Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With
Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello, everyone,
Speaker 1: welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Poulette, and
Speaker 1: I am an editor at how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: Sitting across from me as he typically does, and because
Speaker 1: I can't get rid of him and the senior writer,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland, I working here no more. That's a colorful
Speaker 1: introduction to our topic. Yeah, we're gonna talk about what's
Speaker 1: next for Apple, what's coming up for Apple now that
Speaker 1: Steve Jobs has resigned. And for those of you who
Speaker 1: somehow managed to avoid the news on August twenty, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know how you managed to do it. But
Speaker 1: then on augustn Steve Jobs sent a letter to the
Speaker 1: Apple's Board of Directors handing in his resignation as see
Speaker 1: EO of Apple, although he did suggest or request that
Speaker 1: he'd be allowed to remain chairman of the board. And
Speaker 1: he also suggested that the CEOO, the Chief Operating Officer,
Speaker 1: Tim Cook, be named the new CEO of Apple and
Speaker 1: uh and the board took both of those actions. So
Speaker 1: and yeah, so Jobs is still he's still with Apple.
Speaker 1: The way that the News covered this, it sounded like
Speaker 1: Jobs had not only left Apple, but that he was
Speaker 1: gone forever, and that it was almost like eulogies were
Speaker 1: being written. And as far as we know, as far
Speaker 1: as we know, the reason for Jobs stepping down he
Speaker 1: said he was no longer able to fulfill his duties
Speaker 1: as CEO, which uh he actually I can read the
Speaker 1: verbatim the way that he worded this. I have always said,
Speaker 1: if there ever came a day when I could no
Speaker 1: longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple's chief executive,
Speaker 1: I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: that day has come. I hereby resigned as chief executive
Speaker 1: of Apple. So the assumption is that Steve jobs health
Speaker 1: has taken such a poor turn that he just feels
Speaker 1: that it is not he's not capable of fulfilling that role,
Speaker 1: and he has been on medical leave or he was
Speaker 1: on medical leave since January and and so yeah. But
Speaker 1: the thing is, though, that that is speculation. He did
Speaker 1: not directly say that. I mean, it's you could say that,
Speaker 1: you could say it's a safe bet, but it's not
Speaker 1: necessarily the whole story and we should not jump to conclusions.
Speaker 1: And before we go any further, and we have done
Speaker 1: an episode about Steve Jobs and his work at Apple.
Speaker 1: It was an earlier episode. We actually did an episode
Speaker 1: about Steve Jobs, and we did an episode about Bill Gates.
Speaker 1: Because these two men were both visionary, They were both
Speaker 1: leaders in in the personal computer revolution. Yeah, they both
Speaker 1: were dropouts of college and they age, They both are
Speaker 1: incredibly wealthy. They both have very strong personalities and very
Speaker 1: specific ideas of where things need to be. Um, they
Speaker 1: have a lot of similarities, there are a lot of
Speaker 1: differences as well. Anyway, we did a podcast about Steve
Speaker 1: Jobs back then that if you are really curious about
Speaker 1: the man, I suggest you listen to. We're going to
Speaker 1: cover some of that probably again in this conversation, because
Speaker 1: it's necessary to really understand why people are reacting in
Speaker 1: such a strong way to this news. And um, and
Speaker 1: some of it, you could probably say, is to an
Speaker 1: over emphasis on the importance of the news. Not to
Speaker 1: belittle Steve Jobs or to say that his contributions haven't
Speaker 1: been enormous to Apple's success. They clearly have been, but
Speaker 1: to turn around and say Apple's doomed is a little reactionary.
Speaker 1: I think I would go so far as to say
Speaker 1: it might even be a lot reaction. I didn't want
Speaker 1: to react too strongly to how reactionary it might be,
Speaker 1: because then we have a positive feedback reactionary loop open.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure I think that the top is still spinning.
Speaker 1: Let's check our inception. Yes, okay, so we're still a
Speaker 1: dream within a dream at least one level down. Um,
Speaker 1: did you hear what Eric Schmitt recently said about Steve Jobs? Yes?
Speaker 1: This is this is pretty phenomenal. Alright, so Eric Schmitt,
Speaker 1: former CEO of Google, still with Google. So here's what
Speaker 1: he said. Uh that you probably thought you heard but
Speaker 1: didn't realize you had not right, it's really early. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, Chris, at this point it's just us. See
Speaker 1: Jonathan's talking. Just agree with what he says. It's easier.
Speaker 1: Apparently there's a drinking game. So down right, congratulations. I
Speaker 1: hope you guys are being safe out there. Um. No,
Speaker 1: Eric Schmitt said recently that Steve Jobs was probably the
Speaker 1: best CEO in fifty or a hundred years, and I
Speaker 1: really hadn't heard that. It's you know, that's that's huge praise.
Speaker 1: And you've got to remember Google and Apple do not
Speaker 1: have necessarily the most friendly of relationships with one another.
