Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

plus.google.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 314 posts

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

#71

Post by bdcravens »

mandeepj wrote: post #50
phaus wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Besides Apple, Pixar and Next made Jobs billionaire too. If Apple had never existed, he wouldn't have had the hundreds of millions dollars that he spent on these endeavors. >Jobs was a natural leader and visionary. Jobs was good at recognizing when the right time to bet on a technology was. When you are filthy rich, you can turn this talent into a license to print money. When you aren't already rich, it just makes y…

> If Apple had never existed, he wouldn't have had the hundreds of millions dollars that he spent on these endeavors. Steve jobs was an entrepreneur. He did not had millions of dollars when he started with Apple so he could have also started with something else besides Apple and money would have came along as it did with Apple. I agree with you there are so many genius people in this world. Not everyone gets to see J…

he could have also started with something else besides Apple

Assuming he had a Woz, perhaps. Perhaps he would have found another engineer, or perhaps Woz had a unique combination of skills that really meant Jobs was in the right place at the right time.

Jobs failed in his vision - a lot. Had the Apple II not kept Apple plodding along - remember what Woz said about Jobs's desire to kill it - and some of the strategic investments along the way from outside (Microsoft's investment of $150M when Apple was on the verge of bankruptcy), Apple would be a memory today.

I know that violates the meme on HN and elsewhere that Apple's success is purely the result of Jobs's genius and vision, but that's a rewriting of history.

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

#72

Post by WalterBright »

JAFTEM wrote: post #20
waterlesscloud wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Woz did things everyone knows they can't do, so he's marginalized as a freak. Jobs did things everyone thinks they can do, so he's worshipped as a god. I'm half-kidding. Half not.

Many people usually go under-appreciated for their work that leads to major engineering feats. It seems to me that society likes to look at the past and attribute one thing or one person to what changed everything, when in reality it is the accumulation of several events that lead to major breakthroughs. Thomas Edison never invented the light bulb, but he did find a filament for the incandescent lamp so that it could…

Edison invented a practical light bulb.

He also invented the industry that was able to deliver power to homes so they could use those light bulbs.

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

#73

Post by MaxGabriel »

gnaffle wrote: post #39
rtpg wrote: post #2

For those who haven't yet, I'd highly recommend reading "Steve Jobs", the biography by Isaacson. It portrays pretty much all of these events like Woz describes them, and is a very complete portrait of Jobs. Woz' status at HP as referenced isn't really covered, but his actions during the Apple I and II launches are pretty complete. EDIT: I'd like to point out that this book covers everything, up to Jobs death, and is…

While I think the book was worth the read, I think Isaacson was wrong on so many small and big things and failed to go into others, and he really did a poor job with the book. I recommend the two Hypercritical podcasts about the book, which really goes into some depth about the problems with the book: http://5by5.tv/hypercritical/42 (starts 18 minutes in) http://5by5.tv/hypercritical/43

This episode was fantastic, thanks for reminding me how much I love listening to John Siracusa.

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

#74

Post by [deleted] »

Dn_Ab wrote: post #54

Sidenote: You can tell Woz is an amazing genuinely good person with no hint of pretension or self importance. A lot can be discerned about famous personalities by who they choose to follow. For example, you can tell whether the person has little utility for social networks but maybe started out following a scattering of experts relevant to their interests. Usually though, the personality is using their handful of fol…

[deleted]

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

#75

Post by saraid216 »

WalterBright wrote: post #10

It makes you wonder how wrong other movie biographies are.

Movie adaptations of novels are generally very, very questionable in terms of true-to-the-original accuracy. And novels at least have the advantage of having been written for the kind of entertainment-driven everything-fits-together narrative that movies are compelled to conform to. Real life, with its terribly inconvenient nature for pacing and self-contradicting, does even less well when compacted into 2 hours for a primarily visual medium.

If you see a movie adaptation, you can be pretty sure it's inaccurate. The question of accuracy shouldn't be in the detail; it should be in the message that the movie was trying to tell.

"Ip Man - A Legend is Born", for instance, conveyed Yip Man's desire to spread Wing Chun better than any other movie biography, whereas "Ip Man" best discussed his philosophy of life and "The Grandmaster" put him into a historical context completely ignored by the other movies. They're all factually wrong, but they're wrong with different emphases and strengths because they're expressing different perspectives on the same life.

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

#76

Post by username223 »

lostlogin wrote: post #62
TillE wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The short version is that Siracusa recommends "Infinite Loop" by Michael Malone as the best single source for Apple history prior to the return of Jobs, and he says that the post-return material in the Isaacson book (ie, everything unique that it offers) is poor and/or limited.

Siracusa and short version are not things that go together and long may this last. The only tolerable thing about my daily commute is listening to him discuss his pet peeves. File systems, TVs, programming languages, the Minecraft install process (great episode) ebook formatting etc. He must be interesting to know as there are very few things he appears just accept and use without pondering improvements.

I never get tired of listening to his Incomparable episodes on "Star Wars." And, of course, the final Hypercritical episode, in which he dissected his own podcast.

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

#77

Post by ArcticCelt »

abritishguy wrote: post #48
mrtksn wrote: post #34

Unlike "The Pirates of Silicon Valley", "Jobs" was painful to watch and it was not only because it was a bad movie but because I've already red the biography by Isaacson. It felt like somebody was lying to me to things I know that are not that way. It was like a creationist teaching me the evolution theory. I don't claim that The Pirates of Silicon Valley is completely accurate but but Jobs(movie) was out of line. It…

Bill gates said "the pirates of Silicon Valley" is pretty accurate in his reddit AMA.

I think Woz said more less the same. Something like it was maybe not 100% of the story but at least things where mostly true and the essence of the characters right.

EDIT: Watch him say it : http://macmothership.com/nucleus/index.php?itemid=226

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

#78

Post by yeukhon »

ehsanu1 wrote: post #40
yeukhon wrote: post #38

This is probably a better documentary because his friends and co-workers are all in this documentary... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OC3qFtgeogE

No audio track on that link due to some copyright claim... Ugh.

Yeah, well, I shouldn't provide a link I know that works... that wouldn't be cool on HN lol

It was actually pretty good from BBC (some BBC documentary shows have been proven to be fake in the past)

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

#79

Post by appledroid »

oinksoft wrote: post #16
raverbashing wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I recommend the reading of iWoz It goes in much deeper detail in some Apple aspects (until the Apple II, of course) but it's a nicer book in general (I mean, less rushed) But they are both great reads.

I thought iWoz was bittersweet, even cautionary. Here's this brilliant guy doing unbelievable work, then after he makes it he's just spending his time figuring out what to do with the money ... and he designs a new remote so he can watch TV better.

He's a big kid at heart.
Post reply on HN