In 1995, during the making of his TV series
Triumph of the Nerds
about the birth of the PC, Bob Cringely did a memorable hour-long interview with Steve Jobs. During the interview, Jobs was at his charismatic best – witty, outspoken, visionary. In the end, only a part of the interview was used in the series and the rest was thought lost. But recently a VHS copy was found in the series director’s garage.
In the interview Jobs talks about his pioneering days with Steve Wozniak, when they built a Blue Box and phoned the Pope; how they – “two guys who didn’t know much” — assembled the first Apple computer and went on to found the Apple company. He talks frankly and sadly about his enforced departure from Apple and explains what he is doing at NeXT (which he would soon sell to Apple and whose software would then be at the heart of the first iMac’s operating system). Finally in spell-binding terms, he offers his vision of a digital future – a world of wonderful products created by artists and poets.