What it's Really Like Working with Steve Jobs • Hacker News Board

Re: What it's Really Like Working with Steve Jobs

#121

Post by yardie » Wed, Jan 23, 2013, 4:20 PM UTC

veemjeem wrote: post #17

plunchete wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure that at that time I had tons of music (using winamp) and photos on my computer (scanning was the way at that time).

You must've been somewhere nice that had fast internet. I think most people back then had dialup, and downloading a single song would take at least 20 minutes on their 28.8k modem.

Audiogalaxy was our savior. Search from any computer and queue up the download to your satellite. When you arrived home 5-6 hours later your music would be waiting for you.

Re: What it's Really Like Working with Steve Jobs

#122

Post by doctorpangloss » Wed, Jan 23, 2013, 4:30 PM UTC

adventured wrote: post #43

So what's it actually like working with Steve Jobs? Half joking aside, it would have been nice if the author would have spent more than 1/5th of the article actually talking about what he claimed he was going to give insight on. Instead the author spent most of the article tooting his own horn, which is fine, if that's what the title had indicated to expect.

It seems that working with Steve Jobs is like drinking from a great plenty cauldron of narcissism...

Re: What it's Really Like Working with Steve Jobs

#123

Post by jfb » Wed, Jan 23, 2013, 4:31 PM UTC

madeofchalk wrote: post #89

philwelch wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The military calls it "need to know basis". From the perspective of keeping secrets, it would be pretty dumb if you let every PFC in the army access diplomatic cables that had little to do with his actual duties.

'Confidential, Need to know only' would probably be the most common phrase within Apple

'Are you disclosed on ? Read him in.'

Re: What it's Really Like Working with Steve Jobs

#124

Post by jfb » Wed, Jan 23, 2013, 4:35 PM UTC

rhizome wrote: post #42

mech4bg wrote: post #19

Did I miss something here...? "In 1991, I started work at NeXT, as Product Manager for Interpersonal Computing. It was the internet, before there was much of an internet. We called it Interpersonal Computing, but nobody paid attention until 5 years later when the WWW was born." The web existed in 1991, and Mosaic was launched in 1993. I first saw it in 1993, and it was a pretty big deal at the time. Have I misunderst…

The WWW didn't get its third 'W' until the unrestricted domain market opened up via Network Solutions in 1995.

Second and third, surely?

Re: What it's Really Like Working with Steve Jobs

#125

Post by hilko » Wed, Jan 23, 2013, 4:58 PM UTC

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #99

rimantas wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that he was with Steve Wozniak when Apple 1 and 2 > were made This sound like Apple was happening at some garage and Jobs and Wozniak were just walking by. Did the same happen with NeXT and Pixar? Jobs was responsible for Apple happening, and he was also responsible for Wozniak being at Apple. You may not like the guy, but denying that he had a visions is silly. Videos available online show that he envisioned what…

Catmull and Lasseter are the main geniuses behind Pixar. Jobs came in later and provided a lot of money to keep the dream alive (which shouldn't be underestimated) and apparently did some amazing negotiation with Disney but the initial spark of genius came from those two (and many other talented people they worked with).

True, but genius is not enough. Jobs seemed to have a quality that acted as a catalyst for genius to do 'great' stuff (where 'great' is debatable, of course).

Based on my personal experience with 'Jobsian' types, I have found this to be true as well. I've met many people who were brilliant at things, but under these types, even those with less brilliance often performed better. Anecdotal evidence, true, but still. My point is that it is fine to acknowledge their genius AND that he might have played a more important role than just money/power.

