
Steve Jobs Ponders His Legacy In Never-Before-Seen 1994 Video - kjhughes
http://www.macrumors.com/2013/06/18/steve-jobs-ponders-his-legacy-in-never-before-seen-1994-video/
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hello_newman
Steve Jobs had such a way with words. I personally love this quote:

"This is not a field where one paints a painting which will be looked at for
centuries...This is a field where one does his work and in ten years it is
obsolete."

I loved the metaphor:

"It's sort of like a sentiment of rocks. You're building up a mountain and you
get to contribute your little layer of sedimentary rock to make the mountain
that much higher. No one will see it, but they will stand on it."

I think this is so true. Tech is about building on what others have done.
Picking up where on person left off. It's a never ending cycle.

I also like the line "it'll be appreciated by that rare geologist". In 100
years when historians are looking back on the tech boom that we are currently
living in, it'll be very interesting to see what goes down in history books as
the most influential invention, device, software etc that really started this
revolution.

~~~
monsterix
> "It's sort of like a sentiment of rocks.

You meant 'sediment of rocks'?

> Steve Jobs had such a way with words.

Oh absolutely. There are so many classy lines from him. And some of these
lines are going to impact our industry for years to come.

Take for example: The 'Post-PC era'?

Damn just those three words. They paint an altogether new story that is going
to be written all over again! It gives an excitement and pumps blood back into
what our industry does best - wow the users.

------
snowwrestler
Steve Jobs might not be right about this. Apple's latest and greatest
operating systems still implement quite a bit of functionality from Unix,
which is much more than 10 years old. They still implement and use ASCII, JPG,
TCP/IP, etc.

Most mathematical papers, paintings, and churches _don 't_ inspire awe 200
years later. The vast majority are lost to time. Only the most original,
revolutionary, or useful cultural artifacts last a long time. I think software
is probably not very different. We're still using Unix and TCP/IP today, and
probably will be for many decades to come. Angry Birds, maybe not so much.

~~~
ebbv
I think you're missing his point. None of what you listed is what Steve Jobs
made. He made Apple I, Apple II, MacIntosh, etc. He was talking about _his_
legacy. And he was right about it.

I think if you had asked him specifically about software engineers working on
underlying technology, he probably would have recognized that. After all, he
was working on NeXT there, which was using that same technology.

This clip actually made me respect his intelligence more than I had prior.

~~~
runjake
NEXTSTEP (now OS X) is over 20 years old. I programmed for it and much about
it is still the same under the hood.

~~~
salgernon
I am reminded of this quote:

“This, milord, is my family’s axe. We have owned it for almost nine hundred
years, see. Of course, sometimes it needed a new blade. And sometimes it has
required a new handle, new designs on the metalwork, a little refreshing of
the ornamentation . . . but is this not the nine-hundred-year-old axe of my
family? And because it has changed gently over time, it is still a pretty good
axe, y’know. ”

Written by Terry Prattchet, spoken by the Low King in The Fifth Elephant.

(quoted online from
[http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/terry%20prattchet](http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/terry%20prattchet))

~~~
Samuel_Michon
What you’re describing is also known as Theseus’ Paradox, and has been with us
for 2 millennia.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus)

~~~
scrumper
My personal favourite instance of the trope is Trigger's Broom:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trigger_(Only_Fools_and_Horses)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trigger_\(Only_Fools_and_Horses\))

Thanks for the link to something much, much older.

------
glhaynes
Interesting that he was able to maintain such passion for his work while
having such a realistic view of the ephemerality of it.

~~~
Taylorious
I think the massive piles of money coming in may have been a contributing
factor...

~~~
general_failure
or even better - glory.

------
hawkharris
Steve Jobs' sedimentary rock analogy might deflate the egos of some
developers. We work so hard on developing innovative hardware and software
that will be relevant in the future. On top of that there's a lot of hyped-up
business rhetoric about disrupting whole industries and changing the world
with our products. Yet, even when we do manage to shake things up, what Jobs
said is true: Our innovations will get buried under new innovations, like
layers of sediment in a cliffside.

But I think there's something important, albeit humble, about becoming that
thin layer of sediment in a rock formation. The layers may not have any
obvious utility, yet they tell geologists a vivid, detailed story about
changes in a landscape. That story may even help the geologists predict future
changes and disruptions.

