A secret call to Andy Grove that may have helped Apple buy NeXT (2018)

Tepix wrote: post #3

Fantastic read. Once again, the chaotic nature of our future unfolding. These days, the scientists that advise our countries‘ leaders about the pandemic can make a difference as Chris MacAskill made back then.

Thanks! The fascinating thing is I had been a geophysicist for 10 years before joining NeXT, so all my instincts were to approach this as a scientist. When I see Dr. Fauci speaking the best known truths despite the political winds, it resonates with all I know of science -- speak the truth as best you know it and history will forgive you later.

Re: A secret call to Andy Grove that may have helped Apple buy NeXT (2018)

#5

Post by ISL » Thu, Mar 19, 2020, 6:53 PM UTC

cmacaskill wrote: post #4

Tepix wrote: post #3

Fantastic read. Once again, the chaotic nature of our future unfolding. These days, the scientists that advise our countries‘ leaders about the pandemic can make a difference as Chris MacAskill made back then.

Thanks! The fascinating thing is I had been a geophysicist for 10 years before joining NeXT, so all my instincts were to approach this as a scientist. When I see Dr. Fauci speaking the best known truths despite the political winds, it resonates with all I know of science -- speak the truth as best you know it and history will forgive you later.

The truth is immutable -- that's what makes it so successful.

Re: A secret call to Andy Grove that may have helped Apple buy NeXT (2018)

#6

Post by austincheney » Thu, Mar 19, 2020, 6:57 PM UTC

> And that’s when Andy lost some credibility with me. I can’t remember exactly what he said about future speeds, but I seem to remember 400 megahertz or maybe even more. Oh, please. You’re claiming 10x more than Motorola?

Discarding numbers out of hand, at least those number actually were fictional. Reminds of a recent comment on HN where people twisted themselves into knots ignoring numbers they could easily reproduce themselves: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22590983

Re: A secret call to Andy Grove that may have helped Apple buy NeXT (2018)

#7

Post by coldcode » Thu, Mar 19, 2020, 7:43 PM UTC

I think the main long term benefit of buying NeXT was getting Steve back. I left Apple a year or so before this happened (I remember Gil being all excited talking about Apple to the staff right before he realized what a disaster it was and we never saw him again around Infinite Loop) but I left because I was sure doing what they were doing would be the end of Apple. The OS and kernel were nice, the smart people from NeXT made a huge difference, but Steve was, Steve.

If I'd know this would happen I would have never left.

Re: A secret call to Andy Grove that may have helped Apple buy NeXT (2018)

#8

Post by ksec » Thu, Mar 19, 2020, 8:03 PM UTC

Slightly Off Topic.

I consider both Andy Grove and Steve Jobs as the greatest CEO ever lived in Silicon Valley. ( Sorry it is hard to pick just one between the two )

Current Generation are Patrick Gelsinger ( VMware ), Jensen Huang ( Nvidia ). Satya Nadella ( Microsoft ) and Lisa Su ( AMD ) are two possible candidate but I think it is still too early to tell.

Sometimes if I think if I did't set the bar so high for Apple, Tim Cook would be on the list as well. But their doing on Mac still leaves a bad taste in my mouth so I am not quite over with it yet.

What other Great CEO are there in Silicon Valley's history?

Edit: Looking at this list just now makes me realise all the CEO I considered as great are product CEO. Which sort of got me thinking as to why I don like Tim Cook as much, he is simply not a product person.

Re: A secret call to Andy Grove that may have helped Apple buy NeXT (2018)

#9

Post by mullingitover » Thu, Mar 19, 2020, 8:31 PM UTC

ksec wrote: post #8

Slightly Off Topic. I consider both Andy Grove and Steve Jobs as the greatest CEO ever lived in Silicon Valley. ( Sorry it is hard to pick just one between the two ) Current Generation are Patrick Gelsinger ( VMware ), Jensen Huang ( Nvidia ). Satya Nadella ( Microsoft ) and Lisa Su ( AMD ) are two possible candidate but I think it is still too early to tell. Sometimes if I think if I did't set the bar so high for Ap…

Tim Cook arguably made Apple what it is today. Without him, Apple might've had great products but failed miserably in the supply chain management side of the business. It's telling that after Jobs, Apple didn't slide into irrelevance but instead continued to thrive.

Tech aficionados (myself included) might have qualms about their product strategy, but overall the business continues to be wildly successful with regular consumers.

Re: A secret call to Andy Grove that may have helped Apple buy NeXT (2018)

#10

Post by jhbadger » Thu, Mar 19, 2020, 8:38 PM UTC

coldcode wrote: post #7

I think the main long term benefit of buying NeXT was getting Steve back. I left Apple a year or so before this happened (I remember Gil being all excited talking about Apple to the staff right before he realized what a disaster it was and we never saw him again around Infinite Loop) but I left because I was sure doing what they were doing would be the end of Apple. The OS and kernel were nice, the smart people from…

Classic MacOS was a disaster once multitasking became a needed feature, and Copland (its in-house replacement) wasn't going anywhere. The only other option would have been to buy Be, to get BeOS. That could have worked too, BeOS was great (and its modern clone Haiku is fun too), but it was clear Apple needed something from outside.