Video Assignment - Steve Jobs at D8

Steve Jobs was the brilliant and mercurial co-founder and CEO of Apple Computer (later Apple, Inc.), which was one of a few companies that were responsible for the huge growth of personal computers in the 1970s and 1980s in the United States. Many Poly students currently use MacBook Pros, which descend from a long line of portable laptops produced by Apple beginning in the 1990s. The vast majority of Poly Upper School students have in their pockets right now an iPhone of one type or another. The iPhone was released in 2007, and your instructor had the good fortune to be in the room at MacWorld in San Francisco when Steve Jobs announced that this miraculous device--the first of its kind--had been created.

Steve Jobs passed away in 2011 after a long battle with cancer, but the company he co-founded continues on, and is more successful than ever. More than ten years after his death, people are still trying to understand how Steve Jobs was able to build Apple Inc into what is now the largest technology company in the world.

A year or so before he died, Steve Jobs was interviewed by technology journalists Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher at the 2010 "All Things Digital" D8 Conference, held in Los Angeles. That interview covered a variety of topics, including:

• Microsoft vs Apple
• "90 days away from going bankrupt"
• Flash and the war with Adobe--is it better for change to be abrupt?
• A development iPhone "stolen" from Apple, and subsequently offered for sale to journalists
• Foxconn and working conditions in Apple's supply chain
• PCs dominating Macs in the world
• Apple versus Google, Apple versus Microsoft
• Webkit
• Android vs iPhone

Assignment

1. Watch as much of the video of this interview as you have time for in class.
   https://youtu.be/i5f8bqYYwps

2. As you watch the video, jot down some thoughts on some of the topics that the Mossberg, Swisher, and Jobs discuss. Those thoughts you jot down might be questions, points in the interview that you find interesting, things you want to follow up on or think about some more, or anything else that occurs to you while you're watching the video. (1-3 paragraphs, depending on your writing and depth of response)

3. Finally, consider your own use of technology, or even your own "career" in technology (whether it's simply writing computer programs or something more significant). What topics discussed in the video are reflected in your use of technology? or your career in technology? Expand on these a little. (1-3 paragraphs, depending on your writing and depth of response)