Speaker 1: They used to be. Yeah, we used to be on
Speaker 1: the board of directors for Apple as well as the
Speaker 1: board of directors for Google. He was on both at
Speaker 1: the same time, and in fact stepped down from Apple
Speaker 1: because of some worries that this was sort of a
Speaker 1: collusion or perhaps monopolization of of two fields or really
Speaker 1: one field, just two different approaches to it. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that that's that's pretty high praise. I mean, there have
Speaker 1: been a lot of really impressive CEOs of all kinds
Speaker 1: of companies, not just tech companies, but I mean just
Speaker 1: the you know, the people who might be considered uh,
Speaker 1: Steve Jobs as peers out there, Larry Ellison and yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean just famous tech personality and not just tech either,
Speaker 1: because the thing about Jobs is that, you know, Jobs
Speaker 1: definitely left his mark on Apple. I mean Apple, Apple's
Speaker 1: culture and Apple's products are the way they are in
Speaker 1: large part due to Steve Jobs. Not to say that
Speaker 1: the other people at Apple haven't made enormous contributions, fundamental
Speaker 1: contributions to the company's success. They have, but Steve Jobs
Speaker 1: is he It's hard to imagine Apple as it is
Speaker 1: today without Steve Jobs in that picture, because he and
Speaker 1: the company are almost synonymous. And so I would compare
Speaker 1: Steve Jobs with some other famous leaders who also the
Speaker 1: company in some cases literally was synonymous, for example, Walt Disney,
Speaker 1: because Walt Disney had a reputation for having a very
Speaker 1: clear vision of where he wanted his company to go
Speaker 1: and what he wanted to accomplish, and he also had
Speaker 1: a reputation for not wanting to compromise on that vision,
Speaker 1: to do whatever it takes to make that vision a reality,
Speaker 1: and he was had a reputation for being a taskmaster.
Speaker 1: That working for Disney was incredibly rewarding professionally, but it
Speaker 1: was also really rough. I mean it was it meant
Speaker 1: that you were working harder than you had ever worked before,
Speaker 1: and you were expected to contribute that level all the time. Well,
Speaker 1: a lot can be said about Steve Jobs that is
Speaker 1: almost identical to that, right So, and in fact, you know,
Speaker 1: you even have Jobs as a relationship with Disney goes
Speaker 1: even further because Jobs sits on the board for Disney
Speaker 1: and also was the head of Pixar, So you know
Speaker 1: Pixar is also now a Disney company. So the relationship
Speaker 1: goes beyond just the superficial where you can say Disney
Speaker 1: and Jobs are like this because of I mean, the
Speaker 1: two merged in a way which is, you know interesting.
Speaker 1: I think that Jobs is um becoming synonymous with Apple
Speaker 1: is in part to two things which are oddly um
Speaker 1: at odds with one another. Um, which is, you know,
Speaker 1: he co founded the company and then he was essentially
Speaker 1: forced out of the company. Yeah, that's that's we should
Speaker 1: probably address that a little bit. Um. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: the he his strong personality hasn't always served him well, well,
Speaker 1: it hasn't made the best impression on other very influential people.
Speaker 1: So so back in the early days of Apple, and
Speaker 1: we're talking the mid eighties here, uh, Steve Jobs had
Speaker 1: his his behavior. He he clearly was a genius. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's already obvious that he was a genius, that the
Speaker 1: man was a visionary. But he also had a very uh, well,
Speaker 1: what's the best word to use, strong personality, you'll say,
Speaker 1: and and again a desire to attain a vision without compromise,
Speaker 1: which you know that can rub some people the way.
Speaker 1: And in fact, his inexperience with business lead the Apple's
Speaker 1: board of directors to choose a different person to act
Speaker 1: as president and CEO, and that person was John Scully. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Scully actually came from a completely different field. Yes, he
Speaker 1: came from pepsi Um and uh, a lot of people didn't.
Speaker 1: I didn't like that because they thought, well, you know,
Speaker 1: this is a completely different change, and you know it's
Speaker 1: it's not somebody who is intimately tech and he didn't
Speaker 1: necessarily share the vision that that Apple's founders had when
Speaker 1: they created the company. So then you're asking, well, it
Speaker 1: can you even call Apple the same company that it
Speaker 1: was when it started, because now you've got, uh, someone
Speaker 1: who's coming from this from a totally different angle in charge.
Speaker 1: And uh, eventually Jobs left Apple. You know, you could
Speaker 1: argue whether or not Apple fired him or Jobs resigned.
