In this brief segment of a Q&A, Speaker A confronts Steve Jobs (represented by Evan Carmichael) with pointed criticism, claiming Jobs lacks understanding on several topics. The speaker asks two specific questions: first, how Java in any form addresses the concepts embodied in OpenDoc; second, what Jobs has been personally doing over the past seven years. Speaker B offers a short prelude (“Here it comes”) but does not provide substantive answers within the excerpt.
Yes. Mr. Jobs, you're a bright and influential man.
Here it comes.
It's sad and clear that on several counts you've discussed, you don't know what you're talking about. I would like, for example, for you to express in clear terms how, say, Java in any of its incarnations addresses the ideas embodied in OpenDoc. And when you're finished with that, perhaps you could tell us what you personally have been doing for the last 7 years.
[Speaker:EVAN CARMICHAEL] Uh, you know, You can please some of the people some of the time, but one of the hardest things when you're trying to affect change is that people like this gentleman are right in some areas. I'm sure that there are some things OpenDoc does, probably even more that I'm not familiar with. That nothing else out there does. And I'm sure that you can make some demos, maybe a small commercial app that demonstrates those things. The hardest thing is, what— how does that fit into a cohesive larger vision that's going to allow you to sell, um, $8 billion, $10 billion of product a year. And one of the things I've always found is that you've got to start with the customer experience and work backwards to the technology. You can't start with the technology and try to figure out where you're going to try to sell it. And I've made this mistake probably more than anybody else in this room. And I've got the scar tissue to prove it. And I know that it's the case. And as we have tried to come up with a strategy and a vision for Apple, it started with what incredible benefits can we give to the customer? Where can we take the customer? Not Not starting with, let's sit down with the engineers and figure out what awesome technology we have and then how are we going to market that. And I think that's the right path to take. I remember with the LaserWriter, we built the world's first small laser printer, as you know. And there was awesome technology in that box. We had the first Canon the cheapest laser printing engine in the world in the United States here at Apple. We had a very wonderful printer controller that we designed. We had Adobe's PostScript software in there. We had AppleTalk in there. Just awesome technology in the box. And I remember seeing the first printout come out of it and just picking it up and looking at it and thinking, you know, we can sell this. Because you don't have to know anything about what's in that box. All we have to do is hold this up and go, "Do you want this?" And if you can remember back to 1984, before laser printers, it was pretty startling to see that. People went, "Whoa, yes." And that's where Apple's got to get back to. And, you know, I'm sorry that OpenDoc's a casualty along the way, and I readily admit there are many things in life that I don't have the faintest idea what I'm talking about. So I apologize for that, too. But there's a whole lot of people working super, super hard right now at Apple. Avi, John, Garino, Fred, I mean, the whole team is working, burning the midnight oil, trying to— and people, hundreds of people below them— to execute on some of these things, and they're doing their best. And I think that what we need to do— and some mistakes will be made, by the way. Some mistakes will be made along the way. That's good, because at least some decisions are being made along the way. And we'll find the mistakes, we'll fix them. And I think what we need to do is support that team going through this very important stage as they work their butts off. They're all getting calls, being offered 3 times as much money to go do this, do that, the valley's hot. None of them are leaving. And I think we need to support them and see them through this and write some damn good applications to support Apple out in the market. That's my own point of view. Mistakes we made, some people will be pissed off, some people will not know what they're talking about, but it's— I think it is so much better than where things were not very long ago. And I think we're going to get there.
