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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

#101

Post by deutschew »

mason55 wrote: post #98
deutschew wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Poker tournament is often called the microcosm of our own capitalistic "democratic" world and as I learn how to play it more and more I realize how true this is. As you've said luck is a very very important factor. As you get lucky, you tend to continue getting lucky because the more chips (capital) the cost of failure or unlucky runs is a lot lower than somebody about to be knocked out of the tournament. Playing tig…

The other important major lesson that poker teaches you is that you can make the right decision and still lose, along with the corollaries (winning/losing doesn’t mean you made the right/wrong decision).

and survivor ship bias and entrepreneur pron really diminishes this.

it really made me feel how out of control the world really is and as Charlie Munger said it the best, it is envy that drives capitalism.

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

#103

Post by visarga »

WhompingWindows wrote: post #72

In a tech world with dozens of "amazing leaders", is it possible that some of them just got lucky? They took some shots in the dark, some got lucky, some got unlucky: can it be that simple? If Steve Jobs was coming up today, could he have owned leetcode and tech interviews, would he have gotten a CS degree, could he have succeeded in a start-up today? Could many of us here in tech now have done what he did? My point…

> In a tech world with dozens of "amazing leaders", is it possible that some of them just got lucky? They took some shots in the dark, some got lucky, some got unlucky: can it be that simple?

The path to success is deceptive, if you directly follow your objective you don't get there except for easy problems. Exploration and seemingly useless ideas are stepping stones to success, but you can only tell in hindsight. For example, neural nets go directly to the target, they follow the gradient to the desired outcome - that's their main limitation. Evolution on the other hand can sidestep these hard problems, but the price is much trial and error.

I think Steve was one of these explorers who in hindsight were right.

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

#104

Post by JohnBooty »

WhompingWindows wrote: post #72

In a tech world with dozens of "amazing leaders", is it possible that some of them just got lucky? They took some shots in the dark, some got lucky, some got unlucky: can it be that simple? If Steve Jobs was coming up today, could he have owned leetcode and tech interviews, would he have gotten a CS degree, could he have succeeded in a start-up today? Could many of us here in tech now have done what he did? My point…

    If Steve Jobs was coming up today, could he have owned 
    leetcode and tech interviews, would he have gotten a 
    CS degree, could he have succeeded in a start-up today?
I don't think I understand this hypothetical. He didn't go through traditional engineer channels back then, and I doubt he'd have the mindset to care to do it now.

The main difference between then and now is that the tech landscape is so much more mature. "Two guys in a garage" can potentially shape a brand new industry (like microcomputers in the 1970s) but would not disrupt a zillion dollar industry today.

However, broadly speaking, their approach works in general. The pairing of a "visionary and showman" (Jobs) and "genius-level engineer" (Woz) can be really effective. I think most successful small partnerships work this way. Not all of them change the world like Apple, because world-changing revolutions just don't come along that often. Jobs+Woz were a great partnership who happened to catch a really great wave.

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

#106

Post by P_I_Staker »

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.

Does theater improve communication skills (we're also talking about politics and social skills)? It seems there are a ton of performers that are totally inept interpersonally, and would also do bad in the type of group exercises you're talking about.

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

#107

Post by JohnBooty »

mason55 wrote: post #98
deutschew wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Poker tournament is often called the microcosm of our own capitalistic "democratic" world and as I learn how to play it more and more I realize how true this is. As you've said luck is a very very important factor. As you get lucky, you tend to continue getting lucky because the more chips (capital) the cost of failure or unlucky runs is a lot lower than somebody about to be knocked out of the tournament. Playing tig…

The other important major lesson that poker teaches you is that you can make the right decision and still lose, along with the corollaries (winning/losing doesn’t mean you made the right/wrong decision).

Yeah, hugest lesson in life. Just because something worked out, doesn't mean you made the right call.

You can cross the street with your eyes closed and (depending on the street) survive most of the time. Doesn't mean it was the right call.

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

#108

Post by allenu »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #30

Some 15 years ago or so? I don't remember. I was working at Apple on the color and graphics team. I don't even to this day remember what the exact circumstance was, but for some reason me and another engineer were urgently called into a conference room just a week or so before some big Apple product reveal. I feel like it was when the "Aqua" UI was to be revealed — I feel like it was something about the seven label c…

Thanks for sharing the story. I'm always surprised whenever I read about the time it takes to prepare for these presentations. On stage, it looks absolutely effortless, and dare I say, simple? As though the products are so easy to use, they just whipped up this talk a day or two prior.

This is very much in line with the idea that magic tricks work because the audience can't fathom that the magician would go to such lengths to set up their trick:

> Make the secret a lot more trouble than the trick seems worth. You will be fooled by a trick if it involves more time, money and practice than you (or any other sane onlooker) would be willing to invest.

From a previous posting on HN about the magician Teller: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/teller-reveals-h...

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

#109

Post by thunkshift1 »

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 because jobs was a narcissistic prick who knew how to stay in the lime light and took credit from anyone and everyone he could. I personally find it a bit obscene the way silicon valley idolizes him. Lets be honest, if that guy was anyones first level manager, they would gtfo real fast.

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

#110

Post by KingOfCoders »

Lio wrote: post #70
KingOfCoders wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the floppy drives for the C64 were too, a whole computer that could do magic things on it's own. And dozen of other magic things, like Sophie Wilson who I admire most and who did magic things with the Acorns (and of course ARM). The difference is that those people don't spend decades on bad mouthing others. Also the difference is Sophie Wilson does astonishing things all the way until today. Everyone says Wozniak…

Wasn't the C64's 1541 disk drive notoriously rubbish? Not sure I'd use it as an example of something "magic". It cost more than the computer it came with and was almost as slow as a tape deck. For no better reason than the Commodore marketing department thought it should be. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_1541#Throughput_and_... IMHO Woz is genius, Jobs was probably a genius too of a different kind but in th…

"Wasn't the C64's 1541 disk drive notoriously rubbish?"

Not that I can remember my 1541 being rubbish.

"Not sure I'd use it as an example of something "magic"."

It had a 6502 CPU in it and when we run code on the 1541 and detached the cable and it did still run, it felt magic to me. Because it was forty years ago, I can't remember all the details but I think there was a copy program on two drives that run without the c64.

"and was almost as slow as a tape deck."

No it wasn't. When I loaded a game from tape, it was more: Start game, have lunch, play game (I really started loading before lunch quite often). With the disk drive it was: Load, Play. Most people used a fast loader on top of that (Can't remember but I do think I had an Action Replay, but it might that I had one for my A500).

"It cost more than the computer it came with"

That was the case with quite some floppy drives, e.g. the floppy drive to my Amstrad CPC back in the 80s costed as much as the computer too (and contrary to the 1541 I don't think it had a general purpose CPU in it).

[Update] It looks there is a fast loader from 2020 that can do 19k/sec just as an AppleII on a 1541, so it doesn't seem like it's the hardware https://www.c64-wiki.com/wiki/Transwarp

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