Steve Jobs

And with that movie 2001, you're projecting us into the 21st century.

- I brought along my son Jonathan... Hi.

Who in the year 2001 will be the same age as I am now.

Maybe he will be better adjusted to this kind of world that you're trying to portray.

The big difference, when he grows up...

In fact, if we wanted to wait till the year 2001...

He will have in his own house

not a computer as big as this, but at least a console

through which he can talk to his friendly local computer

and get all the information he needs for his everyday life,

like his bank statements, his theater reservations,

all the information you need in the course of living in a complex modern society.

This will be in a compact form in his own house.

He'll have a television screen, like these here, and a keyboard.

And he'll talk to the computer and get information from it.

And he'll take it as much for granted as we take the telephone.

I wonder, though, what sort of a life would it be like in social terms?

I mean, if our whole life is built around the computer,

do we become a computer-dependent society?

In some ways, but they will also enrich our society

because it will make it possible for us to live, really, anywhere we like.

Any businessman and executive could live almost anywhere on Earth

and still do his business through a device like this.

And this is a wonderful thing. It means we won't have to be stuck in cities.

We'll be able to live out in the country or wherever we please.

Screen says it's an unimplemented trap.

But the error code is wrong. It's a system error.

So what's the upshot? It's not gonna say hello.

It absolutely is gonna say hello.

- It's nobody's fault. It's a system error. - You built the voice demo.

- The voice demo is flaky. - Keep your voices down.

I've been telling you that for... This thing is overbuilt.

It worked last night. It worked the night before that.

It worked three hours ago.

- It's not working now, so just skip over the voice demo. - Fuck you.

- Everything else is working. - Shh.

Skip over the voice demo.

We need it to say hello.

- You're not hearing me. It's not going to say hello. - Just fix it.

- Fix it? - Yeah.

- In 40 minutes? - Fix it.

- I can't. - Who's the person who can?

I'm the person who can, and I can't.

- How bad are you saying? - It's pretty bad.

- I don't know what that means. - It means the demo is more than likely gonna crash.

You have to keep your voices down.

Joel Pforzheimer is sitting out in the house.

I don't care if... Who's Joel Pforzheimer?

GQ.

He's been shadowing you for a week. Did you notice?

Just look like everything's fine.

He's sitting out in the house.

Hey.

What are you guys saying?

Some kind of race condition, but we haven't been able to track it down yet.

Is the synthesizer sampling fast enough?

No, so the rates are off and it keeps crashing.

It's 20 seconds out of a two-hour launch. Why not just cut it?

- We can't cut it. - Yeah, you just cut it.

Two days ago, we ran a Super Bowl ad that could've won the Oscar for Best Short Film.

There are more people who can tell you about the ad than can tell you who won the game.

I understand, but the ad said the Mac was gonna save the world.

It didn't say it was gonna say hello.

We open the house in five.

Don't open the house.

We're taking a quick break.

- Part of the problem is... - What?

We can recompile, but if it's a hardware problem, we can't get into the back.

Why not?

- Do you wanna tell her or should I? - Don't start with me, man.

- Why can't he get into the machine? - You need special tools.

What kind of special tools? Just take a screwdriver.

He didn't want users to be able to open it.

You need special tools.

Is this for real?

There are a hundred engineers walking around here. None of them have the tools?

In fairness, not many of them were issued the tools.

- What about you? - I left them at the office. It was 3:00 AM when I...

Oh, Jesus Christ.

- Cut "Hello." - No.

- What's the first rule of a launch? - It's not gonna crash.

It just did.

Andy!

Which one?

The other Andy. You're right there. Why would I be calling out?

- He needs to talk to you. - Yeah.

The exit signs need to be off or we're not gonna get a full blackout.

- We've spoken to the building manager and the fire marshal. - And?

There's no way they're gonna let us turn the exit signs off.

- (SNAPS FINGERS) - I'll pay whatever the fine is.

The fine is they're gonna come in and tell everyone to leave.

You explained to the fire marshal that we're in here changing the world?

I did, but unless we can also change the properties of fire, he doesn't care.

- Steve... - If a fire causes a stampede to the unmarked exits,

it'll have been well worth it for those who survive.

For those who don't, less so, but still pretty good.

- Look, I... - I need it to go black. Real black.

