That is indeed Mark Jeffries, unfortunately he is no longer with Genentech.

Very nice tour down memory lane, John; thanks for sharing.

The take home message(s), however, are several; one of which is the peril of genius, or at least being way out ahead of the pack in terms of vision and the art of expressing it.

It’s one thing to have a clear vision - an essential first step to progress and innovation. It’s quite another to mete it out in intelligible quanta such that, on the one hand, each discrete part is stand-alone acceptable and gets buy-in from all principal stakeholders, including one’s workforce, investors, third parties and target clients; and on the other to maintain a consistency of strategic trajectory over time.

For that, each stand alone piece needs to reflect an overarching vision carved in mental stone, impervious to temptation to deviation yet adaptable to opportunity for added momentum. 

A clear, comprehensive and sweeping vision, buttressed by not only a sound but brilliant strategy gives birth to a juggernaut, which is the industrial force that Apple have become.

One more thing, it doesn’t hurt to have one’s competition underestimate you.

Beside offering direct proof that, while you maintain your youthful vigor, you were also once young in years—I too was once young—what Steve Jobs had to say about networked client-computing may shed some light on Apple’s plans for its Maiden, NC data center.  Or perhaps, Mr. Jobs’ delight with his then server-based Next computer is not as relevant today, and his plans are different.

Hello Nemo and John,
Viewing that video, I was struck by three things: How much he was in command of his vision for Apple Corp. and how exquisitely he was able to articulate it. Three occasions (I believe) in which he pointed out the lack of good networking he experienced with Apple’s Newton and with the devices of other manufacturers; How smooth and unobtrusive networking between devices and locations would the next big goal for Apple.

Yes, the new data center, as well as the recent patent haul apparently consists of significant-enough networking intellectual property acquired by Rock Star in which Apple took part with its competitors in the mobile space, must form part of his vision which he articulated in the video.

By the way, he made a few references to these suggestions being his opinion only, looking back this being deliciously cheeky, considering the inherent pull he already had vs. Gil Emilio being the current man in charge.

By the way, one year before this video, I was a user of DOS, content with the power of Shift F-7(?) to print, etc., but my TA who had a Performa something or other convinced me to go with a Macintosh product. I chose the PowerComputing PowerMac 180; It had better specs compared to the current Apple issue.

As a longtime reader of Mr. Martellaro’s columns, I wanted to say THANKS MUCH for resurrecting this video with Steve Jobs from WWDC 1997.  Alot of what he says in this clip speaks to the same issues we face today.  This was a very inspiring visit with Mr. Jobs, I must say.

You know, I watched that video the other day, and when I saw you ask the question, I thought to myself that that guy looked vaguely familiar. But since I only have your little avatar pic here, I didn’t quite make the jump. Thanks for pointing out to me that it was you.

-Jon

Great article, great video and great advertisment.
The negatives?
I’ve spent the last 3 hours watching the WWDC, pausing, researching wikipedia and then playing again.

Back to work now….

I chose the PowerComputing PowerMac 180; It had better specs compared to the current Apple issue

The PowerMac 180 had better specs than the current issue of Macs ??!  Now THAT must have been one powerful computer back then !