That was amazing. I’ve waited years to hear the NeXT/Apple story from Avadis. Thank you for talking to him and giving him the time to tell so much of the story. I worked at Apple in 1996. It was great to hear Avadis’s thoughts and stories from that time period. I’m glad he didn’t shy away from giving his opinions. That was inspiring.
It is a fantastic interview and great testament of Avi being humble and decisive at the same time. He seems really a great guy and executive to rely on who really enriches any discussions. No wonder he earned Jobs’ respect. I would have wished for more inside information here and there. As someone who has been in similar situations, I would have loved to see the interviewer to elaborate certain situations more, push in different directions. Instead it felt like being cut off from the real deal. To offense, if you haven’t been there you don’t know what to ask for to reveal some treasures. Thanks nevertheless, this is great stuff.
Many software engineers can write programs. But only fewer are capable to incorporate their imagination into a different level of creativity. Avie managed to extend his creativity to the next level. You just don’t jump up the ladder to earn the titles he had, without a significant contribution to the platform. Outstanding lead compatriot.
This was such an incredible and valuable interview. I can't believe how lasting OpenStep's technology has been, and hearing directly from Tevanian is great. It is quite detailed though, so helps if you're already familiar with the ground covered.
Class interview! M y brother in law worked in a large company that had constant meetings and discussions that would last three to four hours. It suddenly went down to an hour and a half. The solution? Remove the chairs from the conference room! The statements Avadis made about a lot of software engineers being tall rings true in companies I worked for over the years. One was 6 four 250 and a great debugger of difficult problems.
19:28 Defending ideas against Steve Jobs 1:33:00 Avadis Leaves Apple 1:34:11 Leaving Apple a mistake 1:43:57 Thoughts on Tim Cook 1:47:39 On doing Demo's
kind of ODD how Be and Gassé just sort of evaporated after the 'bake off' isn't it? it was almost as though apple was the only rock they had to hang onto - you might think that if they had anything worthwhile it would be appearing independently after that. Vaporware?
At the time of the bakeoff circa late 1996 I absolutely believe that NeXTSTEP was the better choice. However by 1999 BeOS had developed into a pretty decent OS in its own right. It did have its issues (lack of multi-user being one of them) but if it had a decent app selection I totally would have taken BeOS over either Win9x or Classic Mac OS. So while I absolutely believe that NeXT was the better OS for Apple. BeOS was not shit either.
This is the part of the interview that I would like to have heard more about. What was special about Steve’s talent in Avie’s eyes? But also I have to believe that after the initial shock of Steve passing, that Avie misses his friend. But I find it surprising that they lost touch with each other in the last 3-4 years. Avie makes a good point that maybe it was a mistake to leave Apple. Steve was prolific and had rocket fuel when it came to motivating his work force. What more could Steve have accomplished had Avie stayed? Hard to say if Steve had any great innovations he couldn’t get to given the constraints of physics (chip scale, and the measured pace of the semicon industry). But Apple seems to have rounded out his visions. -e.g., The iPhone is a pretty good if not amazing camera/darkroom today. Steve pushed for that and we customers are just beginning to see what’s possible in terms of adding additional lenses and perhaps someday low cost liquid optics.
This interview has too much insider baseball. There are questions about people who are not full identified. Also, how about say "I am going to ask you about technology project A, which is XYZ?". There are lots of questions where the questioner know what minutia they are asking about, but many in the audience will not, and over time will have limit the value to the general public as an oral history. In fact, I also think there should be more open ended questions when possible. Of course, I appreciate the value of making the type of interviews.
That was amazing. I’ve waited years to hear the NeXT/Apple story from Avadis. Thank you for talking to him and giving him the time to tell so much of the story. I worked at Apple in 1996. It was great to hear Avadis’s thoughts and stories from that time period. I’m glad he didn’t shy away from giving his opinions. That was inspiring.
