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Make Something Wonderful – Steve Jobs in his own words

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Re: Make Something Wonderful – Steve Jobs in his own words

#71

Post by detourdog »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #65
jrowen wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's amazing to me is how some people continually try to minimize him. The proof is in the pudding. He assembled the top talent to produce the best products that pushed our experience with technology forward. Very few people are able to do that. Any time someone says "oh he just," it says more about their own insecurity than him. Yeah he had a lot of help, yeah he had personal relationship issues, he's not a god, b…

I don't think I can agree with this take. > He assembled the top talent to produce the best products that pushed our experience with technology forward. Assembling top talent is something a lot of people could do, what made Jobs special is that he did that while still actually giving a shit about the quality of the product his company produced. "Oh, he just" is less a way of dismissing jobs than it is a way of saying…

It was never about the technology it was always about what the technology can do for us. This point of view is often hard for engineers or the actual people developing the technology.

Re: Make Something Wonderful – Steve Jobs in his own words

#72

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

rrgok wrote: post #58

This may feel a little depressing, but I would like to hear the HN community's thoughts on this. Every time I hear about making progress or creating something beautiful, the first thing that comes to mind is: for how long? As humans, do we think about how long we are going to chase the ever-moving goal post of progress? Do we have a ballpark idea of it? Or are we moving like a dog chasing its own tail, going in circl…

> Software Engineering make me only realize that people are never happy.

I'm not convinced this is an innate property of humanity, rather I think it is a conditioned behavior to keep us buying things. Pay attention to what marketing tells you, what it really tells you, behind the ostensible message. It is not telling you good things about yourself or your life, and it is bombarding you constantly with these intrusive thoughts.

Re: Make Something Wonderful – Steve Jobs in his own words

#74

Post by [deleted] »

iamerroragent wrote: post #42
manmal wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That could imply that humans are very low dimensional, such that a habit of not listening to doctors immediately carries over into their product design habits. Have you found this to be the case about humans? I personally haven't. I've experienced humans to be highly complex and multi layered, often applying different concepts and world views to different domains. In some areas they are driven by fear, in other areas…

I've worked hand-in-hand with technologly static religiously devout Amish. They listen to their doctor.

[deleted]

Re: Make Something Wonderful – Steve Jobs in his own words

#75

Post by kitsunesoba »

chrisweekly wrote: post #53
kitsunesoba wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This attitudes extends to so many different areas, especially in technology, where hostility to good taste and style is often seen as something to be lauded, with the idea that somehow, technical brilliance and design chops are inversely correlated and can’t co-exist. There's a fair chance I've misread the situation, but I don't think it's good taste and style is what's being pushed back against in these situations…

Good points. Nit / correction (for helpfulness not pedantry) tenant: renter or occupant vs tenet: guiding principle

Nice catch, fixed.

Re: Make Something Wonderful – Steve Jobs in his own words

#76

Post by kitsunesoba »

sangnoir wrote: post #68
kitsunesoba wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This attitudes extends to so many different areas, especially in technology, where hostility to good taste and style is often seen as something to be lauded, with the idea that somehow, technical brilliance and design chops are inversely correlated and can’t co-exist. There's a fair chance I've misread the situation, but I don't think it's good taste and style is what's being pushed back against in these situations…

> Most people I think aren't opposed to well designed UI that incorporates a central tenant of Jobs', which is that design is functionality and not purely visual Jobs loved skeuomorpism, which isn't inherently bad, but having iOS UI elements reproduce the stitching from seats in his private jet skews close to "purely visual". Also, the (early) iOS date picker was unforgivable - I assume Jobs was aware of its existenc…

Extreme skeuomorphism I would agree is purely visual, but I think there’s a lot of functional value in buttons looking like buttons and other visual indicators of function.

Re: Make Something Wonderful – Steve Jobs in his own words

#77

Post by petilon »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #65
jrowen wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's amazing to me is how some people continually try to minimize him. The proof is in the pudding. He assembled the top talent to produce the best products that pushed our experience with technology forward. Very few people are able to do that. Any time someone says "oh he just," it says more about their own insecurity than him. Yeah he had a lot of help, yeah he had personal relationship issues, he's not a god, b…

I don't think I can agree with this take. > He assembled the top talent to produce the best products that pushed our experience with technology forward. Assembling top talent is something a lot of people could do, what made Jobs special is that he did that while still actually giving a shit about the quality of the product his company produced. "Oh, he just" is less a way of dismissing jobs than it is a way of saying…

> Assembling top talent is something a lot of people could do

Absolutely not. First you need the ability to recognize top talent. That's already super hard. Then you have to convince them to come work for you. Top talent is not always just motivated by money alone, so how do you attract them? Then after you hire them you have to retain them, which is also hard, because you have to understand what they are building, and inspire them.

Re: Make Something Wonderful – Steve Jobs in his own words

#78

Post by iamerroragent »

filoleg wrote: post #69
iamerroragent wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I hope they strongly reconsider their life choices." Well unfortunately Steve waited too long to do that.

Yes, but it doesn't mean that because Steve was foolish when it came to taking care of his health, all the other things he wasn't foolish about are suddenly worthless of being listened to. And it isn't like he was publicly promoting his healthcare advice in any way either.

Well suit yourself but for me personally it makes me really question the persons ability to reason in all other aspects of life as well.

I think it's dangerous to ascribe talent and expertise to someone just because they made a shit ton of money.

Re: Make Something Wonderful – Steve Jobs in his own words

#79

Post by judge2020 »

beauHD wrote: post #15
carlycue wrote: post #9

From the outside looking in, founder CEO’s like Steve Jobs and Elon Musk are enigmas. They are able to convince the most brilliant human beings to devote their lives to them. That’s their real talent. Their belief in their mission is so strong and their confidence is unshakable. I wonder what mix of nurture and nature produces human beings like this. Out of billions of people, a handful are born this way.

> Steve Jobs and Elon Musk are enigmas Elon is listening to the music inside his own head. He has the right people working for him, and he's often mistakenly seen as the person who takes all the credit, but he's sitting on the work of countless engineers who work painstakingly to create his product range. As for Jobs, again, sitting on the work of countless designers and product people who make Apple what it is. Jobs…

That's what they said? Knowing when to invest both time and money into certain products and concepts and knowing what areas need the most investment from engineers and designers (simplicity for Jobs, speed and convenience for Tesla and AMZN [in different ways]) is how you attach your name and success to actual products making a big impact on peoples' lives. Would these products exist without the founders putting in the initial effort to build POCs and get VCs and investors onboard? Would the industry be x years behind without them?

Re: Make Something Wonderful – Steve Jobs in his own words

#80

Post by peteradio »

iamerroragent wrote: post #52
peteradio wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So would you take advice from Amish person about iphones?

How is that appropriately analogous? Do you go to your doctor for advice about iPhones? Ironically I did learn how to get a dead engine to start via an Amish mechanic (he ran a business repairing generators for his community)

You've established a general reason to mistrust a person but then bring up the Amish for no apparent reason. What do the Amish have to do with this thread besides that they apparently always trust doctors (which I doubt is generally true)?
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