Wozniak: “Actually, the movie was largely a lie about me” • Hacker News Board

Re: Wozniak: “Actually, the movie was largely a lie about me”

#61

Post by Shamanmuni » Mon, Jan 20, 2014, 1:22 AM UTC

ehsanu1 wrote: post #42

mandeepj wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Jobs would probably have died homeless and friendless if Apple never existed." - so funny. Besides Apple, Pixar and Next made Jobs billionaire too. So, no jobs would not have died homeless and friendless :-) . Jobs was a natural leader and visionary.

You can't really tell either way. The road to NEXT and Pixar was through Apple. And I do hear his role in Pixar is often portrayed as being much more than it really was.

Most of what's usually said about Steve Jobs' role in Pixar is a complete myth. It's quite outrageous the level of falsehood when you read about it from those who were there before Pixar was big.

For starters, Steve Jobs didn't invest in the Pixar that you know (the one which makes films), it was a hardware company and it never occured to him to make an animated movie, just sell hardware. It was the people working there that saw the potential for films made 100% with computers.

He didn't even pay much attention to Pixar until after they made the deal with Disney to make Toy Story and critics started saying it was going to be huge. After that the "visionary" took charge and, of course, took all the credit for himself.

You can read more about it in the link below. You aks who Alvy Ray Smith is? Well, one of the cofounders of Pixar and its first Vice President. And by the way, he was the inventor of the Alpha Channel. http://alvyray.com/Pixar/PixarHistoryRevisited.htm

Re: Wozniak: “Actually, the movie was largely a lie about me”

#62

Post by lostlogin » Mon, Jan 20, 2014, 1:25 AM UTC

TillE wrote: post #46

gnaffle wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I think the book was worth the read, I think Isaacson was wrong on so many small and big things and failed to go into others, and he really did a poor job with the book. I recommend the two Hypercritical podcasts about the book, which really goes into some depth about the problems with the book: http://5by5.tv/hypercritical/42 (starts 18 minutes in) http://5by5.tv/hypercritical/43

The short version is that Siracusa recommends "Infinite Loop" by Michael Malone as the best single source for Apple history prior to the return of Jobs, and he says that the post-return material in the Isaacson book (ie, everything unique that it offers) is poor and/or limited.

Siracusa and short version are not things that go together and long may this last. The only tolerable thing about my daily commute is listening to him discuss his pet peeves. File systems, TVs, programming languages, the Minecraft install process (great episode) ebook formatting etc. He must be interesting to know as there are very few things he appears just accept and use without pondering improvements.

Re: Wozniak: “Actually, the movie was largely a lie about me”

#63

Post by gokulk » Mon, Jan 20, 2014, 1:28 AM UTC

Dn_Ab wrote: post #54

Sidenote: You can tell Woz is an amazing genuinely good person with no hint of pretension or self importance. A lot can be discerned about famous personalities by who they choose to follow. For example, you can tell whether the person has little utility for social networks but maybe started out following a scattering of experts relevant to their interests. Usually though, the personality is using their handful of fol…

Lord Vishnu ?

Re: Wozniak: “Actually, the movie was largely a lie about me”

#64

Post by jpmattia » Mon, Jan 20, 2014, 1:32 AM UTC

> Woz: And when Jobs (in the movie, but really a board does this) denied stock to the early garage team (some not even shown) I'm surprised that they chose not to show me giving about $10M of my own stock to them because it was the right thing. And $10M was a lot in that time.

I have to say: That speaks volumes. And Woz, if you ever happen to read this: It's still a pile of dough in the year 2014.

Re: Wozniak: “Actually, the movie was largely a lie about me”

#65

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jan 20, 2014, 1:33 AM UTC

phaus wrote: post #28

nostromo wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me they are the quintessential yin-yang startup duo. You don't have to pick a favorite. You don't need to figure out which one pulled more weight. It seems likely that if you removed one, the other would have failed. edit: chill out folks, I don't mean either guy would have been a penniless itinerant without the other. I'm saying they were much more successful together than apart. I know it's popular here to hate…

You should read or reread Woz's comment from OP. He was already quite successful, and widely respected. He may not have ended up being a billionaire without Jobs, but he wouldn't have been a failure. Jobs on the other hand struggled in nearly every aspect of his life, he couldn't stick with college, he got a job at Atari based on someone else's work, he was such a giant douche to everyone there that they wanted to fi…

[deleted]

Re: Wozniak: “Actually, the movie was largely a lie about me”

#66

Post by mathattack » Mon, Jan 20, 2014, 1:33 AM UTC

mrtksn wrote: post #34

Unlike "The Pirates of Silicon Valley", "Jobs" was painful to watch and it was not only because it was a bad movie but because I've already red the biography by Isaacson. It felt like somebody was lying to me to things I know that are not that way. It was like a creationist teaching me the evolution theory. I don't claim that The Pirates of Silicon Valley is completely accurate but but Jobs(movie) was out of line. It…

Was it inaccurate compared to the book by Isaacson too?

