RobertCringely
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Steve Jobs interview wins a former nay-sayer's respect
Sometimes all it takes is a moment of time and an open mind to change your opinion of someone. In a recent column at Forbes, Drew Hansen, a management expert specializing in hyper-growth startups, writes about Steve Jobs and how The Lost Interview movie changed his view on the Apple co-founder. Hansen says he ignored Jobs' advice on building a company and cautioned entrepreneurs not to model themselves after the Apple founder. This attitude changed after Hansen watched the Lost Interview and realized he and Jobs share many of the same thoughts on building successful teams within a company. Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview is a 70-minute conversation between Jobs and Robert Cringely that was held in 1995. It was recently turned into a movie and hit theaters late last year. In this talk, Jobs highlights several things he did that made Apple successful. Among other things, Jobs talks about the need to hire A-level talent and put them together on teams. These talented individuals may bump into each other along they way, but that is part of the process of building great products. You can read more about this insight and others in the Hansen article on Forbes' website.
First reviews of Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview appear
Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview is a TV interview turned feature film that will be shown this week in Landmark Theatres across the US. The interview was originally recorded in 1995 when Jobs had left Apple and contains a lively conversation between Robert Cringely and Jobs. Ten minutes of the interview were shown in "Triumph of the Nerds: The Rise of Accidental Empires," a PBS series about the founding of the PC industry. The remaining footage was believed to have been lost until a VHS copy was recently found in the garage of Paul Sen, the original producer of the PBS series. The folks at Mac Edition Radio have watched some of this never-been-seen before interview and say it is fantastic. They claim it shows a vibrant Steve Jobs who enthusiastically talks about his high jinks with Steve Wozniak, his early years with Apple and his business insight which created the Apple we know today. The interview is reportedly a must-see for any diehard Apple fan or technology history buff. The movie will be shown at selected Landmark Theaters around the country on Wednesday, November 16 and Thursday, November 17. A full list of showtimes can be found at the movie's website.
Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview coming to theaters in November
Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview will arrive in Landmark Theatres nationwide on November 16 and 17. As the title suggests, the movie is an interview, specifically a 70-minute conversation between Steve Jobs and Robert Cringely that was held in 1995. A small 10-minute segment of the original conversation was included in the Triumph of the Nerds: The Rise of Accidental Empires, a 1996 PBS miniseries about Silicon Valley. The rest of the interview was supposed to be included in a sequel to the PBS series, but the original footage was lost. Unbeknownst to Cringely, Paul Sen, the director of the original Triumph of the Nerds series, recorded a backup copy of the interview on VHS. When Steve Jobs passed away, Sen began a hunt for the video and found it in the deep, dark recesses of his garage. Sen then contacted Cringely who, in turn, contacted Landmark Theatres co-owner Mark Cuban about screening the film. It only took five minutes for Cuban to agree and another $6,000 investment to convert the VHS recording into a theatrical-quality film. Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview will be shown in Landmark Theatres in 17 cities nationwide including those in New York, Los Angeles and Palo Alto, the center of Silicon Valley.
Quiet those kids with a in-car video server
Robert Cringely from PBS has built a video server in his minivan to have his kids stop bothering him. For only $190, he built a custom computer that would encode video in H.264 (AVC) codec and stream it to a PSP he had installed in the back of the vehicle. Why the PSP? Because it "plays movies beautifully."While Bob doesn't go into details on how one would be able to fashion a video server for themselves, he does give a very interesting tidbit: "Though not advertised as such, the PSP is EXTREMELY water-resistant."Of course, I haven't verified that claim. Nor will I try to.[Via DCemu]
Cringley's crystal ball
Robert X. Cringely wraps each year with a set of tech predictions for the year ahead. Last year he was a bit off his game, but that hasn't stopped him from taking a stab at what lies ahead for a variety of tech players in 2006. His top three predictions involve Apple and are intriguing to say the least. For instance, he sees a Terabyte of download capacity for .Mac users (for real this time), iMacs sporting huge plasma displays for screens, and major inroads against Microsoft and in the internet video arena. Check out The Pulpit for a full run down and chime in below with a few of your own predictions!
