Untitled topic • Hacker News Board

Re: undefined

#61

Post by jedberg » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 6:31 PM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #58

jedberg wrote: post #9

I think Apple would be an even more interesting company if he were still around. Maybe not as big or as profitable, but certainly more interesting. I wish he hadn't been so strongheaded about herbal remedies and whatnot. He had the more curable kind of cancer, had he taken it seriously earlier. As someone who has lost family to pancreatic cancer, it really upset me to learn that he didn't use his vast resources to do…

Some of Jobs' later success probably came from his knowledge of his own mortality. This enabled him to shoot for the moon and drive as hard as he could.

He still would have had that had he survived I think.

Re: undefined

#62

Post by WalterBright » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 6:31 PM UTC

Arubis wrote: post #37

jedberg wrote: post #9

I think Apple would be an even more interesting company if he were still around. Maybe not as big or as profitable, but certainly more interesting. I wish he hadn't been so strongheaded about herbal remedies and whatnot. He had the more curable kind of cancer, had he taken it seriously earlier. As someone who has lost family to pancreatic cancer, it really upset me to learn that he didn't use his vast resources to do…

For better and for worse, Jobs being so strongheaded about his own health and care was just another expression of precisely the same attributes that made him such an effective innovator: convinced his taste was right, he willed reality to bend to his perception of it. That works well on humans; it's (mostly) ineffective on disease.

I knew another person who was so strongheaded about his health that he could bend reality. It didn't work for him, either.

Re: undefined

#63

Post by skeeter2020 » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 6:32 PM UTC

>> and most of all to stay humble in our own beginner’s mind.

This sounds highly revisionist based on how he approached and treated people who knew more about him in many areas.

and this:

>> We were blessed to have him as husband and father.

My own father may be a nobody to history but he's a superior husband and father to Jobs on any scale.

Re: undefined

#64

Post by amelius » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 6:32 PM UTC

animanoir wrote: post #5

Mixed feelings about him honestly. I still can't forget how he betrayed Wozniak.

Indeed. No hacker deserves to be treated like that.

Without hackers, Jobs would have been designing plastic utensils with rounded corners for Tupperware, or something like that.

Re: undefined

#65

Post by exBarrelSpoiler » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 6:32 PM UTC

basisword wrote: post #30

This thread reminds me of the last Steve Jobs related thread. So many people bashing Jobs based on stories they’ve read having never met him and knowing little about him. People seem to think they even know his private medical history based on only public reports. So much judgement and criticism and it feels completely unnecessary. It’s the kind of pointless outrage type comments we tend not to find very often on HN,…

What about stories from actual Apple employees?

https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=90_Hours_A_Week_...

https://venturebeat.com/2011/08/25/michael-dhuey-apple-engin...

https://www.businessinsider.com/ex-apple-employee-on-steve-j...

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/01/former-apple-employee-guy-ka...

Re: undefined

#66

Post by tptacek » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 6:34 PM UTC

killion wrote: post #23

I think that Apple suffers from not having that person at the top with taste who was willing to say “this is shit”. The overall software quality has dropped markedly at Apple and the hardware more uneven since he left. There were misses under Steve like the Cube where there wasn’t a market. But the product was great. Now there is a market but the product is middling like the Watch. Yes the watch was started when he w…

I can't think of much I would trade from now for something in the Jobs era. I can do without the rich Corinthian leather, the PowerPC, and the colored plastic. The new keyboards aren't great, but I've dropped this MBP at least 30 times and it still keeps chugging; I'm pretty sure an errant dust particle could have take out my first Intel Macbook.

Re: undefined

#67

Post by skeeter2020 » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 6:35 PM UTC

animanoir wrote: post #5

Mixed feelings about him honestly. I still can't forget how he betrayed Wozniak.

especially when contrasted withg how Woz acted and continues to act. He just seems like a much more happy human being, and it's warming to see good things happen to good people.

Re: undefined

#68

Post by killion » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 6:36 PM UTC

duxup wrote: post #39

killion wrote: post #23

I think that Apple suffers from not having that person at the top with taste who was willing to say “this is shit”. The overall software quality has dropped markedly at Apple and the hardware more uneven since he left. There were misses under Steve like the Cube where there wasn’t a market. But the product was great. Now there is a market but the product is middling like the Watch. Yes the watch was started when he w…

I think that's true, but there's also a danger of asking someone to 'be that guy' who isn't Steve. That seems like a bigger risk. And in the meantime Apple still has its own fairly cohesive idea of how you use their devices and software ... while places like Google cancel and re-releases apps with half the features as the one they canceled, and I don't think they have a real idea of how people use their stuff.

Definitely, I don’t see a way you could elevate someone to the level Steve was at. I think the plan was to have Jony Ive be the final word on design person.

But with iOS 7 Ives showed he didn’t get software and the “design is how it works” concept.

Re: undefined

#69

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 6:36 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #9

I think Apple would be an even more interesting company if he were still around. Maybe not as big or as profitable, but certainly more interesting. I wish he hadn't been so strongheaded about herbal remedies and whatnot. He had the more curable kind of cancer, had he taken it seriously earlier. As someone who has lost family to pancreatic cancer, it really upset me to learn that he didn't use his vast resources to do…

[deleted]

Re: undefined

#70

Post by skeeter2020 » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 6:39 PM UTC

basisword wrote: post #30

This thread reminds me of the last Steve Jobs related thread. So many people bashing Jobs based on stories they’ve read having never met him and knowing little about him. People seem to think they even know his private medical history based on only public reports. So much judgement and criticism and it feels completely unnecessary. It’s the kind of pointless outrage type comments we tend not to find very often on HN,…

I like to think all reasonable computer nerds recognize the duality that created Apple: incredible engineering (Woz) combined with incredible passion, marketing and drive (Jobs). The problem is people point to Jobs as an example of unacceptable behaviours that are excused by his results. Yet somehow Woz showed us you could do really ingenious engineering AND be a decent human being, but they don't teach this in business school.