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Letter from Steve Wozniak to a high school student in Korea

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Re: Letter from Steve Wozniak to a high school student in Korea

#61

Post by zenbowman »

ImprovedSilence wrote: post #59
pagliara wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure Woz has a fine understanding of "how humans operate", perhaps even better than you or I. He has worked with some of the most important individuals and companies in this industry. Woz is not dumb. His point was that he chose to adopt this mindset on purpose. He'd rather be the "average person joking all the time than a powerful businessman stressing over work everyday". By not calling out Jobs for screwing hi…

haha, it appears to me that woz was a better Buddhist that Jobs.

lol yes

Re: Letter from Steve Wozniak to a high school student in Korea

#62

Post by nathanb »

mburney wrote: post #42
enraged_camel wrote: post #24

You are recognized by your own skills and good work, and you don‘t have to criticize others for not doing good work. Just worry about your own skills. Wozniak is a very technically brilliant guy, and I have the utmost level of respect for him. But the sentence I quoted above just shows that he's also a stereotypical "nerd" in a lot of ways [1], in the sense that he has a very poor understanding of how humans operate,…

From my experience most "nerds" are actually way too quick to criticize others. They lack confidence in their social skills so they form an identity around their supposed technical abilities. Then they use that identity to justify bullying, but instead of beating up someone with a diminutive stature they'll post a tweet about how someone is a moron for not using the correct design pattern on some code they posted on…

Yes, this.

There's a difference between criticizing someone and helping them. The former can lead to the latter, but they don't always (or even often!) go hand-in-hand.

Re: Letter from Steve Wozniak to a high school student in Korea

#63

Post by sgloutnikov »

digitalengineer wrote: post #23
sgloutnikov wrote: post #12

Loved every word of that, great guy! "The best things I did in my young years leading up to the early Apple computers were done because I had little money and had to think deeply to achieve the impossible." On a side note, I think this is why more (and arguably better) hackers come out of Eastern Europe/Asia.

Yes having only "little money" forced Woz to really focus, think and experiment. However, I'm sure living in the same neighbourhood/city as people from IBM, Intel, HewlettPackard, etc wasn't bad either ;-)

Oh clearly! And how much easier it was back then to simply walk into HP for example, and talk to these people directly.

Re: Letter from Steve Wozniak to a high school student in Korea

#64

Post by phaus »

enraged_camel wrote: post #24

You are recognized by your own skills and good work, and you don‘t have to criticize others for not doing good work. Just worry about your own skills. Wozniak is a very technically brilliant guy, and I have the utmost level of respect for him. But the sentence I quoted above just shows that he's also a stereotypical "nerd" in a lot of ways [1], in the sense that he has a very poor understanding of how humans operate,…

Most people are assholes. I don't know why anyone would ever advocate being like most people, I simply can't comprehend it.

Steve Wozniak was employed and making a good salary as a programmer when Jobs screwed him over. Wozniak has said that he knew that Jobs was in a tough spot, and needed the money badly. He forgave him, that's what friends do.

If Wozniak had chosen the path you would have, Apple wouldn't exist and Steve Wozniak wouldn't be rich enough to spend the last few decades doing whatever the fuck he wants to do.

As a stereotypical nerd, who is socially retarded yet still manages to be a cynical asshole on a regular basis, I'll leave you with this.

The world needs nice guys like Steve Wozniak far more than it needs more assholes.

Re: Letter from Steve Wozniak to a high school student in Korea

#65

Post by dba7dba »

fghh45sdfhr3 wrote: post #55
pagliara wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure Woz has a fine understanding of "how humans operate", perhaps even better than you or I. He has worked with some of the most important individuals and companies in this industry. Woz is not dumb. His point was that he chose to adopt this mindset on purpose. He'd rather be the "average person joking all the time than a powerful businessman stressing over work everyday". By not calling out Jobs for screwing hi…

His point was that he chose to adopt this mindset on purpose. Exactly. Wozniak and Jobs weren't just opposites. Wozniak is the anti-Jobs. And it makes me wonder if the deliberate personal philosophy Wozniak assumed ever got under Jobs' skin. Obviously it would have been unintentional but could have bothered Jobs more than we can imagine.

I think Wozniak did get under Jobs' skin. Wozniak was never given early access to iPhone or other iDevices afaik. He had to line up to get them like everyone else.

Re: Letter from Steve Wozniak to a high school student in Korea

#66

Post by beambot »

hobs wrote: post #51
beambot wrote: post #19

Computer apps are not to be judged by what they do or how well they do it. Rather, it is more important that they feel natural to normal humans and they are led to the right actions. This statement makes me sad... but I cannot articulate exactly why. Edit: I like the essay in general. It's very motivating. It would have been great advice when in highschool.

Its because like many nerds, you love to program, and you love THE program. I find that many technical people actually find that while they keep solving technical problems, the people problem never goes away with their software. We treat people as idiots and act in condescending manners because we think they are too dumb to use our software or computers in general, but the truth is our software is dumb and a lot of u…

I don't think that's it... Woz talks about internalizing and owning his own thoughts throughout the article, then implies that computer programs (that presumably the student could / should build) ought to be tailored to everyone else's mental models. It seems contradictory. I'd much rather hear something like, "Build something you love using... that's easy for you to use."

Re: Letter from Steve Wozniak to a high school student in Korea

#67

Post by hkmurakami »

philh wrote: post #49
dakrisht wrote: post #5

Gotta love Woz. So humble, such a brilliant mind, a pure hacker at heart. Need more guys like him and less turds like Mark Pincus (first one that comes to mind).

> less turds like Mark Pincus Does that sound like the sort of thing Woz would say?

Alas that's why there's so few beings like Woz.

Re: Letter from Steve Wozniak to a high school student in Korea

#68

Post by beernutz »

vidarh wrote: post #52
mburney wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my experience most "nerds" are actually way too quick to criticize others. They lack confidence in their social skills so they form an identity around their supposed technical abilities. Then they use that identity to justify bullying, but instead of beating up someone with a diminutive stature they'll post a tweet about how someone is a moron for not using the correct design pattern on some code they posted on…

A lot of the time it is also just lack of understanding of how others will respond. A lot of "nerd bullying" is unintended and seem to happen through brutally harsh technical criticism that we often don't realize can affect others really badly. I used to work with a now well known blogger who is reasonably technical, but not a developer, and I used to fall prey to this with him. In one meeting, we were chatting while…

Coming from a programming background as well, I would like to make a couple points:

It helps to preface constructive criticism with praise. Make sure they understand what you LIKE before you dive into "rough edges".

I find it helps a LOT to phrase constructive criticism as a question. For example:

Do you think it would be faster to use JSON here instead of XML maybe?

Just a thought from a long-time customer-interfacing programmer. Are those normally hyphenated? 8)

Re: Letter from Steve Wozniak to a high school student in Korea

#70

Post by simplon »

kenkam wrote: post #36
pshin45 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point, his email reply got me wondering how familiar he is with Korea and whether he was deliberately tailoring his message for a Korean audience as well. He talks about not learning from books, not caring about what others think about you, choosing a company based on how they treat you and not how "hot" they are - These are all the complete opposite of what Korea values and the way most Koreans live (book-learn…

I could say the same thing for the culture in Hong Kong or China at large too.

Singapore too..
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