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The Entrepreneur Of The Decade
An interview with Steven Jobs, Inc.'s Entrepreneur of the Decade.
Published April 1989
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BUY A REPRINTAn interview with Steve Jobs
It took us all of about five minutes to decide that our Entrepreneur of the Decade would be Steven P. Jobs, cofounder of Apple Computer Inc. and founder of NeXT Inc. Granted, there are other entrepreneurs, a handful, who have enjoyed comparable success in the past 10 years, and who -- unlike Jobs -- have managed to avoid getting sacked by their companies in the process. But ultimately, their accomplishments pale alongside his. Without Jobs, after all, there would have been no Apple II. To that extent, he deserves credit for instigating -- and shaping -- a microcomputer revolution that has already transformed how we do business and may yet transform how we live.
Along the way, Jobs came to personify a whole generation of youthful company builders pioneering on the frontiers of technology -- the men and women who, overnight, made Silicon Valley a business landmark and a household name. They were not only building companies; they were also experimenting with new ways of thinking about business itself. The national media hailed them for their innovative spirit and touted them as the people who would restore America's competitive edge.
Jobs was their most prominent representative, on the cover of Time before he turned 27. He came across as brash, abrasive, and rough edged. But he also had dreams, big dreams, and the peculiar ability to develop products that seemed to give us a glimpse of a bright and exciting future. What he did once with the Apple II, he did again with the Macintosh, only to be forced out of his company by the man he had recruited to lead it, former soft-drink executive John Sculley. Soon afterward Jobs started a new computer company, NeXT Inc., and then slipped from public view. But last fall he reemerged, staging a dramatic presentation at San Francisco's Symphony Hall to introduce his latest creation -- a workstation for the higher-education market. Once again, his picture was splashed across newspapers and magazine covers. Steve Jobs was back.
Through it all, we followed his journey and shared his experiences, quietly rooting for his success. But it was not until we had settled on him as our Entrepreneur of the Decade that we realized how little we actually knew about him. That is the paradox of Jobs. As public as his life has been, he has remained a mystery over the years. We weren't at all sure what to expect when we met him at his Palo Alto, Calif., office.
Boyish is probably the word that best describes our first impression. He was wearing jeans and a turtleneck as he bounded up the stairs. He was friendly, even cordial, but there was a diffidence in his manner that became more pronounced as the afternoon wore on. A profoundly shy man, he had an almost physical aversion to any question that could be construed as even remotely personal.
On the other hand, he was thoroughly forthcoming about business. The experiences of recent years have not diminished his passion. He clearly loves what he is doing and talks about it with a fervent voice and gleaming eyes. In that respect, he seems as youthful as ever. Yet, at the same time, one senses a newfound maturity. Ask him the right questions, and he comes across as an extremely thoughtful person, engaged by deep issues, struggling to find the appropriate words, now able to articulate things that before he knew only by instinct.
By reputation, Jobs is a perfectionist and an extraordinarily demanding boss. Stories abound of the people he has burned out. We can believe them all. NeXT is surely no fun for those who don't share his fervor. Yet as we left, we realized that our strongest reaction to Steve Jobs was the one we considered least probable going in. We liked him.
Steve Jobs was interviewed by Inc. editors George Gendron and Bo Burlingham.
INC.: Where do great products come from?
JOBS: I think really great products come from melding two points of view -- the technology point of view and the customer point of view. You need both. You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they'll want something new. It took us three years to build the NeXT computer. If we'd given customers what they said they wanted, we'd have built a computer they'd have been happy with a year after we spoke to them -- not something they'd want now.
INC.: You mean the technology is changing too fast.
JOBS: Yeah, and customers can't anticipate what the technology can do. They won't ask for things that they think are impossible. But the technology may be ahead of them. If you happen to mention something, they'll say, "Of course, I'll take that. Do you mean I can have that, too?" It sounds logical to ask customers what they want and then give it to them. But they rarely wind up getting what they really want that way.
