Steve Jurvetson on Steve Jobs

[MacRumors]

From left: Bobby Shriver, Jurvetson, and Jobs in 2007​

Venture capitalist Steve Jurvetson, who worked with Steve Jobs at NeXT and Apple, writes in Businessweek about his memories of Jobs. He shared one story in particular -- from the NeXT years -- that would foreshadow Steve's vision for the future:

When I invited Jobs to take some time away from NeXT to speak to a group of students, he sat in the lotus position in front of my fireplace and wowed us for three hours, as if leading a séance. But then I asked him if he would sign my Apple Extended Keyboard. He burst out: "This keyboard represents everything about Apple that I hate. It's a battleship. Why does it have all these keys? Do you use this F1 key? No." And with his car keys he pried it right off. "How about this F2 key?" Off they all went. "I'm changing the world, one keyboard at a time," he concluded in a calmer voice.

See Businessweek for Jurvetson's full piece.

Article Link: Steve Jurvetson on Steve Jobs

 

[r2shyyou]

"Do you use this F1 key? No." And with his car keys he pried it right off. "How about this F2 key?" Off they all went. "I'm changing the world, one keyboard at a time," he concluded in a calmer voice.

Awesome. So awesome.

 

[Nicky G]

LOL The world will miss this man. What a true character.

 

[RoboCop001]

Hahaha... naturally.

And now every key has a purpose. The F keys are used to trigger different things instead of being just F keys, especially on MacBooks. I don't think I've ever actually used an F key for a "Function" command. I've only used them for the other icons that are on them, such as brightness, dashboard, keyboard light, etc.

 

[chrmjenkins]

What's funny is that he was put in a situation where two possibilities are common. One - the person asked is thrilled to sign it for the fan. Two - the person is offended that this lowly fan is asking for his time. Instead, Steve sees past the request and sees a product to fix. Gotta love Steve.

 

[nagromme]

If he popped off the keys AND signed it, that would be a great keepsake!

 

[jontech]

too funny

Hope you see you soon Steve, well hopefully not that soon, but eventually

 

[HowieR32]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_2 like Mac OS X; en-gb) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8H7 Safari/6533.18.5)

Interesting! I always pop off the F1 key (but leave F2) on my office win keyboard because F1 always invokes help which is basically useless, especially when using F2 for editing excel cells I hit F1 accidentally.

 

[DESNOS]

So now we know where he got the idea to fix the keyboard.

 

[Winni]

So now we know where he got the idea to fix the keyboard.

When did that happen? Apple keyboards still utterly, completely suck. They're the worst in the industry - at least for people who actually WRITE. And they're even worse for programmers, especially when you use a German version that has not even the brackets accessible in a usable way. Life would be easier if those damn stupid Apple keyboards would at least follow industry standards, but of course they don't. The only thing they have going for them is that they look quite nice. Yes, after iOS and iTunes "synchronization", the keyboards are the things that I hate most in the Apple universe, followed by Apple mice.

But the story is nice, and there are a lot of great stories about Steve Jobs. He was one of the most impressive characters in the computer industry and one of the very few who actually had taste.

 

[DESNOS]

When did that happen? Apple keyboards still utterly, completely suck. They're the worst in the industry - at least for people who actually WRITE. And they're even worse for programmers, especially when you use a German version that has not even the brackets accessible in a usable way. Life would be easier if those damn stupid Apple keyboards would at least follow industry standards, but of course they don't. The only thing they have going for them is that they look quite nice. Yes, after iOS and iTunes "synchronization", the keyboards are the things that I hate most in the Apple universe, followed by Apple mice.

But the story is nice, and there are a lot of great stories about Steve Jobs. He was one of the most impressive characters in the computer industry and one of the very few who actually had taste.

I mean fixing the fact that the function keys did nothing genius...

 

[Yvan256]

This might also explain why the function keys on the most recent Apple keyboards are smaller than regular keys.