Speaker 1: It's kind of essentially Scully kept pushing, pushing Jobs further
Speaker 1: and further to the edge of the company. I think
Speaker 1: they ran them off. Yeah. Yeah, essentially it's almost like
Speaker 1: if I'm nasty enough, they'll go away sort of thing. Um,
Speaker 1: that's oversimplifying it, but essentially that's what's happened. And then
Speaker 1: so Jobs leaves the company, and then he goes off
Speaker 1: and does his own thing. Meanwhile, Scully's tenure at Apple
Speaker 1: is not the best thing for that company. It's the
Speaker 1: company starts to have some serious issues over the next decade. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it had. It had supply problems. UM. They were known
Speaker 1: for creating multiple computers with hard to Basically we're using
Speaker 1: a numbering system. At that point, UM they had and
Speaker 1: and the numbering system. It wasn't clear necessarily what computer
Speaker 1: was what UM. The differences between the pro and consumer
Speaker 1: computers was confusing, and they and Scully started to do
Speaker 1: something that Jobs absolutely refused to do. Well, there was
Speaker 1: one more thing before I was going to add that
Speaker 1: simply that they were also known for quality problems, which
Speaker 1: is not something that a lot of people associate with
Speaker 1: Apple in two thousand eleven, but at the time there
Speaker 1: were no Yeah, they were known for releasing lemons, complete lines.
Speaker 1: You know the UM you know this particular model number
Speaker 1: five thirty stinks. Don't ever buy this computer because it's
Speaker 1: just a terrible, terrible design. Well, the the other thing
Speaker 1: that Scully did that Jobs definitely did not approve of
Speaker 1: was essentially approving clones of Apple devices other manufacturers to
Speaker 1: be able to use um TO to incorporate Apple's technology
Speaker 1: into into their own machines. That's not something Jobs was
Speaker 1: ever interested in. And UH. It was what enabled Windows
Speaker 1: to become as big as it was was IBM's decision
Speaker 1: to allow clones of its machines, so it had there
Speaker 1: was precedence for this move, but it ended up not
Speaker 1: being the right idea for Apple. And in nine the
Speaker 1: company Apple, the company decided to purchase a company called Next,
Speaker 1: which was Steve Jobs's company. It was a company that
Speaker 1: was dedicated to creating uh new computer systems specifically for
Speaker 1: educational purposes, not just educational purposes, but that was like
Speaker 1: the main focus. Yeah, I was aimed at that market. Now,
Speaker 1: there were other competitors that I mean basically people analysts
Speaker 1: were saying at the time that Apple was doomed. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, Michael Dell actually was famous in his proclamation
Speaker 1: that Apple should be uh sold off and the proceeds
Speaker 1: be redistributed to its stockholders because it was in such
Speaker 1: bad shape. Um. Wired magazine had a famous cover and
Speaker 1: UH in which they were talking about Apple's problems and
Speaker 1: what should be done, if anything, to save the company,
Speaker 1: if anything could save the company, and um, it was
Speaker 1: pretty widely own and they had an operating system that
Speaker 1: was languishing the next version of its operating sy Some
Speaker 1: people kept saying, when is this thing coming out? It
Speaker 1: doesn't look like it's ever coming out, and they said,
Speaker 1: well they're There are rumors going around that Apple was
Speaker 1: looking to buy Next or some other companies, one of
Speaker 1: which was buh B as in b operated Um had
Speaker 1: a computer called the b Box, which was a was
Speaker 1: pretty innovative for its time and at four processors and
Speaker 1: was led by a former Apple executive named Jean Luis Gassa,
Speaker 1: who also has a strong personality, and a lot of
Speaker 1: people thought it was down to be versus Next, or
Speaker 1: at least a lot of people that I was reading
Speaker 1: about at the time because I was actually following this.
Speaker 1: And Apple decided to acquire Next outright, and they sort
Speaker 1: of acquired Steve Jobs along with it. A lot of
Speaker 1: people thought that Apple was more interested in Steve than
Speaker 1: was the Next operating system, although Next operating System did
Speaker 1: play a fundamental role in what would become the new
Speaker 1: version of mac OS. But yes, so Steve Jobs comes
Speaker 1: back to Apple and before too long becomes the new
Speaker 1: president and CEO of Apple, and at that point Jobs
Speaker 1: started to to undo some of the changes that Scully
Speaker 1: had made during his tenure. He completely remained Apple, I
Speaker 1: would go so far as to see and it took
Speaker 1: some years before Apple really started to see he some
Speaker 1: big success because at this point, really, and you could
Speaker 1: argue still today, Mac max just consisted of a very
Speaker 1: tiny portion of the personal computer market. They just really
Speaker 1: didn't make a huge dent. It was mainly PCs, so
Speaker 1: Windows based machines, and then there was a tiny slice
Speaker 1: of Apple products. But also, I mean, just in just
Speaker 1: to put it in perspective, at that point, Windows was out,
Speaker 1: was coming out. I mean, Windows was really hitting its
Speaker 1: stride in making inroads to the desktop in businesses all
Speaker 1: around the world. Yeah, it was essentially the business operating system.
