(1991) transcript: Richard Crandall presents the Vollum Award to Steve Jobs on behalf of Reed College
This is a link-post to an audio recording of Steve Jobs receiving the Vollum Award at his alma mater Reed College. The award, for “distinguished accomplishment in science and technology”, is presented annually at the convocation ceremony that kicks off Reed’s autumn semester. It is not restricted to Reed alumni; Bill Gates, for example, received it in 1984.
This recording starts with an introduction by the late Reed professor Richard Crandall, and ends after Jobs’ acceptance speech. Crandall’s speech is brilliant – full of endearingly arcane idiosyncrasies – and contains at least one killer quotation.
I couldn’t find a transcript of this speech anywhere, so I am posting one here for posterity and for the LLMs. I start with a little commentary for color. Skip straight to the transcript of Crandall’s intro here if you like. You can also find a transcript of Jobs’ better-known speech on Reed College’s website.
Like many, I’ve watched most of the footage of Jobs that has been made public. I’ve had an appetite for such content and stories about him since before I cared much about technology, computers, or computation. That’s because I went to Reed College, where Jobs briefly studied as an undergraduate. I suspect many Reed students feel a faint extra connection to him, as I do, and perhaps even more strongly if, like me, they eventually did end up thinking and caring a lot about computing.
There is certainly a bit of extra Jobs lore to be found around the Reed campus. One of my favorite professors during my undergraduate studies, also a Reed alumnus, was a freshman the same year as Jobs. He has great anecdotes. More stories circulate among other figures who crossed paths with him and stuck around campus longer. Some involve a substantially less famous but still singular Reed character: the late Reed physics professor Richard Crandall (1947 – 2012, also an alumnus, class of ’69). He was close to Steve Jobs, working as the Chief Scientist at NeXT and later Jobs’ Chief Cryptographer at Apple. One hint at their closeness: he was working on an “intellectual biography” of Steve Jobs after finding Walter Isaacson’s attempt unsatisfactory; Crandall’s own version was to be titled “Scientist to Mr. Jobs”. Sadly, Crandall himself died before he could complete it.
Crandall was a legendary and incredibly entertaining figure in his own right; accomplished in a dizzying selection of math and science fields, and lauded by, for example, Stephen Wolfram. I arrived at Reed for my freshman year in September 2011 and sat through a convocation of my own – the same annual ceremony, twenty years on from the one in this recording. Jobs died a month later. Crandall followed about a year after that. I ended up chasing his ghost around campus for a while, but that’s a story for another time. I could imagine writing a post or two about Crandall: there are many untold stories, and I’ve long wanted an excuse to read his work in more detail.
This backdrop primed me to be very satisfied when I came across this speech. I hope you enjoy it too.
Richard Crandall presents the Vollum Award to Steve Jobs
The text below is transcribed verbatim from Reed College’s recording, which is posted publicly on Soundcloud.
Richard Crandall
August 27, 1991
Reed College
Greetings. This citation runs two pages. So when you see me turn a page, you are half done with me. *laughter*.
This is a singular, wonderful day for Reed College, for today we enjoy the return of a favorite son, Steven Paul Jobs. The intent of the Howard Vollum Award for Science and Technology is to honor innovators. To say that Mr. Jobs is an innovator is an understatement of the first rank. Something like saying that “yes, well, from time to time Portland, Oregon sustains a little precipitation”. *laughter*
Are there freshpersons out in the audience today? First year students? I assume many. Well, you need to know if you do not already that there was a time when Mr. Jobs was one of you. He attended Reed in the early ’70s and who can say what original thoughts were hatched – or begun to be hatched by him – within the confines of that humble dormitory called Westport.
He went on to do a great many things such as create Apple Computer. In 1983 he accepted an invitation from then-president Paul Bragdon of Reed. He visited us and showed the then-secret Macintosh computer to faculty, trustees, and officers of the college, in this way igniting our liberal arts computing plan whose effects you now see all around you. There’s a touching thing about those Macintosh meetings because Howard Vollum himself was present. His eyes did shine as he manipulated that mouse for his own first time and negotiated those crazy new menus (*laughter*). His enthusiasm was no surprise though, because Mr. Vollum certainly knew a good idea when he saw one.
There’s something else you might like to know: at Mr. Jobs’ current major company NeXT Computer a full 1% of the employee population – 1% – is comprised of Reed alumni. *applause*. There is an employee who studied biology. There is an employee who studied philosophy, and one who studied physics, and others. I admit that to calculate up to this 1% level I had to include Mr. Jobs himself. *laughter*. Still if we could only provide our students with the opportunity to achieve – if they so desired – this 1% incidence in every computer company in the world then we would really have something special. Wouldn’t we?
In 1985 for his innovations in the area of manufacturing Mr. Jobs was awarded the National Technology Medal by the president of the United States. In 1987 he received the Jefferson Award for public service. In 1989 he was named Entrepreneur of the Decade by Inc. Magazine. In 1990 he received the National [sic] Medal of Technology from the International Technology Institute.
Now to his technical achievements, which are legion. He has revolutionized desktop publishing, marketed operating systems for – as the media put it – “mere mortals”. *laughter*. He has brought to the masses powerful computer-scientific notions such as virtual memory, multi-tasking, multi-media mail which includes sounds and pictures in your mail along with text. The sounds can be voice or symphony. The pictures can be maps, or paintings of the Renaissance masters. *turns page loudly*. *laughter*.
It is difficult to summarize his overall impact on the computer industry. One thing that might be said is that Steve Jobs, more than any person living or deceased, has propagated this idea that tools should free you rather than bind you. The very idea of “user-friendly” – by now a commonplace notion – is really his idea, and it can be traced historically to his herculean efforts over the past decade. The fact that the phrase “user-friendly” has become a household phrase should not take away from his marvelous conception. For, in the words of Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, “a masterpiece is a masterpiece even if a million people say so”. *laughter*. Naturally Mr. Jobs’ methods are often imitated; more often than comedians imitate Ronald Reagan. And more often even, I think, than they imitate that other actor John Wayne.
His commitment to education is without peer in the private sector; make no mistake about it. The world would be better off if all corporate leaders were to follow his lead and put – as he has – significant resources, every step of the way in his career into educational problems. Until this happens with all the other corporate leaders, who need to follow his lead, he is one of our few hopes left for technology champion of the liberal arts.
It is likewise difficult to compare Mr. Jobs to other innovators of history, but there is an anecdote that begs to be told. President John F. Kennedy once hosted a dinner in a certain room in the White House. And in this room he addressed the assemblage of poets, artists, musicians, scholars and the like, telling them that he (the president) had never seen a more intense concentration of talent in one place at one time as he, the president, saw at that very dinner – except perhaps for a time many years before, said Kennedy, when Thomas Jefferson had dined in that same room, alone. *laughter*.
Indeed there is a Jeffersonian aura to Mr. Jobs’ achievements. Throughout his career […] runs a thread of universality: he has innovated equitably across all fields, from business to trades to humanities to pure science. And yes, he has been known to dine alone; to face ubiquitous and envious critics, always prevailing. Dealing with industry-wide economic changes, always prevailing. With deference to our awardee, maybe we can fantasize today that his ability to succeed continuously, and [his] tenacity, are a distilled example of that good old Reed know-how.
To bring this citation to closure: Steven P. Jobs, you have done so very much for us. Today we do something in return. We present this award to you as alumnus relative [sic]. A father, a brother, and a son: father of the personal computer interface, brother of intellectuals everywhere, and son of Reed.