Back in 1997, Steve Jobs was a little more accessible than in his later years. At that year’s Worldwide Developer Conference, for example, Jobs did a Q&A session with developers where they could stand up and ask him questions.
Most of the questions, as you’d expect, were pretty dull – but not all of them. In one question, a developer stood up and asked a question about OpenDoc, a technology that Jobs was killing. He told Jobs: “It is pretty clear you don’t know what you’re talking about”, adding a side-swipe by asking what he’d been doing for the previous seven years – which was, of course, mostly failing to make NeXT a big company.
Jobs’ response was classic Jobs, a mixture of humility and hubris, and gives some great insights into his plan to rebuild Apple. It’s well worth five minutes of your time.
NOW READ THIS: Here’s how Steve Jobs smacked down Michael Dell on stage.
Image by Tom Coates.
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