Great time capsule from longform.org, a 1996 Wired interview with Steve Jobs, in which he makes a laughably wrong prediction on the impact of the web and an existential lament, long before his cancer diagnosis:
The Web is going to be very important. Is it going to be a life-changing event for millions of people? No. I mean, maybe. But it’s not an assured Yes at this point. And it’ll probably creep up on people.
It’s certainly not going to be like the first time somebody saw a television. It’s certainly not going to be as profound as when someone in Nebraska first heard a radio broadcast. It’s not going to be that profound.
We live in an information economy, but I don’t believe we live in an information society. People are thinking less than they used to. It’s primarily because of television. People are reading less and they’re certainly thinking less. So, I don’t see most people using the Web to get more information. We’re already in information overload. No matter how much information the Web can dish out, most people get far more information than they can assimilate anyway.
And here, maybe one of the more profound, humble statements from a CEO I’ve read. Puts those keynote addresses in which Jobs hops around the stage with a new gadget in a new light:
The problem is I’m older now, I’m 40 years old, and this stuff doesn’t change the world. It really doesn’t…I’m sorry, it’s true. Having children really changes your view on these things. We’re born, we live for a brief instant, and we die. It’s been happening for a long time. Technology is not changing it much – if at all.
These technologies can make life easier, can let us touch people we might not otherwise. You may have a child with a birth defect and be able to get in touch with other parents and support groups, get medical information, the latest experimental drugs. These things can profoundly influence life. I’m not downplaying that. But it’s a disservice to constantly put things in this radical new light – that it’s going to change everything. Things don’t have to change the world to be important.
Wrong? I don’t quite think so. It’s entirely accurate. The internet has changed our lives, but we still do the same things we used to do– eat and sleep and live. It did take a while for the internet to take over and in 1996 it was still developing. And it certainly did “creep up on people” sometimes. Blockbuster didn’t know what hit them.
Also, he said MAYBE.