Make Something Wonderful – Steve Jobs in his own words • Hacker News Board

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

#101

Post by donmcronald » Tue, Apr 11, 2023, 8:24 PM UTC

deanCommie wrote: post #82

naremu wrote: post #3

It's amazing how much "mystique" is assigned to a man who's success can probably be at least 75% attributed to just being an enthusiast about his own products in a business world where it's usually limited to the founding members. How many CEOs, product managers and the like have been caught promoting their own brand with a "tweeted from iPhone" tagline. Probably "efficient business people", but literally won't touch…

Watch (or listen to) some of the old Steve Jobs interviews at ALl Things Digital: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/steve-jobs-at-the-d-al... It is remarkable how prescient he is about the future that was a decade away. How revolutionary some of the things he demo'd were at the time that we now take absolutely for granted. The man was mercurial and probably not fun to work for. And many a marriage or personal rel…

And this one (from 2:25):

https://youtu.be/oeqPrUmVz-o?t=139

It's 3m and to the point. Build products the customer wants instead of building and marketing your existing tech.

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

#102

Post by mattgreenrocks » Tue, Apr 11, 2023, 8:24 PM UTC

didgetmaster wrote: post #87

naremu wrote: post #3

It's amazing how much "mystique" is assigned to a man who's success can probably be at least 75% attributed to just being an enthusiast about his own products in a business world where it's usually limited to the founding members. How many CEOs, product managers and the like have been caught promoting their own brand with a "tweeted from iPhone" tagline. Probably "efficient business people", but literally won't touch…

It is surprising how hard it is to find co-founders with business experience who will actually be enthusiastic about the product they are supposed to promote. I am a technical founder who has tried (and failed) a few times to get a business partner on board to promote and sell the product. I had two guys join on with big talk about how they were perfect for turning it into a home-run project. Neither one lasted even…

I wish I could say I was surprised. This lack of vision is endemic, and business culture both attracts and preaches that watching out for #1 is the highest value.

Did you ever discover any questions/filtering criteria for weeding out potential founders who lack the vision needed?

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

#103

Post by iamdbtoo » Tue, Apr 11, 2023, 8:27 PM UTC

naremu wrote: post #3

It's amazing how much "mystique" is assigned to a man who's success can probably be at least 75% attributed to just being an enthusiast about his own products in a business world where it's usually limited to the founding members. How many CEOs, product managers and the like have been caught promoting their own brand with a "tweeted from iPhone" tagline. Probably "efficient business people", but literally won't touch…

It's here where I personally find value in Jobs' ideas. I believe the products he developed are amazing because ultimately he cared about the user. He found those little places where people get annoyed with the things they own and made the user's needs in those moments a priority.

We probably would've gotten along just fine with scratched plastic screens after some use, but for someone at that level to put their foot down and not let it happen is so incredibly rare.

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

#104

Post by contingencies » Tue, Apr 11, 2023, 8:27 PM UTC

anthk wrote: post #98

keiferski wrote: post #54

I still remember exactly where I was when Steve Jobs died. I think it was because at that moment, I had a realization about him: that there was no other person in recent memory who made such an impact on the everyday lives of people. He wasn’t some grand political figure that uplifted millions with inspiring rhetoric or an athlete that had achieved some amazing physical goal. But every single day, pretty much everywh…

What? Stallman alone changed the world 20 times more than Jobs. The indirect effects of GCC, Emacs, the FSF and GNU around Linux and servers are astounding. From Android's core to the 90% of the growth of companies on tech. And not just tech: physics, genomics... lots of them backed and helped with free software from GCC to Coreutils. At least to build and port BioPerl sucessfully. And, still, Perl's growth was close…

You both have good points, and while Jobs' role in Apple's technology is clearly overstated he did create space for execution. I think more broadly the key point should be that we as creative technology participants can be somewhat objectively said to often have power to change the world in ways that few individuals in other walks of life can even dream of.

Consider Library Genesis/Sci-Hub, Wikipedia, citizen science, instant messaging, online dating, torrents, Bellingcat, etc.

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

#105

Post by peteradio » Tue, Apr 11, 2023, 8:33 PM UTC

iamerroragent wrote: post #84

peteradio wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)?