Speaker 1: It was much more polished than Windows three point x um,
Speaker 1: much more polished it was. It was a huge leap
Speaker 1: forward for Windows. So I mean Apple had that was
Speaker 1: the wrong time, the exact wrong time for Apple to
Speaker 1: be stinking it up. So job starts making changes. But
Speaker 1: it's not really until about two thousand one that the
Speaker 1: next huge thing happens that really pushes Apple forward, and
Speaker 1: that's the introduction of the iPod and MP three players
Speaker 1: existed before the iPod came out. It's not that the
Speaker 1: iPod was a new idea, but the iPod had an
Speaker 1: elegant design compared to the other MP three players that
Speaker 1: were out on the market at that time. And Steve
Speaker 1: Jobs is, uh, he's many things. He's a visionary, he's
Speaker 1: a powerful leader, but he's also incredibly um good at
Speaker 1: marketing and and getting a message across and getting you
Speaker 1: to believe then buy into that message. You could walk
Speaker 1: into an Apple keynote completely skeptical and walk out thinking
Speaker 1: I gotta get to an Apple store. Now, well, there
Speaker 1: weren't any Apple stores in two thousands, and an Apple
Speaker 1: didn't make anything other than computers and operating systems. UM.
Speaker 1: Actually it did make other software, which it spun off,
Speaker 1: actually spun off a division of itself called Claris, which
Speaker 1: made all kinds of other software. I mean, they were
Speaker 1: into They even had their own work suite UM, and
Speaker 1: they had some other stuff they did. They did have
Speaker 1: the Newton, which was a p d A and the
Speaker 1: the Image, which wasn't an educational device that people kind
Speaker 1: of wish they still made for a while. I just
Speaker 1: think of the Simpsons with the Newton. Yeah, make a note,
Speaker 1: Beat up Martin, eat up Martha. But yeah. Handwriting recognition
Speaker 1: was well known for noting, um, that will get somebody
Speaker 1: who really loves their Newton, who still uses their Newton?
Speaker 1: Who who can will? Even the creators of the Newton
Speaker 1: admit that the handwriting software was not quite ready it was.
Speaker 1: That was one of those things where the company was
Speaker 1: pushing for it before the the hardware and software were
Speaker 1: fully baked Apple, fully baked pie Pie. So so, Steve
Speaker 1: Jobs introduced a new scheme in which they would create
Speaker 1: a consumer line of portables and desktops, and a and
Speaker 1: an educational line which was sort of off to the side,
Speaker 1: and then the pro line of of portables and desktops.
Speaker 1: Then you had the iPod, and then in two thousand
Speaker 1: seven you had the iPhone, and in two thousand ten
Speaker 1: the iPad. In fact, way back when the iPod was
Speaker 1: coming out, Jobs had already predicted something that has come true,
Speaker 1: which is that the digital lifestyle would be one where
Speaker 1: we would have a lot of digital devices and the
Speaker 1: personal computer would become more of a synchronous zation hub
Speaker 1: and less of a of a focus on your computing time. Essentially,
Speaker 1: he predicted the post PC era. And you could argue,
Speaker 1: and we have argued, that we are in a post
Speaker 1: PC era. It's not that the PC has gone away.
Speaker 1: It's not that it's not important. It's just that we
Speaker 1: are using other devices to interact with the Internet and
Speaker 1: to do just basic computing that have nothing that that
Speaker 1: do not resemble desktops or laptops. It's more we get
Speaker 1: our information from more places than just our PC, right,
Speaker 1: and more frequently than we do with our PCs in general.
Speaker 1: I mean, I sit in front of a PCL day,
Speaker 1: so I get a lot of my information from my PC.
Speaker 1: But otherwise I no longer feel like, you know, I
Speaker 1: still carry that experience with me when I walk away
Speaker 1: from the PC because I have a smartphone. And so, yeah,
Speaker 1: what Jobs was saying has come true. Uh he also
Speaker 1: uh he also was really good again at at selling
Speaker 1: these ideas like like the iPad AD. I was famously
Speaker 1: skeptical about how the iPad would do in the market
Speaker 1: because I was thinking of the old tablet computers, and
Speaker 1: tablet computers have been around for a while and they
Speaker 1: just never took off the consumer market, and I was thinking,
Speaker 1: how the heck is Jobs going to convince people that
Speaker 1: they need a device that historically no one has wanted,
Speaker 1: right And I know I'm exaggerating by saying no one,
Speaker 1: but for the sake of argument, I recently had a
Speaker 1: conversation with Wilson Tang from c NET and he gave
Speaker 1: me his perspective of what he thought one day when
Speaker 1: it was after the iPad had been announced, but before
Speaker 1: he had he had purchased one, and it really makes
Speaker 1: a lot of sense. He said. He was on the
Speaker 1: subway in New York and he was looking around and
Speaker 1: he saw that someone was reading a book, and someone
Speaker 1: else was reading a newspaper, and someone was playing a
Speaker 1: game on a device, and someone's listening to an MP
Speaker 1: three player. And they thought, wait a minute, that's what
Speaker 1: this is for. That's what this iPad is for. It's not, ah,
Speaker 1: it's it's not that it's taking it's creating a new
Speaker 1: space or whatever, but it's it's it's almost like, it's
Speaker 1: not that it's replacing smartphones. It's not that it's replacing
Speaker 1: m P three players or video game controllers. It's that
Speaker 1: it's doing all of these things at the same time,
Speaker 1: and it's replacing paper. It's replacing books and newspapers in
Speaker 1: the sense that you can then consume them on this
Speaker 1: one device and you don't have a larger form factor
Speaker 1: you have to deal with when you're done with the
Speaker 1: whatever the thing is, whether it's a book or a newspaper,
Speaker 1: you don't have to throw it away or file it
Speaker 1: away or or you know, put it on a bookshelf.