Re: Wozniak: “Actually, the movie was largely a lie about me”

#67

Post by drv » Mon, Jan 20, 2014, 1:34 AM UTC

glasz wrote: post #33

mindcrime wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What, Anti-trust [1] wasn't good enough for you? [1]: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0218817/

yep, anti-trust is rather good. but very much less fact than fiction, i'd say. (no, i absolutely do not like gates. not only because of the glasses he used to wear.) if anybody is into documentaries: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIZGDT7ZqdM http://vimeo.com/6303800 for the german-speaking audience (there might be an english version, couldn't find one though): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2k_NcVpADgM

That first documentary has an amusing title screen... in Chicago.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIZGDT7ZqdM#t=119

Re: Wozniak: “Actually, the movie was largely a lie about me”

#68

Post by selimthegrim » Mon, Jan 20, 2014, 1:36 AM UTC

gnaffle wrote: post #39

rtpg wrote: post #2

For those who haven't yet, I'd highly recommend reading "Steve Jobs", the biography by Isaacson. It portrays pretty much all of these events like Woz describes them, and is a very complete portrait of Jobs. Woz' status at HP as referenced isn't really covered, but his actions during the Apple I and II launches are pretty complete. EDIT: I'd like to point out that this book covers everything, up to Jobs death, and is…

While I think the book was worth the read, I think Isaacson was wrong on so many small and big things and failed to go into others, and he really did a poor job with the book. I recommend the two Hypercritical podcasts about the book, which really goes into some depth about the problems with the book: http://5by5.tv/hypercritical/42 (starts 18 minutes in) http://5by5.tv/hypercritical/43

For some reason I never heard much about this screed by Maureen Tkacik (formerly of the Atlantic).

http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2012/02/22/the-book-of...

Re: Wozniak: “Actually, the movie was largely a lie about me”

#69

Post by jimbokun » Mon, Jan 20, 2014, 1:36 AM UTC

phaus wrote: post #44

mandeepj wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Jobs would probably have died homeless and friendless if Apple never existed." - so funny. Besides Apple, Pixar and Next made Jobs billionaire too. So, no jobs would not have died homeless and friendless :-) . Jobs was a natural leader and visionary.

>Besides Apple, Pixar and Next made Jobs billionaire too. If Apple had never existed, he wouldn't have had the hundreds of millions dollars that he spent on these endeavors. >Jobs was a natural leader and visionary. Jobs was good at recognizing when the right time to bet on a technology was. When you are filthy rich, you can turn this talent into a license to print money. When you aren't already rich, it just makes y…

"Jobs was good at recognizing when the right time to bet on a technology was. When you are filthy rich, you can turn this talent into a license to print money. When you aren't already rich, it just makes you the average person on HN."

Jobs recognized the right time to bet on the personal computer when he had almost no money, and started Apple. You seem to be inferring Jobs always had a lot of money, which just isn't true.

Re: Wozniak: “Actually, the movie was largely a lie about me”

#70

Post by macspoofing » Mon, Jan 20, 2014, 1:40 AM UTC

phaus wrote: post #44

mandeepj wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Jobs would probably have died homeless and friendless if Apple never existed." - so funny. Besides Apple, Pixar and Next made Jobs billionaire too. So, no jobs would not have died homeless and friendless :-) . Jobs was a natural leader and visionary.

>Besides Apple, Pixar and Next made Jobs billionaire too. If Apple had never existed, he wouldn't have had the hundreds of millions dollars that he spent on these endeavors. >Jobs was a natural leader and visionary. Jobs was good at recognizing when the right time to bet on a technology was. When you are filthy rich, you can turn this talent into a license to print money. When you aren't already rich, it just makes y…

You don't need millions to make technology bets. You were so sure RIM was going to implode? Why didn't you short the stock and laugh all the way to the bank?

I'll tell you why. Things aren't so obvious when you have some skin in the game.