There are just moments when all the stars are aligned for breakthrough products.
The launch of iPhone is very possibly bigger than the launch of the first Apple II or the first Mac. Steve Jobs's genius is his ability to use technology to create products that define fundamental cultural shifts.
In many cases, jobs that used to be done by people are going to be able to be done through automation. I don't have an answer to that. That's one of the more perplexing problems of society.
The only thing I would say is, I think there's a lot of future value in Blackberry, but without experienced people who have run this type of business, and without a strategic plan, it would be really challenging.
The Mac defined 'personal technology', and the iPhone defines 'intimate technology' as a convergence of communications, content and location.
I didn't appreciate, coming out of corporate America... what it meant to a founder, the creator of the Macintosh, to be asked to step down from the very division that he created to lead the very product that he believed was going to change the world.
We expect teachers to handle teenage pregnancy, substance abuse, and the failings of the family. Then we expect them to educate our children.
Stay the course and keep building an integrated Apple ecosystem of iPhone + iPod + iMac + iTunes + App Store + Apple TV. No one has yet demonstrated they understand how to create an 'experience-based ecosystem' as well as Apple.
Ross Perot came and visited Apple several times and visited the Macintosh factory. Ross was a systems thinker.
One thing about Apple is they have these fanboys - as I always say, 'Sell to the people who love us.' For example when they came up with iPad mini, everyone who had an iPad went out and bought a mini as well.
Our primary goal in the consumer health service companies I back is helping them create an uncompromisingly great consumer experience.
We see healthcare shifting from a procedure reimbursement, where in this country doctors are reimbursed for how many procedures they conduct, to a world where people will be reimbursed for the outcomes - did the patient actually get better, and what was the total cost of the cycle of care.
Is there anyone out there who is the next Steve Jobs? I think Jeff Bezos is pretty close. He is very smart. He is extremely creative. He has completely reinvented the way in which commerce is done online.
I think that Apple has revolutionized every other consumer industry; why not television? The complexity of the experience of using the television gets more and more complicated. So it seems exactly the sort of problem that if anyone is going to change the experience of what the first principles are, it is going to be Apple.
Apple makes really good products, and Samsung makes really good products. It's really a two-horse race. Where I think Apple is exposed: the price points of Apple's products are just so high by comparison with Samsung's.
Apple and Samsung are selling in such high volumes, and they're vertically integrated more and more, that it's very, very hard for anyone to compete against Apple and Samsung in the high-volume part of the smartphone or tablet market.
I think that televisions are unnecessarily complex. The irony is that as the pictures get better and the choice of content gets broader, that the complexity of the experience of using the television gets more and more complicated.
