Apparently he died of an extremely rare variant of pancreatic cancer called node.js
In Praise of Bad Steve
31–40 of 86 posts
Re: In Praise of Bad Steve
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think that's really justified. Jobs had a long career, and only two real industry-dominating hits: the Apple II (most of which was Woz's work) and the iPhone. A lot of the hyperbole we're seeing right now is because Jobs had the mis/fortune to die at the very peak of his hit. Had we all been doing the same analysis in the mid-90's when NeXT was failing and Pixar a mostly academic curiosity, I doubt anyone wou…
I think it's more than the just the Apple II and the iPhone. The way I see it, the man's main hobby was disruption. He disrupted the PC industry with the Apple II and later the Mac line. He disrupted the music industry with the iPod and iTunes, and the phone industry with the iPhone. He changed the animation industry with Pixar one of the most successful, both financially, and critically acclaimed movie company. He r…
I don't think you know what disruption is.
The PC industry is working just fine, and a Mac and PC are more similar than they are different.
The music industry has hardly changed due to the iPod, you sell one way you sell another - that's not disruption.
And the phone industry most certainly did not change, it's just an incremental improvement on the fancy phones that have been getting steadily better. The iPhone may be great, but fundamentally it's just a better version of what was already there.
His business was taking an idea and perfecting it so people liked and used it. But it was not disruption.
Re: In Praise of Bad Steve
#33This idea of people as heroes or villains strikes me as being myopic. The very idea that people can be either good or bad shows that we're all just mushrooms growing out of a much larger mycelium. Ever notice that so many of the most popular American tourist destinations are places like machu picchu, the great wall of china, the pyramids, etc? The fact that these places exist says far less about their creators than i…
Contrary to popular belief, the pyramids weren't built by slaves. They needed precision and skill. http://www.nationalgeographic.com/pyramids/pyramids.html#who
I always thought that was a terrible argument. So they weren't slaves like blacks in the US south, but they could have still been slaves.
Slaves can have skill, families and pride in their work. Historically some slaves were trusted to go out on their own and do business for their owner, and not run away!
Some slaves became so important to their master than they actually inherited the estate when the master died.
So they may have been high level slaves, but slaves nonetheless.
Re: In Praise of Bad Steve
#34I've never worked for Apple and never really aspired to, mostly because my interests didn't overlap with what I thought I would probably be doing there, but partly, I have to admit, because I had heard the stories of Steve the tyrant and was put off by them. Maybe my ego is sturdier now, because I wonder if I wouldn't have enjoyed the challenges he set people. One thing is for sure, you could know that if you did wha…
I've worked briefly at Apple, but had only one face-to-face encounter with Steve. It was intensely scary. He was loved -- LOVED -- on the Apple campus. But he was also feared. And I felt that fear when I saw him. He was, and remains, the only person I've been genuinely "star struck" upon encountering. A lot of that was born of admiration, but just as much was born of terror.
In retrospect, I realized that I wasn't really afraid of Steve. I was afraid of myself: my limitations, my shortcomings, my relative talent (or lack thereof), and my performance in life vis-a-vis my self-theorized potential. When I saw Steve Jobs in the flesh, I saw an embodiment of everything I was not, and probably never would be. Frankly, I felt like a fraud. I felt unworthy.
A lot of that seems silly now, and will strike readers of this post as childish, if not fawningly fanboyish. But it was a very intense feeling that he inspired, even if unintentionally.
Re: In Praise of Bad Steve
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think that's really justified. Jobs had a long career, and only two real industry-dominating hits: the Apple II (most of which was Woz's work) and the iPhone. A lot of the hyperbole we're seeing right now is because Jobs had the mis/fortune to die at the very peak of his hit. Had we all been doing the same analysis in the mid-90's when NeXT was failing and Pixar a mostly academic curiosity, I doubt anyone wou…
I think it's more than the just the Apple II and the iPhone. The way I see it, the man's main hobby was disruption. He disrupted the PC industry with the Apple II and later the Mac line. He disrupted the music industry with the iPod and iTunes, and the phone industry with the iPhone. He changed the animation industry with Pixar one of the most successful, both financially, and critically acclaimed movie company. He r…
I think you nailed it quite well, it is not about WHAT he did, but HOW he did it. Disruption was his way of doing things. And it matches quite well his "Think Different" heros, all of them were disrupters.
