Live data from Hacker News

Think different about Jobs

james.cridland.net

141–150 of 200 posts

Re: Think different about Jobs

#141
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had worked for a company that spent 1 million dollars to make a J2ME game. It never even came out.

Ooh. Is this a story you can tell? I'd like to hear more about this.

Not much to tell. The cost was because of testing, but by the time the app actually ran, the band wasn't interested anymore and people's interest in handset games was waning.

Re: Think different about Jobs

#142
post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>The "bad" qualities are what made them effective. If they didn't have them, you would never have heard of them. Please justify the above statement. How could you possibly know that? What is to say that these people would not have gone to achieve even greater heights if it had not been for their bad qualities? There is something incredibly depressing about this attitude that pretty much states that it's okay to be a…

> Please justify the above statement. How could you possibly know that? Please provide an example of a single billionare or minor celebrity who isn't an asshole. The fact that you can't is evidence enough. > There is something incredibly depressing about this attitude What is really depressing is that you feel your life isn't worthwhile unless you are incredibly "successful" and you define success as being filthy ric…

>Please provide an example of a single billionare or minor celebrity who isn't an asshole.

What about Warren Buffett?

Re: Think different about Jobs

#143
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ooh. Is this a story you can tell? I'd like to hear more about this.

Not much to tell. The cost was because of testing, but by the time the app actually ran, the band wasn't interested anymore and people's interest in handset games was waning.

How did testing end up costing a million dollars? Forgive my naiveté.

Re: Think different about Jobs

#144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hear hear. You make a point that is true as the day is long - one which nobody wants to hear. Not long ago I became a boss and tried to be a textbook good one: paying generously, being generous in general (e.g. vacation/sick days on the honor system), being a real sweetheart, asking nicely, giving credit, supporting their initiatives, giving control… My employees were smart, capable, and hard-working, so I should tru…

You should give a good instance / concrete example of what your previous employees did that demonstrates your provided view... 1. It entertains us even more! 2. Half the time it turns out the problem is really with the person talking (there is a reality distortion field turned on).

Here's a couple of telling examples: I asked one of them to read a book on improving customer service and give me a report with 3 suggestions for what we could do. It never happened. Asked her to call a company to arrange the purchase & delivery of glass whiteboards. Never happened.

This is not hard stuff.

When my partner was VERY sick and yet we had a major server problem, and he went into the office to fix it -- telling them he was on his way -- both employees expressed anger at him for kicking them out after they had left the house & were on their way. (They didn't want to catch his virus.) This is despite the fact that this server problem meant we weren't able to charge customers. The most obnoxious one bitched later about the cleanliness of the office -- apparently my sick partner left Theraflu packets lying about in the kitchen.

She also made derogatory comments about the way I wrote the copy on the site, after I clearly told her it was a matter of branding.

When I held a meeting on "how we could work together better," one of the employees had the gall to tell me "Sometimes you hover." This is the employee who failed to complete basic tasks. I told her, "If I hover, it's because I don't feel like I know what's going on. You could give me more updates." Of course, the real reason I hovered was because the work didn't get done. (And trust me, I didn't start off hovering -- I don't have the time and energy to waste on it, that's why I fired them.) I probably should have just reamed her out right then -- maybe that would have clarified things. But I don't think I should have to tell somebody something so obvious.

Naturally, when I would walk around our teeny tiny office, every time I went over to this employee's desk, she'd have Facebook up.

The few times the employees did come up with an idea, I praised them and told them to make it happen. We'd sit and make plans, I'd outline what I wanted to see, and when I wanted to see it, but "somehow" they never kept it up.

I'm sure I'm not the ideal boss. Obviously I spoiled them and led them to believe they were more important & more critical than they were. Nevertheless, I never yelled, never criticized in public, never did any number of "bad boss" things that might have actually gotten me what I wanted. I tried to accommodate them and be gentle. Instead, I had to fire them. Sad.

