Steve Jobs NPR Interview (1996) on the Future of the Web - FASCINATING! -_-

[Justin]

 

 

Thought provoking NPR interview with Steve Jobs on the Future of the Web. This episode was first broadcast on February 22, 1996 - at a time when Steve Jobs was enjoying the success of Toy Story at Pixar, and was still leading NeXT, just shy of a year prior to Apple acquiring NeXT and Jobs returning to Apple as "iCEO".

This is an episode of "Fresh Air" hosted by Terry Gross, broadcasting from WHYY in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

If you have an interest in the history of the Web, you will find this interview fascinating. The internet we take for granted today is described in this interview as a fantasy about to be realized, and it's quite interesting to listen to these ideas discussed almost three decades ago.

This YouTube video is audio-only, as this was a radio broadcast.

Enjoy!

[RickR]

It is always fascinating to learn of how a single person, right time/right circumstances, can have such a huge influence on human history. 

 

[Justin]

2 hours ago, RickR said:

It is always fascinating to learn of how a single person, right time/right circumstances, can have such a huge influence on human history. 

 

 

I think this interview is interesting because even if you come at it from the trajectory of "listening to a 30 year old conversation predicting the internet we take for granted today" rather than "Steve Jobs interview" it's absolutely fascinating.

[Justin]

2 hours ago, RickR said:

It is always fascinating to learn of how a single person, right time/right circumstances, can have such a huge influence on human history. 

 

 

I also think its important that we're able to discuss computer history and web history in Atari I/O and not be limited to just video games. I'm fascinated by these stories. Robert Noyce leaving Fairchild and creating Intel. Alan Kay and the Dynabook, and of course his developments at Atari. Tim Berners-Lee developing the Web, HTML, URL, HTTP on a NeXT machine, Linus Torvalds creating Linux, Xerox PARC creating the Alto and Star, the GUI and mouse and doing almost nothing with it, of course Tramiel and Commodore, Atari, Jay Miner and the Grass Valley guys, how Commodore and Atari essentially switched places with Commodore getting the Amiga and Atari ending up with the ST, and of course Jobs and Woz creating Apple. Every time I'm in line and see everybody on an iPhone I always think that everything that brought us to this moment all traces back to Steve Wozniak, and Steve Jobs working at Atari, and the tale of how Nolan Bushnell supposedly passed on owning 1/3 of Apple for $50,000.

Then there's the "what if" rabbit hole of "what if Warner hadn't sold Atari?" and "What if the crash hadn't happened?" ... "What if Alan Kay had pushed things further at Atari?" .. "What if Nolan had never sold Atari to being with?" Obviously computers are such a huge part of our daily lives at this point, and Atari was there pretty early on. It's quite a thread to tug on.

[RickR]

Your post reminded me of the really old version of "Spaceship Earth" at Epcot...the short homage to the garage-based innovations in Silicon Valley.