Re: In Praise of Bad Steve
#36I've never worked for Apple and never really aspired to, mostly because my interests didn't overlap with what I thought I would probably be doing there, but partly, I have to admit, because I had heard the stories of Steve the tyrant and was put off by them. Maybe my ego is sturdier now, because I wonder if I wouldn't have enjoyed the challenges he set people. One thing is for sure, you could know that if you did wha…
I've worked briefly at Apple, but had only one face-to-face encounter with Steve. It was intensely scary. He was loved -- LOVED -- on the Apple campus. But he was also feared. And I felt that fear when I saw him. He was, and remains, the only person I've been genuinely "star struck" upon encountering. A lot of that was born of admiration, but just as much was born of terror. In retrospect, I realized that I wasn't re…
99% of corporate executives and celebrities are underwhelming in actuality. You find yourself saying, "I could do that" or at least, "I know someone who could do his job". And you know what? Most of the time, that sense is right. The people on the top of society's heap are generally not more interesting or talented than the average HN poster-- possibly less so.
Steve Jobs is not in that category. His combination of vision, discipline, and courage is unusual.
Re: In Praise of Bad Steve
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
It could be, but I've heard this same story told about a Sony exec. instead of Steve, and that was before iPod's time. It was a camera that he dropped into a body of water though. The rest is same.
Doing as exhaustive of a search as I could, I found a couple of interesting things. The Sony version of the parable seems to center on the Walkman (as opposed to a camera), which was built in the late 1970s, and either Akio Morita or Masaru Ibuka (co-founders of Sony). However, the earliest reference on the Internet to it I can find is from September 2002 [^1], about a year after the iPod was released, making its ori…
Well, the story might well be completely made up, but the chances are higher that it was made up about Sony not Apple. Probably around the time of when the first Walkman was released.
Let's not forget that early Apple was modelled after Sony of the time. Also, under the context of Japanese culture the kind of attitude displayed by the 'boss' in the story is less striking or unusual.
Re: In Praise of Bad Steve
#38This idea of people as heroes or villains strikes me as being myopic. The very idea that people can be either good or bad shows that we're all just mushrooms growing out of a much larger mycelium. Ever notice that so many of the most popular American tourist destinations are places like machu picchu, the great wall of china, the pyramids, etc? The fact that these places exist says far less about their creators than i…
Contrary to popular belief, the pyramids weren't built by slaves. They needed precision and skill. http://www.nationalgeographic.com/pyramids/pyramids.html#who
High-skill slaves have a strong presence in history. Romans bought Greek slaves for their literacy, and the Ottoman Empire had slaves who managed to work in substantially high-skill intellectual jobs, but were still slaves.
Re: In Praise of Bad Steve
#39There is no doubt he left his mark on the world. However, I'd bet that > 90% of people who are praising him now would never have enjoyed working for him in any capacity.
Working for him in a mentor/protege context with mutual respect and trust would have been (despite the immense difficulty and enormous high expectations) a great opportunity. Working for him as just a regular VP? Not as much. Probably not worth the stress.
Re: In Praise of Bad Steve
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
Contrary to popular belief, the pyramids weren't built by slaves. They needed precision and skill. http://www.nationalgeographic.com/pyramids/pyramids.html#who
I always thought that was a terrible argument. So they weren't slaves like blacks in the US south, but they could have still been slaves. Slaves can have skill, families and pride in their work. Historically some slaves were trusted to go out on their own and do business for their owner, and not run away! Some slaves became so important to their master than they actually inherited the estate when the master died. So…
"So they weren't slaves like blacks in the US south, but they could have still been slaves."
Relationships are complicated, maybe its best not to put labels on things.
In all seriousness though, regardless of what their specific status was, most societies where people are building things like pyramids tend to be pretty messed up.