 

[clarkgoble]

And now every key has a purpose. The F keys are used to trigger different things instead of being just F keys, especially on MacBooks. I don't think I've ever actually used an F key for a "Function" command. I've only used them for the other icons that are on them, such as brightness, dashboard, keyboard light, etc.

They are amazingly useful if you use a macro program like Quickeys, iKey, or Keyboard Maestro.

----------

When did that happen? Apple keyboards still utterly, completely suck. They're the worst in the industry - at least for people who actually WRITE. And they're even worse for programmers, especially when you use a German version that has not even the brackets accessible in a usable way. Life would be easier if those damn stupid Apple keyboards would at least follow industry standards, but of course they don't. The only thing they have going for them is that they look quite nice. Yes, after iOS and iTunes "synchronization", the keyboards are the things that I hate most in the Apple universe, followed by Apple mice.

I'll grant you that Apple has long made the worst mice in the industry. Wasn't that horrible hockey puck mouse Jobs' idea? I find the Magic Mouse pretty unusable too.

However I have to disagree with keyboards. Their extended keyboards before going to the chicklet style were fantastic. Undoubtedly my favorite keyboard that's not a true tactile. I have several I keep so I'll always have one. I think they're vastly superior to anything I saw by Microsoft or Logitech. (Although I love Logitech mice) The new chicklet keyboards I don't like at all though. I need more throw on my keys. Plus I really need a numeric keyboard and function keys.

 

[madmaxmedia]

I'll grant you that Apple has long made the worst mice in the industry. Wasn't that horrible hockey puck mouse Jobs' idea? I find the Magic Mouse pretty unusable too.

I hated the hockey puck until I read that it was designed to be held by your fingers only, not against your palm. After that I actually liked it (or at least warmed up to it.) But I still don't use 1 because it only has 1 button.

However I have to disagree with keyboards. Their extended keyboards before going to the chicklet style were fantastic. Undoubtedly my favorite keyboard that's not a true tactile. I have several I keep so I'll always have one. I think they're vastly superior to anything I saw by Microsoft or Logitech. (Although I love Logitech mice) The new chicklet keyboards I don't like at all though. I need more throw on my keys. Plus I really need a numeric keyboard and function keys.

I still have an Extended Keyboard I as well. I think it those would still be classified as tactile because it had Alps keyswitches and not rubber domes. The later ones did not.

 

[HowieR32]

There's an ergonomic reason why there isn't a numeric keyboard in the wireless keyboard. The mouse should be close to the natural position of the hands so you don't have to reach far to get the mouse. This is the reason why there are mouse stands that go over the top of the numeric keypad of other full-keyboards.

For most people, in the consumer non-business world, they don't use the keypad much. I suppose Jobs figured that the health-savings were worth the inconvenience of learning how to touch-type numbers. Because really, the numbers are actually CLOSER to your fingers in the natural position than a keypad. One just has to learn how to do it; by learning how to extend the fingers reduces the chance of getting RSI.

 

[cshearer]

When did that happen? Apple keyboards still utterly, completely suck. They're the worst in the industry - at least for people who actually WRITE. And they're even worse for programmers, especially when you use a German version that has not even the brackets accessible in a usable way. Life would be easier if those damn stupid Apple keyboards would at least follow industry standards, but of course they don't. The only thing they have going for them is that they look quite nice. Yes, after iOS and iTunes "synchronization", the keyboards are the things that I hate most in the Apple universe, followed by Apple mice.

But the story is nice, and there are a lot of great stories about Steve Jobs. He was one of the most impressive characters in the computer industry and one of the very few who actually had taste.

Good luck controlling a computer without those things. I actually WRITE too; papers, stories, blogs, etc. and I don't have a problem. Maybe a few typing classes would clear things up? Pookie?

 

[Hastings101]

Well, the function keys are still on the Apple keyboards... but at least OS X makes use of them. So he partially succeeded?

 

[Printpac]

Absolute genius, funny story and shows how much of a prefectionist and true artist he was. Always striving for the best and nothing else. What a true originator.

 

[anotonin]

Steve Jobs had charisma. And most of all, he knew how to use language to entice and to impart knowledge and other things to people.