YouSaid · the spoken record

John Markoff

lines on the record: 133
first: 2017-02-06
most recent: 2017-02-06
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Yeah, so I came back with a charter of IBM and whatever else I could get into. And I showed up in April, my very first story for the New York Times was about computer viruses, which were a novel thing at that point.”
2017-02-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: John Markoff, ex-reporter, The New York Times · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Technology, they had one person here been Andy Cover banking too, and they had one person covering computing at that point, and they had one person, well, they had a personal computer columnist, Eric Sandberg de Mend, quirky guy, who's a good friend. And then they had a telecommunications writer, who at that point was Calvin Sims. But it was technology coverage was broken down between like seven or eight industries. Not about IT.”
2017-02-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: John Markoff, ex-reporter, The New York Times · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Sanger was out the door, so the New York Times only has two speeds. One is forever and the other is yesterday. So they were in yesterday mode. And they called Andy Pollock, who was the, said, who's good? Who's a good reporter in Silicon Valley? And Andy said, well, ask Katie Hafner. She's at the business week. She was Silicon Valley reporter for business week. And so they called Katie and to her everlasting credit. And she hated covering technology. She was so willing. She said, call John.”
2017-02-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: John Markoff, ex-reporter, The New York Times · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Oh, I didn't tell you the story. So, the way I got there is. Katie. Has to do with the Wall Street Journal, actually. You'll enjoy this. The Times Sanger was going to, David Sanger was going to Japan. And the Times would place our national computer writer, which meant covering IBM back then, with somebody from the journal. I'm forgetting Paul's name. But anyway, at the last moment, they offered him an editing job and he turned them down.”
2017-02-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: John Markoff, ex-reporter, The New York Times · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Of course you did. He screamed again, and then he'd like to scream at Walth a lot. So you were there nay, when they were small and they were startups. What happened over those years, over the 80s especially, is you had the ups and downs of Apple. It was pre-internet people, what was the thought of what was going to happen then?”
2017-02-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: John Markoff, ex-reporter, The New York Times · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Down to it. Actually, it wasn't meeting him. It's the first time I heard Steve Jefferson. Okay. So I'd come to InfoWorld in 81 or 82. And Paul Freiberger was another reporter who had been hired about three months before me, and he actually had the Apple beet. And he was about to break the story of the code names of the Macintosh and Lisa. And remember, this is before either of them had been introduced, but he had stumbled across their code names. We were going to run the story. And I walked into his office and he had this Wendell's office, and he held the phone away from his ear. And somebody was screaming at him. And it was Steve Jobs. And Jobs was arguing that if we broke these code names, that the Japanese industry was going to be all over Apple and they were going to destroy them. We ran the story”
2017-02-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: John Markoff, ex-reporter, The New York Times · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And at one point, she said, she asked, how many of you are planning on starting your own company? And two-thirds of the hands went up. And for me, that was the moment where I got Silicon Valley. Everybody thought that if they had an idea as good as Steve Jobs, that they could start their own company. And there was a culture that was already there, even though it was this buttoned down. Traditional engineering culture”
2017-02-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: John Markoff, ex-reporter, The New York Times · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Which was a big company back then. And I showed up and it was all IBM PC guys and they had peripherals and add-in cards and that whole world was going on. And a mercury reporter whose name was Evelyn Richards came. Evelyn was a tough cookie, and yeah, no, she went to the post. Remember, he was the post. But she was the mercury then, and she actually stood up on stage and she interviewed like 300 guys in white shirts with pocket protectors. Literally, that was still the culture back then. Yeah, yeah.”
2017-02-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: John Markoff, ex-reporter, The New York Times · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Jobs and gates. And Bob Noyce. Bob Noy, a whole series of guys who were right out of the semiconductor industry. The tone was I mean, there were still archetypes. For example, right at the beginning, that whole model of one guy who just wants to explore the technology and one guy who sees the business there, the jobs in Wozniak duality, that was true even back then. But there was a moment that I got Silicon Valley, actually, it was probably 82 or 83. IBM PC had just come out, they got their own computer club. It was called Big Blue Computer Club, and they were meeting in Dyson Auditorium in Sunnyvale. And I showed up at this meeting, and it's.”
2017-02-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: John Markoff, ex-reporter, The New York Times · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“One generation earlier about microprocessors. So, what was the tone of people then? I mean, you were up close, like I was up close and personal with Jeff Bezos when he had five employees. What was that like? That was jobs and gates.”
2017-02-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: John Markoff, ex-reporter, The New York Times · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“nineteen seventies and he just walked through in a really prophetic way how The emergence of the microprocessor was going to transform society. So I looked at that and it really kind of intrigued me because he was making really strong claims. And I wrote this six-part series for Pacific News Service on the impact on the microprocessor. And that was my way in. So essentially. Same assumption you made, but one generation earlier”
2017-02-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: John Markoff, ex-reporter, The New York Times · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Here to Flashpoint for you. A generation before. Remember, my background was a social scientist. I was really interested in the way technology affects society just generally. And I read this book. I'm forgetting the author's name now, but the book was called The Micro Millennium. And it was written by a British guy.”
2017-02-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: John Markoff, ex-reporter, The New York Times · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“When I came to the journal, when I was hired in 94 or 5, something like that, five maybe, one of the reporters who was in the media section said I was there to cover CB radio. And I said, no, no, I'm here to cover the industry that's going to decimate media. Like I had a sense, very strong sense that this was going to be a big deal, the internet part of it. And I had no technical background at all. So what was the flashpoint for you?”
2017-02-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: John Markoff, ex-reporter, The New York Times · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right, right. What did you think of them? Because I remember when the internet, see, I came for the internet more than what you did, which was a more technical chips and things like that, which you wrote about for a long time. What was it that struck you why this would be an interesting industry to come to?”
