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An internal team 'hoodwinked' Bill Gates into launching the Xbox project

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Re: An internal team 'hoodwinked' Bill Gates into launching the Xbox project

#151

Post by fenderbluesjr »

watwut wrote: post #109
avalys wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because "character flaws" on a personal level are often required to achieve exceptional results. Not sufficient. But often required. If Jobs were a quiet, contemplative, respectful person who was careful to keep track of where he heard what idea and assign credit where credit was due - it's unlikely we'd have Apple. That's just a different personality type.

Why putting character flaws into quotes? They are still character flaws, the same way as same behavior is if it is not coming from rich powergul person. There is no reason to pretend it is something special. If they helped him to get more money and more credit and what not, that does not make them not flaws.

Calling them flaws would seem to me to be a subjective position. Personality traits are perceived differently depending on what the observer is sensitive to. Somebody that is considered rude in a yoga clinic might not be perceived the same way on a construction site.

Re: An internal team 'hoodwinked' Bill Gates into launching the Xbox project

#152

Post by gnud »

bennysonething wrote: post #100

"world's most reviled software" Right, yeah, people hated Microsoft's software so much that they bought it by the bucket load. Also that comment about midway being problematic. Why is it problematic!? Did WW2 not happen? Who'd actually be offended?

> Also that comment about midway being problematic.

It compares the "battle" between Sony and Microsoft to an actual war in which a lot of people died. It also sets up the XBox as some sort of patriotic push to defeat the agressors that attacked us without warning.

I'd be offended if I was working for the PS2 division at Sony at the time, I think. I also think I'd be offended if I was working on games for the XBox - it's entertainment, not war!

Re: An internal team 'hoodwinked' Bill Gates into launching the Xbox project

#153

Post by kortilla »

saurik wrote: post #130
grababner wrote: post #74

'He tells us: "Eventually somebody would come back to you with your idea – they would say, 'Hey, you know, this doesn't need Windows at all'. And you have to control your urge to fucking kill them, because you've been telling them that for two years and now they finally come up with it like it's their idea. But that's the Jedi mind trick." ' OMG. I learned this a few years ago working in a corp environment with stubb…

If your goal is to change the world--incepting some politician to change their position or some businessperson to alter their product--that makes a lot of sense... if you are working for some company extracting value from you, why would you ever do this? I can't imagine it would help your career any... shouldn't you be spending all of that effort finding a less toxic place to work?

> if you are working for some company extracting value from you, why would you ever do this?

Because there can be massive monetary rewards for it? (Sorry if that’s the obvious answer we’re all pretending isn’t there.) We’re talking about the Xbox project, where one of the leaders is so rich he pays people to help him cook ancient Egyptian bread for something to do.

Re: An internal team 'hoodwinked' Bill Gates into launching the Xbox project

#154

Post by kortilla »

dwd wrote: post #142
grababner wrote: post #74

'He tells us: "Eventually somebody would come back to you with your idea – they would say, 'Hey, you know, this doesn't need Windows at all'. And you have to control your urge to fucking kill them, because you've been telling them that for two years and now they finally come up with it like it's their idea. But that's the Jedi mind trick." ' OMG. I learned this a few years ago working in a corp environment with stubb…

I once worked at a place where I would constantly suggest switching to GoLang to solve some performance scaling issues. I recently got a call from a recruiter asking me if I was interested in a job programming in Go...

Go doesn’t solve scaling issues in any meaningful sense. At most it’s just some constant factor reduction in required severs compared to python/ruby/whatever interpreted thing it usually replaces.

Re: An internal team 'hoodwinked' Bill Gates into launching the Xbox project

#155

Post by kortilla »

watwut wrote: post #109
avalys wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because "character flaws" on a personal level are often required to achieve exceptional results. Not sufficient. But often required. If Jobs were a quiet, contemplative, respectful person who was careful to keep track of where he heard what idea and assign credit where credit was due - it's unlikely we'd have Apple. That's just a different personality type.

Why putting character flaws into quotes? They are still character flaws, the same way as same behavior is if it is not coming from rich powergul person. There is no reason to pretend it is something special. If they helped him to get more money and more credit and what not, that does not make them not flaws.

They aren’t “flaws” to everyone. One person’s asshole is another person’s straight shooter.