I'm sure you see where I'm going with this. Sure, we may not use the original
Apple products, but to technologists with the right knowledge and experience,
they offer fascinating, useful insights about the future and past of
technology.

~~~
rhizome
Just last night on IRC I was commenting on the stinkeye I received at a
company once when I suggested their tagging functionality mimic Stack
Overflow's. Even though their product was a multiuser version of something
that had existed at 1:1 scale for a decade, never did I hear it described in
terms of what already existed. Based on more than this one example, I am
convinced that there is a beautiful-farts narcissism in startups today where
everybody thinks they're doing something new when they're really just making a
drag-and-drop Megaupload, in-browser Sublime Text, Flickr-with-animation, or
whatever.

~~~
acqq
Or to loosely paraphrase Joel Spolsky, you can describe what most startups
make today as "web sites where users enter something and then that's presented
to the other users."

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jballanc
To me, this speaks of the difference between artists and craftsmen. Artists
attempt to create the ideal, something that is perfect and that people can
stare at for hours just appreciating every nuance. Craftsmen create things to
be used, and it is in their use that they derive joy, even if the same said
use eventually destroys the creation.

~~~
arh68
But the use doesn't destroy the creations! It's not like they printed off a
finite number of Apple IIs and waited for all of their caps to blow 20 years
later. They got thrown in the landfill when they were running on all 4 legs.

The song "Jed the Humanoid" (by Grandaddy) captures my attitude pretty well.

------
Udo
Maybe there is more to this Renaissance analogy than he thought. During the
period, which ultimately led to the Age of Enlightenment that made today's
society possible, a lot of development happened and a lot of things that were
lost from antiquity were rediscovered (we may never completely know the extent
of it because of the Alexandria infocalypse). But the point is, the
discoveries of today are usually obsolete tomorrow, in the sense that origin
and context are lost while the discovery itself remains in place as a hidden
stratum on which the technology of tomorrow is built.

Maybe it has never been different, it's just that in IT the process is much
easier to observe due to its speed. But who really "invented" steam power,
optics, advanced mechanics, or programmable systems? The more you dive into
those things, the less clear the answer becomes - precisely because almost all
of our advances are stratified.

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film42
You know, the same is to be said for everything we do as programmers. Every
new thing we build is not lost, but it will become obsolete.

My take-away though, is that Steve saw this as a great opportunity to never
rest, but continuously learn and grow. That's what I want to pattern my life
after.

------
dorfsmay
Nobody would try to fly one of the original Wright brothers' kites or planes,
yet, this does not diminish our ability to admire their contribution to the
aviation industry.

I find it ironic that a buddhist laments the lack of permanence of the product
of his work!

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impermanence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impermanence)

------
joeblau
This man's quotes are timeless. He said stuff in 1990 that is applicable to
Apple today with it's current leadership.

Edit: The review on Amazon doesn't seem that good:
[http://www.amazon.com/Steve-Jobs-Visionary-
Entrepreneur/dp/B...](http://www.amazon.com/Steve-Jobs-Visionary-
Entrepreneur/dp/B00C93DZQM)

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audionerd
A few more Steve Jobs videos here:

    
    
      http://pinterest.com/moorage/ultimate-steve-jobs-collection/

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joelrunyon
This is old.

You can pick up the full video here -
[http://www.siliconvalleyhistorical.org/#!steve-jobs-
film/c1x...](http://www.siliconvalleyhistorical.org/#!steve-jobs-film/c1x1c)

I did a couple years back. It's like $5 & well worth it

~~~
acqq
But here's Amazon review:

"I was threatened with legal action and personal attacks via email from the
president of the Silicon Valley Historical Association over the above review
(which is against not only the 1st Amendment, but also Amazon's policies), and
then my review was removed. Therefore I am posting this review again (...)

In my opinion, if you are looking for a film about Steve Jobs, this is NOT it.
_In this hour-long film, there is only 15 minutes and 57 seconds of interview
footage of Jobs._ The rest is footage of the filmmaker himself, some cheesy
stock video clips, interviews with other Silicon Valley founders, and
historians/academics talking about the growth of Silicon Valley and comparing
it to the Renaissance era and the invention of the Gutenberg printing press.
After about 40 minutes into the film, there is hardly any discussion about
Jobs at all. There is, however, a nearly 20 minute long segment of various
random people explaining why they think the Information Age and Silicon Valley
is EXACTLY like the Renaissance period, followed immediately by a clip of Jobs
saying, "Nah, it's not like the Renaissance AT ALL." The film is wrapped up
quickly with no real conclusion leaving the viewer wondering what the hell
they just watched. And to make the whole thing worse, every interview has
really annoying music (think screeching saxophones) playing behind it, which
becomes so distracting that you stop listening to what the interviewee is even
saying.

