Live data from Hacker News

President Obama on Steve Jobs: "He Changed the Way Each of Us Sees the World"

whitehouse.gov

21–30 of 63 posts

Re: President Obama on Steve Jobs: "He Changed the Way Each of Us Sees the World"

#21
Mr. Jobs was an amazing person. I sincerely hope the President is mourning his loss. Unfortunately, his prior statements make me wonder whether he truly understood what Mr. Jobs added to our culture through the inventions he helped pioneer.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/7...

Re: President Obama on Steve Jobs: "He Changed the Way Each of Us Sees the World"

#22
post #19
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you(or the president) think exaggerating his accomplishments is warranted or even tasteful? It's not 100% true, I know plenty of people with no apple devices, who don't care at all about apple or it's products. Personality cults like this are embarrassing, and a major weakness for critical thinking. Celebrate the man for what he did, not some deified hero icon.

Even if you don't own anything made by Apple and don't care at all about it, it's hard to deny that it has had a major influence on computing, and through that on the modern world in general.

That's fair. I don't see a lot of balanced assessment though.

Re: President Obama on Steve Jobs: "He Changed the Way Each of Us Sees the World"

#23
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's all too easy to play up the impact that artists, politicians, and speakers have, we see them foisting their worldview on the Universe and begging people to accept it and to be changed by it. But artisans and industrialists can have just as much if not greater impact. Steve Jobs invented, perfected, and helped popularized devices, services, and ideas that affected many, many people's lives and livelihoods. Unimag…

Respect is honoring his accomplishments, inflating them is disrespectful.

It is no inflation to say this man is the greatest inventor/innovator I have seen in my life time. Saying someone is great does not take greatness away from anyone else. Many people can be great, Steve was great.

Re: President Obama on Steve Jobs: "He Changed the Way Each of Us Sees the World"

#24
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It saddens me that the engineers and workers who actually designed and built the stuff will die unknown. Just reinforces that fame, popularity, charisma, self-promotion, wealth, and the ability to "manage" trump deep technical abilities.

https://twitter.com/cperciva/status/121744770480615425 a retweet (not me). but, it struck a chord with me.

"Why do we care more about salesmen than scientists?"

Saying Jobs was /just/ a salesman is beyond incorrect.

But on a deeper level: making a useful widget is one thing, succeeding at convincing the world that they need it is quite another.

ideas are nice, products are better, but Jobs could execute like none-other

Re: President Obama on Steve Jobs: "He Changed the Way Each of Us Sees the World"

#25

"Steve was among the greatest of American innovators - brave enough to think differently, bold enough to believe he could change the world, and talented enough to do it." "think differently" <-- i wonder if this was intentional.

I thought the same. Nice homage, to be sure.

Re: President Obama on Steve Jobs: "He Changed the Way Each of Us Sees the World"

#26
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It saddens me that the engineers and workers who actually designed and built the stuff will die unknown. Just reinforces that fame, popularity, charisma, self-promotion, wealth, and the ability to "manage" trump deep technical abilities.

https://twitter.com/cperciva/status/121744770480615425 a retweet (not me). but, it struck a chord with me.

Harder to evaluate the value of scientist's legacy. And, apart from being entrepreneur's inspiration, Steve is a bit of a pop figure.

Or it's simply that salesmen are more popular as it's them who bring the results of scientists' work to lives of millions.

Re: President Obama on Steve Jobs: "He Changed the Way Each of Us Sees the World"

#27
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Respect is honoring his accomplishments, inflating them is disrespectful.

It is no inflation to say this man is the greatest inventor/innovator I have seen in my life time. Saying someone is great does not take greatness away from anyone else. Many people can be great, Steve was great.

>It is no inflation to say this man is the greatest inventor/innovator I have seen in my life time. ... Many people can be great, Steve was great.

Steve seems more of an amazing businessman and salesman, with exceptional taste, than inventor/innovator. Apple's considerable achievements come largely from taking the inventions of others and making them attractive to the marketplace.

Re: President Obama on Steve Jobs: "He Changed the Way Each of Us Sees the World"

#28

"And there may be no greater tribute to Steve’s success than the fact that much of the world learned of his passing on a device he invented." <--- This is most telling.

Not to be a douche(I shed some tears upon hearing the news and remain a tad shocked), but the accuracy of the above statement by Obama is very questionable IMO. Vast majority of the world still doesn't own an Apple device, I'd argue. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

That said, I did hear the news from my iPhone. And this comment? It's also coming from the same thing.

Re: President Obama on Steve Jobs: "He Changed the Way Each of Us Sees the World"

#29
post #13
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It saddens me that the engineers and workers who actually designed and built the stuff will die unknown. Just reinforces that fame, popularity, charisma, self-promotion, wealth, and the ability to "manage" trump deep technical abilities.

Without the assistance of a person (or people) with all of those other characteristics, deep technical abilities accomplish nothing. If it were not for Steve the engineers and workers who actually designed and built the stuff would still have died unknown and they would have also probably died without having anything of significance to point to and say "I helped create that."

Steve gave massive credit to the talent and sweat of Apple's engineers and designers in nearly every keynote. He was as humble as you could expect of a CEO.

Re: President Obama on Steve Jobs: "He Changed the Way Each of Us Sees the World"

#30

"And there may be no greater tribute to Steve’s success than the fact that much of the world learned of his passing on a device he invented." <--- This is most telling.

Not to be a douche(I shed some tears upon hearing the news and remain a tad shocked), but the accuracy of the above statement by Obama is very questionable IMO. Vast majority of the world still doesn't own an Apple device, I'd argue. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. That said, I did hear the news from my iPhone. And this comment? It's also coming from the same thing.

"much of the world" not "most of the world"

It's a subtle difference in wording, but the meaning is very different.

Post reply on HN