Speaker 1: You just you can get another file and look at that.
Speaker 1: And when you think about in that perspective, uh, it
Speaker 1: really that's exactly what Steve Jobs did. He showed that
Speaker 1: this is how you could use this device and how
Speaker 1: it would give you a lot more flexibility in the
Speaker 1: way you consume media and play games and all of
Speaker 1: these sort of ideas. And uh and I just did
Speaker 1: not see that. I didn't see it until Jobs took
Speaker 1: the stage and explained it to me. And that's one
Speaker 1: of the things that you gotta argue about Jobs is
Speaker 1: that he really is a visionary, when he really is
Speaker 1: a kind of person who gets an idea and can
Speaker 1: see it and the value in it before anyone else does.
Speaker 1: And then he can, even more amazingly than that, convince
Speaker 1: you to agree with his point of view. But you know,
Speaker 1: the day before you never would have considered it the
Speaker 1: day after. You can't imagine it any other way. It's
Speaker 1: the reality distortion field. Yes, that often we'd call it
Speaker 1: the reality distortion field. That you know, it's magical. I
Speaker 1: think you're gonna love it. Right. One more thing too,
Speaker 1: but one more thing that hasn't been around for ages,
Speaker 1: but he was famous for leaving the most compelling, most
Speaker 1: wow factor element out of a product release until the
Speaker 1: very last minute when he was on stage. One more thing.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like the Columbo One more thing. It's
Speaker 1: when he drops the hammer and you and you get
Speaker 1: that like he figured it out. He knew the game
Speaker 1: before you even knew you were playing. It's the kicker. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's um. That's the thing too. Because I would not
Speaker 1: necessarily have imagined that people would tune in to a
Speaker 1: computer companies product announcements for entertainment. Yes, you have. You
Speaker 1: have people taking time off of work to log into
Speaker 1: a systems to watch either to watch the keynote live
Speaker 1: or to watch some tech journalists covering the keynote live.
Speaker 1: And you know, you have live blogs that blog line
Speaker 1: by line what's being said on stage, and people are
Speaker 1: just furiously refreshing their pages to see what the next
Speaker 1: thing is that is. I mean, how many other companies
Speaker 1: have that Google? Maybe? Well, they and and this is
Speaker 1: one of those things that other companies have realized that
Speaker 1: Apple was doing well with Steve Jobs's help. Um, and
Speaker 1: people like Google have done that with and and more
Speaker 1: and more. You see tech news outlets like see net
Speaker 1: going to Google I oh and talking about the next
Speaker 1: version of Android and telling you what the new thing is. Um.
Speaker 1: We saw it somewhat with Palm with the web os
Speaker 1: a little bit. It didn't really pan out well for them.
Speaker 1: But but you have to have someone when you're doing this.
Speaker 1: You have to have someone who's charismatic. And Steve Jobs
Speaker 1: showed the tech industry, look, you guys, we can make
Speaker 1: products that make people sit up and take notice. You
Speaker 1: just got to show them the right way, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he can. You can do this. You can. You can
Speaker 1: introduce a totally revolutionary product that no one had any
Speaker 1: desire for the day before it. I had no knowledge
Speaker 1: of it, and just you can create the market for that. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: You could put that in front of somebody and not
Speaker 1: say anything, and that person may find it compelling or
Speaker 1: they may just walk away. But if you show them
Speaker 1: why it's compelling, then you've got them. You hooked them,
Speaker 1: and and you gotta agree. I mean, the iPad sales
Speaker 1: a loan show that that's true. But I wanted to
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about Steve's personal style a little bit.
Speaker 1: Not not the way he dressed Turtle, the mock turtle
Speaker 1: neck and genus. No, No, not that I wanted to
Speaker 1: talk about sort of. Steve Jobs has a reputation for
Speaker 1: being very outspoken and very critical, to the point where
Speaker 1: some people would call it like just devastating criticism that
Speaker 1: you know, he did not hold back, and he wouldn't.
Speaker 1: He wouldn't. It wouldn't just be a criticism of your work.
Speaker 1: It would He would direct insults to people who worked
Speaker 1: for him, And there's been a lot of talk about
Speaker 1: that about how he was kind of a a super
Speaker 1: tough boss. But I've actually read some some interesting reports
Speaker 1: that said that really his reasoning for that wasn't to
Speaker 1: convince people to do things his way. He wasn't setting
Speaker 1: out to belittle someone in order to get them to
Speaker 1: become a yes man, right, because that's the that's the
Speaker 1: popular view is that Steve Jobs has an iron will
Speaker 1: and this is why it has to be done this way. Know,
Speaker 1: what he was doing was he was testing people, and
Speaker 1: he would test them by two ways. One he would
Speaker 1: try and say that their ideas had no merit in
Speaker 1: an in an attempt to have them defend those ideas.