The one good thing I can say is that it is very interesting to hear what Steve
Jobs has to say in these interviews...."

And it's $15 for video, $5 for audio.

~~~
arh68
> There is, however, a nearly 20 minute long segment of various random people
> explaining why they think the Information Age and Silicon Valley is EXACTLY
> like the Renaissance period, followed immediately by a clip of Jobs saying,
> "Nah, it's not like the Renaissance AT ALL."

The computer industry kills art and it sounds like Jobs knew it. What perhaps
the others saw as incredible works of art (like sculpted marble that will
withstand the centuries) were actually just the most disposable consumer goods
we've ever known. Computers are about cheap, disposable crap. For some reason,
this also means software needs to be cheap and disposable, but that's another
point entirely. The only layers of 'sediment' our creations will be found in
are in the landfill. The only 'rare geologists' are likely going to be the
picked-the-last-straw developer (or the terminally curious) that has to go
knee-deep in the sewers of old code and comes upon a neat hack. This might
sound real glass-half-empty, but it doesn't bother me. What's wonderful to
know is that everyone else thinks we're all Michelangelos!

~~~
adregan
Perhaps not like Renaissance art but the Renaissance period in terms of
importance of new ideas, methods and styles.

------
Someone
Nice metaphor, but is it right? I don't think mountains ever get built by
laying down layers of sediment. Sand castles, maybe, but mountains? Those need
earth quakes, or at least plate tectonics.

In some sense, Jobs was an earth mover who could shake up the earth and make
what previously was a sandplain into maybe not a mountain but at least a hill.

~~~
rdouble
If I remember the nerd facts from my junior high family vacation to Banff
correctly, I think the Canadian Rockies were formed that way.

~~~
Someone
I don't think that is true. The rocks of the Canadian Rockies were made that
way, and then they were raised by tectonic activity to form mountains.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geology_of_the_Rocky_Mountains](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geology_of_the_Rocky_Mountains):

 _" The rocks making up the mountains were formed before the mountains were
raised. [...] The Rocky Mountains took shape during an intense period of plate
tectonic activity."_

Sediment (from the Latin sedere=to sit") doesn't move up a hill to turn it
into a mountain. The wind may blow it up a bit to form dunes, but there is no
way it forms anything resembling a mountain. I am not a geologist, though, so
educate me.

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MushCraze
Steve Jobs is so accurate and smart. I agree with what he said, nothing is
constant but change.

~~~
dsego
Panta rei...

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shawndumas
here is the full, uncut, interview for sale =>
[http://www.siliconvalleyhistorical.org/#!steve-jobs-film-
int...](http://www.siliconvalleyhistorical.org/#!steve-jobs-film-interview/)

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microb
Never before seen? Uploaded on Oct 6, 2011
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYfNvmF0Bqw](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYfNvmF0Bqw)

~~~
kjhughes
That's different. This new posting is a different clip (although seemingly
from the same interview).

It begins with "The following clip has never been publicly shown before." It's
less than 2 minutes, and you'll probably enjoy it. Buying the full interview
(Production Date: January 2013; Playing Time: 60 Minutes) would support
Silicon Valley Historical Association:

[http://www.siliconvalleyhistorical.org/#!steve-jobs-
film/c1x...](http://www.siliconvalleyhistorical.org/#!steve-jobs-film/c1x1c)

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gdonelli
oh, I miss Steve...

Love the metaphor of sediments to make the mountain so much higher.

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sublimit
I don't see what's insightful or "brilliant" about this. Quite common sense
about working with technology, really, just packed in metaphors.

~~~
snorkel
It is insightful for software engineers because we feel like we're building
things when in fact we're just providing a service which will likely be gone
and forgotten 10 years from now. That's why I find it's important to also have
other pursuits that allow you to point at a permanent physical object and say
"I made that"

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jasonvolpe
Steve Job Ponders His Legacy In Baggy 1994 Denim Shirt

