Steve Jobs' Best Quotes • Hacker News Board

Re: Steve Jobs' Best Quotes

#51

Post by anon5 » Thu, Aug 25, 2011, 1:05 PM UTC

rbanffy wrote: post #46

anon5 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did some digging about Adam Osborne. Made me quite sad for him... It seems he was a failed (relatively speaking) genius. He is credited with building the first computer for people. Also was briefly considered a contemporary of Bill G and Steve Jobs: "on April 3rd, 1981 when a startup called Osborne Computer Corporation announced the Osborne 1 at the West Coast Computer Faire at San Francisco’s Brooks Hall. It was the…

> It was the first true mass-produced portable PC Erm... "portable" is not the word I'd use. Most would settle for "transportable". I'd rather use "draggable".

Did you notice this Ad they had for Osborne? Please scroll down to see the 'The Guy on the left doesn't stand a chance' Ad, on the 2nd page of the article (http://technologizer.com/2011/04/01/osborne-computer/2/ )

It almost could have been an Ad for a 'Laptop' as we know it.

Re: Steve Jobs' Best Quotes

#52

Post by ghurlman » Thu, Aug 25, 2011, 1:21 PM UTC

vacri wrote: post #27

m0nastic wrote: post #10

Folklore.org seems to be down right now, but my favorite Steve Jobs exchange is the following: We worked our way up to the front of the crowd to get a good look at the units [Osborne 1] that were on display. We started to ask one of the presenters a technical question, when we were suprised to see Adam Osborne himself standing a few feet from us, looking at our show badges, preempting the response. "Oh, some Apple fo…

Yeah, awesome. He gets revenge on a fairly standard sales competitor by stomping on the little person. Ha ha, Osborne acted like a person with vision by being condescending, what an asshole, but Jobs, acting like a person of vision, was inspired and lively! So what if he shat on a secretary! This anecdote is just another flavour of "The winners get to write the histories".

He wasn't shitting on the secretary, he was shitting on Adam by proxy.

Re: Steve Jobs' Best Quotes

#53

Post by philjackson » Thu, Aug 25, 2011, 1:24 PM UTC

lhnz wrote: post #39

philjackson wrote: post #34

"We think the Mac will sell zillions, but we didn’t build the Mac for anybody else. We built it for ourselves." Seems contrary to advice I often read from people here.

Yes, but you might have also heard about "eating your own dog food."

I have, but that just refers to using your own product, not building it for yourself.

Re: Steve Jobs' Best Quotes

#54

Post by rbanffy » Thu, Aug 25, 2011, 1:27 PM UTC

anon5 wrote: post #51

rbanffy wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It was the first true mass-produced portable PC Erm... "portable" is not the word I'd use. Most would settle for "transportable". I'd rather use "draggable".

Did you notice this Ad they had for Osborne? Please scroll down to see the 'The Guy on the left doesn't stand a chance' Ad, on the 2nd page of the article ( http://technologizer.com/2011/04/01/osborne-computer/2/ ) It almost could have been an Ad for a 'Laptop' as we know it.

Carry one for two hours.

Re: Steve Jobs' Best Quotes

#55

Post by acak » Thu, Aug 25, 2011, 2:04 PM UTC

The bicycle analogy to computers.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ob_GX50Za6c

Paraphrase: The computer is to the human mind, what the bicycle is to our ability to travel.

Re: Steve Jobs' Best Quotes

#56

Post by T-hawk » Thu, Aug 25, 2011, 2:41 PM UTC

rbanffy wrote: post #46

anon5 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did some digging about Adam Osborne. Made me quite sad for him... It seems he was a failed (relatively speaking) genius. He is credited with building the first computer for people. Also was briefly considered a contemporary of Bill G and Steve Jobs: "on April 3rd, 1981 when a startup called Osborne Computer Corporation announced the Osborne 1 at the West Coast Computer Faire at San Francisco’s Brooks Hall. It was the…

> It was the first true mass-produced portable PC Erm... "portable" is not the word I'd use. Most would settle for "transportable". I'd rather use "draggable".

I remember "luggable" as the adjective of choice for such machines through the late 80's and early 90's. The PC Magazine columnists (Dvorak and Seymour and others) were fond of it.

Re: Steve Jobs' Best Quotes

#57

Post by ctdonath » Thu, Aug 25, 2011, 2:58 PM UTC

pbreit wrote: post #14

mateo42 wrote: post #5

His answer the 1996 interview question with Wired about technology revolutionizing our lives definitely seems at odds with what we've listened to him tout about such things as the iPad.

I'm guessing you are referring to this passage, but I can only guess since you forgot to specify: "Q: What's the biggest surprise this technology will deliver? A: The problem is I'm older now, I'm 40 years old, and this stuff doesn't change the world. It really doesn't. Q: That's going to break people's hearts. A: I'm sorry, it's true. Having children really changes your view on these things. We're born, we live for…

"Having children really changes your view on these things."

Did he? In true Apple form, we (at least I) know absolutely nothing about his private life. Only hint of offspring is on his new house blueprint marked "playroom".

Re: Steve Jobs' Best Quotes

#58

Post by super_mario » Thu, Aug 25, 2011, 3:15 PM UTC

bonzoesc wrote: post #25

Sums up my thoughts on vi: > Some people are saying that we ought to put an IBM PC on every desk in America to improve productivity. It won’t work. The special incantations you have to learn this time are the “slash q-zs” and things like that.

Yeah, but a good portion of Mac users would never use it if it weren't UNIX under the covers and if it didn't enable them to work they way they like (from command line and vi). Without these people advocating the platform, it would be a lot less successful.

Re: Steve Jobs' Best Quotes

#59

Post by ajays » Thu, Aug 25, 2011, 3:18 PM UTC

jballanc wrote: post #33

phil wrote: post #6

All armchair commentators would do well to consider this one: Q: There’s a lot of symbolism to your return. Is that going to be enough to reinvigorate the company with a sense of magic? “You’re missing it. This is not a one-man show. What’s reinvigorating this company is two things: One, there’s a lot of really talented people in this company who listened to the world tell them they were losers for a couple of years,…

To continue on this thread, I once heard Steve describe it this way: "When I returned to Apple, I went to every engineering team and fired all the managers. Then, I went to the smartest engineer on each team and told them they were going to be the new manager. Of course, being the smartest engineers, they all immediately said, 'No'! So I told them, 'Look, either you're going to be the new manager, or I'll go hire som…

Do you have a reference for this? I'd like to send it out to a few people, but "I read it on HN" doesn't seem to have the same cache' (yet.. ;) ).

Re: Steve Jobs' Best Quotes

#60

Post by whatrocks » Thu, Aug 25, 2011, 3:45 PM UTC

Great 1995 interview with Jobs from the Smithsonian:

http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/comphist/sj1.html

In our business, one person can't do anything anymore. You create a team of people around you. You have a responsibility of integrity of work to that team. Everybody does try to turn out the best work that they can.