Speaker 1: And if the person could defend his or her idea
Speaker 1: passionately and intelligently, then Steve Jobs would say, you know this,
Speaker 1: this employee really believes in this, and this is something
Speaker 1: I need to pay attention to and you know. So
Speaker 1: it was kind of a way of separating really interesting
Speaker 1: ideas that had real merit out from the noise. So
Speaker 1: it was separating the signal from the noise in that sense.
Speaker 1: It's just doing it in a really abrasive way. And
Speaker 1: the other thing that he was testing was by telling
Speaker 1: uh an engineer that this is not the best you
Speaker 1: can do. You're reinforcing a kind of insecurity that runs
Speaker 1: through most engineers, which is I could have made something
Speaker 1: better than this if I had really tried. You're reinforcing
Speaker 1: that idea. And so then the engineer goes back and
Speaker 1: even if they really did put forth their full effort before,
Speaker 1: somehow they scrape down and they get a little bit
Speaker 1: more and they push themselves even harder. Now, the danger
Speaker 1: of this, of course, is that you can burn out
Speaker 1: people pretty quickly. It's it's tough to be in that environment.
Speaker 1: And in fact, there are a lot of Apple employees
Speaker 1: who said, you know, I did the best work of
Speaker 1: my life for Steve Jobs, but you know, after a while,
Speaker 1: that just takes a psychological toll, and Steve Jobs wouldn't.
Speaker 1: It's not that he would never praise people. He would
Speaker 1: heap praise on people for a good job, but then
Speaker 1: that same person might get chewed out the next day
Speaker 1: if Steve Jobs sees something that he thought was not
Speaker 1: up to the right standard. So you would have this
Speaker 1: day where you don't when you go into work, you
Speaker 1: don't know if you're gonna get, you know, carried around
Speaker 1: the office on everyone's shoulders are thrown out into the
Speaker 1: parking lot and just you had no way of knowing.
Speaker 1: And that is a very stressful environment. It was also
Speaker 1: an incredibly productive environment because we saw some of the
Speaker 1: most amazing products come out of Apple because of this culture.
Speaker 1: It's just I know that I personally would not want
Speaker 1: to work in a place with that culture. It would
Speaker 1: I I wouldn't last. I don't have that kind of Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't have that kind of personality. It wouldn't I would,
Speaker 1: I would crumble. And maybe that just means that that's
Speaker 1: just proof that I don't fit there, right, it's not.
Speaker 1: And that's not saying that I'm a bad person or
Speaker 1: that Apple is a bad company. It's just a bad fit.
Speaker 1: And so now there's the question of with Jobs resigning,
Speaker 1: is that culture still going to be there. Is there
Speaker 1: still going to be someone testing employees and pushing them harder?
Speaker 1: And will it be done the same way or will
Speaker 1: it Will they try a different approach? Will will Tim
Speaker 1: Cook who will now be the CEO, Will he find
Speaker 1: a different way to encourage employees than Steve Jobs. Now
Speaker 1: we should say that Tim Cook also has a reputation
Speaker 1: for having a very specific approach to things. He's not
Speaker 1: known as a visionary, but he is known as someone
Speaker 1: who can take a system and make it far more
Speaker 1: efficient and manageable. He's a great manager. In fact, he's
Speaker 1: the reason why Apple has a lot of deals with
Speaker 1: various other companies like It's. It's the relationships formed between
Speaker 1: Apple and these companies those were overseen by Tim Cook.
Speaker 1: And he was just really good at getting that stuff
Speaker 1: to work. He can run a company very well, but
Speaker 1: he does not have a reputation for being a risk
Speaker 1: taker like Steve Jobs was and a visionary like Steve
Speaker 1: Jobs was. So that's where the question of well, now
Speaker 1: that Steve Jobs is gone, does this mean that Apple
Speaker 1: is going to like? Will Apple's future mean that we'll
Speaker 1: still get good products? We just won't get this is
Speaker 1: going to change everything type products because the iPhone was
Speaker 1: billed as the device that would change everything, and then
Speaker 1: a way it kind of did, at least in the
Speaker 1: smartphone market because before the iPhone there was no real
Speaker 1: consumer smartphone out there. Well, Apple is no longer Apple Computer.
Speaker 1: It is Apple Incorporated at this point, and I think
Speaker 1: that shows the company's intended direction. I think it's also
Speaker 1: important to note um that Apple is not Steve Jobs.
Speaker 1: If it were Steve by himself, he would never have
Speaker 1: been able to take Apple where it is now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it because it would be a one person operation.
Speaker 1: And again because Steve Jobs use this way to challenge
Speaker 1: people and to get them to defend their ideas and
Speaker 1: then incorporate those ideas. You know, you could say that yes,
Speaker 1: Steve Jobs doesn't wanna, doesn't want to to end up
Speaker 1: giving in or giving giving way to anyone else. But
Speaker 1: the truth is he just wanted to make sure the
Speaker 1: best ideas were incorporated. And if it had just been
Speaker 1: his own ideas, it would be a very different company today.
