Steve Jobs emails himself (2010) • Hacker News Board

Re: Steve Jobs emails himself (2010)

#231

Post by joelthelion » Thu, Sep 08, 2022, 3:10 PM UTC

rr3932 wrote: post #211

fennecfoxy wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Afaik he did know programming at a basic level, which back in those days meant that he knew enough to get something working without all of the tools, etc that we have today. But it was Woz who was the true hardware/software talent; he spent his childhood designing processors that he didn't have the money to build. He was fascinated with circuits & electronics & processors. Steve worked at Atari but got Woz in to do t…

I think Steve's most important skill was the ability to say no. But even more important, was his ability to say no and that the person he said no to listened, agreed he said no, and then stopped working on the thing and tried to do something better. If you've ever worked in a large company you know how rare that is and how critical that is.

Saying no is overrated.

I mean, of course, it's a good thing to know when to say no, if used parsimoniously.

The problem is that we now have zillions of wannabee Steve Jobs who believe saying no to everything automatically makes them brilliant visionaries.

Re: Steve Jobs emails himself (2010)

#232

Post by hindsightbias » Thu, Sep 08, 2022, 3:35 PM UTC

sidcool wrote: post #48

It's a habit of the internet diaspora to label a person either good or bad; binary, with no wiggle room to model the complexity of psychology. Steve, like any other human, is a shade of grey. He did some awful things and some great ones. That's that. It neither makes him a monster nor a saint. It makes him a... Human.

A couple decades back, Jobs was the hero and Gates was the monster. There is no hyperbole in that statement.

Younger folks don’t remember that world. I wonder who of their heroes today will be the monsters of tomorrow.

Re: Steve Jobs emails himself (2010)

#233

Post by hnfong » Thu, Sep 08, 2022, 3:35 PM UTC

joelthelion wrote: post #231

rr3932 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Steve's most important skill was the ability to say no. But even more important, was his ability to say no and that the person he said no to listened, agreed he said no, and then stopped working on the thing and tried to do something better. If you've ever worked in a large company you know how rare that is and how critical that is.

Saying no is overrated. I mean, of course, it's a good thing to know when to say no, if used parsimoniously. The problem is that we now have zillions of wannabee Steve Jobs who believe saying no to everything automatically makes them brilliant visionaries.

It just means saying "yes" to the right things, and nothing more, is crucial.

Which is a just very roundabout way of saying success comes from consistently making good choices...

Re: Steve Jobs emails himself (2010)

#234

Post by system2 » Thu, Sep 08, 2022, 3:45 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #205

system2 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ultra rich people don't need religion. Religion is for the people in need.

Please don't take HN threads into religious flamewar. Last thing we need here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

My apologies. I was simply responding to a religious argument but got carried away.

Re: Steve Jobs emails himself (2010)

#235

Post by Gordonjcp » Thu, Sep 08, 2022, 3:47 PM UTC

fennecfoxy wrote: post #156

testmasterflex wrote: post #4

Makes me think of something I always wondered; did Steve know programming? He did work at Atari right? I think I’ve always attributed Steve’s huge success to 3 things; Meeting Woz, Meeting Markkula and spending a lot of time to practise articulating himself. I must admit, I envy the man. Who doesn’t. Apple is a fantastic company and keeps releasing great products.

Afaik he did know programming at a basic level, which back in those days meant that he knew enough to get something working without all of the tools, etc that we have today. But it was Woz who was the true hardware/software talent; he spent his childhood designing processors that he didn't have the money to build. He was fascinated with circuits & electronics & processors. Steve worked at Atari but got Woz in to do t…

> Dude had power trip/anger issues to the max.

Well yeah, of course, he was a vegan. He lived in a state of perpetual malnourishment that left him unable to maintain a calm and rational state.

That's almost certainly why, on finding out he had the only curable form of pancreatic cancer, he decided that the answer was to stick coffee up his bum.

Re: Steve Jobs emails himself (2010)

#236

Post by sporkland » Thu, Sep 08, 2022, 4:13 PM UTC

The deep irony of this is that Apple's approach to the digital ecosystem is to only have this type of model within the Apple universe. Jobs' was like it takes a village and Tim Cook is like "buy her an iphone" (in response to a person complaining about lack of interop on SMS/RCS such that his mom couldn't send videos to his iphone).

Re: Steve Jobs emails himself (2010)

#237

Post by rr3932 » Thu, Sep 08, 2022, 4:19 PM UTC

joelthelion wrote: post #231

rr3932 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Steve's most important skill was the ability to say no. But even more important, was his ability to say no and that the person he said no to listened, agreed he said no, and then stopped working on the thing and tried to do something better. If you've ever worked in a large company you know how rare that is and how critical that is.

Saying no is overrated. I mean, of course, it's a good thing to know when to say no, if used parsimoniously. The problem is that we now have zillions of wannabee Steve Jobs who believe saying no to everything automatically makes them brilliant visionaries.

It's easy to say no. The hard part is getting people to listen and that's what Steve Jobs did especially well. That was the point I was trying to make.

I've been on a ton of teams where everyone agreed we were not going to do a feature. Only to have that person go back to working on that feature because it was important to them and the work they were supposed to be doing, which the team depended on, didn't get done.

In my experience, this is a serious issue in large corporations and it happens at the individual, group and even division level. Apple, under Steve Jobs, didn't seem to have this problem and they seemed to get a ton done, with comparatively quite small teams, because of it.

Re: Steve Jobs emails himself (2010)

#238

Post by hnfong » Thu, Sep 08, 2022, 4:58 PM UTC

hindsightbias wrote: post #232

sidcool wrote: post #48

It's a habit of the internet diaspora to label a person either good or bad; binary, with no wiggle room to model the complexity of psychology. Steve, like any other human, is a shade of grey. He did some awful things and some great ones. That's that. It neither makes him a monster nor a saint. It makes him a... Human.

A couple decades back, Jobs was the hero and Gates was the monster. There is no hyperbole in that statement. Younger folks don’t remember that world. I wonder who of their heroes today will be the monsters of tomorrow.

I shudder to think that Zuckerberg could be the hero of tomorrow :D

Re: Steve Jobs emails himself (2010)

#239

Post by junon » Thu, Sep 08, 2022, 5:20 PM UTC

quitit wrote: post #178

junon wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't how dialog on Hacker News works.

I see you write this a lot. You also spend a lot of time throwing stones from your glasshouse. Change comes from within.

I've said it exactly twice over the entire lifetime of my account. Try harder.

Re: Steve Jobs emails himself (2010)

#240

Post by thenoblesunfish » Thu, Sep 08, 2022, 5:38 PM UTC

Just to make sure someone says it, this is interesting partially because most people wouldn't feel that these sorts of statements were remarkable enough to write down. This is a record of a man finding it remarkable that actually he isn't responsible for the majority of mankind's progress.