Steve Jobs on Startups: Building a Company from Scratch
What Jobs talks about
Jobs describes how hard it is to start a company: you have to define the product, the market, and even the basic machinery of the business. He stresses that a startup is judged by what it ships and how quickly it gets to market.
He also talks about the role of vision. A founder has to repeat the vision constantly, especially when the path feels long and uncertain, so the team can keep moving one step at a time.
A major theme is hiring. Jobs says the best teams are built from people who are exceptionally good at what they do, passionate about technology, and able to self-organize once the right people are in place.
Jobs speaks throughout.
In his words
“There needs to be someone who is sort of the... who will get our vision.”
“And I often do that.”
“I forgot how much of a huge job it is to start a company.”
“The honeymoon is over.”
“I think the most important job for someone like myself is recruiting.”
Key points
- A startup has to do everything, not just build the product.
- Vision must be repeated over and over so people keep believing in it.
- The honeymoon ends; a young company is judged like any other startup.
- What matters is the product and how soon it reaches the market.
- Great people do not need long experience if they have passion and talent.
- Hiring is one of the most important jobs of a founder.
Full transcript
There needs to be someone who is sort of the... who will get our vision. Because you have to work a lot. You know, when you have a 1,000 miles in front of you, and you're doing only the first step, it looks like a long way. In this case, there's someone who helps you when someone says we're one step closer. The goal definitely exists. It's not just a mirage. So a thousand times, more or less, the vision should be repeated. And I often do that. And I forgot how much of a huge job it is to start a company. You need to do everything. You need to come up with a name, a logo. In addition to developing the product itself, you have to decide what to develop.
You have to figure out how to put it on the market, develop a party numbering system, open an account in a bank, run an account, delve into the management of the information system, set up a small kitchen, put a coffee machine, all these things. The first thing I want to say is that the honeymoon is over. All those wonderful things that we got for just being are now sort of old news. We, like any other startup, we've been running a company for six months. And, of course, you can say that four of them we had a lawsuit about this and that. But in the end, it doesn't matter. The world doesn't matter. We were a startup for six months. We spent money like a startup for six months. And in some areas, we produced a lot.
We can produce a lot in some areas. In other areas, there is no such result. I hope that during this conference, we're all convinced that we're standing on our feet and we understand that we're going to be judged like every other startup, based on what our product is and how soon it's going to be put on the market. We wanted to have people who are incredibly good at what they do. But they didn't have to be experienced professionals. They had to be people who had a passion for advanced understanding of what technology is and what to do with it and a desire to get it to a large number of people. And what happens when you create a team of 10 great people, it becomes self-organizing in the sense of who they're letting into the group.
So I think the most important job for someone like myself is recruiting.
Transcribed from the audio with OpenAI Whisper. Timestamps link to the video above. Errors are possible.