Steve Jobs Lost Interview 1990 (Full Transcript)

Here is the full transcript [Edited version] of the YouTube video entitled Steve Jobs: Lost Interview (1990). We produce here the transcript of the tape for the benefit of our readers.

TRANSCRIPT:

[Audio starts abruptly]

Interviewer: What is it about this machine? Why is this machine so interesting? Why has it been so influential?

Steve Jobs: Hmm, I’ll give you my point of view on it. I remember reading a magazine article a long time ago when I was twelve years ago maybe, in I think it was Scientific American. I’m not sure. And the article proposed to measure the efficiency of locomotion for lots of species on planet earth to see which species was the most efficient at getting from point A to point B. And they measured the kilocalories that each one expended.

So they ranked them all and I remember that the Condor won – the Condor was the most efficient at getting from point A to point B. And humankind, the crown of creation came in with a rather unimpressive showing about a third of the way down the list. So that didn’t look so great.

But let me do this over again, because I am just not sure.

Interviewer: Sure.

Steve Jobs: I remember reading an article when I was about twelve years old. I think it might have been Scientific American where they measured the efficiency of locomotion for all these species on planet earth. How many kilocalories did they expend to get from point A to point B? And the Condor 1 came in at the top of the list, surpassed everything else. And humans came in about a third of the way down the list which was not such a great showing for the crown of creation.

And — but somebody there had the imagination to test the efficiency of a human riding a bicycle. A human riding a bicycle blew away the Condor, all the way off the top of the list. And it made a really big impression on me that we humans are tool builders. And that we can fashion tools that amplify these inherent abilities that we have to spectacular magnitudes. And so for me, a computer has always been a bicycle of the mind. Something that takes us far beyond our inherent abilities.