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Apple

Lost Hour-Long Jobs Interview Found 120

adharma writes "According to Robert Cringely, in 1995 he was granted an hour long interview with Steve Jobs at NeXT headquarters for Triumph of the Nerds and promptly lost. Two weeks ago, a 'PAL-VHS, dubbed on professional equipment from a D1 master' copy of the interview was found and is in the process of being restored." Cringely writes there: "What we’ll do with the 64-minute video depends on how good it looks this week. Maybe we’ll put it up on the Net, maybe we’ll do something more. I’m open to your ideas."
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Lost Hour-Long Jobs Interview Found

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  • AAGGGGHHHH! (Score:5, Funny)

    by MightyMartian ( 840721 ) on Saturday October 22, 2011 @02:15PM (#37805198) Journal

    Burn it, bury it, put a stake through it's heart. The tape is probably like that girl from The Ring, and if you watch it, the undead ghost of Steve Jobs will come and jam your Android device into your brain.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by msauve ( 701917 )
      "Burn it, bury it, put a stake through it's heart."

      I was thinking you were talking about that imposter, Mark Stevens, who stole the Cringley name from Infoworld. I was going to mod you up, then figured out you were talking about the tape.
  • step 1: do interview with semi-famous person & conveniently lose it until he becomes famous & dies step 2: ???? step 3: profit!
  • Sell it for monies!

  • by GPLHost-Thomas ( 1330431 ) on Saturday October 22, 2011 @02:18PM (#37805216)
    Instead of making an announcement about something you're preparing, just restore this f*** videotape and post it on youtube...
  • Figures (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 22, 2011 @02:23PM (#37805250)

    Instead of just releasing it, you tease it...announce that you are 'open' to ideas...you're just going to profit off of someone's death like everyone else in the world has. The fact that it was Steve Jobs and it's almost 20 years old doesn't mean you have to actually make money on it...

    You didn't use it then, so release it to public domain...Cringley is a profiteering whore.

  • by 6Yankee ( 597075 ) on Saturday October 22, 2011 @02:24PM (#37805254)

    Lost what? The video, his mind, his virginity to Steve, what?

    Editors: Edit, damn it!

    • The Game. He lost The Game. And now, so have I, damn it!

    • Never try to learn Japanese or any other context-sensitive languages, you'd be completely lost.
      • Actually, if he's anything like me it could simply change how he communicates in English. It took some time to let the two sets of rules coexist in my brain, but even now I speak in a manner which is notably different from before. I suppose learning any other language makes you more aware of or changes the way you use your own native tongue.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 22, 2011 @02:29PM (#37805288)

    You can see parts of the interview in Triumph of the Nerds which is available online.
    Jobs is much more open and emotional than in more recent interviews. For instance, he talks about Microsoft having no taste and John Sculley destroying everything he'd worked for. This was before Jobs came back to Apple and got his chance to right his earlier failures so you can bet these wounds are still raw.

    • by flyingsquid ( 813711 ) on Saturday October 22, 2011 @04:21PM (#37805924)
      There was recently a segment on NPR's Fresh Air where they were playing an interview about Apple, and I remember thinking "who's this geek they're interviewing about Apple?" and then I realized it was Jobs himself, back in his NeXT days. He sounded a lot different from the Jobs I've gotten to know from the keynote addresses. That guy, the one with the black turtleneck, is a confident, slick, polished presenter, a technological oracle. The person they were interviewing on NPR was a lot more human. It makes me think that to some degree the "Steve Jobs" who presented Apple products to the world was a bit of a construct, just some guy that Jobs played, sort of like Steven Colbert's "Steven Colbert" character.
  • An interview that just plows the same old ground is worthless; if it yields new insights that others can glean, it could be priceless.

    I'm betting it's the former.

  • Idea.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 22, 2011 @03:01PM (#37805446)

    Autotune it and put some phat beats under it.

  • About a meaningless interview that isn't even published?

  • Run it through an auto-tuner and overlay a heavy dance beat.
    • Re:Got the Beat (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Sponge Bath ( 413667 ) on Saturday October 22, 2011 @03:11PM (#37805498)
      Damn, redundant. Take me down mods!
      • Did you come up with the idea independently? If so, you still have a chance to patent it under the new crummy patent law.

