- rwbt 4y agoI can't believe people compare Jobs with Musk. Jobs was so much better put together in public and seems like he can still be very coherent and persuasive even when angry (likely in this video) and insulted in public.
- starik36 4y agoThat’s because back then your interaction with the public was maybe twice a year. Now it’s daily. Apples and oranges.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago> back then your interaction with the public was maybe twice a year. Now it’s daily. If you choose it to be. Plenty of CEOs are relatively recluse. For example, Apple’s, today.
- starik36 4y agoI seriously doubt Steve Jobs would be.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago> doubt Steve Jobs would be Jobs was alive when Twitter went mainstream. He didn’t fall for the bait.
- eyelidlessness 4y ago
- Octokiddie 4y agoOne thing that's interesting here is how Jobs doesn't answer the specific technical question: How does Java address the ideas embodied in OpenDoc? Instead, Jobs answers the question behind the question: What role should new technologies play at Apple going forward? This is a very useful technique to practice. When asked a question whose premise you don't agree with, you can become confrontational on that point. Or you can reach in to grab the question behind the question and answer that instead.
- imiric 4y agoRight. His answer effectively dismisses the question on the basis of it being invalid, or even dumb. And points out the larger philosophy that customer experience trumps technology. It's a classy way to come out on top of an argument, but a) it doesn't work in all situations, and b) not everyone can think on their feet in that way in front of an audience. It's an admirable trait of charismatic people, but it's also abused to manipulate the conversation to gain an upper hand. Typically used by politicians and lawyers.
- Tsiklon 4y agoIs Jobs' answer technically a non-sequitur rebuttal to a technical question? Only that charisma has "carried the motion" through
- BHSPitMonkey 4y agoBut it wasn't a sincere question; It was a statement disguised as a question in order to fit the format of the live Q&A, and the statement was "I think discontinuing OpenDoc makes you dumb and I want to humiliate you publicly for it".
- pxc 4y ago> "I think discontinuing OpenDoc makes you dumb and I want to humiliate you publicly for it" Wasn't it more like 'by discontinuing OpenDoc, you're throwing good work that I and others poured ourselves into for years, and reveal that your agreements to support it were made in bad faith. I'm calling you out for abandoning our team, you bastard'? imo the sentiment is clearly one of indignation and hurt at perceived betrayal and dishonesty, not really intellectual superiority
- raydiatian 4y agoI mean if you listen closely Jobs straight up contradicts himself.
- LarsDu88 4y agoPeople who don't understand the dude's question on a technical level don't realize how much doublespeak Jobs is using here.
- johnsillings 4y agoCan you elaborate? I don't understand the dude's question on a technical level.
- raydiatian 4y agoTo my mind it’s a bit of a trick question intended to bait Jobs into comparing apples to oranges. OpenDoc’s goal seems to be something of an early fediverse (shoot me if you disagree): a component framework that would allow applications to aggregate/compose/edit/display documents or subfragments thereof simultaneously from a federated network of sources, in an open standard that would allow anybody to roll their own UI. Java, completely different, is I suppose most comparable to this in the notion that Java is portable/run anywhere. Perhaps there was some equal footing between the two in the realm of licensing as well. Jobs straight up dances around the question to basically say (in pretty unclear terms) “I don’t know how or want to sell OpenDoc because of my product philosophy, so we’re not gonna bother with it.” However, instead of just bluntly stating ‘I don’t know how to sell OpenDoc’, Jobs goes on a self contradictory rant about asking his executive staff “what great things can we give our customers (why would the exec staff know)” rather than “what great tech can we sell”. They’re the same fucking question, unless you’re Steve Jobs, and decide that you can force people to work insane hours to build something that doesn’t exist and then take all the credit for it.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- JumpCrisscross 4y agoWho asked the question? Curious for their response, even if years later.
- mrpippy 4y agoHere’s the high quality copy of the whole video: https://archive.org/details/wwdc-1997-fireside-chat-steve-jobs https://archive.org/details/wwdc-1997-fireside-chat-steve-jo...
- rei123456 4y ago
- pcurve 4y agoMy favorite part is when audience clap to “some mistakes will be made and that’s good because that means decisions will be made “. As a guy who just quit 18 year career at multi billion dollar corporation, that was the biggest reasons for my quitting.
- daniel-thompson 4y agoOther comments rightfully address Jobs' extraordinary talent in presentation and persuasion. He was certainly right in the diagnosis about what ailed Apple at the time, and where it needed to get to (or get back to). Having said that, I have to feel for the guy asking the question, and by extension, all the developers who invested time and money building on top of this platform (OpenDoc) that Apple previously championed. OpenDoc sucked, that's for sure, but Apple killing it they way they did, and the lack of empathy demonstrated here by Jobs to the developers facing the loss of their investment in the platform - basically telling them "tough shit" - must have felt like a real slap in the face.
- hodgesrm 4y agoOne of the Jobs' virtues was that he didn't sugarcoat his opinions. It was pretty harsh a times, but what should he have said instead?
- racl101 4y agoHere it comes...
- tambourine_man 4y agoAnother great one from the same day is on the Newton. Spot on. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qyd0tP0SK6o&t=3665 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qyd0tP0SK6o&t=3665
- bitexploder 4y agoWhen he stood up, he had everything he was going to say figured out. Pretty cool to watch. This was a common question he knew was coming then though, so some of it is showmanship.