2017-02-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: John Markoff, ex-reporter, The New York Times · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Very interesting for people Silicon Valley has always been multiple cultures, and there were lots of little cultures even back then. And so, you know, the tone was there were these aerospace guys, and then there were the hobbyists. And then over at Stanford, there was an AI community back then. So there were little subcultures that were distinct to themselves. And you could fall into them. And the semiconductor industry, which was consumer-oriented and very technical, was just starting back then.”
2017-02-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: John Markoff, ex-reporter, The New York Times · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So this was my way in through the back door. Those were the days in journalism where you had to go to the Modesto Bee for five years before. Yes, I remember those. Yeah, I tried to.”
2017-02-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: John Markoff, ex-reporter, The New York Times · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Writing about Silicon Valley. Nascent Tech. Will Hurst had taken over the examiner, he wanted to improve the coverage of Silicon Valley, and he asked John Devorak, who he should hire. Bark said hire Markov. And even though I didn't have a traditional journalism background, I got in through the back door because the Mercury had been offering me a job as an editor of their personal computer section, but they wouldn't hire me as a reporter. I didn't want to be an editor”
2017-02-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: John Markoff, ex-reporter, The New York Times · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Where they ended up, so No, I owe my job at the New York Times to my ex-wife. Katie Haf So I was at the San Francisco examiner. I've been there for three and a half years.”
2017-02-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: John Markoff, ex-reporter, The New York Times · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because it was Was like hobbyists Not because they wanted to. Right, which is where they ended up. So you started covering it. And how did you get to the times? Were you just writing about these things? And they said this computer thing sounds interesting? No.”
2017-02-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: John Markoff, ex-reporter, The New York Times · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“made it into info world and tried to make it. But when I went there, they were still trying to figure out whether they were sports illustrated or Rolling Stone. Because it's not a typical industry. It was like hobbyists, guys who were in it because they'd wanted to play with computers, not because they wanted to be really rich guys. Right.”
2017-02-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: John Markoff, ex-reporter, The New York Times · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I started running for Pacific News Service and freelancing for lots of lefty publications, but then in 81. I was hired by Infoworld, and that was when Infoworld became a weekly, it had been the intelligent machine journal, and it was started by the guy who started the West Coast Computer Fair, Jim Warren. He sold it to Pat McGovern, International Data Corporation.”
2017-02-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: John Markoff, ex-reporter, The New York Times · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, they had this, it was source thing, it was early sourcing, but they had this part of the meeting that was called the random access period. And guys from different companies would stand up and talk about rumors. And it was like just a free fire zone. Right, which is perfect.”
2017-02-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: John Markoff, ex-reporter, The New York Times · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I missed the first one, so where they rolled it out. But I was around going to those kinds of things, and I was going to homebrew. I was going to homebrew meetings, the homebrew computer club is what the PC industry grew out of. Right. Probably 78, 79, I started going to those meetings because as a reporter, all the engineers were there and they were all telling stories and you could just show up and they tell you things. You'd hear them talk about it.”
2017-02-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: John Markoff, ex-reporter, The New York Times · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So I was writing about stuff going on in Silicon Valley and the defense industry, and then Reagan was elected in 1980. And there was the dark side of the forest and the light side of the forest. And the light side of the forest were these little personal computers. And that was much more fun.”
2017-02-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: John Markoff, ex-reporter, The New York Times · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, so I came down here, and we were at the tail end of the Vietnam War. And we had this aerospace defense industry in Silicon Valley, and I was very interested because of sort of my background in understanding sort of technology in the military. So I started writing about military technology. Matter of fact, a story I wrote for Pacific News Service in the 19th century. Oh, God.”
2017-02-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: John Markoff, ex-reporter, The New York Times · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Anti war organizing. I was there because it seemed like, you know, there was this branch point where I had to, I applied to Columbia Journalism School and I applied to graduate school in sociology and I decided to graduate school in sociology would be more relevant. And then I got there and I had a fellowship. And on my first day, I realized it was a vocational training program. But I had a fellowship. So I hung around for four years Decided I really did want to be a reporter.”
2017-02-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: John Markoff, ex-reporter, The New York Times · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It was named Silicon Valley in 73. It was an aerospace center becoming. So I showed up just when the personal computer industry began. Right.”
2017-02-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: John Markoff, ex-reporter, The New York Times · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But really, I dropped out of a graduate program in sociology. I grew up in Palo Alto, but then I came back here in 77 after I dropped out of sociology.”
2017-02-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: John Markoff, ex-reporter, The New York Times · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, you You can look at that two different ways. You could say that I started as Steve Jobs and Larry Page's paperboy.”
2017-02-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: John Markoff, ex-reporter, The New York Times · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Com decks. Wow. No, I didn't. I got here in the 90s is when I started showing up for the internet stuff. So let's go back for you. Let's think about your career. How did you start in tech? What was your, because your kind of thought of as the dean of tech and you were one of the early people and there weren't that many covering up?”
2017-02-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: John Markoff, ex-reporter, The New York Times · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was more in that sort of mainstream years and years ago. I mean, so let's see, my first ComDex was 1985. Comdex. And I think you remember the National Computer Conference?”
2017-02-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: John Markoff, ex-reporter, The New York Times · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I don't know why, honestly. I don't know. Well, now you have all this free time and I don't. When you came to the valley, and it was probably around some sort of press event of some kind.”
2017-02-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: John Markoff, ex-reporter, The New York Times · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Oh my god, why don't we hang out? I don't know why. Honestly, I don't know. Well, now you have all this free time and I don't. I think that'll be great. So I don't know where to start. When did we meet? I don't even remember where we met. Maybe a study. You can't have the 200”
2017-02-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: John Markoff, ex-reporter, The New York Times · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT