“I have enough to last for the rest of my life.”
Yeah, that struck me too.
Steve Jobs Book Excerpt: Why he wore the black mock turtleneck uniform
31–40 of 151 posts
Re: Steve Jobs Book Excerpt: Why he wore the black mock turtleneck uniform
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's funny that it really, horribly clashes with the idea of "Think Different", though.
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The idea of imposing a standard uniform or wearing the same thing everyday can be viewed as a form of imposing conformity over individuality (mostly the uniform thing, and less the personal style thing).
That said, for a US company (especially at that time), such thinking was definitely 'outside the box,' so it could also be viewed as being consistent with the 'Think Different' slogan.
Re: Steve Jobs Book Excerpt: Why he wore the black mock turtleneck uniform
#33The point of this article isn't the damned turtleneck -- the lesson to learn is that Jobs was best friends with Issey Miyake. Think about that for a minute: How many other folks who work in tech in the valley have any friends who even work in fashion design? Add to that that this is the same guy who hired Paul Rand the grandfather of American graphic design to come up with the logo for NeXT. This is also the same man…
He even hired Rand to do the logo for his private foundation, which he didn't even really care about. I found that kind of shocking; it is a move on par with having a typeface designed for your personal blog.
Interesting.. I had never heard that, or anything about the Steven P. Jobs Foundation at all really. Now I'm curious to see the logo but I'm not having much luck finding it.
Re: Steve Jobs Book Excerpt: Why he wore the black mock turtleneck uniform
#34I always figured he was inspired by Tom Wolfe, who always wore a white suit in public. Wolfe emerged in the sixties and wrote novels about the counter culture movement. Job's references to things like 'the whole earth catalog' and other 60s icons always seem to point to his style.
Any book or interview to read more? It sounds interesting
Re: Steve Jobs Book Excerpt: Why he wore the black mock turtleneck uniform
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
On a more practical note but along a related thread, a couple of years ago I threw out all of my socks and bought a stack of the exact same plain black socks. Now I never have to worry about matching socks, when a hole appears I just throw that sock out, when I'm getting low on socks I throw out the lot and buy them new.
I do too. One pool of identical whites and one of blacks. Moves the matching problem from O(n) to O(1) and it's ok if you lose an odd one here or there. Unlike Jobs, nobody notices.
So I would argue that the matching problem with many different styles of socks is O(n^2), since we first must select one sock appropriate for the occasion, then rummage through all the other socks to select its match. This does have the problem that your algorithm may never finish if your laundry eats socks like mine does.
And that with all identical pairs, I assert the solution is O(n), since there is a chance that you will have to iterate through all of your socks to find one with no holes/is clean. However, I think the latter case is Omega(1). Not quite so sure about the first one.
Re: Steve Jobs Book Excerpt: Why he wore the black mock turtleneck uniform
#36I'd LOVE to know any other "failures", however tiny, Jobs had after he came back to Apple. The idea of him getting booed of the stage is not something you hear every day.
He's defined publicly by his old failures and recent successes. I'd love to hear more about more recent failures as well.
Re: Steve Jobs Book Excerpt: Why he wore the black mock turtleneck uniform
#37Many articles have been written lately about how an outsider drop-out like Jobs would have never been given an opportunity to succeed in East Asia. So it's interesting that here we have a story about how Steve Jobs tried to introduce a company uniform at Apple that emulated Sony. Especially odd given the "think different" slogan of the era. In any case, I love the idea of a personal brand that doesn't change -- and a…
I actually tried this my freshman year of college: wardrobe of nearly identical shirts, pants and sweaters. I was actually inspired by the idea that whenever cartoon characters opened their closets you'd see it full of just their signature outfit. I didn't use the term 'personal brand' but I had the idea, and also loved the convenience. Turns out that if you're not Steve Jobs this doesn't work so well. After I had en…
Try again with an outfit designed by Issey Miyake :)
Re: Steve Jobs Book Excerpt: Why he wore the black mock turtleneck uniform
#38I find it very strange that non-conformist Jobs who hated 1984ish IBM would be pro-uniform. It's a good story in the overload of Jobsian mythology. It shows a different side of him - that he worried about culture in addition to product, that he wasn't always consistent, and that even He could make design mistakes. Much more human a story than the usual fluff.
It shows are more interesting transition from Jobs and early Apple wanting to own the PC business, to Jobs wanting to own the "2%" marketshare with really beautiful, well-designed products.
I think the motivation was always there for beauty, but it wasn't until Windows 3 was introduced and successful (and the Mac was overpriced to $2500 by Sculley) that Apple could really accept that they weren't going to have it all, marketshare and creative focus. Fortunately for everyone they settled on the latter.
Re: Steve Jobs Book Excerpt: Why he wore the black mock turtleneck uniform
#39The point of this article isn't the damned turtleneck -- the lesson to learn is that Jobs was best friends with Issey Miyake. Think about that for a minute: How many other folks who work in tech in the valley have any friends who even work in fashion design? Add to that that this is the same guy who hired Paul Rand the grandfather of American graphic design to come up with the logo for NeXT. This is also the same man…
The point of the article is not the turtlenecks or who Steve Jobs knew. The point is that Steve Jobs was unique and followed his own path. Which other CEO or person do you know which would wear the same clothes every day?? Most people wouldn't and would fear they would get laughed at for doing so.
But Steve was unique. Wearing the same clothes every day made sense for Steve and that is why Steve did that, period. He wasn't concerned about fashion or trends or what others thought - he did what he felt was right. Period.
That is the lesson of the article.
Re: Steve Jobs Book Excerpt: Why he wore the black mock turtleneck uniform
#40It's the same rationale as the fashion designer Michael Kors and why he's been wearing the same black shirt, black blazer and dark jeans for years - to become "post-fashion" and have his own signature style that he doesn't have to think about and coordinate every day.
And much like Jobs, he used to dress like a hippie flower child early in his career and he realized sometime later how dated that looked, so he needed a timeless look.