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Steve Jobs and Cray-1 to be featured on 2026 American Innovations $1 coin

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Re: Steve Jobs and Cray-1 to be featured on 2026 American Innovations $1 coin

#211

Shall we forget that Steve Jobs conspired with other companies to pay developers less? This is well-documented in courts (and also on many other websites, by the way): https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/24/apple-goo... See: "[...] Steve Jobs orchestrated an elaborate scheme to prevent poaching and drive down wages."

His ultimate crime of cheapness was pushing the $1-$3 app.

He singlehandedly set the anchor price of the entire industry so low that he set in motion the whole freemium/monetization/enshittification trend.

Re: Steve Jobs and Cray-1 to be featured on 2026 American Innovations $1 coin

#212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well Jobs repeated it ~3-4 times without Wozniak (and arguably being a part of making Apple II a huge success was not even his greatest achievement).

What did Jobs actually build himself? My understanding was that man was technically inept.

Saying "no" to off-topic / dumb ideas in a consistent way is an amazing product development skill.

It's like carving away all of the marble that doesn't look like David.

Neal Stephenson wrote a really great Substack about art and how it's the end product of many small decisions. That's exactly what Jobs did on the hardware he worked on.

https://nealstephenson.substack.com/p/idea-having-is-not-art

Re: Steve Jobs and Cray-1 to be featured on 2026 American Innovations $1 coin

#213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well Jobs repeated it ~3-4 times without Wozniak (and arguably being a part of making Apple II a huge success was not even his greatest achievement).

What did Jobs actually build himself? My understanding was that man was technically inept.

Technically inept is acceptable as long as he could communicate well. The man consistently had clear vision and the ability to communicate that vision to those who were around him.

Re: Steve Jobs and Cray-1 to be featured on 2026 American Innovations $1 coin

#214

The Jobs picture looks to be based on this famous photo of him in an empty house: https://cdn.theatlantic.com/media/mt/science/jobsalone.jpg

A lot of dissimilarities from that photo. I like the photo though. Maybe I'm just a hi-fi dork. Is it a McIntosh tube amplifier behind him? Would be befitting.

Here's a discussion from 2011 where folks pieced it together:

https://pinkfishmedia.net/forum/threads/steve-jobs-stereo-sy...

Wired summarized that discussion into a photo gallery:

https://www.wired.com/2014/04/steve-jobs-stereo-system/

- Michell MK1 Gyrodec turntable

- Denon TU-750s tuner (Sitting atop Threshold pre amp)

- Threshold FET-One pre amp

- Threshold STASIS-1 amp (Not in photo, seems to be an educated guess. Some debate whether the speakers are powered and maybe an external amp wasn't needed.)

- Acoustat Monitor 3 speakers

Re: Steve Jobs and Cray-1 to be featured on 2026 American Innovations $1 coin

#215

Shall we forget that Steve Jobs conspired with other companies to pay developers less? This is well-documented in courts (and also on many other websites, by the way): https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/24/apple-goo... See: "[...] Steve Jobs orchestrated an elaborate scheme to prevent poaching and drive down wages."

Ok? That doesn’t diminish in any way his technological and industrial accomplishments.

Re: Steve Jobs and Cray-1 to be featured on 2026 American Innovations $1 coin

#217
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$2 bills aren’t rare at all. You can walk into your local bank and get a stack of them anytime, if you’d like.

Strip clubs also commonly use 2 dollar bills.

The Venn diagram of things I learn on HN and things I expected to learn on HN has an ever decreasing intersection.

Re: Steve Jobs and Cray-1 to be featured on 2026 American Innovations $1 coin

#218

Shall we forget that Steve Jobs conspired with other companies to pay developers less? This is well-documented in courts (and also on many other websites, by the way): https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/24/apple-goo... See: "[...] Steve Jobs orchestrated an elaborate scheme to prevent poaching and drive down wages."

Yes ... Steve Jobs was a complete jerk, but he was a brilliant salesman and CEO, and you cannot deny that.

Re: Steve Jobs and Cray-1 to be featured on 2026 American Innovations $1 coin

#219

Shall we forget that Steve Jobs conspired with other companies to pay developers less? This is well-documented in courts (and also on many other websites, by the way): https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/24/apple-goo... See: "[...] Steve Jobs orchestrated an elaborate scheme to prevent poaching and drive down wages."

> Shall we forget that Steve Jobs conspired with other companies to pay developers less?

Forgetting bad actions is an essential part of the process of deification, and since ancient times, rulers who sought to be equated with gods would put their or their ancestors images on coins with a deity on the reverse side.

Several coins in the US display slave owners because they are founding fathers, and the practice of putting presidents on coins in the US only began in the early 1900s, with the Lincoln penny, and their portraits on paper money only began 50 years earlier.

In our current era of tech industrialist worship, is it surprising that we do the same for Steve Jobs?

That said, you are absolutely right to bring it up, as a push back against that deification process.

Re: Steve Jobs and Cray-1 to be featured on 2026 American Innovations $1 coin

#220

Shall we forget that Steve Jobs conspired with other companies to pay developers less? This is well-documented in courts (and also on many other websites, by the way): https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/24/apple-goo... See: "[...] Steve Jobs orchestrated an elaborate scheme to prevent poaching and drive down wages."

>to pay developers less

Oh no, he only paid them $300k/year? How did they survive without selling their kidneys to the black market?

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