Steve Jobs on Failure

The Santa Clara Valley Historical Association conducted an unscripted film interview with Steve Jobs in 1994. In this film clip from that interview, Steve discusses his thoughts on the topic of failure. 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:  “Correct me if I’m wrong. When you were starting Apple, or maybe beforehand, the rumor that I heard was that you went to talk to like Gordon Moore and Bob Noyce, and at Xerox PARC. And actually, these doors were open to you, which is unusual. I believe it’s unusual compared to other places in the world where you can call the CEO of a company and say . . .“ Transcript: “I’ve actually always found something to be very true, which is most people don’t get those experiences because they never ask. I’ve never found anybody that didn’t want to help me if I asked them for help. I always call them up. I called up, this will date me, but I called up Bill Hewlett when I was 12 years old, and he lived in Palo Alto. His number was in the phone book. And he answered the phone himself and said, “Yes?“ And I said, “Hi, I’m Steve Jobs. I’m 12 years old. I’m a student in high school, and I want to build a frequency counter. And I was wondering if you had any spare parts I could have.“ And he laughed and he gave me the spare parts to build this frequency counter, and he gave me a job that summer in Hewlett-Packard working on the assembly line putting nuts and bolts together on frequency counters. He got me a job in the place that built them. And I was in heaven. And I’ve never found anyone who said no or hung up the phone when I called. I just asked. And when people ask me, I try to be as responsive. You know, to pay that debt of gratitude back. Most people never pick up the phone and call. Most people never ask. And that’s what separates sometimes people who do things from people who just dream about them. You’ve got to act, and you’ve got to be willing to fail. You’ve got to be willing to crash and burn, you know, with people on the phone, with starting a company, with whatever. If you’re afraid of failing, you won’t get very far.“ 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.