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From: Steve Jobs. "Great idea, thank you."

blog.hayman.net

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Re: From: Steve Jobs. "Great idea, thank you."

#111

Post by lgeorget »

sph wrote: post #72
williamdclt wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m confused why cron jobs would be sending emails to root@hpe.com?

IIRC cron writes stdout to the local mail spool ( @localhost). If the server is configured correctly, with an SMTP service for the domain, these emails are basically forwarded to @ In practice, I have never seen a Linux server with an actual SMTP server configured correctly in 20 years, so the worst that usually happens is that cronjobs never actually leave the machine. You used to get a mail notification when you lo…

It's usually configured correctly at some point in time and then the configuration "rots": it becomes inconsistent, some emails are forwarded, other are lost, nobody cares, etc.

In my case, I configured Postfix to redirect all mails looking like (root|admin|postmaster)@server to myemailaddress+(root|admin|postmaster)_server@domain and Postfix ignores what comes after the + in the user part. So I get all the emails but I still know where they come from. It has worked well for quite some years now but I'm not deluding myself, I know that at some time, that will rot too.

Re: From: Steve Jobs. "Great idea, thank you."

#113

Post by bilekas »

It's a really cool story, but I can't help but feel a lot has be idealized around regular people who did extraordinary things.

I mean, Steve Jobs had to work with people, but he wasn't some prophet. He was a talented guy, who had his failures and successes, more of the latter.

It is a cool story, but if my boss of 15 years ago becomes world famous, I'm not going to personally treasure the email he sent with 4 words, possible 2 automated, write a blog post about it.

I'm just going to giggle to myself a little. Again, I might be in the minority here.

Re: From: Steve Jobs. "Great idea, thank you."

#114

Post by numinix »

lapcat wrote: post #36
khazhoux wrote: post #25

Honestly, kind of sad that Tim Cook’s reply was so generic. I don’t think I’m off base in saying this, and from personal experience, he is really not connected to the people at the company.

There's no evidence that Steve Jobs knew Steve Hayman from Adam. "This was the only email I ever personally received from Steve Jobs."

He probably only knew him as Shayman

Re: From: Steve Jobs. "Great idea, thank you."

#115

Post by golergka »

vkou wrote: post #93
6stringmerc wrote: post #80

[flagged]

[flagged]

He made a lot of clients very happy with the products they bought. Products that are not just small gimmicks, but something they use every day as their main drivers in work and personal lives. And yes, since we've seen Apple with and without him twice already, there's enough information to suggest it was his personal effect.

So is being asshole to a few thousand employees worse or better than improving life of tens of millions (at least) with great products that they use everyday? Not an easy question to answer. But it's certainly not just about money and shareholder value.

Re: From: Steve Jobs. "Great idea, thank you."

#116

Post by incanus77 »

pkaye wrote: post #108

What if a new employee was named Steve Teve?

I first learned about the ability to apply for custom aliases at my university after noticing a guy I knew didn't have the usual pattern — first 5 of last name, first name initial, and nothing or else numbers 2+ depending upon your order in line. So I was 'millej3'.

Then I thought about the guy's name: D___ Hoover.

He had applied for, and got, 'hoover'.

Re: From: Steve Jobs. "Great idea, thank you."

#117

Post by numinix »

saalweachter wrote: post #85
skeletal88 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steve is the hero of salesmen, consultants and CEO-s, should not be a hero for geeks and actual developers.

I mean, the salesman-CEO/founder is way better at selling themselves as a hero of tech & innovation than the engineer-CTO/founder.

Sending every new user an email with a "very personal welcome" and audio message for example.

Re: From: Steve Jobs. "Great idea, thank you."

#118

Post by ubermonkey »

pkaye wrote: post #108

What if a new employee was named Steve Teve?

Heh. I have a somewhat related story.

In the market we sell into, mergers, acquisitions and spin-outs are the norm. People shift employers all the time without changing offices. It's a whole Thing.

USUALLY this is somewhat drama-free, and USUALLY there's not an issue with email addresses, but this is not a story about the usual case.

Most places now seem to use the firstname.lastname@corp.com style of address. This is a good idea, and creates collisions less often than flastname@ style addresses would. However, one of my customers -- someone who had been happily a first.last@companyA.com user -- got acquired by an org that insisted on the old style flast@companyB.com addresses.

I will not provide the name of my customer, but the problem that ensued was of the same type, and yet a bit more severe, than it would have been if his name were "Steve Hithead."

To this day, though, his address honors the local convention. STANDARDS MUST BE FOLLOWED NO MATTER WHAT, apparently.

Re: From: Steve Jobs. "Great idea, thank you."

#119

Post by sailfast »

bilekas wrote: post #113

It's a really cool story, but I can't help but feel a lot has be idealized around regular people who did extraordinary things. I mean, Steve Jobs had to work with people, but he wasn't some prophet. He was a talented guy, who had his failures and successes, more of the latter. It is a cool story, but if my boss of 15 years ago becomes world famous, I'm not going to personally treasure the email he sent with 4 words,…

I’d hypothesize you would if you thought he was a great boss, and the opportunity to work there was unique.

Just reading that email felt magical to me - to get something so visionary on your first day at a company in the early 90s would’ve convinced me they were leading me in the right direction.

Re: From: Steve Jobs. "Great idea, thank you."

#120

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

ab5tract wrote: post #100
vkou wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I think he was all of those things, but also could be the opposite of those things, too. Humans are complex and when you already changed the course of history by 25 or whatever, you are going to be even more complex. I don’t idolize Steve Jobs but I do find him to contrast positively against other similar figures like Gates and Ellison. Low bars, I know. But I guess I wanted to defend that people can have a soft spot…

There's a great interview of Allen Baum, high school friend of Wozniak and peripherally involved in the early years of Apple (he pilfered the HP stock room to supply Woz with parts for the Apple 1 & 2 prototypes). He was a roommate with Jobs for one summer and, notably, doesn't say anything bad about him over the course of the three hour interview.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wN02z1KbFmY

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