Why I love Steve Jobs’ interviews
I love watching interviews of dignitaries in the tech industry β The Engadget Show is my favourite thing in video. Actually I think I like watching interviews, because at the end of it I’m quite dissatisfied at the lack of any truthfulness in what they say. Basically PR-speak that gets you absolutely no insight into what actually happened, or what the interviewee truly believes on a personal level. It’s more of an interview with the company, not the person.
The latest one is Matthias Duarte interviewed by Josh Topolsky at CES. It’s one of the better interviews, but there are still instances of PR-speak in his language. He wants to say that Android so far has been ugly and misguided β his work in Honeycomb is a huge departure from what Android has been so far β but he doesn’t say this because that wouldn’t be in the best interests of his employer.
Other than secret products he doesn’t want to talk about, Jobs doesn’t hide anything. Doesn’t dodge any questions, doesn’t hold back his opinion on the competition, and doesn’t use soft ambiguous words to say something he doesn’t want to be quoted on. He just says it. You know that he’s speaking his mind because there’s room for disagreement with his opinion. You don’t get that with other interviews.
[Yes, I basically come across as a Steve Jobs worshipper in this piece. So be it.]
