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Steve Wozniak: Steve Jobs wasn’t a natural-born leader

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Re: Steve Wozniak: Steve Jobs wasn’t a natural-born leader

#11

Post by hef19898 »

zcw100 wrote: post #2

What really set Steve Jobs apart is that he never should have gotten to where he did. I don't mean he didn't deserve it or anything but based on that structures that exist to filter people who attain the positions that he did. By luck, or accident, or raw determination, he became a person in the drivers seat that no one would have chose to put there. He was so much not the person they would have chosen that they kick…

I think, a quite recent thought, that the best thing to happen to Jobs, and Apple, was Jobs being fired. May sound stupid, but I think this break added some experience and humility that Jobs wouldn't have had if had just risen up to CEO and stayed there. And Apple was all the better of for it.

Re: Steve Wozniak: Steve Jobs wasn’t a natural-born leader

#12

Post by [deleted] »

hef19898 wrote: post #11
zcw100 wrote: post #2

What really set Steve Jobs apart is that he never should have gotten to where he did. I don't mean he didn't deserve it or anything but based on that structures that exist to filter people who attain the positions that he did. By luck, or accident, or raw determination, he became a person in the drivers seat that no one would have chose to put there. He was so much not the person they would have chosen that they kick…

I think, a quite recent thought, that the best thing to happen to Jobs, and Apple, was Jobs being fired. May sound stupid, but I think this break added some experience and humility that Jobs wouldn't have had if had just risen up to CEO and stayed there. And Apple was all the better of for it.

[deleted]

Re: Steve Wozniak: Steve Jobs wasn’t a natural-born leader

#13

Post by seanmcdirmid »

notjustanymike wrote: post #3

The most impactful class I ever took as a programmer was Theater. Because of theater, I can confidently demonstrate a new feature in front of 150 people, and effectively lead retros and sprint demos. Communication is the most undervalued skill by other engineers, and getting good at it sets you apart far quicker than technical growth alone.

> Communication is the most undervalued skill by other engineers, and getting good at it sets you apart far quicker than technical growth alone.

Engineers don’t undervalue this skill, many are just not good at it (and can’t get good at as easily as they can get better with technical skills). It is more of a selection bias in the sense that people who did well technically but were not great communicators would pursue engineering as a career vs others. These days, when the money is good enough that many more people pursue careers in (software) engineering, those who see the career as a refuge aren’t so common anymore.

Re: Steve Wozniak: Steve Jobs wasn’t a natural-born leader

#14

Post by dkislyuk »

hef19898 wrote: post #11
zcw100 wrote: post #2

What really set Steve Jobs apart is that he never should have gotten to where he did. I don't mean he didn't deserve it or anything but based on that structures that exist to filter people who attain the positions that he did. By luck, or accident, or raw determination, he became a person in the drivers seat that no one would have chose to put there. He was so much not the person they would have chosen that they kick…

I think, a quite recent thought, that the best thing to happen to Jobs, and Apple, was Jobs being fired. May sound stupid, but I think this break added some experience and humility that Jobs wouldn't have had if had just risen up to CEO and stayed there. And Apple was all the better of for it.

No need for conjecture — Steve Jobs said as much multiple times (e.g. "Getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me.") One of the unintended consequences for Jobs was working with Ed Catmull at Pixar in the early 90s, who by all accounts was an exceptional manager and leader, and helped Jobs develop on this dimension.

Re: Steve Wozniak: Steve Jobs wasn’t a natural-born leader

#16

Post by JKCalhoun »

zcw100 wrote: post #2

What really set Steve Jobs apart is that he never should have gotten to where he did. I don't mean he didn't deserve it or anything but based on that structures that exist to filter people who attain the positions that he did. By luck, or accident, or raw determination, he became a person in the drivers seat that no one would have chose to put there. He was so much not the person they would have chosen that they kick…

I think I disagree. I think Jobs personality was such that he would have either ended up founding a company (or perhaps ended up in prison for selling narcotics).

I sense his manipulative personality (my words, for other's you can substitute "reality distortion field") was always there. I'm not disputing Wozniak of course, but I think Jobs growth was in learning how to channel that personality toward selling product.

Jobs got to where he was because he had a smart friend. But there were a lot of smart people in the Home-brew Computer Club and elsewhere around the U.S. and world — and a lot of friends of these smart people.

Maybe it was a happy accident of history, but I think Jobs was the right person with the smart friend, just looking desperately for "the next big thing".

The Next Big Thing was not, as he found out, "blue boxes". But I bring that up as an example of his entrepreneurism showing itself at an opportunity even before Apple.

Re: Steve Wozniak: Steve Jobs wasn’t a natural-born leader

#17

Post by ravenstine »

rtutz wrote: post #6

Wozniak does everything to go down in history as a supposedly unrecognized genius. Every time he makes headlines it is the same story with a slightly different twist.

Maybe that's true, maybe it's not, but I'd nevertheless consider to be a genius anyone who was even doing modest tinkering with hobby computers back before personal computing was taken seriously. To think that in the time it takes me to finish a project with an Arduino or a Raspberry Pi, people like Wozniak were hacking together their own computers with reject factory parts, etc. Mad respect should go to the folks like Wozniak no matter their relatively minor flaws, especially when egotists like Jobs got so much credit.

Re: Steve Wozniak: Steve Jobs wasn’t a natural-born leader

#18

Post by JKCalhoun »

rtutz wrote: post #6

Wozniak does everything to go down in history as a supposedly unrecognized genius. Every time he makes headlines it is the same story with a slightly different twist.

You're getting downvoted, but I see where you're coming from. I have noticed as well that, perhaps a decade or so ago?, Woz began a sort of "recognition tour" where I would see him show up at an arcade game expo or vintage computer festivals and repeat a kind of history of his life.

At the time, Jobs was alive and getting all the accolades (and Apple was flying high), so it seemed justified in my mind that Woz should want to say, "Hey, what about me?"

(At the same time, I am comfortable that history will remember each of us as we deserve to be remembered.)

If you read "iWoz" I think he puts it all down in ink there. (But I don't know that I would recommend "iWoz", I found it fairly boring — but perhaps because I had heard it all before.)

Re: Steve Wozniak: Steve Jobs wasn’t a natural-born leader

#20

Post by dekhn »

hef19898 wrote: post #11
zcw100 wrote: post #2

What really set Steve Jobs apart is that he never should have gotten to where he did. I don't mean he didn't deserve it or anything but based on that structures that exist to filter people who attain the positions that he did. By luck, or accident, or raw determination, he became a person in the drivers seat that no one would have chose to put there. He was so much not the person they would have chosen that they kick…

I think, a quite recent thought, that the best thing to happen to Jobs, and Apple, was Jobs being fired. May sound stupid, but I think this break added some experience and humility that Jobs wouldn't have had if had just risen up to CEO and stayed there. And Apple was all the better of for it.

Yeah. It's a bit of a narrative rather than a fact, but from what I can tell he really did some big soul searching and learned a lot of useful, practical advice. IIRC there is some article describing him looking at a warehouse full of unsellable inventory and realizing that not storing computers, but building them near realtime based on demand, was a better way to not lose money.
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