It is a fantastic interview and great testament of Avi being humble and decisive at the same time. He seems really a great guy and executive to rely on who really enriches any discussions. No wonder he earned Jobs’ respect.
I would have wished for more inside information here and there. As someone who has been in similar situations, I would have loved to see the interviewer to elaborate certain situations more, push in different directions. Instead it felt like being cut off from the real deal.
To offense, if you haven’t been there you don’t know what to ask for to reveal some treasures.
Thanks nevertheless, this is great stuff.
Great interview. Thanks so much for putting this out there for us.
Many software engineers can write programs. But only fewer are capable to incorporate their imagination into a different level of creativity. Avie managed to extend his creativity to the next level. You just don’t jump up the ladder to earn the titles he had, without a significant contribution to the platform. Outstanding lead compatriot.
Amazing interview, thank you Avadis Tevanian for your time!
This was such an incredible and valuable interview. I can't believe how lasting OpenStep's technology has been, and hearing directly from Tevanian is great. It is quite detailed though, so helps if you're already familiar with the ground covered.
gosh i can't believe i watched BOTH parts of this absurdly long interview - interesting stuff though imo
Class interview! M y brother in law worked in a large company that had constant meetings and discussions
that would last three to four hours. It suddenly went down to an hour and a half. The solution? Remove the chairs from the conference room! The statements Avadis made about a lot of software engineers being tall rings true in companies I worked for over the years. One was 6 four 250 and a great debugger of difficult problems.
19:28 Defending ideas against Steve Jobs
1:33:00 Avadis Leaves Apple
1:34:11 Leaving Apple a mistake
1:43:57 Thoughts on Tim Cook
1:47:39 On doing Demo's
Would love to see one of these with Bertrand Serlet.
Has the idea come to anybody at Apple, to get this guy back ASAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Avadis, you should be CEO of Apple!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What amazing interview!
Great interview. Thanks.
kind of ODD how Be and Gassé just sort of evaporated after the 'bake off' isn't it? it was almost as though apple was the only rock they had to hang onto - you might think that if they had anything worthwhile it would be appearing independently after that. Vaporware?
At the time of the bakeoff circa late 1996 I absolutely believe that NeXTSTEP was the better choice. However by 1999 BeOS had developed into a pretty decent OS in its own right. It did have its issues (lack of multi-user being one of them) but if it had a decent app selection I totally would have taken BeOS over either Win9x or Classic Mac OS. So while I absolutely believe that NeXT was the better OS for Apple. BeOS was not shit either.
Thanks for posting.
Wonder if he would have included mouse support in iOS?
It's touching to see Avie get emotional talking of Steve at one point in the interview. The man died way too soon.
This is the part of the interview that I would like to have heard more about. What was special about Steve’s talent in Avie’s eyes? But also I have to believe that after the initial shock of Steve passing, that Avie misses his friend. But I find it surprising that they lost touch with each other in the last 3-4 years. Avie makes a good point that maybe it was a mistake to leave Apple. Steve was prolific and had rocket fuel when it came to motivating his work force. What more could Steve have accomplished had Avie stayed? Hard to say if Steve had any great innovations he couldn’t get to given the constraints of physics (chip scale, and the measured pace of the semicon industry). But Apple seems to have rounded out his visions. -e.g., The iPhone is a pretty good if not amazing camera/darkroom today. Steve pushed for that and we customers are just beginning to see what’s possible in terms of adding additional lenses and perhaps someday low cost liquid optics.
This interview has too much insider baseball. There are questions about people who are not full identified. Also, how about say "I am going to ask you about technology project A, which is XYZ?". There are lots of questions where the questioner know what minutia they are asking about, but many in the audience will not, and over time will have limit the value to the general public as an oral history. In fact, I also think there should be more open ended questions when possible. Of course, I appreciate the value of making the type of interviews.
nice
People absolutely hated it at the time, but the NeXT-acquision decision proved to be correct, even though MacOS is a toy-OS.
I can't believe how ineloquent the interviewers are. They can't ask a simple question.