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Cringely's Lost Jobs Interview: Coming To a Theater Near You

Posted by timothy on from the no-1984-runners-allowed dept.

A few weeks ago, Robert X. Cringely revealed that a long-lost, hour-long interview he conducted of Steve Jobs in 1995 had been found. Now, it seems the lost tape has found its calling: the movies. Says the linked Economic Times story: "The interview will be shown at Landmark theaters in 19 cities around the country beginning Nov 16."

35 of 206 comments (clear)

  1. Boring. by Dondoet · · Score: 2, Insightful

    All this news about Steve Jobs is getting rather boring and repetitive.

    1. Re:Boring. by gutnor · · Score: 2

      Milking the death. Everytime there is somebody famous (as in fox news famous, not lisp inventor famous) we need to get through the same repetitive shit. At least we won't have to suffer post death album.

    2. Re:Boring. by Gaygirlie · · Score: 3, Funny

      At least we won't have to suffer post death album.

      Oh, you just wait.

    3. Re:Boring. by arielsom · · Score: 4, Funny

      Noooo! I'm going to get in line 2 days ahead so I can be the first in the theater!

    4. Re:Boring. by syousef · · Score: 2, Interesting

      All this news about Steve Jobs is getting rather boring and repetitive.

      I turned to the discovery channel today and they had a special on Steve Jobs. They credited him with making Pixar the great success it was even though he did non of the technical work. They credited him with single handedly forcing the music industry to adopt $1/song pricing. They stopped just short of crediting him with inventing the mp3 player. I'm surprised at that restraint - I thought they were going to credit him for inventing oxygen and water! Mikio Kaku, both the Mythbusters, and lots of other guests who may or may not have met jobs crediting him with genius, while all the people that did the actual innovation don't get a mention. It's sickening to anyone with a modicum of respect for the truth and credit where it's due.

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    5. Re:Boring. by Gaygirlie · · Score: 2

      Why wait? Isn't this interview like the post death album of a non-artist?

      Well... in a way he is sort of an artist: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=steve+jobs+remix&aq=f :D

    6. Re:Boring. by mutube · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I think you mean 'neither'.

      Most people are just not that interesting.

      --
      Python coder | PyQt Applications | Writer
    7. Re:Boring. by UnknowingFool · · Score: 2

      As for Pixar, he didn't draw or render a single frame. However as CEO he hired the best people and put them in charge, Catmull and Lassetter. At first it sold hardware before changing directions and becoming an animation company. During the first 10 years, it lost money but Steve Jobs kept it open with his own money. Steve was not involved with the daily operations of Pixar but he was in charge of larger focus like what the company ultimately became and the deals with Disney.

      --
      Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
    8. Re:Boring. by digitalaudiorock · · Score: 2

      All this news about Steve Jobs is getting rather boring and repetitive.

      Better than the way I mistakenly read the subject line at first...as "Cringely's lost job interview"...not that would have been boring.

    9. Re:Boring. by Machtyn · · Score: 2

      Well, you do have it a bit backwards; but, yes, Jobs did keep Pixar afloat long enough to create a great movie (Toy Story). Lassitter, et al. had founded Pixar long before, and were under the umbrella of LucasArts. LucasArts was getting tired of Pixar as it didn't fit in their model of business. If Jobs hadn't stepped in with funding, Pixar would have gone nowhere.

  2. New idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Apple stores show it in solo booths with tissue dispensers

    1. Re:New idea by syousef · · Score: 4, Funny

      Apple stores show it in solo booths with tissue dispensers

      The tissues have rounded corners and cost $2 each.

      --
      These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
    2. Re:New idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Yes.

  3. Re:Cringely making money of Jobs death? by me+at+werk · · Score: 2

    If you read the posts about it, apparently he wants money to put his kids through college. Maybe he missed the part about how Steve Jobs didn't finish college?

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    For context, click Parent.
  4. Please by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Just let the guy rest in peace. Everyone needs to move on.

    --
    #DeleteChrome
  5. Re:Cringely making money of Jobs death? by siddesu · · Score: 2, Insightful

    What's wrong with making money off Jobs' death? Apple made a ton, and so did his biographer. Apple even timed the release of the iPhone to it to maximize exposure (and profits).

