Steve Jobs Secrets of Life

In 1994, the Santa Clara Valley Historical Association interviewed Steve Jobs. What he said during this unscripted film interview is remarkable. In this footage, Steve talks about his values, advice to entrepreneurs and his thoughts on how to best live life. This is a segment from the full unscripted interview.

Steve Jobs 1994 Interview
Interview date: November 11, 1994
Interviewer: John McLaughlin, Historian and President of the Santa Clara Valley Historical Association

Interviewer's question: 
"If this was going to be viewed forever by young high school kids and college kids — young entrepreneurs who want to go out and do something while they're still young. You know, the advantages of doing that. It opened up a whole new gate for other young entrepreneurs. What advice would you give them?" 

Transcript:
". . . The thing I would say is, when you grow up, you tend to get told that the world is the way it is, and your life is just to live your life inside the world. Try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to have a nice family life, have fun, save a little money. But life, that's a very limited life. Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact, and that is: Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it. You can influence it. You can build your own things that other people can use. And the minute that you understand that you can poke life, and actually something will, you know, if you push in, something will pop out the other side, that you can change it. You can mold it. That's maybe the most important thing is to shake off this erroneous notion that life is there and you're just going to live in it, versus embrace it. Change it. Improve it. Make your mark upon it. I think that's very important. And however you learn that, once you learn it, you'll want to change life and make it better. Because it's kind of messed up in a lot of ways. Once you learn that, you'll never be the same again."

For requests to use this copyright-protected work in any manner, email the copyright owner, Santa Clara Valley Historical Association. The contact information can be found on our YouTube About page.