        • Will I make lots of money? Because my young boy Jimmy Joe needs an operation... and to pay of his gambling debts.
          • Yeah .. I think so, if you do it properly. Many talentless people are making money off autotune, so I reckon you can too.

            • my voice is crap, but I wonder what I would sound like with slick production (including autotune)

              this is as opposed to classic stuff you know damn well you can't compare to.

              ironically, maybe some stuff works because it isn't as good - folks relate to it better.

      • by Anonymous Coward

        Actually, since the story is about Steve Jobs, the right thing to do would be to sue you for "copying" the other poster.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    I feel bad because of all those people who really think that Steve was the greatest. The are so many more people who had much bigger influence to how we use computers today...

  • by Anonymous Coward

    That way, iOS users will be upset they can't watch it, and Android users will be upset Steve Jobs is on their platform. Lose-lose for everyone.

  • Robert Cringely, famous as the only pioneer from Silicon Valley not to get rich, is just an awesome human being. If you don't know why I say that, go to YouTube and find his three-hour creation "Triumph of the Nerds". It's something that is going to be watched for the next thousand years, if humanity survives. It's just an amazing document on the origins of the tech industry and all of its later fruits are visible there.
    • i havent seen the video and i don't plan to, but I did read a number of written articles by him from simply being on Slashdot.

      He just seems really full of himself, like he's trying his damn hardest to convince you of his importance. Which is funny because I (along with most of society) had never heard of him before.
  • Still a bit raw. Wait a couple of years and then release it

  • Let IBM's Watson analyze the interview for a while to come out with the killer app for the iPhone 5: Stevie. It's just like Siri, expect now YOU'RE the personal assistant.

  • Just kidding, it's probably interesting enough.

  • He would have wanted it to go on iTunes for free.
    • He would have wanted it to be "cleaned", the content of the interview changed to reflect how he would like to be remembered. Only then would it be posted on iTunes. Viewing will require a 1-year subscription to iTunes of $99.
  • 1) Release to laser disc
    2) Do that cool effect behind Jobs and Cringely to make it appear as if they're on a roller coaster
    3) Add fart noises
    4) Give them glowing yellow eyes
    5) Have the video playing on four sides of a video cube caught in a giant whirlpool in space

    Seriously, needs to be done beyond restoration?

  • ``Robert X. Cringely is the pen name of both technology journalist Mark Stephens and a string of writers for a column in InfoWorld, the one-time weekly computer trade newspaper published by IDG.''*

    * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Cringely [wikipedia.org]

  • So... anyone else seen the last two episode of 'The Sarah Jane Adventures'?

    Summary (with minimal spoilers): The charismatic head of a tech company releases a new portable computer that's utter crap ("Bog Standard"), but his hypnotic charisma makes everyone love it... I wonder who that was a take on?

    The actress playing Sarah Jane Smith, sadly, died after filming that episode.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    People, can you just get it the fsck over with, and nominate the asshole for sainthood already?

    Jesus fscking Christ, the guy made MONEY from technology, and you treat him as the Messiah. Woz did most of the grunt work. Hell, where is the adolation for Kildahl? Babbage? Lady Ada? Jay Miner? "Amazing Grace" Hopper? They ALL toiled to make computers and programming what they are today. Where the fsck are their monuments, buildings, or TV specials?

    Just fsck that fscking asshole Jobs...

    • by ErikZ ( 55491 ) *

      Wow, you make it sound like it happens every day.

      Well, ok then. Show me another tech manager that did what Jobs did. Actually, show me ten. Since it was so easy and worthless.

      The people you list worked on theory. And? Everyone works on theory. Or do you honestly believe that if those people hadn't created those theories, they never would have been made.

  • Don't distribute it on anything but a usb stick. Put it in a small white plastic box, square with rounded corners. Charge $800 for each copy, make an end-user shrink wrap license which forces you to e-sign to activate the video, etc.

    That would be the Jobs way, overpriced white commodities.

    Oh, but I did eventually liked the iPhone, just not Apple.

  • Even after his death, he's going to say ONE MORE THING.

  • Oh wait, I thought this article was about a job interview that lasted for an hour. Hey in this economy that can't be so bad right?

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