Get rid of the exit signs and don't let me know how you did it.

Fix the voice demo.

You need special tools to open the Mac?

You knew it was a closed system.

I didn't know literally. Jesus.

And if you keep alienating people for no reason,

there's gonna be no one left for it to say hello to.

It's not for no reason.

We blow this and IBM will own the next 50 years like a Batman villain.

Remember the phone company? That's what Bell was called, "the phone company."

IBM will be the computer company.

Ten years later they'll be the information company,

and that's very bad for the human race.

So we don't have time to be polite or realistic,

'cause if we are, this company's next product launch

will be held in front of 26 people

and a stringer from the Alameda County Shopper's Guide.

We haven't advertised the voice software.

We could pull it out of the demo and no one would be disappointed.

Do you want to try being reasonable,

just, you know, see what it feels like?

Okay. Pull the voice demo.

Thank you.

And then cancel the launch.

I see. You just tricked me a little.

You can tell me how unimportant it is, but if the computer doesn't say hello,

then neither will John Sculley, who I promise you agrees with me.

Sculley's not gonna cancel the launch 'cause he's not insane.

He's also not a hack, and when it comes to the Macintosh,

he's gonna do what I ask him to do.

- What's in this box? - Nothing you need to worry about.

Don't even open it.

What the fuck?

Why is there a carton of... Who did this?

- Somebody thought... - Who?

Doesn't matter. Thought it would be a good idea to have copies of that Time cover

available at everyone's seat.

It was nipped in the bud and all the copies are being taken out of the building.

So problem solved.

- This isn't a Macintosh. - I understand.

Somebody thought it would be a good idea to, like,

enthusiastically hand over copies of Time with a not-a-Macintosh on the cover

at the launch of the Macintosh?

What are they handing out at Hewlett-Packard?

A bushel of apples with my face on them?

I'm sure the thinking was that since the computer is Man of the Year

that that's good for our business,

but like I said, I'm having them removed from the building.

What I'd like you to do with them is to take them, all 2,600 copies,

and stack them on Kottke's desk

and tell him Steve says, "Happy New Year to you."

Okay.

I gave Time magazine full access.

Bandley, Apple II, Lisa.

I gave him Sculley, Markkula. I gave him Woz. I gave him everybody.

What should I call the person who thought it'd be a good idea to hand these out?

I'm not telling you who it was.

It was done without malice. It's been taken care of.

You have a half hour and we have things to talk about.

Like what?

Like a million in the first 90 days.

- Joanna... - 20,000 a month after that.

- Look. Those are the forecasts. - I'm begging...

This is my field. I'm begging you to manage expectations out there.

- I'm fanning expectations. - We're not gonna sell a million in the first 90 days.

Everyone, everyone, everyone,

everyone is waiting for the Mac.

Maybe.

But what happens when they find out that for 2,495,

there's nothing you can do with it?

We were competitive at $1,500,

but once you replaced the Motorola 6809 with the 68000...

Which is what supports menus, windows, point and click, high-res graphics...

Yeah, 'cause everyone needs rectangles with rounded corners.

Coach lands on the runway at the exact same time as first class.

I don't have the first fucking idea what that means,

but this is how it got to $2,500,

which is the price point on the PC, which can do a lot more!

Who's gonna want a PC? What idiot is gonna want...

If I wanna tell you there's a spot on your shirt, I point to the spot.

I don't say there's a spot 14 centimeters down from the collar

and three centimeters to the right of the second button

while I try to remember what the command is for club soda.

That's not how a person's mind works.

If the goal was ease of use, maybe you should've given it some memory.

You can complain about memory or you can complain about price,

but you can't do both at the same time.

Memory is what costs money.

I'm glad you're telling me your feelings about the Mac now

because we have a half hour left.

We can redesign it.

I'm just asking you to manage expectations.

Look at their faces when they see what it is.

They won't know what they're looking at or why they like it,

but they'll know they want it.

Not instantly. When people heard Rite of Spring,

they tore the chairs out of the theater.

They didn't buy the record.

Rite of Spring happens to be the most revolutionary

and provocative symphony of the last century.

Ballet. It was a ballet.

But Igor Stravinsky didn't say he was gonna sell 20,000 units a month.

I don't know why we're talking about Stravinsky