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Why Founders Should Emulate Wozniak, Not Jobs

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Re: Why Founders Should Emulate Wozniak, Not Jobs

#61

Post by watmough »

trevor99 wrote: post #59
pg wrote: post #53

Sadly, this is not one of the honeypots Wesley Tansey recently suggested I set up ( http://www.nashcoding.com/2011/10/28/hackernews-needs-honeyp... ). As someone who has seen dozens of Woz-founder-only startups march into the meatgrinder of obscurity, I can tell you that if you have to be one or the other, you're better off being Jobs. Not that you have much choice about it though. If you're a natural Jobs you're not…

Thanks pg. My intent was not to bash Jobs, quite the opposite as I called him "one of the best CEOs ever to live" in the conclusion. My goal is to reflect on what skills are really important in an early startup. The Apple II wasn't a success because of Jobs's leadership or because of his design focus like with the iPhone. Founders don't think about Markkula's role in getting the Apple II mainstream. Furthermore, Jobs…

"Jobs’s most important contribution was just general hustling."

This is where I think you went wrong. You can have the greatest product in the World, and if you can't sell it, you're toast.

Re: Why Founders Should Emulate Wozniak, Not Jobs

#62

Post by kstenerud »

trevor99 wrote: post #52
kstenerud wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically what I'm getting at is: He had greater means and so could take higher value risks, but the basic mechanism is the same; it's just at a different scale. In the end it comes down to having the vision and taking the risk. And one of his risks finally paid off. That is the essence of entrepreneurship, and something to emulate.

Your stretching pretty far here. "Vision" was what led Steve Jobs wrong for 20 years of his life. Markkula knew the industry and knew what would work, Wozniak had the best engineering ability of anyone. This was the magic combination and what founders should try to emulate. It's not just scale either. Jobs was also famous and perceived as successful. He could be a complete asshole to people and they would still work…

Steve's "vision" failed him time and time again. He risked his own money and lost it. He risked other peoples' money and lost it. And then eventually he made it work. It doesn't matter that he leveraged other peoples' genius and vision. It doesn't matter that he stole everything. It doesn't matter that he was a little self-delusional or that he was an asshole. Under his direction, his "vision" finally materialized, and was wildly successful.

Now I wouldn't say that being a narcissistic asshole is a good strategy or something to emulate (after all, nobody's perfect), but pursuing a vision through all manner of trial and tribulation is a worthy goal, and something to emulate.

The people who make the biggest impact tend to be those who spend years, even decades in the harsh wildnerness, taking hits and taking falls, but never giving up because they refuse to believe that it can't be done. And then one day they do it, or die trying.

These people look at a territory and say "I'm going to conquer that." Most people will tell them they're crazy to even try, and that it would already be conquered if it were worthwhile or even possible to do so. "Just till the land like everyone else does" they'll say. And then these would-be conquerors get some other key people to see the vision and the possibility. They all work hard, doing what nobody else is doing, or would even try doing. They fail campaign after campaign, but keep going, eventually seeing some success. And then one day the visionary stands on the tallest hill, surveying their newly acquired "unconquerable" territory, and suddenly they're not crazy, but genius.

Re: Why Founders Should Emulate Wozniak, Not Jobs

#63

Post by trevor99 »

shareme wrote: post #58
pg wrote: post #53

Sadly, this is not one of the honeypots Wesley Tansey recently suggested I set up ( http://www.nashcoding.com/2011/10/28/hackernews-needs-honeyp... ). As someone who has seen dozens of Woz-founder-only startups march into the meatgrinder of obscurity, I can tell you that if you have to be one or the other, you're better off being Jobs. Not that you have much choice about it though. If you're a natural Jobs you're not…

Not to mention that Woz had an equal amount of failures.. What we have is really several different Founder styles: 1. Young Woz 2. Old Woz 3. Young Jobs 4 Old Jobs

Could you be more specific about Wozniak's equal amount of failures? Not quite sure I agree.

Re: Why Founders Should Emulate Wozniak, Not Jobs

#64

Post by watmough »

forensic wrote: post #27
trevor99 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right it did take a lot of convincing and hustling. It didn't take product vision from Jobs to make the Apple II a success however. Look at all the products Jobs tried to produce through his "vision," they all failed until the iPod.

