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Why Founders Should Emulate Wozniak, Not Jobs

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Re: Why Founders Should Emulate Wozniak, Not Jobs

#81

Post by redthrowaway »

comedian wrote: post #65
trevor99 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks pg. My intent was not to bash Jobs, quite the opposite as I called him "one of the best CEOs ever to live" in the conclusion. My goal is to reflect on what skills are really important in an early startup. The Apple II wasn't a success because of Jobs's leadership or because of his design focus like with the iPhone. Founders don't think about Markkula's role in getting the Apple II mainstream. Furthermore, Jobs…

"I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed." -Michael Jordan

Was he the one who actually came up with that? It sounds suspiciously like Nike ad copy. In fact, it would make a very good Nike ad.

Re: Why Founders Should Emulate Wozniak, Not Jobs

#82

Post by pbreit »

This article and the author's subsequent attempts to defend it demonstrate a colossal misunderstanding of valuable founder attributes. The role of the hustler is being horrendously under-appreciated. It would be easier to make the case that Jobs was the quintessential founder. Jobs basically willed the company into existence dragging Woz along and installing Markkulla for credibility. From the get go, Jobs had an impeccable talent for finding the very best employees, convincing them to join the crusade and then getting the best out of them.

The downvoting is warranted because the author doesn't seem to think there's a chance he's wrong.

Re: Why Founders Should Emulate Wozniak, Not Jobs

#83

Post by pbreit »

trevor99 wrote: post #59
pg wrote: post #53

Sadly, this is not one of the honeypots Wesley Tansey recently suggested I set up ( http://www.nashcoding.com/2011/10/28/hackernews-needs-honeyp... ). As someone who has seen dozens of Woz-founder-only startups march into the meatgrinder of obscurity, I can tell you that if you have to be one or the other, you're better off being Jobs. Not that you have much choice about it though. If you're a natural Jobs you're not…

Thanks pg. My intent was not to bash Jobs, quite the opposite as I called him "one of the best CEOs ever to live" in the conclusion. My goal is to reflect on what skills are really important in an early startup. The Apple II wasn't a success because of Jobs's leadership or because of his design focus like with the iPhone. Founders don't think about Markkula's role in getting the Apple II mainstream. Furthermore, Jobs…

The most valuable skill in a startup is Jobs-style hustling. The whole article and your attempts to defend it are misguided.

Re: Why Founders Should Emulate Wozniak, Not Jobs

#84

Post by lparry »

trevor99 wrote: post #31
rmason wrote: post #29

Take Jobs, Wozniak or Markula out of the picture and Apple fails. You needed a hustler/product guy, a brilliant engineer and a great business mind for success. Jobs legend was created because he built upon his skills. He enhanced his ability to spot and aquire great talent and learned (the hard way) how to become a great businessman.

True, but the least important in the mix was Jobs.

Take a step back from being the author of this article, take a deep breath, and read through the whole of this comments page and try to get a feeling for the big picture.

From an non-vested point of view, I see an article presenting a point of view, 95% of comments disagreeing with the article, and the remaining 5% are you telling them they're wrong.

It feels like you've got a bit of an axe to grind. You've said your piece, now it's time to just accept that not everyone (or in fact most hacker news readers this morning) agrees with you

Re: Why Founders Should Emulate Wozniak, Not Jobs

#85

Post by akkartik »

stonemetal wrote: post #79
akkartik wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I'm going to start flagging every Jobs story from now on. This has gone on long enough.

Don't bother you just lose your ability to flag.

Really? Interesting. Can you point me at the source?

Perhaps I'm being downvoted because people think I'm going to stop exercising judgement. I meant merely that I was going to be less lazy.

Re: Why Founders Should Emulate Wozniak, Not Jobs

#86

Post by trevor99 »

salem wrote: post #76
trevor99 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you be more specific about Wozniak's equal amount of failures? Not quite sure I agree.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheels_of_Zeus

this failure happened after his initial success, not before

Re: Why Founders Should Emulate Wozniak, Not Jobs

#88

Post by Someone »

trevor99 wrote: post #59
pg wrote: post #53

Sadly, this is not one of the honeypots Wesley Tansey recently suggested I set up ( http://www.nashcoding.com/2011/10/28/hackernews-needs-honeyp... ). As someone who has seen dozens of Woz-founder-only startups march into the meatgrinder of obscurity, I can tell you that if you have to be one or the other, you're better off being Jobs. Not that you have much choice about it though. If you're a natural Jobs you're not…

Thanks pg. My intent was not to bash Jobs, quite the opposite as I called him "one of the best CEOs ever to live" in the conclusion. My goal is to reflect on what skills are really important in an early startup. The Apple II wasn't a success because of Jobs's leadership or because of his design focus like with the iPhone. Founders don't think about Markkula's role in getting the Apple II mainstream. Furthermore, Jobs…

Are you sure about that? I do not almost nothing about those early years, but I get the impression that what made the Apple ][ a success is that it got accepted as a office machine. It got that status because it had a case and a keyboard.

VisiCalc played a role here, too, but I think it came to the Apple ][ because it was (relatively) popular in business, and then helped increase sales, rather then that it made the Apple ][ popular completely on its own.

Now, why did the Apple ][ get a case to start with? I think that was more Jobs' than Woz's work (" rel="nofollow">http://allaboutstevejobs.com/blog/tag/woz/>)

Re: Why Founders Should Emulate Wozniak, Not Jobs

#89

Post by dgregd »

pg wrote: post #53

Sadly, this is not one of the honeypots Wesley Tansey recently suggested I set up ( http://www.nashcoding.com/2011/10/28/hackernews-needs-honeyp... ). As someone who has seen dozens of Woz-founder-only startups march into the meatgrinder of obscurity, I can tell you that if you have to be one or the other, you're better off being Jobs. Not that you have much choice about it though. If you're a natural Jobs you're not…

Ironically, the new algorithm does not allow people learn on their mistakes. Their upvoted score is silently incremented and that's all.

BTW it is actually quite valuable for new people to look through that article and read later comments about why it is bad. To learn how to read critically articles posted on HN and elsewhere.

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