HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

⬐ elmar

Steve at is best at NeXT.

"Then you have companies with secrecy, like Apple. I think this advice would be terrible for them (I have never worked there, and am open to correction). They can't dog food it widely due to the internal silos, and they certainly cannot test it with the public"

I fear that this myth is capitalized on by Apple under the hypercapitalist Auteur theory.[1]

The value of magic tricks is that they create awe and surprise, when in reality they can often be a by-product of misdirection and street-level sleights.[2]

This is not to suggest that Apple is going out onto street corners and asking random individuals for their opinions, but rather that part of the corporate myth making is likely obscuring process.

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9dmcRbuTMY

[2] I believe there is a court testimony document discussing Apple's market research team via Phil Schiller. Contrast this with Mr. Schiller's other comments about avoiding market research.

This might be the first one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9dmcRbuTMY

And the second: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dn3Ex-5dPAo&feature=relat...

⬐ sgt

Thanks for posting these videos.

I like this one from when he was at NeXT. No so much about marketing, but more about product strategy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9dmcRbuTMY

Of course he was wrong. The workstation market did not develop a professional workstation segment, Macs and PCs just got powerful enough to make workstations irrelevant.

⬐ _frog

Not as relevant but I saw this video a while back:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j02b8Fuz73A&feature=relat...

It's interesting to see a young Steve Jobs perfecting his presentation style.

This video of Jobs talking about NeXT's target customers is interesting here, and I'd say that the target demographic hasn't changed very much since then: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9dmcRbuTMY

This marketing video from NeXT back in 90 or 91 is informative: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9dmcRbuTMY

They were pretty right about where the workstation market was going.

Linus started Linux at about the same time.

In the 17 years since NeXT evolved, NT was born, and Linux begat RedHat, Ubuntu, and Google. Meanwhile Sun just hasn't adapted enough to stay competitive.

⬐ netcan

He is a smart guy. That's a very rational non BS marketing brief for a CEO. (at least my stereotype of one. I don't know many). This a gist from the 2nd tape:

They are interested in consumers being pushed form the PC to the workstation market. These are the reasons:

1* - Custom Apps - * The key is having the best development environment. (he thinks they do0

2* - productivity Apps - * The key is productivity apps using the networking capabilities so they can tie people together'*

3* - Interpersonal Computing - * This he says, is the long term strategy.

⬐ RyanGWU82

Even in 1991, Steve Jobs was wearing jeans and a black turtleneck.

⬐ pistoriusp

As far as I know he's been wearing it for much longer:

http://folklore.org/projects/Macintosh/gallery/popsci.jpg

"The following collage is from an article by Steven Levy that appeared in the February 1994 issue of Popular Science, commemerating the Macintosh's tenth birthday. It's based on pictures taken by Norman Seiff for Rolling Stone Magazine in January 1984."

⬐ charlesju

This is an amazing find. Steve Jobs is definitely one of my role models, and I'm sure a role model for many of the people on this site.

Macs have completely revolutionized every piece of consumer technology, and have set new industry standards in everything that they do.

I really enjoyed watching him pitch this startup, I have always wondered how Steve Jobs was as an early-stage entrepreneur.

Good find.

⬐ vaksel

man its amazing how much the guy aged in 17 years.

⬐ brianjherman

Sell company to apple.

⬐ jhancock

worth watching...

This is vid 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9dmcRbuTMY and this is vid 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dn3Ex-5dPAo&feature=relat...

What is interesting is that even though his approach in these videos is correct, Jobs would have lost if Apple didn't have the large pool of cash to do something with Next's technology when Jobs came back to Apple.

Just goes to show that you can be smart and know exactly how to achieve a goal, but luck and timing are just as important.

⬐ jwilliams

> Just goes to show that you can be smart and know exactly how to achieve a goal, but luck and timing are just as important.

Yeah, it's fascinating to watch this and think that as this video was being made, the Internet (well, WWW) was just about to change everything (directly or indirectly anyway).

⬐ netcan

I think that his strategy was sound at the time. The market he was talking about did grow. But he missed a critical point.

He was thinking of it as a split in the workstation marketplace. Sun had a 50% market share. He thought he could beat Sun. In effect, this marketplace became dominated by PC players & PC users (EG Mac Pro). A subset of the PC market really. Publishers, animators, designers, architects etc.

He did pick them up in the end with Apple.