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Why Steve Jobs Couldn’t Find a Job Today
21–30 of 53 posts
Re: Why Steve Jobs Couldn’t Find a Job Today
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can be a cofounder with all those attributes, regardless of VC. You could also create something so compelling that VCs would overlook any concerns like that when it got to that stage of needing further investment.
It's not as easy for startups to create vertically integrated hardware devices these days.
It's a bit naive to think that it was ever particularly easy.
Re: Why Steve Jobs Couldn’t Find a Job Today
#23What I find ironic is that in order to work for Apple today, you need a spotless academic record since gradeschool. I doubt very much that Apple would hire a Reed College dropout today.
Re: Why Steve Jobs Couldn’t Find a Job Today
#24What I find ironic is that in order to work for Apple today, you need a spotless academic record since gradeschool. I doubt very much that Apple would hire a Reed College dropout today.
That is not true. Apple is not like Google or Goldman Sachs. They do not ask for your GPA or care where you went to school.
edit: hate to be down-vote curious, but I would be interested to hear if someone has been rejected from Apple for having a poor GPA.
I've interviewed with Apple and nobody asked about my degree or GPA. It was the most on-topic job interview I've ever had. No weird brainteasers or annoying FizzBuzz questions. Just questions directly relevant to the position I was interviewing for. I have a handful of friends who work there who never finished college or have degrees in something irrelevant, like philosophy. Guys like Mike Matas and Mike Lee did not have degrees. The head of iTunes did not go to college at all.
Re: Why Steve Jobs Couldn’t Find a Job Today
#25A glaring point that the article seems to forget is that Bezos, Jobs, et. al., are founder CEOs. Not one of the individuals mentioned was a hire. I think that's an important distinction, especially with respect to the author's points on creativity. "... remember that when Jobs returned to Apple in 1996, ... Let’s just say he didn’t have the benefit of the doubt. What he did have: the founder’s courage to innovate des…
I think that's the point of the article- companies aren't hiring people who want to rock the boat, you have to find a way to do it yourself.
jobs was a founder ceo. then he left with a load of money, wasted it all in next, and came back as a bought ceo. with the ball and chain vesting agreements and all probably.
Re: Why Steve Jobs Couldn’t Find a Job Today
#26A glaring point that the article seems to forget is that Bezos, Jobs, et. al., are founder CEOs. Not one of the individuals mentioned was a hire. I think that's an important distinction, especially with respect to the author's points on creativity. "... remember that when Jobs returned to Apple in 1996, ... Let’s just say he didn’t have the benefit of the doubt. What he did have: the founder’s courage to innovate des…
I think that's the point of the article- companies aren't hiring people who want to rock the boat, you have to find a way to do it yourself.
As a general rule, companies have never hired people who want to rock the boat. The point is that the article missed that point. Nothing is different about "today" vs. any time in the past.
Re: Why Steve Jobs Couldn’t Find a Job Today
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not as easy for startups to create vertically integrated hardware devices these days.
It's a bit naive to think that it was ever particularly easy.
It's hard to imagine Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs working on a custom made device in a garage and selling hundreds of them to a local electronics store today, though.
Re: Why Steve Jobs Couldn’t Find a Job Today
#28What I find ironic is that in order to work for Apple today, you need a spotless academic record since gradeschool. I doubt very much that Apple would hire a Reed College dropout today.
No that is not ironic.
That is how things work: if you have vision and you want to do something new and innovative, big corporations such as Apple are not the place to work for. They need just very smart people (hopefully not willing to rock the boat) to execute the existing plan.
I'm not saying that all of these companies don't have vision or innovation: the point is that positions requiring vision and initiative are already taken.
And if you try something new, you might get in trouble (just imagine somebody at Research in Motion suggesting to build phone similar to iPhone in 2005).
Re: Why Steve Jobs Couldn’t Find a Job Today
#29It's really quite simple, and in a sense I don't think big companies are behaving irrationally: It's really hard to judge the potential of odd, creative people. There's a million people running around who talk like Steve Jobs did decades ago. Think about all the idea-people and 'mavens' you know. Granted, I think the entire hiring system isn't even close to optimized and could be greatly improved.
True. I think it's more of a two-way street than the article lets on.
Think back to all of the most quirky, creative, interesting, boat-rocking people you've worked with or met. It's not a universal rule that these folks aren't very good at the "people" side of the equation...but a lot of them aren't. Furthermore, a lot of them have a marked distaste for toeing the party line. They derive more energy from challening assumptions than from accepting them. Or from reinventing the wheel, instead of using the wheel they've got on hand. They get bored or disgruntled very quickly if they're not being stimulated or challenged.
These traits might make for good startup founders, but they don't often correlate with corporate success. Especially at large, traditional, non-tech corporations. In such companies, politics rules the day. Your skill as a politician -- your ability to navigate the waters, network with the right people, kiss the right ass, and sell internally -- is what gets you ahead. Your inability to do so will prevent you from climbing as quickly, or as far, as the savvier operators.
Companies say they want more creative leaders, but all incentives are set up to reward politicians. At the same time, a lot of "creative" folks opt out of the game in the first place -- either through ineptitude at it, or through an avowed distaste for it. It's unfortunate, but it's true in many, many, many cases.
If there's any grand, karmic justice in the whole equation, it's that -- in theory, at least -- the more forward-thinking and "creative" companies will win out in the marketplace. Those companies that choose to be ruled by innovation, by results, and not by politics should outperform the companies that choose not to recognize (or even to suppress) their innovative thinkers. It's not as cut-and-dried as this, of course, but that's what those of us disheartened by these articles should hope for in the long run.
Re: Why Steve Jobs Couldn’t Find a Job Today
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think that's the point of the article- companies aren't hiring people who want to rock the boat, you have to find a way to do it yourself.
jobs was a founder ceo. then he left with a load of money, wasted it all in next, and came back as a bought ceo. with the ball and chain vesting agreements and all probably.
> wasted it all in next
NeXT got bought out by Apple; it also produced the core OS, and language and runtime that would become the software cornerstone of Apple's resurgent computer products, as well as the new iOS family of devices.
If I have to waste my money, I'd easily settle for wasting it the way Steve Jobs did in founding NeXT.