Re: What it's Really Like Working with Steve Jobs

#126

Post by hilko » Wed, Jan 23, 2013, 5:00 PM UTC

michaelpinto wrote: post #75

kamaal wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After reading his biography by Walter Isaacson. I lost all respect I had for Steve Jobs. At the end of the book it felt like he rode on the successes of other geniuses like Steve Wozniak, Jonathan Ive and many others. His biggest advantage seems to have be, that he was with Steve Wozniak when Apple 1 and 2 were made. After that it was riding on others success and building cult of personality around him. Walter Isaacs…

But I have to wonder if Jobs manipulated Isaacson so people would worry less about Apple after his passing away? Isaacson's book was very poorly done and offered very few actual insights other than Jobs getting to see his father. In fact after I read Inside Apple I was left wondering how Isaacson got away with writing something so lightweight.

I was rather disappointed too. Maybe his approach was the only one that would provide a good story for non-techies, but I didn't like it. But then I'm a geek.

Re: What it's Really Like Working with Steve Jobs

#127

Post by hilko » Wed, Jan 23, 2013, 5:01 PM UTC

4ad wrote: post #106

danabramov wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're spot on about Apple relying on NeXT technologies in OS X / iOS renaissance. I too was surprised this wasn't really mentioned in the book.

I wanted to buy the book hoping to read more about the transition from NeXT to OS X. Thanks for telling me I shouldn't buy the book!

I dunno. The book had a bunch of stuff that was interesting enough that I was happy to have bought it. But it was still disappointing.

Re: What it's Really Like Working with Steve Jobs

#128

Post by hilko » Wed, Jan 23, 2013, 5:08 PM UTC

jasonkolb wrote: post #67

"It sounds kind of self-serving to say this, but he and I were a lot alike in that way, and in that process" It's interesting that everyone seems to come away with this opinion, I wonder what it says about Steve's personality. I remember from reading his biography that many of the people he ultimately had failings out with claimed the exact same thing.

Ooh, that's a wonderful observation. I've known a number of people that I would call 'Jobsian', based on my limited knowledge of him, of course. And in all cases they were really good at making me feel just that way.

Re: What it's Really Like Working with Steve Jobs

#129

Post by jamesjporter » Wed, Jan 23, 2013, 5:59 PM UTC

white_devil wrote: post #111

kybernetikos wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This linked article is one of the first things that has made me think of Steve in a positive light. I'm generally fairly negative about him because 1. I have a natural aversion to cults of personality and all that goes with them and 2. the Apple vision of the world is about consumer products. I think this is exactly the wrong direction for all of society ( producer products are the future), and I worry that if they e…

> I have a natural aversion to cults of personality and all that goes with them and 2. the Apple vision of the world is about consumer products. I think this is exactly the wrong direction for all of society (producer products are the future) But producers produce products for consumers to consume. You can't just eliminate the consumer side of the equation. Without one there isn't the other.

> But producers produce products for consumers to consume.

Not necessarily. You can be a producer for yourself. I think the GP is arguing that technologies like 3D printing and practices like home gardening will flourish in the near future. Rather than buy stuff per se, people will buy equipment and tools that allow them to produce for themselves the stuff they would have bought.

Re: What it's Really Like Working with Steve Jobs

#130

Post by timr » Wed, Jan 23, 2013, 6:25 PM UTC

damncabbage wrote: post #105

timr wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, well, maybe I'm the only one, but apple maps work fine for me. Massive improvement over the old maps experience. Google regularly got a ton of things wrong, even in urban areas like San Francisco, so I give Apple the benefit of the doubt when it comes to minor mistakes. Then again, this whole discussion could be related to the fact that Apple users are about 985% more likely to nitpick a product than any other…

Then again, this whole discussion could be related to the fact that Apple users are about 985% more likely to nitpick a product than any other group of people on earth. Or just that it was vastly wrong in a lot of places that weren't San Francisco. It was missing one of the two major train stations in Sydney for crying out loud.

Within a week of its launch, I used the product in three different cities and multiple less urban locations on the east and west coasts. I had no major problems.

I'm know there were problems with maps, but a lot of the teeth gnashing was/is exaggerated drama. Google routinely places silly things at the corner of Van Ness and Market, because it has no idea where they belong -- you just don't hear about it because nobody nitpicks Google Maps the way they did Apple's launch.