Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

cnbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 175 posts

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

#111

Post by sleepybrett »

aesopsfable wrote: post #96
hnlmorg wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say that as if Nokia didn't produce some world class products but they did. There was a era when Nokia handsets were the one everyone wanted. And they were instrumental in building GSM, of which without no mobile phones would exist, let alone iPhones. I'm not going to deny that Nokia lost their way with Symbian handsets but my point is I don't see Apple as being uniquely brilliant. You often see this tide where o…

Not to belittle Nokia or anything, they took already available eg. smart calculators' digital displays adopted to GSM phones. Steve Jobs (Apple) did something no one ever expected, knew, or supported at the time (Steve Ballmer reaction*) Although they make great objects of desire, Toyota is no Tesla, Nokia is no Apple. Wozniak is acting like an ex partner probably because he owes his entire identity to Jobs, an ident…

You can trace the iphone back to, concretely, the newton but even further back if you check out the concepts that got them to the newton. There is a 1997 book called 'Apple Design 1997 The Work of the Apple Industrial Design Group' that shows a ton of concepts and a few 'communication device' concepts (video and audio phone integrated computers). Sadly out of print, and quite expensive for a paperback 'coffee table' style book https://www.amazon.com/Appledesign-Apple-Industrial-Design-G...

Some pictures from inside, including one concept integrated with a telephone handset: https://twitter.com/jamesthomson/status/798542140435480576

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

#112

Post by P_I_Staker »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #84
P_I_Staker wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been interested in whether technical work actually hurts social skills. Maybe not for everyone, but for some. I've found that when I really throw my mind into stuff for extended periods of time, I think my social skills do digress. Maybe it's just in my head. It also seems like many engineers start neglecting their tech skills and their social skills get better. Of course, that's often part of a concerted effort…

> I've been interested in whether technical work actually hurts social skills. Correlation isn't causation. Hurt social skills could also lead to more interest in technical work. ALOT of SWEs aren't interested in people management for that reason, and its a blessing that FAANGs allow people to advance on IC tracks (though still developing some communication skills are necessary as your level rises). As for if practic…

I think the point of my comment got lost a bit. It's like when I start diving deep into technical work, my head spins. I get zoned in, later fatigued, and I think there's some behavior change.

I notice this even in the short term. Sure you could work on both (and most devs are now), and it could just be how people spend time developing their skills, but I feel there was something more there. I felt a growing disconnection from normies that went away when I changed my habits.

In the short term it would be like an acute thing that wore off in a few hours to a few days. If I was doing it long term, it would last longer. Maybe it's in my head. I don't think everyone is effected.

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

#113

Post by sleepybrett »

mrtksn wrote: post #83
hnlmorg wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say that as if Nokia didn't produce some world class products but they did. There was a era when Nokia handsets were the one everyone wanted. And they were instrumental in building GSM, of which without no mobile phones would exist, let alone iPhones. I'm not going to deny that Nokia lost their way with Symbian handsets but my point is I don't see Apple as being uniquely brilliant. You often see this tide where o…

I don't say anything of that sort. Nokia made the best cellphones in the world and was never surpassed - it's just that people stopped using cellphones. In fact, my argument is that Steve Jobs never competed with Nokia. In 2007, Steve Jobs introduced a new type of device that no one else was making. Sure, they had some functionality overlap with some devices but it was completely new thing and everyone rushed to aban…

I have a hard time deciding if the nokia 61xx era phone were the pinnacle at the time or the motorola star-tac flips.

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

#114

Post by bduerst »

mrtksn wrote: post #33
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 disagree, Steve Jobs didn't luck out. Instead, he never went through the filters. Had he tried to become an Aircraft Engineer or a Doctor, he might get filtered out but he and Woz ventured into an unestablished field that was about to boom. There were no filters to keep him out and though he lacked a scholar formation he was exceptionally brilliant and managed to walk the path better than the most. Peter Thiel says…

>instead of making better phone than Nokia he would make something that no one at Nokia or anywhere else even dreamed of.

Aka Blue Ocean product/market strategy.

Basically, rather than being a shark swimming in a ocean that is colored red from the blood of all the other sharks competing, you leave and find a blue ocean.

Sounds good on paper but sometimes that market is much smaller, and/or just being the first-to-market doesn't guarantee you'll be successful.