  6. Restored VHS—for real?! by neoguri · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Any cinema of repute would refuse to show material sourced from a VHS.

  7. Turd Sandwich vs Giant Douche by Rogerborg · · Score: 2

    Now, why does that South Park episode suddenly spring to mind?

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    If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
  8. Innovation in perspective by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I just wish there were stories that put his innovation into perspective: he didn't do anything other than latch onto others creations and sell it.

    Steve Jobs was nothing more than a salesmen. A very good salesmen, but a salesmen never the less. True innovators usually go unnoticed because they're not good at self promotion and sales - usually.

    If he were to have settled somewhere else other than Silicon Valley, he would probably have a successful used car dealership or would have been a mortgage broker that contributed to this past real estate meltdown. Or maybe a timeshare salesmen. You know he could have sold ski resort timeshares in the South West desert.

    1. Re:Innovation in perspective by CrackedButter · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Even really good salesmen can't redesign a user interface for iDVD over a room full of designers and technicians.

      http://lunchpail.knotice.com/2011/10/07/paying-tribute-to-steve-jobs/

      He was more than what you're trying to reduce him down to.

      --
      Jonathanjk.com
    2. Re:Innovation in perspective by Swampash · · Score: 2

      Steve Jobs isn't very good at selling - just consider the failure of the original Mac vs. PC.

      Looked at PC sales figures lately? I think we can call that battle for Apple now.

    3. Re:Innovation in perspective by kiddygrinder · · Score: 2

      i'd almost say doom was the reason the home computer tended to be a pc imho.

      --
      This is a joke. I am joking. Joke joke joke.
    4. Re:Innovation in perspective by derGoldstein · · Score: 2

      I often wondered how he (Ive) felt about this "arrangement". Jobs kept getting the praise though it was known that Ive was the one behind the overall product design direction. He was in charge of hardware design, specifically, but that's exactly the part which the competition is trying hardest to copy.

      --
      Entomologically speaking, the spider is not a bug, it's a feature.
    5. Re:Innovation in perspective by derGoldstein · · Score: 2

      Ok, surprise me. Compare Mac market share to Dell, HP, or Lenovo. You can get the figures of the PC companies here.

      --
      Entomologically speaking, the spider is not a bug, it's a feature.
    6. Re:Innovation in perspective by tibit · · Score: 3, Informative

      I think this is selling him short a bit. His contribution was entirely in what to sell, his insight was about why the products should be designed in a certain way. Yes, Apple got ideas from Xerox about basics of the GUI, but Xerox did not manage to fully realize the potential of the technology they had. Xerox's products were a flop, because they didn't understand what was it about them that could make them good, and thus never took advantage of their own innovation. It's no good if you have figured out something cool if you have no clue how to actually use it in a product.

      Never mind that Apple pretty much reimplemented all of Xerox's ideas from scratch. It's not like they went to Xerox, ripped some code, then tweaked it and sold it on. The original Mac and Apple II were quite revolutionary products. There was nothing quite like them on the market. Of course there were other "similar" products, but nothing that was designed with similar attention to detail and usability. Even "silly" stuff like Apple II's switching power supply was quite a breakthrough in an age where most computers had a transfomer, rectifier, and a linear regulator that ran pretty hot.

      Of course both Tek and HP sold oscilloscopes with such power supplies at the time, and probably some workstations and mainframes had switching supplies, but no consumer/hobbyist products at the time had that. Look, for example, at ABC-80, circa 1978. See the black radiator in the back? That's what the linear regulators were bolted to. It added to the cost and made for an unwieldy-looking thing. Perhaps in Swedish climate it made sense, though :)

      All those "little" things count, and that's why "quite like it" doesn't count.

      --
      A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
    7. Re:Innovation in perspective by dskzero · · Score: 2

      Yeah, I don't get where this misconception that word processors and all that boring, practival stuff was the reason the PC was more successful. It was obviously Doom.