Speaker 1: In fact, it might not even exist today. He might
Speaker 1: not have been able to to recover from the situation
Speaker 1: Apple was in when he came on as CEO. But yeah,
Speaker 1: they're they're I mean, the company wouldn't be where it
Speaker 1: is today without people like Tim Cook. But people like
Speaker 1: Jonathan I've yes, who is a brilliant designer. He's the
Speaker 1: fellow who really gives Apple products the look that they have. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean he was. He was behind some of the
Speaker 1: company's most iconic UH devices, like the original iMac, like
Speaker 1: the iPod um, and many many other devices in those lines.
Speaker 1: And you know the that the design factor. I mean,
Speaker 1: these are the things that Apple's UH opponents complain about. Oh,
Speaker 1: they're just interested in having the thing that looks cool.
Speaker 1: Well there's That's part of Apple's appeal is that it
Speaker 1: does look cool. It's part of very important, it's part
Speaker 1: of why Apple is claud its way back in the
Speaker 1: Market's part of why Apples competitors are now concerned about
Speaker 1: design um and jobs also had a reputation of being
Speaker 1: very specific, like if something was even just a hair off,
Speaker 1: he would jump on that and say, this is not right,
Speaker 1: we have to fix it. So, you know, those people
Speaker 1: for the moment are still there. And I don't think
Speaker 1: there's anything you know, if you're an Apple fan, I
Speaker 1: don't think there's anything for you to worry about in
Speaker 1: the immediate future. Well, yeah, I think for the next
Speaker 1: few years. The product plans are made. Yes, yeah, for
Speaker 1: at least three to five years. I mean, the Apple's
Speaker 1: got its product plans laid out. It's it's not like
Speaker 1: these companies are just a few months ahead of whenever
Speaker 1: they announced something. You've got to know that when something
Speaker 1: is being announced that chances are there's at least two
Speaker 1: generations of that device in some form of uh production
Speaker 1: or planning at at the time when the one's launching.
Speaker 1: So when we see the iPhone five launch, iPhone six
Speaker 1: and seven are at least in a good planning stage
Speaker 1: or being lost somewhere. Yeah, I can't believe twice that's happened.
Speaker 1: Now we're recording this just after the news broke. If
Speaker 1: you don't remember the iPhone four, there's a prototype iPhone
Speaker 1: four that got lost or quote unquote loss. So it
Speaker 1: may have been left in a bar and may have
Speaker 1: found itself freed from someone's pocket. The details are not
Speaker 1: entirely clear. What is known is that, of course, the
Speaker 1: person who found it then sold the iPhone to a
Speaker 1: online news source that I'm not even gonna name because
Speaker 1: I'm so sick of them anyway, But anyway, so I
Speaker 1: think of that as a very unethical thing and I'm
Speaker 1: going to leave it at that. So at anyway, you
Speaker 1: hear this story and you're like, wow, that's terrible control
Speaker 1: of your products. And then it happened again. Yeah, But
Speaker 1: we don't know right now as the recording of this
Speaker 1: podcast the nature of the device that was lost. We
Speaker 1: know it was a prototype, or at least it was
Speaker 1: an early build of a device, but we don't know
Speaker 1: if it's an iPhone five or maybe like the iPhone four.
Speaker 1: S Now, we don't know what the yes, so we
Speaker 1: don't as of the recording of this podcast, we're not
Speaker 1: sure exactly what it is. But it is weird that
Speaker 1: almost and it was almost a year like between the
Speaker 1: two incidents, like it was a little more than a year,
Speaker 1: but not by much when they happened. This actually happened
Speaker 1: back in July, but it wasn't until what was it
Speaker 1: August thirty one when the news broke or September one?
Speaker 1: It was one of the Yeah, I was, I was
Speaker 1: out of town, so it was hard for me to follow.
Speaker 1: In fact, what was funny was I was out of
Speaker 1: town and someone came up to me and they said,
Speaker 1: what do you think about the whole iPhone bar thing?
Speaker 1: And I said, why are you talking to me about that?
Speaker 1: That happened a year and a half ago. I think, no, no,
Speaker 1: it happened yesterday. Wait what again? Deja vu? But yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that's what happens when Steve Jobs leaves.
Speaker 1: It's if he was there, it would you know, he
Speaker 1: probably would have said never again, and then he leaves,
Speaker 1: and then again happens except that that, except that it
Speaker 1: happened in July, not in that part of the story
Speaker 1: kind of falls apart when you look at the facts.
Speaker 1: But when the facts ever gotten in the way of
Speaker 1: a good story for me exactly now, Um, I don't
Speaker 1: think there's any crisis in the near future for Apple. UM,
Speaker 1: I think they're going to have to find a new spokesperson.
