“I went to see Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview [last night] at a theatre in downtown Philadelphia,” Jason D. O’Grady writes for ZDNet.
“The movie is the ‘entire tape’ interview that Robert X. Cringley did with Jobs in 1995 for a PBS television special ‘Triumph of the Nerds: The Rise of Accidental Empires’ that premiered in June 1996,” O’Grady writes. “Only about 10 minutes of the interview made it into ‘Triumph of the Nerds’ — which is available on YouTube — and the rest of the interview landed on the proverbial cutting room floor. The rest of the tape was feared lost, or so the story goes, until the original tape was recently discovered in the director’s garage.”
O’Grady writes, “The ’95 interview, about 70 minutes all told, captures a spunky and charismatic Jobs at the wise age of 40, speaking about Apple after a bitter power struggle with John Scully ended in his ouster. Jobs is about 10 years into his stint at NeXT and one point he asks Cringley “you don’t want to hear about NeXT, do you?” — almost as if he didn’t want to talk about it… Was Jobs making his big pitch for Apple to buy NeXT? Could be, because Apple indeed acquired NeXT (for $400 million) just 18 months after the interview was taped, and Jobs made his biggest triumph to date — returning and resurrecting Apple.”
Full article, with some clips from the movie that fail to meet the lowest standards of even the worst NYC pirate movie peddler, here.
I haven’t seen the lost interview but i always had the feeling that leaving Apple bugged steve. Like he always felt it was his and it was taken from him.
I can’t think of a better end to his storied life than the one that plaÿef out. His return and redemption of not only apple but i think for him a resemption on a very personal level.
RIP you insanely great shooting star
Read the bio what an ‘entrepreneur’, but what a character. Since he more or less accepted it, I presume it is true. I did not know much of him but a lot about the products. GREAT.
I wanted to be there last night but the girlfriend is sick.
A true icon of positivity. God Bless You Steve. X
I love how EVERY article on this refers to the rediscovery of an “original” or “master” tape. In reality what they discovered was a PAL VHS copy of a PAL master which was transcoded from the original NTSC master. Its several analog generations and a transcode away from the original, then reduced to VHS resolution to add insult to injury.
Well, not “original” or “master” as in “first-generation”…
but it *is* in fact the “original” or “master” tape in the sense that it is the previously unseen, much longer, raw footage that was later edited down to just the few minutes seen by the public.
For anyone who actually saw the movie like I did tonight, we won’t be taking away from it merely the quality of the video footage. It will be the message Steve Jobs gave to us all to strive for better things, more beautiful art, more innovative thinking, smoother integration of technology, and to be just better in general. Made me wish my days were 30 hours long so I could get more accomplished. I feel inspired and invigorated.
I thought I was being a silly cultist going to see this…
But 2 minutes in I realized what a find this was.
There just isn’t that much jobs interview stuff around… and he really is a great thinker and speaker off the cuff. Never cliche. Never corporate “talking points” or marketing blather.
It was also, great to see him with a full head of hair, and maybe that extra 5 or 10 pounds that inevitably accumulate. Healthy.
His greatest triumphs were yet to happen and yet you could see here the lessons learned and the maturity to come back to Apple as not a crazy visionary, but as the best CEO in my lifetime.
RDF? Maybe. But SJ always comes off as insightful, engaging, and authentic.
This was a gem.
I remember watching Cringley’s PBS series. It was really fun and I’d really like to see this “current” Jobs piece. If you get a chance, check out the PBS series. It’s still floating around and can be purchased from PBS.
Very inspiring! Loved his thoughts, articulate answers as well as his tremendous confidence.