- CodeWriter23 4y ago> “some people who don’t know what they’re talking about” That was for the guy who asked the question. I love how Jobs had that elegant way of being an asshole back to those that deserved it, and in such a subtle way you hardly noticed him actually being an asshole.
- carbocation 4y agoIt's actually perfect, because I don't know if he's occupying the vantage of the questioner and referring to himself from their perspective (which is how I interpreted it) or the way you interpreted it. Perhaps both are intended.
- dusing 4y agoThat last bit about making mistakes but at least decisions are being made is important. Also connects well with what we have seen in the first 6 weeks of Elon Twitter.
- cphoover 4y agoEveryone is cheering this on... But as far as I can tell Apple did not win the Document Editor and business computing war vs MS. Microsoft clearly won with the Microsoft Office Suite and Microsoft Word... I'm not sure about this specific tech or if OpenDoc would have made any difference... But is it an impossibility that open standards could have been a strong weapon against MS market dominance? Either way the man is undeniably a legendary public speaker.
- carbocation 4y agoI don't think people are cheering this on because the business decision led to product victory. I think people are cheering this on because he gave a really thoughtful answer to an aggressive question, and how he did it is worth thinking about.
- dmix 4y ago> A serious problem with the OpenDoc project that Cyberdog depended on, was that it was part of a very acrimonious competition between OpenDoc consortium members and Microsoft. The members of the OpenDoc alliance were all trying to obtain traction in a market rapidly being dominated by Microsoft Office and Internet Explorer. At the same time, Microsoft used the synergy between the OS and applications divisions of the company to make it effectively mandatory that developers adopt the competing Microsoft Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) technology. OpenDoc was forced to create an interoperability layer in order to allow developers to use it, and this added a great technical burden to the project. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cyberdog https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cyberdog
- pdevr 4y agoSteve Jobs anticipated what was coming, and handled that very maturely. Even though he says technology should not be in search of a solution, he does say that as soon as he saw the Canon printout, he realized it will sell itself. So his theme, with that nuance, seems to be that a technology should not be in search of a solution, unless it is so good as to sell itself.
- gyulai 4y ago...if you think about it, it's the phrase "sell 8 billion dollars of product a year" that does the heavylifting, where he sets up the overall tone as "Me: Successful business tycoon. You: Angry nobody." It would come across as less arrogant, if he had just resisted the temptation to say that at all. He probably realizes that himself as he speaks and then wraps it into a humblebrag when he says "And I've made this mistake probably more than anybody else in this room". It's also a sentiment that one needs to be very careful with: Some people think they're right about everything because their success proves them right. It's this kind of hubris that, more often than not, will set you up for failure. The substance of the argument: "Solution looking for a problem" vs "problem getting a solution" is a bit of a tired old cliche (although I don't know whether it already was, back then).
- sn0w_crash 4y agoThis is the crux of the argument, however arrogant it might sound. Brilliant genius engineer guy with shiny thing needs to be able to articulate how to sell $8B of the thing. This of course has not happened, as OpenDoc had been failing for years until that point. That statement is the final blow. And probably deserved by a person who just accused their boss in public of being uneducated on the topic. Something elitist engineers love to do and seem to get away with time and again. Yet when they are put on the spot about their own shortcomings, we are to assume this is some kind of attack? Please.
- gyulai 4y agoI don't know enough about the specifics of the OpenDoc thing to be able to comment on that. I also don't know enough about the specifics of what happened to that guy. Was he an Apple engineer? Do we know whether he got fired the next day? If not, we don't really know whether he got away with anything at all, do we? The morals of angrily accusing your boss of something in public take a bit of unpacking. In my experience, bosses throw angry accusations at their subordinates much more frequently than the other way around. In fact, many bosses seem to think it's their job description. And they get away with it pretty much all the time (again: my experience). Why should the social norms that govern a boss's behaviour towards their subordinates differ so radically from those that govern subordinates' behaviour towards their bosses? I mean: If this is the Prussian army in the 19th century, I kind of get it. But if those are highly educated professionals working on a common cause like Apple and we're in California in 1997, then this asymmetry doesn't sit with me as easily. Any tech company that I would want to work for would have to be basically pretty egalitarian. Even though I know nothing about the specifics of the situation, I can sort of empathise with the overall theme: Imagine you're an "individual contributor" who takes shit from their bosses all day long, and the higher-ups just thanked you for it by flushing your career down the tube when they decided to cancel some project or some commitment or something that was deeply important to you. You go home and tell your wife, and she thinks you're a f#ing loser to put yourself in a situation where they can just treat you like that. You aren't even doing anything (because: What can you do?) to stand up for yourself. You have a difficult time looking yourself in the mirror. Then some public event like this comes along, and it may be the only chance you'll ever have to directly interact with that CEO. If you air your grievance and show them how angry you are, it may well help you, psychologically. You may or may not have a job the next day, but, if you don't, then, at least in your own mind, you died an "honorable" martyr's death. Even though I've never done anything like that (and probably wouldn't), I can sort of relate to that.
- ksec 4y agoThe Apple then and Apple now. These days it is all going backwards to MBA style business decisions. Instead of making insanely great product and services that will make them lot of money, they are now thinking what product and services they could do to make them lots of money. I thought It was also important to note the term "Customer", which is still being used in today's Apple. Comparing to most in Silicon Valley using the term "Users" instead.
- 33955985 4y agoCould someone mention the context for the question? I have seen this clip before and it always escapes me.