      --
      Oblivion Awaits
    8. Re:Innovation in perspective by schnell · · Score: 4, Interesting

      he was very good at combining other people's ideas and making something unique out of it.

      That's partly true but misses the big picture. If you read the biography - and I strongly recommend you do, it isn't just "Jobs is an a**hole" anecdotes, there's some really fascinating stuff in there - you see that Isaacson portrays Jobs as having two key strengths.

      The first was that Jobs had a strong intuition about what people wanted (e.g. a mass-market GUI computer with the Mac or a fully licensed, easy-to-use music download store with iTunes, etc.) so he pushed for Apple to build those things where they previously didn't exist. That's why he's cited as "innovative" even though other people did the actual work. The second was that he was a perfectionist - to the point of near-insanity actually - so he pushed people really hard to build stuff that it was so good that people didn't just like it, (some) people LOVED it... hence the Cult of Mac, etc. Very few if any big companies these days have perfectionists at the helm who insist they make things "insanely great" or don't make them at all, and that's why he was unique.

      The flipside to this is that, as Isaacson repeatedly shows, Jobs was more or less a complete fail as a human being. The book is pretty clear that his infantile and sociopathic behavior was tolerated throughout his life precisely because he was so good at the other two things, and it built his legacy at the expense of his ever "growing up" into a decent person. So it's a really nuanced picture of the guy and very very much worth a read if you're interested in a more sophisticated view of Jobs than "he didn't do anything but market shiny things and yell at people."

      --
      "95% of all Slashdot .sig quotes are incorrect or completely fabricated." -Benjamin Franklin
  9. religion by Hazel+Bergeron · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This is how a religion starts.

    1. Re:religion by Nidi62 · · Score: 2

      Hey, it's still an improvement over scientology.

      --
      The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
  10. Re:So what ... by CheerfulMacFanboy · · Score: 2

    ... it's not like it matters now what happens with the 4S. At least not in Germany

    Bunkum. Apple Germany can still sell phones in Germany - only Apple Inc. can't, but they never did.

    --
    Fandroids hate facts.
  11. Promises, promises by Zubinix · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Cringely reached his peak during the making of "Triumph of the Nerds" and the follow up series "Nerds 2.0.1". They were both some of the best historical documentaries ever done on the PC and Internet revolutions. Since then he has failed to deliver on subsequent projects.

    Here's hoping there is one more great documentary series left in the old Cringe!

  12. A call to all Slashdotters by martas · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If you are as sick of Apple/Steve Jobs stories as I am, there is only one thing you can do -- vote with your clicks! Resist the temptation to click on the stories and post comments, even if your comment is going to be "I am sick of Apple/Steve Jobs stories." Yes, I know, I'm violating my own advice right now, but I though it was worth it to get this message out. From now on, I will in no way interact with any Slashdot story about Apple or Jobs, unless it is truly interesting.

    --
    weinersmith
  13. A brick and mortar theater? by paiute · · Score: 3, Funny

    If only we had a way to distribute audiovisual files to people. Oh well, maybe in the 21st century.

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  14. Cringely explains why on his blog by beetle496 · · Score: 2

    Cringely explains why on his blog: Seeking a final resolution

    Also, he talks about technical bits about the digitization.

    --
    I paid the going retail price for a Windows screen reader and got a free Unix computer!
  15. Nonsense. Read the biography for the big picture by guidryp · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I just wish there were stories that put his innovation into perspective: he didn't do anything other than latch onto others creations and sell it.

    Read the Biography. Jobs was much more than a salesman. He was intimately involved with the design of products from the Mac forward. Starting with the Mac he was constantly insisting on changes to the radius of curves in the plastic, he made so many suggestions about the design of the Mac Calculator that the engineer wrote a Calculator Construction kit, so Jobs could tweak the design until it was just right (which he did and this was the calculator for the next decade).

    These are just a couple of anecdotes, and there are many out there, but it isn't the anecdotes that bring this home. You really need to read the biography to really understand the bigger picture of Steve Jobs.

    Calling him just a salesman, is pure ignorance in action. Jobs was more intimately involved in product design than any CEO of his generation.