Last month, following the death of Steve Jobs, Computerworld published a transcript of a lengthy 1995 interview with Steve Jobs conducted as part of an oral history program for the Computerworld Information Technology Awards Foundation.

The complete, unabridged video of that 75-minute interview has now been posted, offering an interesting look at Jobs before his return to Apple.


In the interview, Jobs touches on his childhood, education, and the future of the Internet, while also sharing thoughts on his time with Apple, NeXT, and Pixar. The interview also includes an interesting take on death being the "greatest invention of life", a theme Jobs addressed in discussing the nature of start-up companies challenging the status quo to innovate and push technology further.

I've always felt that death is the greatest invention of life. I'm sure that life evolved without death at first and found that without death, life didn't work very well because it didn't make room for the young. It didn't know how the world was fifty years ago. It didn't know how the world was twenty years ago. It saw it as it is today, without any preconceptions, and dreamed how it could be based on that. We're not satisfied based on the accomplishment of the last thirty years. We're dissatisfied because the current state didn't live up to their ideals. Without death there would be very little progress.

Jobs would of course revisit that theme ten years later in his 2005 commencement address at Stanford University, but that time from a more personal perspective following his cancer diagnosis.

Top Rated Comments

macdev2010 Avatar
155 months ago
Must be interesting to watch, but with such a CRAPPY streaming performance I am not so sure...

Uploaded this video on youtube. //www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWvbt8d7sok Hope it helps with streaming issue.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
DrMotownMac Avatar
155 months ago
I only had a chance to watch the first 20 minutes or so, but it's very interesting how, for a die-hard liberal Democrat, Steve Jobs talks a lot like a conservative. He believes in "equal opportunities but not equal outcomes." I wonder how the Occupy Wall Street protesters would feel about that. Also, he was very opposed to teachers' unions, essentially saying that they were the biggest single obstacle for improving education in this country.

I wonder how he reconciled this as he voted for the likes of Barack Obama, who seems to strongly believe in equal outcomes AND in support of teachers' unions (in addition to other public employee unions).
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
sclawis300 Avatar
155 months ago
did someone not hand the guy a mirror before he sat down for this video taped 1 hour + interview?
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
rorschach Avatar
155 months ago
A lot of this is in the biography, but it's neat to watch Steve himself talk about it in his own words.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
superduperultra Avatar
155 months ago
It's up on Vimeo now, get it before it's gone: http://vimeo.com/31813340
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
smolz Avatar
155 months ago
Anyone have a link to the video?
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)

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