Speaker 1: Tim Cook, while he is a an excellent uh choice
Speaker 1: for someone to run a company like Apple, is not
Speaker 1: the showman that Steve Jobs was. So they're gonna need
Speaker 1: to find somebody else to carry on that part of things,
Speaker 1: and they're gonna have to Jonathan I have tends to
Speaker 1: be a very quiet and private person, so although I've
Speaker 1: seen him incorporated in in presentations, though it's usually in
Speaker 1: a very like kind of a cute way. Like when
Speaker 1: they launched the iPhone, he was one of the people
Speaker 1: that Steve Jobs called and he was wandering the actual
Speaker 1: floor at the keynote and talking Tuesday. He was using
Speaker 1: a flip phone, I think, but Steve Jobs, of course
Speaker 1: was on the iPhone. Right. Well, they're they're going to
Speaker 1: need to find the next visionary within the company, yes,
Speaker 1: or next visionaries to come up with the you know,
Speaker 1: new products, new ideas. UM. But that's true of any company,
Speaker 1: and they may very well have those people right then
Speaker 1: and right there, because again it's not like Steve Jobs
Speaker 1: wakes up in the morning sketches out something on a
Speaker 1: piece of paper. And walks and make this happen and
Speaker 1: then goes and eats an intern. That's not what happens. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, there are teams of people working on vegetarians. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, eats a tofu intern. Uh, it's that's that's
Speaker 1: not the way this works. So there are people. There
Speaker 1: are brilliant designers who are working at Apple. It's just that,
Speaker 1: you know, those ideas were all sort of focused through
Speaker 1: Steve Jobs, and we're wondering if without that out the lens,
Speaker 1: that is Steve Jobs, what's it gonna look like in
Speaker 1: about five six years. I suspect that Apple will remain
Speaker 1: a strong player specifically in the mobile device market UM
Speaker 1: PCs and desks and laptops and everything or desktops and laptops.
Speaker 1: They'll they'll still be playing in that field as well.
Speaker 1: But we are seeing that whole post PC era descend
Speaker 1: on us. So I suspect we'll still see innovation from
Speaker 1: those areas. Uh, they just might not be they might
Speaker 1: not have the same feel to them as the Steve
Speaker 1: Jobs era did, but that that doesn't mean that they
Speaker 1: they won't be compelling or they won't be successes. And
Speaker 1: I think it's gonna be a long time before the
Speaker 1: post Steve Jobs era manifests itself. It might be it
Speaker 1: might be a decade before we even start seeing a
Speaker 1: hint of that, because he really did leave a very
Speaker 1: strong stamp on that company, and then as part of
Speaker 1: the board of directors, that stamp will probably continue for
Speaker 1: a few years. Yes, he could still be quite the
Speaker 1: visionary and help guide the company in his role as chairman.
Speaker 1: He's just not going to be their data day and
Speaker 1: so yeah, it may well be that hopefully what this
Speaker 1: is the best possible choice for Steve Jobs for his
Speaker 1: health and that he will he will have his health
Speaker 1: will improve and he'll live a good long time and
Speaker 1: have a healthy life. So that, you know, that's really
Speaker 1: the most important thing when you really get down to it,
Speaker 1: is that, I mean, we don't wish him any harm
Speaker 1: at all, and if it means that stepping back is
Speaker 1: going to help him, then by all means I hope
Speaker 1: that that turns out to be the case. Um. It's
Speaker 1: interesting because I always think of Steve Jobs as one
Speaker 1: of those people who, because he's so guarded about his
Speaker 1: personal life, we mostly know him from his professional life.
Speaker 1: So to us, Steve jobs is Apple, So it's hard
Speaker 1: for us to imagine him not doing that because to
Speaker 1: us that that looks like that's the driving force in
Speaker 1: his life. But who knows, you know, maybe that maybe
Speaker 1: that is a uh, you know, a big factor. But
Speaker 1: maybe he finds other elements in his life to be
Speaker 1: far more compelling and we just don't know about it
Speaker 1: because he keeps that personal, which is fine. There's no
Speaker 1: reason to object to that, um, because he's he shouldn't
Speaker 1: be treated just as a celebrity anyway. Fascinating man. We
Speaker 1: really are expecting some interesting developments with Apple over the
Speaker 1: next few years, and it may be quite a few
Speaker 1: before we can start definitively to say, oh, well here
Speaker 1: we go, here's the new direction. Um, But we'll keep
Speaker 1: our eyes open because you know, Apple is a huge
Speaker 1: player and technology and I don't see that changing anytime
Speaker 1: real soon. So if you guys have any topics he
Speaker 1: would like us to tackle anything, you'd like us to
Speaker 1: to kind of wrap our minds around, whether it's a
Speaker 1: philosophical matter sort of like this one, or if it's
Speaker 1: a really technical thing like you just want us to
Speaker 1: explain how toasters work. Let us know, you get host toast.
Speaker 1: You can let us know on Facebook and Twitter are handled.
Speaker 1: There is text stuff HS, double you or shoot us
Speaker 1: an email. That address is tech stuff at how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com and Chris and I will talk to
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