Re: Think different about Jobs

#146
post #81
post #63

Isaacson's book is a hatchet job, with many errors, and some downright dishonest statements. It is a shame that Jobs cooperated with that hack. In numerous passages, Isaacson will quote Jobs saying something perfectly truthful[1], and then follow it up with a claim that Jobs is lying. Most of the time, he doesn't provide any evidence that Jobs is lying, just the assertion, because, as Isaacson is careful to tell us m…

Honestly, I don't really care about how good Apple products are or how innovative are. I don't use them, I don't hate them either. It's just not for me. My beef with apple is how they felt entitled to control the devices that apple made but consumers own, making them unhackable. When I buy something, I own it, period. I should be able to reverse engineer anything on the market, because I obtained the copy. I don't gi…

10-15 years ago, a true monopoly was in control of PCs: Microsoft. I couldn't use Linux or Mac at work. I had to use Windows to share documents because I couldn't get onto the network shares to access them. I couldn't access the internet because my ISP required Windows only software to get online.

Microsoft had 'won' and we all lost our freedom to use software that doesn't suck.

Luckily, this was a temporary state. I promise you, if Apple 'wins' the mobile war, their victory will not affect you for long.

Further more, if Android 'wins', we're much more screwed. I've already lived in a world of feature phones controlled by the carriers. I did not like it one bit and I had far less freedom than I do now with my iPhone.

Re: Think different about Jobs

#147
post #77
post #63

Isaacson's book is a hatchet job, with many errors, and some downright dishonest statements. It is a shame that Jobs cooperated with that hack. In numerous passages, Isaacson will quote Jobs saying something perfectly truthful[1], and then follow it up with a claim that Jobs is lying. Most of the time, he doesn't provide any evidence that Jobs is lying, just the assertion, because, as Isaacson is careful to tell us m…

Do you really think Steve Jobs, a man obsessed with his legacy, would authorize a hatchet job?

It's not often that people get to pick who writes their biography, I think it's very possible that Jobs picked the wrong guy.

Re: Think different about Jobs

#148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure the Foxconn suicide casualties didn't just have hurt feelings.

Suicide rates in populations around the world is much higher than you think. [1] The media don't report on them generally (if they did, there'd be more stories about them than horrific car crashes that the news outlets report on). Car crashes in the US kill 40,000 people per year [2], and the US has a suicide rate of 11.1 per 100,000. With a population of 300 million, that's over 300,000 suicides in the US per year.…

You're comparing a semi-controlled environment (Foxconn) to entire fucking society. That's some pretty shoddy statistics to say the least.

Re: Think different about Jobs

#149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suicide rates in populations around the world is much higher than you think. [1] The media don't report on them generally (if they did, there'd be more stories about them than horrific car crashes that the news outlets report on). Car crashes in the US kill 40,000 people per year [2], and the US has a suicide rate of 11.1 per 100,000. With a population of 300 million, that's over 300,000 suicides in the US per year.…

Downvoted. I was with you (and had upvoted your earlier posts) until the last sentence.

And why is that worthy of a downvote? Suicides aren't valid negative things? I am not against Steve Jobs. But to say all he did was hurt feelings is ignorant. He hurt feelings and perpetuated a supply chain with a lot of negative elements to it. And no, Apple is not the only company doing it.

Re: Think different about Jobs

#150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a pretty clear way of looking it. The problem I have is that these attitudes are fragile. If you have a monarch, for example, with complete control over a country and who has tons of money and doesn't need to ask for permission, he can build a great nation of he's a good person. When he dies and his son, who's an asshole but equally determined and powerful, takes over, now you have a bad situation. Fortunately…

There are tons of behaviors which are great if you're right and bad if you're wrong. Should we never stand up for what we believe in? Should we let others decide things because we might be wrong? And keep in mind that bad people won't care about these arguments. Only good people with reasonable and healthy self-doubt will be convinced to make less of an impact, and that's the opposite of what we should want.

I'm not at odds with your opinion, I agree. My point is that a lot of other fragile attitudes impact the person holding them. But a cavalier attitude like with Jobs or people set on having an impact on the world is fragile in that it can impact many others. That's the only concern with me.
Post reply on HN