Transcript: Steve Jobs Speaks at MIT Sloan Distinguished Speaker Series

Steve Jobs, one of the computer industry’s foremost entrepreneurs, gives a wide-ranging talk to a group of MIT Sloan School of Management students in the spring of 1992. Jobs shares his professional vision and personal anecdotes, from his role at the time as president and CEO of NeXT Computer Corporation, to the thrilling challenges of co-creating Apple Computer, and subsequent disappointments at his ousting.

Following is the full transcript of Jobs’ lecture at MIT Sloan School of Management (1992).

Steve Jobs – President & CEO, NeXT Computer Corp.

Thank you.

Hi. I guess we get to spend an hour or so together today. And most of the time, I wanted to spend just talking about what you want to talk and answering some questions.

But I thought if you wanted, I’d take about 10 minutes or 15 minutes upfront and tell you what we’re doing at NeXT and why the world might need another computer company. Is that something you guys think about these things? OK.

I thought I’d tell you about some of our mistakes. Maybe that would be more useful. We have a lot of scar tissue.

There is a really interesting book that was written by a guy named Paul Strassmann. And Paul has one of the more interesting jobs in the planet. He’s the Chief Information Officer — CIO of a very large organization called the Pentagon. And they really understand software there. I had a conversation with him not too long ago, and he said the lesson from the Gulf War was that the best software will win the war. And so they’re trying to do a lot of work in the software area.