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

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

#151

Post by bilekas »

Aurornis wrote: post #4

> Hi - I'm new here. I did something dumb and > set up a mail alias so that steve@next.com > would go to me. > This was a bad idea, I'm sorry. > I've changed it to steve@next.com goes to you, > not to me. I think that makes more sense. > My apologies. > Signed, new guy. What a great example of how to own a mistake, apologize, communicate, and get it fixed. I can think of so many past situations with coworkers that wo…

Owning a mistake is amazing, actually I do believe it's one of the most important skills you need to learn in any profession. You won't learn it in University, only when you think the world is on the line.

It's a super nice example. Explain the situation as early as possible, don't be afraid and roll with it.

The fawning over the response bothers me no end.

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

#152

Post by iwontberude »

One thing that struck me reflecting on this is how much of Steve Job's mythos is about his harsh unrelenting treatment of his employees. I think notes like this shows that Steve must have shown a lot of gratitude as well which goes unnoticed because its less exciting to talk about.

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

#153

Post by daseiner1 »

malcolmgreaves wrote: post #125
daseiner1 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you and i certainly have very different ideas of what an "awful" human being looks like and i hate to play mr. ceo defender but "a very good businessman who made a lot of money" is selling him rather short, i think. he developed several products that radically changed the paradigm of computing and consumer electronics. that deserves a certain degree of veneration, i think. he didn't get rich by jacking up the price o…

[flagged]

taking ideas and making them, i.e., translating said ideas and said "makes" into consumer-ready and profitable products at high quality and massive scale, is not exactly running a lemonade stand and certainly isn't just a flick of the magic wand.

sure, he wasn't John von Neumann. fine. certainly one hell of a visionary and one hell of an executive, though, and a sharp and insightful person. for anyone here who hasn't yet seen it, check out "steve jobs: the lost interview". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9m68auPIPRk&t=1s

jobs wasn't a charlatan and he was certainly no slouch.

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

#155

Post by tempestn »

malcolmgreaves wrote: post #125
daseiner1 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you and i certainly have very different ideas of what an "awful" human being looks like and i hate to play mr. ceo defender but "a very good businessman who made a lot of money" is selling him rather short, i think. he developed several products that radically changed the paradigm of computing and consumer electronics. that deserves a certain degree of veneration, i think. he didn't get rich by jacking up the price o…

[flagged]

I think it's pretty well documented that Jobs had direct input into product design. But also, hiring and managing people effectively to produce novel products is part of producing those products.

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

#156

Post by Affric »

scarface_74 wrote: post #86
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.

Steve Jobs knew how to ship products people want. I have no respect for developers in a corporate settings who don’t ship.

Steve: what would this product be like if it were magical?

Engineer: I don’t think we can build that with our current technology.

Steve: I don’t give a fuck. You’re a nerd who is meant to like inventing. Do it.

It’s really easy when we live in the world of the Mac, and the iPhone to say “Ah it was inevitable” but Steve’s approach to product is what got us here. He made sure that the GUI was computers, that capacitive touchscreens were smart phones.

Being arguably the greatest product guy and salesman of all time is some feat.

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

#157

Post by jrockway »

jkingsman wrote: post #140
knotimpressed wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What were the details of paying $2000?

Not the commenter, but I would assume forgoing an exit bonus/severance payment that was contingent upon signing a non-disparagement agreement.

Yup exactly. I got my retention bonus and 2 months pay and all that stuff without agreeing to anything, and they offered a little bit more to agree not to disparage them. I'm pretty chatty so decided it wasn't worth it ;)

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

#158

Post by andrewchilds »

milkshakes wrote: post #141
msephton wrote: post #84

Whilst working in corporate I tried to get matt@apple.com which was showing as free, but in fact somebody in retail had claimed it. Good for them!

i nabbed complaints@apple.com for a while. that was pretty scarring actually.

I’m interested in reading the rest of this story.

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

#159

Post by jrockway »

flutetornado wrote: post #146
jrockway wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They must have learned from your experience. When we were acquired by HPE they did not let us choose and our director of engineering got an email address that misspelled his name... fixing it involved him being locked out of all systems while the people trying to fix it emailed someone else with a similar name about it. His advice for other team members in the same spot was "if you don't like your email address, do n…

I’d do that every time I get a chance! Ex-HPE black label on my resume from a startup I used to work in that they bought. That company is a complete horror show.

It was weird. It makes me sad because the startup I worked at was really gelling despite the HPE interference. Then they just laid everyone off one day (multiple senior leadership changes later) for no apparent reason.

All the code is Apache 2 so I guess if I really cared I could just revive it... and as it turns out, I don't care that much. Other stuff to do.

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