I’ve actually always found something to be very true, which is, most people don’t get those experiences cause 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 Bill Hewlett when I was twelve years old and he lived in Palo Alto, his number was still on the phone book and he answered the phone himself and said,
“Yes”
“Hi, I’m Steve Jobs I’m twelve years old, I’m a student in high school and I wanna build a frequency counter and I was wondering if you had any spare parts that 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 at Hewlett Packard, working on the assembly line and putting nuts and bolts together on frequency counters. He got me a job at the place that built them and I was in heaven.
And … I’ve never found anyone who said no or hang up the phone when I called. I just asked. And when people ask me I try to be as responsive and pay that that debt of gratitude back. Most people never pick up the phone and call, most people never ask and that’s what separates sometimes the people that do things from the people that just dream about them … you gotta, you gotta act and you gotta be willing to fail, you gotta be willing to crash and burn. With people on the phone … with starting a company with whatever, if you are afraid of failing you won’t get very far.
Conducted by the Santa Clara Valley Historical Association. Steve Jobs gives advice to potential entrepreneurs and discusses risk, failure, his own experiences, and learning the value of creating your own environment.
- Most of this footage has been incorporated into the film Steve Jobs: Visionary Entrepreneur
- Production Date: February 2013 Playing Time: 25 minutes.