The Apple II would not have had a keyboard or power supply without Jobs' vision though. You're probably right that it wasn't the design aesthetic that counted, but Jobs' customer focus was still very important.

It's highly likely that without Jobs, we wouldn't have had the awesome velcro that holds the top cover of an Apple II closed.

For those that haven't had the privilege, first move the monitor and Disk II units off, then grasp the back of the top cover of the Apple II, and lift up. There will be a ripping of Velcro.

It's surprising that no one else ever seemed to copy this, and not something that'd ever occurred to me until now.

Re: Why Founders Should Emulate Wozniak, Not Jobs

#65

Post by comedian »

trevor99 wrote: post #59
pg wrote: post #53

Sadly, this is not one of the honeypots Wesley Tansey recently suggested I set up ( http://www.nashcoding.com/2011/10/28/hackernews-needs-honeyp... ). As someone who has seen dozens of Woz-founder-only startups march into the meatgrinder of obscurity, I can tell you that if you have to be one or the other, you're better off being Jobs. Not that you have much choice about it though. If you're a natural Jobs you're not…

Thanks pg. My intent was not to bash Jobs, quite the opposite as I called him "one of the best CEOs ever to live" in the conclusion. My goal is to reflect on what skills are really important in an early startup. The Apple II wasn't a success because of Jobs's leadership or because of his design focus like with the iPhone. Founders don't think about Markkula's role in getting the Apple II mainstream. Furthermore, Jobs…

"I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."

-Michael Jordan

Re: Why Founders Should Emulate Wozniak, Not Jobs

#66

Post by throwaway11235 »

pg wrote: post #53

Sadly, this is not one of the honeypots Wesley Tansey recently suggested I set up ( http://www.nashcoding.com/2011/10/28/hackernews-needs-honeyp... ). As someone who has seen dozens of Woz-founder-only startups march into the meatgrinder of obscurity, I can tell you that if you have to be one or the other, you're better off being Jobs. Not that you have much choice about it though. If you're a natural Jobs you're not…

"More generally, I'm tired of these articles where people make up a straw man version of Steve Jobs and then attack him. I feel like I know more about Jobs than nearly everyone who writes this stuff, and I don't feel confident making generalizations about his character."

Most people tend to crave easy explanations as to why someone did X. They need to see their ascent so that they feel that they could have done the same if some variable Y had been there. I think that's a very human and understandable thing to do, but in this case it has gone into over drive because something has changed.

Steve Jobs was a titan in an age where recording information is quite cheap indeed and everyone chronicles the minutest details of their life in some way or another. (be it through email or facebook, we're all creating heft tomes about our lives) Thanks to the age he helped along, he has the unenviable distinction of being a human being whose complexities have been recorded and will be poured over again and again until the human beings shall forget his name someday.

Re: Why Founders Should Emulate Wozniak, Not Jobs

#68

Post by trevor99 »

watmough wrote: post #61
trevor99 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks pg. My intent was not to bash Jobs, quite the opposite as I called him "one of the best CEOs ever to live" in the conclusion. My goal is to reflect on what skills are really important in an early startup. The Apple II wasn't a success because of Jobs's leadership or because of his design focus like with the iPhone. Founders don't think about Markkula's role in getting the Apple II mainstream. Furthermore, Jobs…

"Jobs’s most important contribution was just general hustling." This is where I think you went wrong. You can have the greatest product in the World, and if you can't sell it, you're toast.

So the question is, who sold it, Jobs or Markkula?

Re: Why Founders Should Emulate Wozniak, Not Jobs

#69

Post by bonch »

pg wrote: post #53

Sadly, this is not one of the honeypots Wesley Tansey recently suggested I set up ( http://www.nashcoding.com/2011/10/28/hackernews-needs-honeyp... ). As someone who has seen dozens of Woz-founder-only startups march into the meatgrinder of obscurity, I can tell you that if you have to be one or the other, you're better off being Jobs. Not that you have much choice about it though. If you're a natural Jobs you're not…

More generally, I'm tired of these articles where people make up a straw man version of Steve Jobs and then attack him.

Where is the straw man? You may disagree with the conclusion, but to my knowledge, the facts given about him in the article are true, including the exorbitant spending at NeXT.

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