Point is that even groups we often associate with backwards thinking still will do the reasonable thing like caring about their health and listening to medical professionals.

So, excepting for their strict doctor standards they are otherwise quite backwards thinking (according to you)? So I again can't quite tell what the Amish have to do with this and whether they should generally be trusted. Sure on the doctor metric they excel, but is there any other standard by which you would characterize a peoples standards of opinion?

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

#106

Post by PopAlongKid » Tue, Apr 11, 2023, 8:36 PM UTC

dcist wrote: post #36

What did Steve Jobs actually make other than hype? He wasn't an engineer and wasn't an inventor. He was a salesman (a great one!) but a salesman at the end of the day.

Compare to Edison, who was both an inventor and a successful businessman. His products are in use and delivering benefits to almost everyone in the world today.

All the laud for Jobs ignores that there is a sizable portion of people who don't use Apple products and do just fine. I've been using computers since the time when the only Apple Corp. was the Beatles' record label, and with one minor exception[0] have never felt the need to purchase any Apple computer product or software or MP3. I have eight computers, one MP3 player, and one smartphone at this time and they are all Linux or Windows or Android machines.

[0]One time many years ago I need software to play a video on short notice and paid for a license for Quicktime.

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

#107

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Apr 11, 2023, 8:40 PM UTC

mxkopy wrote: post #11

In the popular T.V. anthology American Horror Story, Steve Jobs is shown to be conversing with aliens in a UFO. I thought that was a really apt and funny depiction given how advanced Apple's tech is. Though the vision and leadership that keeps Apple on top to this day probably can't be given by extraterrestrials.

[deleted]

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

#108

Post by manmal » Tue, Apr 11, 2023, 8:42 PM UTC

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.

That’s because listening to a doctor is not a great way of measuring reasonability.

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

#109

Post by smoldesu » Tue, Apr 11, 2023, 8:47 PM UTC

jrowen wrote: post #63

naremu wrote: post #3

It's amazing how much "mystique" is assigned to a man who's success can probably be at least 75% attributed to just being an enthusiast about his own products in a business world where it's usually limited to the founding members. How many CEOs, product managers and the like have been caught promoting their own brand with a "tweeted from iPhone" tagline. Probably "efficient business people", but literally won't touch…

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…

> Very few people are able to do that.

All kinds of idiots have done that: Bill Gates, Larry Ellison and even Donald J. Trump have all proven capable of not mucking up if they've got enough help.

When you strip away Jobs' great council of advisors, amazing industry connections and production value, you're left with a guy. Kinda like how without the marketing and software, an iPhone just becomes a computer again. It's a vulnerable fact to accept, but denying it doesn't make us closer to understanding how humans or iPhones work. The hunger for knowing what made Jobs special left us foolishly vulnerable to worshiping him. A man with a big company is still a man, and if that man is an asshole then we shouldn't preach the opposite to respect their vision. Same goes for Walt Disney or Elon Musk - a futurist can still be deeply wrong in their beliefs. Many are, which is why their ideas are so grand in the first place.

So, let's appreciate the good parts and use the bad as a cautionary tale. Both sides of his life give us plenty to teach from.

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

#110

Post by adventured » Tue, Apr 11, 2023, 9:28 PM UTC

pazimzadeh wrote: post #96

dcist wrote: post #36

What did Steve Jobs actually make other than hype? He wasn't an engineer and wasn't an inventor. He was a salesman (a great one!) but a salesman at the end of the day.

The Three Types of Specialists Needed for Any Revolution https://kottke.org/13/05/the-three-types-of-specialist "Slazinger claims to have learned from history that most people cannot open their minds to new ideas unless a mind-opening team with a peculiar membership goes to work on them. Otherwise, life will go on exactly as before, no matter how painful, unrealistic, unjust, ludicrous, or downright dumb that life ma…

It's approximately the structure Microsoft had in its early core Gates + Allen + Ballmer. Vision (Allen), engineering (Gates + Allen), understanding tech (Gates + Allen), pragmatism (Gates), selling (Ballmer).

I'm sure all sorts of variations of combinations will work (and in different quantities), but you need most of it to build something big from something small.