Re: An internal team 'hoodwinked' Bill Gates into launching the Xbox project

#156

Post by seer »

grababner wrote: post #74

'He tells us: "Eventually somebody would come back to you with your idea – they would say, 'Hey, you know, this doesn't need Windows at all'. And you have to control your urge to fucking kill them, because you've been telling them that for two years and now they finally come up with it like it's their idea. But that's the Jedi mind trick." ' OMG. I learned this a few years ago working in a corp environment with stubb…

The way I see it, you are just a single data point to the senior people. You mention something, they hear it from a couple of other places and they are now convinced that its a good path forward.

You can put your black hat and game this by making sure you suggest whatever you’re after to more people/sources of info that your target listens to. Bonus points for going through intermediaries that obscure the source of the idea.

At some point, your senior decision maker has his “epiphany” as what you want is “what everybody is talking about”.

Interestingly this is something we talk about with my partner as a lot of times one of us would suggest something, the other might be dismissive, but then someone else would suggest, it gets done and and I/she would get upset that “you listen to them but not to me”.

But in reality whats going on is that we are both waiting to accumulate enough data points to make a heuristic work.

Once that became apparent we’re much more understanding to each other.

As for managers, if they smart enough, they would notice that a lot of the things you’re suggesting ends up what being done, and at some point they would value your points a lot more. But hardly anyone would use only one source of input to make their decisions.

Re: An internal team 'hoodwinked' Bill Gates into launching the Xbox project

#157

Post by kortilla »

gnud wrote: post #152
bennysonething wrote: post #100

"world's most reviled software" Right, yeah, people hated Microsoft's software so much that they bought it by the bucket load. Also that comment about midway being problematic. Why is it problematic!? Did WW2 not happen? Who'd actually be offended?

> Also that comment about midway being problematic. It compares the "battle" between Sony and Microsoft to an actual war in which a lot of people died. It also sets up the XBox as some sort of patriotic push to defeat the agressors that attacked us without warning. I'd be offended if I was working for the PS2 division at Sony at the time, I think. I also think I'd be offended if I was working on games for the XBox -…

> I'd be offended if I was working for the PS2 division at Sony at the time

These are companies that trivialize violence with games in the first place. I doubt you would be working for them if a war analogy offended you.

Re: An internal team 'hoodwinked' Bill Gates into launching the Xbox project

#158

Post by dash2 »

saurik wrote: post #130
grababner wrote: post #74

'He tells us: "Eventually somebody would come back to you with your idea – they would say, 'Hey, you know, this doesn't need Windows at all'. And you have to control your urge to fucking kill them, because you've been telling them that for two years and now they finally come up with it like it's their idea. But that's the Jedi mind trick." ' OMG. I learned this a few years ago working in a corp environment with stubb…

If your goal is to change the world--incepting some politician to change their position or some businessperson to alter their product--that makes a lot of sense... if you are working for some company extracting value from you, why would you ever do this? I can't imagine it would help your career any... shouldn't you be spending all of that effort finding a less toxic place to work?

It’s not necessarily about the environment being toxic. I’ve had the same experience with co-authors. It’s just human nature to forget things other people tell you, and then to suddenly have the idea yourself....

Re: An internal team 'hoodwinked' Bill Gates into launching the Xbox project

#159

Post by mlvljr »

oblio wrote: post #111
gavanwilhite wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe this is the wrong way to think about this. Character flaws are often associated with certain effective traits, but are not chained to them. In your example, one can be vocal, biased-twoards-action, and low-bullshit, while also giving credit where credit is due. I think it’s far from obvious that Jobs would have been a less effective leader if he had addressed his character shortcomings. I similarly feel the…

The sad thing is, they don't need that personal growth. Their luck or other character traits made/make them successful, they're rich and quite powerful, attractive to women, etc. So they'll never do what you're saying. For an extreme example, look at Trump. In Romanian we have a saying: "the only thing that will straighten a hunchback's back is the coffin".

Exact same in Russian

Re: An internal team 'hoodwinked' Bill Gates into launching the Xbox project

#160

Post by saurik »

dash2 wrote: post #158
saurik wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your goal is to change the world--incepting some politician to change their position or some businessperson to alter their product--that makes a lot of sense... if you are working for some company extracting value from you, why would you ever do this? I can't imagine it would help your career any... shouldn't you be spending all of that effort finding a less toxic place to work?

It’s not necessarily about the environment being toxic. I’ve had the same experience with co-authors. It’s just human nature to forget things other people tell you, and then to suddenly have the idea yourself....

To me the problem was the "I won't do it if it isn't my idea (and so other people have to go out of their way to trick me into thinking their idea is my idea so I don't discard it)" aspect (which I find extremely toxic), not some kind of "I (maybe even accidentally) took credit for your idea because (but if you had corrected me I'm sure it wouldn't have been a problem)" angle.
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