Lately, there have been a flood of vintage Steve Jobs videos on the web. The other day we ran across this recently published video that delves deeper into the mindset of Jobs, giving us insight on his views of life and failure. Take a look:
It's interesting to see Jobs talking about failure nearly a year before Apple gobbled up NeXT — the company Jobs started after Apple fired him in 1985. NeXT was an epic fail. The company's masterpiece computer, the Cube, was too expensive at $6,500 a pop and a massive flop for Jobs. NeXT's only real financial success was Apple snatching up the company in 1996. That buyout paved the way for Jobs' triumphant return to the company he started.
We have to wonder if Jobs had already seen the writing on the wall for NeXT when he says this in the video:
You got to be willing to fail. You've got to be willing to crash and burn, with people on the phone, with starting a company ' with whatever. If you're afraid of failing, you won't get very far.
Jobs, however, was no stranger to failure. While Jobs changed the way we interact with products, he left behind a string of flops. Remember the Lisa or the Macintosh Portable? What he's really talking about in the video is risk, a willingness to gamble on something that might bomb.
For Jobs, taking risks is about exploring a 1,000 ideas worth throwing away even if they flop. The trick, however, is to fail fast, learn quickly from your mistakes, and keep moving forward.