Steve Jobs on Customer-Centric Innovation and Technology Strategy (Full Transcript)

Speaker 1: Yes. Mr. Jobs, you're a bright and influential man.

Speaker 2: Here it comes.

Speaker 1: It's sad and clear that on several accounts 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.

Speaker 2: 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 that 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 $8 billion, $10 billion a 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.