Below is the transcript of the video below, which is from 1997 WWDC. I’m somewhere in the audience, although I don’t think I understood the profound nature of Steve’s response at the time. I’ve definitely launched products that started with technology looking for a problem. In a couple cases, the technology was awesome, really cool, but it solved the problem for a market segment that was already satisfied with the available solutions.
I’ve also developed products where I didn’t realize it at first, but I had already started solving the problem for the customer. (Just because that’s what I like to do.) It wasn’t until deeper into the implementation that I realized I was building a product other people would want as well. When you can have that kind of moment, I think that’s truly gold. That moment of clarity and understanding that you know what you’re putting into the customers’ hands and what meaningful experience they’re going to have because of what you have provided is truly magic.
I don’t think there’s much I can say that isn’t captured in this video. Give it a watch or read the transcript, or do both, and leave a comment with your impressions and thoughts.
Steve Jobs — WWDC 1997 closing Q&A (the “customer experience” answer)
Transcribed locally with faster-whisper (base.en), then hand-corrected for proper
nouns and obvious mishears. Timestamps are from the transcription.
Yes, Mr. Jobs, you’re a bright and influential man.
Here it comes.
It’s sad and clear that on several counts you’ve discussed, you don’t know what
you’re talking about. I would like, for example, for you to express in clear terms
how, say, Java, in any of its incarnations, addresses the ideas embodied in OpenDoc.
And when you’re finished with that, perhaps you could tell us what you personally
have been doing for the last seven years.
[long pause] You know, you can please some of the people some of the time.
But one of the hardest things when you’re trying to effect change is that people
like this gentleman are right in some areas. I’m sure that there are some things
OpenDoc does, probably even more than I’m not familiar with, that nothing else out
there does. And I’m sure that you can make some demos, maybe a small commercial app,
that demonstrates those things.
The hardest thing is: how does that fit in to a cohesive, larger vision that’s going
to allow you to sell eight billion dollars, ten billion dollars of product a year?
And one of the things I’ve always found is that you’ve got to start with the customer
experience and work backwards to the technology. You can’t start with the technology
and try to figure out where you’re going to try to sell it.
And I’ve made this mistake probably more than anybody else in this room, and I’ve got
the scar tissue to prove it. And I know that it’s the case.
And as we have tried to come up with a strategy and a vision for Apple, it started
with: what incredible benefits can we give to the customer? Where can we take the
customer? Not starting with “let’s sit down with the engineers and figure out what
awesome technology we have, and then how are we going to market that?” And I think
that’s the right path to take.
I remember with the LaserWriter, we built the world’s first small laser printers.
You know, there was awesome technology in that box. We had the first Canon
cheap laser printing engine in the world, in the United States, here at Apple. We had
a very wonderful printer controller that we designed. We had Adobe’s PostScript
software in there. We had AppleTalk in there. Just awesome technology in the box.
And I remember seeing the first printout come out of it, and just picking it up and
looking at it and thinking, you know, we can sell this. Because you don’t have to
know anything about what’s in that box. All we have to do is hold this up and go:
do you want this?
And if you can remember back to 1984, before laser printers, it was pretty startling
to see that. People went “whoa, yes.”
And that’s where Apple’s got to get back to.
[3:41] On the cost of the choice
And, you know, I’m sorry that OpenDoc’s a casualty along the way. And I readily admit
there are many things in life that I don’t have the faintest idea what I’m talking
about, so I apologize for that too.
But there’s a whole lot of people working super, super hard right now at Apple —
Avie, Jon, Guerrino, Fred. I mean, the whole team is burning the midnight oil, and
hundreds of people below them, to execute on some of these things. And they’re doing
their best.
And I think that what we need to do — and some mistakes will be made, by the way.
Some mistakes will be made along the way. And that’s good, because at least some
decisions are being made along the way. And we’ll find the mistakes, we’ll fix them.
And I think what we need to do is support that team going through this very important
stage as they work their butts off. They’re all getting calls, being offered three
times as much money to go do this or that. The Valley’s hot, and none of them are
leaving.
And I think we need to support them, and see them through this, and write some damn
good applications to support Apple out in the market. That’s my own point of view.
Mistakes will be made. Some people will be pissed off. Some people will not know what
they’re talking about. But it is so much better than where things were not very long
ago. And I think we’re going to get there.
## The three tests in this clip
1. The direction rule. Start with the customer experience, work backwards to the
technology. Never the reverse.
2. The two questions that start a strategy. What incredible benefits can we give
the customer? Where can we take the customer? Note what is not asked: what
awesome technology do we have, and how do we market it?
3. The LaserWriter test. Hold up the output. Ask “do you want this?” The customer
never needs to know what’s in the box.
Note what Jobs concedes, because it is the harder half of the argument: the
questioner is right about OpenDoc’s capabilities. Being right about a capability
nothing else has does not answer how it fits a vision someone will pay for.
