Newly Released Transcript of an Interview With Steve Jobs

choi

Decades-old. Not Free, Though.

Nick Bilton, Lost Conversation With Steve Jobs as Mac Turns 30. New York Times, Jan 27, 2014
bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/24/the-30-year-old-macintosh-and-a-lost-conversation-with-steve-jobs/

Quote:

“While some snippets of the 11,500-word conversation were used in the Rolling Stone feature (which never did make it to the cover), until now, the transcript has been tucked away in one of Mr [journalist Steven] Levy’s files.
To celebrate the 30-year anniversary of the Mac, Mr Levy said Friday [Jan 24] that he was appending the transcript, which is ‘essentially unexpurgated,’ in an updated Kindle version of the book about the birth of the Macintosh, “Insanely Great: The Life and Times of Macintosh, the Computer that Changed Everything [published by Penguin, in 1995 and 2000].

“When Mr Levy told Mr. Jobs that there was ‘speculation’ that he might go into politics, Mr Jobs replied that he had no desire to enter the public sector and noted that the private sector could have a greater influence on society. ‘I’m one of those people that think Thomas Edison and the light bulb changed the world more than Karl Marx ever did,’ Mr Jobs said.

My comment:
(a) “It’s clear in the interview that Mr. Jobs was struggling with a few demons. For one, he was upset about a recent article in Time magazine that described him as petulant and unkind. And he blamed his obsession with work for a breakup. ‘I just had a romance that I really care about, a lot — I mean, a lot — go up in smoke. Because of the stress, and the sort of other woman that Macintosh is,’ Mr Jobs said.
(i) demon (n): “something that causes a person to have a lot of trouble or unhappiness”
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/demon
(ii) petulant (adj)
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/petulant
(iii) “Because of * * * other woman that Macintosh is”

Mr Jobs was wed to his work, that is what it meant. (The past tense and past participle of  the verb “wed” can be either “wed” or “wedded.”
(iv) Macintosh
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh

For the name  and spelling, see section 1.1 Development and introduction: He [Jobs] wanted to name the computer after his favorite type of apple, the McIntosh.

(b) Online, this paragraph is: “But Mr Jobs seemed to know exactly the kind of impact the Mac would have, and the team of people who had helped make it a reality.”

In print, though, there is a switch of two clauses: “But Mr Jobs seemed to know exactly the kind of impact the Mac, and the team of people who had helped make it a reality, would have.
(c) The next paragraph online does not show up in print:

“He repeatedly refers to the team that built the Mac as ‘pirates,’ and then says a quote that became famous years later: ‘Better to be a pirate than join the navy.’ It’s also clear that Mr. Jobs and his band of over-worked pirates had agonized over every detail of the computer, even analyzing the details of the manual.”

Perhaps because it is “famous” but I have not heard of it before.