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Wozniak: “Actually, the movie was largely a lie about me”

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Re: Wozniak: “Actually, the movie was largely a lie about me”

#231

Post by ClementM »

Eye_of_Mordor wrote: post #148
abalone wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jobs was more than a "shrewd businessman". Building Pixar over 10 years into one of the top movie studios was not some "shrewd" business decision. Ditto for NeXT, the early Mac, the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad.. It's more accurate to say he was a visionary who took a long term view. It's only in retrospect that we have the luxury of looking on his track record as smart from a business standpoint. Woz even criticizes t…

Shame he didn't learn empathy from Woz - arguably the greatest flaw in his character and possibly the biggest need he had as a human being.

I have tried to research whether Steve Jobs was 'suffering' from narcissistic personality disorder http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_personality_disord... without finding much more than speculations. But if you look at the 'symptoms' list, and compare to the various reports from people having worked with him, it looks like it. Lack of empathy is a typical symptom.

Re: Wozniak: “Actually, the movie was largely a lie about me”

#232

Post by afterburner »

dkrich wrote: post #220

I've seen many movies based on real-life events and have yet to read a review of any that didn't find huge fault with its accuracy. The most notable are probably the Ben Mezrich movies, but most recently I watched Wolf of Wall Street and then subsequently read an editorial by the lead prosecutor calling the movie out as inaccurate and assailing the real life Jordan Belfort. The lesson in all this is that when you are…

It's a constant disappointment, especially when the characterization of the lead role is questionably accurate. (Captain Phillips, or the Christian Bale one about a GI who escape a POW camp.) If you want to see a recent movie that is considered quite accurate, Blue Caprice seems to be.

Re: Wozniak: “Actually, the movie was largely a lie about me”

#233

Post by easy_rider »

Arjuna wrote: post #181

"And when Jobs (in the movie, but really a board does this) denied stock to the early garage team (some not even shown) I'm surprised that they chose not to show me giving about $10M of my own stock to them because it was the right thing. And $10M was a lot in that time." Nothing more need be said, really. This is the very definition of character and integrity.

They did show that in "Pirates of Silicon Valley" !

Re: Wozniak: “Actually, the movie was largely a lie about me”

#235

Post by neilk »

wirrbel wrote: post #138
abalone wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jobs was more than a "shrewd businessman". Building Pixar over 10 years into one of the top movie studios was not some "shrewd" business decision. Ditto for NeXT, the early Mac, the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad.. It's more accurate to say he was a visionary who took a long term view. It's only in retrospect that we have the luxury of looking on his track record as smart from a business standpoint. Woz even criticizes t…

Jobs is a designer. Using existing pieces to create a good product. While this is an important skill to have, it is nothing I would idolize someone for, moreover, Jobs only was capable of focussing on design because countless Wozniaks did the plumbing (and really awesome hacking). This is _division of labor_. You just cannot build products alone. While Jobs did his job, he certainly was arrogant and a few times too o…

When Jobs designs things, sometimes you get an extreme focus on simplicity ("Why can't this CD burner have just one button that says 'burn CD'?") and sometimes you get skeuomorphic atrocities like Game Center.

I don't think Jobs was a designer per se. He set ambitious goals for other designers to accomplish, maybe.

Jobs was great at recognizing talent, motivating talent, browbeating talent until it quit, and then taking credit for whatever that talent accomplished.

Re: Wozniak: “Actually, the movie was largely a lie about me”

#236

Post by simonh »

rodgerd wrote: post #222
simonh wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It turns out people like Woz need people like Steve Jobs, and people like Steve Jobs need people like Woz. Steve moved on to actively search for, find and collaborate with as many people like Woz as he could. Unfortunately for us Woz never moved on, but then maybe he did what he needed to do.

> It turns out people like Woz need people like Steve Jobs Nope. Woz gives every impression that he'd be perfectly happy inventing stuff, rich or not. He doesn't really need a Steve Jobs, and the exploitation by someone who presented himself as a friend mostly seems to have caused him a lot of heartache.

And made him richer than you or I can ever dream of, and got his inventions to change the lives of millions of people, but apart from that...

Re: Wozniak: “Actually, the movie was largely a lie about me”

#237

Post by smackfu »

dkrich wrote: post #220

I've seen many movies based on real-life events and have yet to read a review of any that didn't find huge fault with its accuracy. The most notable are probably the Ben Mezrich movies, but most recently I watched Wolf of Wall Street and then subsequently read an editorial by the lead prosecutor calling the movie out as inaccurate and assailing the real life Jordan Belfort. The lesson in all this is that when you are…

It's also pretty common for a movie to be follow a particular non-fiction book closely, and then that book doesn't turn out to be very rigorously accurate. And very common for people to go public with disagreement with a movie where they were totally not interested in helping out with the original book.

Re: Wozniak: “Actually, the movie was largely a lie about me”

#238

Post by mwfunk »

soperj wrote: post #209
Tyrannosaurs wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With respect that's as blinkered a view in the opposite direction. Neither the "Jobs was a genius" nor the "Jobs was an asshole" narratives are incorrect, but neither are complete and as such neither is particularly helpful or enlightening on it's own. To me at least, what makes Jobs most interesting is what he achieved despite being an asshole and how that played out. He undoubtedly was a thoroughly unpleasant indiv…

I don't know what the big deal about Apple being the "largest company in the world" is. Who was the company that they passed. Exxon Mobile? Shell? They create great products used by billions around the world. No one romanticizes their CEOs, and they're all assholes too.

It's not who they passed on the way up, it's the fact that they did it in 12 years starting from when their company was 60 days from bankruptcy after spending the preceding decade in a seemingly endless death spiral with no future. Do you not remember Apple in 1996? Blackberry right now looks positively bursting with potential by comparison.

Re: Wozniak: “Actually, the movie was largely a lie about me”

#239

Post by smackfu »

frenchy wrote: post #197
atmosx wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Holywood story-makers don't believe that reality is good for the crowds. So you get a sugar version, of what it could be . Some times you go so far as making movies like 'Argo' where a total fiasco which led to the demise of a president, is pictured in totally different set-up and served as a success. And here is the beauty of the Internet. We wouldn't know that, if information wasn't freely flowing online.

> Holywood story-makers don't believe that reality is good for the crowds. This probably makes it sound more intentionally evil than it is. I think the real truth is that "Hollywood story-makers don't believe that reality is good for the box office."

"Never let the truth get in the way of a good story"

Re: Wozniak: “Actually, the movie was largely a lie about me”

#240

Post by soperj »

mwfunk wrote: post #238
soperj wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what the big deal about Apple being the "largest company in the world" is. Who was the company that they passed. Exxon Mobile? Shell? They create great products used by billions around the world. No one romanticizes their CEOs, and they're all assholes too.

It's not who they passed on the way up, it's the fact that they did it in 12 years starting from when their company was 60 days from bankruptcy after spending the preceding decade in a seemingly endless death spiral with no future. Do you not remember Apple in 1996? Blackberry right now looks positively bursting with potential by comparison.

Blackberry isn't getting a big influx of cash & business software from a competitor.
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