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

#115

Post by elliekelly »

bar_de wrote: post #63
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…

Would another Steve Jobs personality have a chance at today's corporate environment? I have doubts: leadership is a hot iron where laissez faire approaches are favoured. The cite from Kawasaki that he was "unpleasant and always scary" would surely give a today's Steve Jobs a date with HR. A leader like Steve would be today called "toxic" and probably never promoted at all.

Is that necessarily a bad thing? By all accounts he was a terrible person to work for and with.

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

#116

Post by rowanG077 »

stocknoob wrote: post #37
yyyppp wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's such a disgruntled take. Having a "smart friend" was merely a nice advantage. Jobs' strength was in how he saw the world. His intuition, ability to imagine the future, inspire others and execute on that vision. Marketing and communications skills then almost felt like a by-product of such rare personality traits. I suggest reading "Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple's Greatest Products" or any interviews with J…

It makes me chuckle when people dismiss the industry-defining success of Apple as just marketing. Gee, why don’t their competitors try that?

It's not like marketing like Apple is easy. They build a brand over decades. You can't "just" copy that. Apples brand is absolutely the most valuable thing Apple has.

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

#117

Post by rowanG077 »

kobalsky wrote: post #32
JKCalhoun wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 You can dislike the man, but saying that is not fair, he was far from a one hit wonder. Apple, NeXT, Pixar? those are the ones I recall. Luck won't get you there.

I don't think you got the right idea from his message. Tons of people had smart friends. Hell, I do have some smart friends. Yet I, and most other people with smart friends, don't end up doing even close to what Steve Jobs did.

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

#118

Post by beeboop »

newaccount74 wrote: post #97
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…

I really don't think Steve Jobs was taking shots in the dark. He had remarkable foresight and an uncanny ability to see where the puck was going. Not all of his ideas worked out. But he had a very high success rate. Doing leetcode and tech interviews is not what a young Steve Jobs would be working on today; a young Steve Jobs today would be working on something that most of us wouldn't bother with because we don't se…

>I really don't think Steve Jobs was taking shots in the dark. He had remarkable foresight and an uncanny ability to see where the puck was going.

I think it's impossible to say this confidently. Like many successful people, he simply could have made a series of fortunate decisions that mostly boiled down to luck and timing.

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

#119

Post by unfocussed_mike »

stakkur wrote: post #92

There's no such thing as a 'natural-born leader'.

I came here to say exactly this.

Leaders are taught.

Though I have a sneaking, unscientific suspicion that good leaders may have some neural advantage in theory of mind -- I wonder if they are better at it generally but also better at maintaining and exploring theory of mind for multiple people at once.

A good leader knows what you have already demonstrated you can do, knows what you can't do, and knows how to help you see what you could do. And they can do this with a team of people, including identifying those who have some of this skillset and can be delegated to.

Frankly I am not sure any of this is Jobs, who was very capable of refining ideas but also capable of abandoning them, and who also had some slightly sociopathic traits; he was OK making enemies in the moment, OK telling people exactly what he thought of people bluntly, OK brutally criticising work. And then just as OK going back to those people and starting again with them.

I think Wozniak is right that Jobs had to learn to be a leader, but his fundamental technique in what I have seen seems to be the ability to decide and to re-decide.

I once worked for someone in the UK who had worked for Jobs (albeit with one seemingly rather hapless, permeable management level inbetween). He told a few stories and the impression I get is that Jobs didn't care who saw his temper, but didn't bear grudges, particularly, except against bad concepts. If you were incompetent, you were gone, but that was the end of the ill will.

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

#120

Post by P_I_Staker »

pfraze wrote: post #82
P_I_Staker wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been interested in whether technical work actually hurts social skills. Maybe not for everyone, but for some. I've found that when I really throw my mind into stuff for extended periods of time, I think my social skills do digress. Maybe it's just in my head. It also seems like many engineers start neglecting their tech skills and their social skills get better. Of course, that's often part of a concerted effort…

I’m pretty sure you’re right. Nowadays I tend to be fairly modal: if I’m “in my head” then social contact is bizarre and disruptive and I can’t come off like a human being. If I’m in the other mode, social contact is easy but I’m probably not doing deep work. As a younger engineer, I was locked in my head and all social experiences were difficult.

Yeah, you can become more Sheldon like... it's weird. There's ways to temper this; I've seen it done. You're slower with one liners and fun quips, want to over explain, and get everything right, or just kinda dead and slow. Idk, there's a lot of behaviors, they vary.
Post reply on HN