Steve Jobs anticipated Apple's decline more than 20 years ago

Apple may not have reached the end in the next few years, but it is likely that it is in the situation that Jobs mentioned: Important decisions in the company are made by business people, not product makers. given, means that they will aim to profit more than the benefits of loyal customers themselves.

Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview is a documentary documentary recording a special interview that MC Robert Cringely performed with Steve Jobs for the Triumph of the Nerds program. The reason it was called "The Lost Interview" was also because the people who had been making sure the tapes were lost on their way from London to the US in the 90s. Fortunately, many years later, they accidentally found it.

This 70-minute interview is especially in many ways. It was in 1995, 10 years after Steve Jobs was removed from the company by John Sculley, Apple's current CEO, due to disagreements over the direction of running the company. In 1995, Jobs was in a "miserable" situation : the small company NeXT was founded was struggling, while rival Bill Gates used Apple's idea to take over the PC market. .

This is a special interview that MC Robert Cringely did with Steve Jobs for the Triumph of the Nerds program.

But only two years later, NeXT was bought by Apple and Jobs returned to be the CEO of Apples. This is also the most complete and worthwhile interview in which Jobs shows all his charisma and authenticity as well as his great vision of the future of the computing market - something that the interviews did not cover. hours of depiction.

However, what caught people's attention at the conversation was not only Jobs's great charisma but also the part about the cause of the failure of giant technology companies. That's when the MC asked about why Jobs thought Xerox (so powerful at the time) destroyed his computer technology that he once thought was superior and ahead of their time. Jobs's explanation in the interview shows the similarity in Xerox's story with Apple's own story not only under CEO John Sculley but also inadvertently predicting Tim Cook's current time.

Specifically, he said that once the dominant and almost monopoly in the market, the technology companies will grow slowly and easily fall into the leadership of marketing experts or sales people who can help the company expand but it does not have technical knowledge. Meanwhile, engineers behind the product lost their voices in decision making.

This is the point that ignites the destruction of the giants.

The way of leadership puts profits on product quality with a technically incompetent CEO who can still work in non-existent companies with creative breakthroughs like PepsiCo, but will certainly kill companies. technology that Apple 10 years under John Sculley is a good example. Despite being a talented and successful businessman in PepsiCo, John Sculley is also listed as the worst 10 CEOs in American history after the failures he caused to Apple. We also discussed the way of operating Sculley in the article: "Tim Cook is Steve Ballmer version 2 and will probably bring Apple into Microsoft's previous quagmire."

Originally written by Steve Jobs in the video:

"After I realized from John Sculley's story, I think I understand their situation quite well. John Sculley's problem is that he is from PepsiCo, where maybe it will take 10 years to change the product once, just the type. Instead of bigger bottle sizes, that's why in PepsiCo, if you are a product maker, it will be hard for you to have a say in planning the direction of the whole company. PepsiCo are the people who do sales - marketing - these are the people who are recommended to take control of the company, at PepsiCo this is no problem, but it can also happen in public companies. technology started taking over the monopoly in the market, like IBM or Xerox.

If you are a IBM or Xerox product developer, you only have to make a better printer or computer. So what? Once your company has monopolized the market, it can't be more successful. Those who can make it more successful are those who work in marketing - sales, and in the end they are the leaders of the company. Product makers begin to lose their voices in decision-making discussions, then the company will quickly forget how to produce great products.

The subtle elements in the product that helped them achieve dominance in the market will now be gradually eliminated by the executives who do not understand what good or bad products are. They have no idea what it takes to turn a good idea into a good product. In their hearts, they don't really want to help customers. This is exactly what is happening at Xerox. "

Apple may not have reached the end of the next few years, but it is most likely in the same situation that Jobs mentioned.

Of course, many people may argue that Apple is still a technology giant. This is not wrong. But we can't help but have the feeling that the Apples are weakening over the years of new product launches over the years, especially in the years they introduced the S series with too few improvements. And then this year, iFan was heartbroken to see the headphone jacks, and the Magsafe port simultaneously disappeared and was replaced by cumbersome expensive accessories.

The iPhone and the Macbook should have been the perfect marvels if there were no changes that went against the user's wishes or the things that the creation should have, they would not be included. Even designer geniuses such as Tony Ive are rumored to be no longer directly designing the iPhone and taking one step away from Apple. Another time is this time, there are no saints like Steve Jobs returning to save them.

Apple may not have reached the end in the next few years, but it is likely that it is in the situation that Jobs mentioned: Important decisions in the company are made by business people, not product makers. given, means that they will aim to profit more than the benefits of loyal customers themselves. And then, Steve Jobs' judgments will likely come true in the next 10-15 years. Will Apple's future be covered in gray like Sculley?