NeXTWORLD Expo 1993 keynote

Around this recording

The recordings either side of it, in order.

All 202 recordings of Steve Jobs →

1. 1991

   Interview on ten years of the personal computer

   Asked to reflect on ‘ten years of the PC’, Jobs objects that the Apple II predates the IBM PC by four years, predicts the industry will ‘bifurcate’ into portables and networked color desktops, and argues that Apple and IBM will deliver only evolution while NeXT drives the next revolution.

2. 1991

   Reed College Howard Vollum Award acceptance speech

   Accepting the Vollum Award at Reed’s 1991 convocation, Jobs thanks the college ‘for teaching me how to be hungry’, recalls living on Roman Meal cereal and Hare Krishna Sunday meals, and credits dean Jack Dudman’s quiet $20 gift as a lesson in generosity: ‘Character is built not in good times, but in bad times.’

3. 1992

   NeXTWORLD Expo 1992 keynote

   At the second NeXTWORLD Expo Jobs previews NeXTSTEP Release 3 and the new Turbo NeXTstation line, and — most consequentially — demonstrates NeXTSTEP running on an Intel 486 PC, the first public sign that NeXT’s future lay in software. Nearly two hours of the keynote survive.

4. 1992

   MIT Sloan Distinguished Speaker Series talk

   The only known recording of Jobs’ university class visits: he explains NeXTSTEP’s ‘write less code’ philosophy, attacks consultants for never developing ‘scar tissue’, discusses competitors Sun, Microsoft NT and Taligent, plans to port NeXTSTEP to Intel 486, and reflects on his ouster from Apple.

5. 1992

   NeXTSTEP Release 3: A Demonstration with Steve Jobs

   The best-known NeXT demo: Jobs builds a database front end with Interface Builder and Database Kit ‘without writing a line of code’, shows multimedia NeXTMail with voice annotation, drag-and-drop embedding, system-wide Services, faxing from any app, DOS and X apps in windows, and RenderMan rendering.

6. 1992

   French TV interview on ‘Capital’ (June 1992)

   A ten-minute interview with Jobs broadcast on the French business programme ‘Capital’ in June 1992, during NeXT’s best year, when it was shipping the NeXTstation line and NeXTSTEP 3.0. One of the few European television interviews from the NeXT period.

7. 1993

   NeXTWORLD Expo 1993 keynote

   Three months after killing its hardware, NeXT ships NeXTSTEP 3.1 for Intel 486 PCs, and Jobs makes the case for object-oriented, client/server ‘mission-critical custom apps’ as NeXT’s new business. Roughly an hour of the keynote and demos survive from a VHS source.

8. 1993

   Interview on Paul Rand

   Jobs talks about designer Paul Rand, who created the NeXT logo, in an interview filmed in front of NeXT’s Redwood City offices – the source of the oft-quoted ‘I asked him if he would come up with a few options... he said no, I will solve your problem for you’ story.

9. 1993

   OpenStep initiative introduction

   An hour-plus presentation in which Jobs and NeXT lay out OpenStep, the open specification for NeXTSTEP’s object frameworks developed with Sun, intended to run on Solaris, Windows NT and other systems. The technology later became the basis of Mac OS X’s Cocoa.

10. 1994

    NeXT Enterprise Computing Developer Conference

    A 72-minute recording from a NeXT developer conference in early 1994, with Jobs addressing developers about NeXT’s enterprise strategy during the company’s transition from NeXTSTEP to OpenStep. Little-known outside the NeXT archival community.

11. 1994

    NeXTSTEP Expo 1994 keynote

    The keynote from the last NeXT expo, held as NeXT pushed NeXTSTEP 3.3, OpenStep and enterprise ‘mission-critical’ applications. Roughly 78 minutes survive.

12. 1994

    Santa Clara Valley Historical Association interview (‘Secrets of Life’)

    A roughly 20-minute interview recorded by the (then) Santa Clara Valley Historical Association for a Silicon Valley centennial project, unseen until 2013 and since released in pieces: ‘Secrets of Life’ (‘everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you... once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again’), ‘On Failure’, and the ‘legacy’ clip (‘by the time I’m 50, everything I’ve done up until now will be obsolete’).

13. 1995

    Computerworld Smithsonian Awards oral history interview

    A 75-minute oral history spanning Jobs’ life to 1995: his father’s workbench, Mrs. Hill in fourth grade, ‘The Kids Can’t Wait’, the Xerox PARC visit, why he blames Sculley for Apple’s decline, the Internet as a public trust, and the upcoming Toy Story. Released by Computerworld after his death in October 2011.