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Steve Jobs Insult Response (1997) [video]

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Re: Steve Jobs Insult Response (1997) [video]

#81

Post by JKCalhoun »

eyelidlessness wrote: post #59
rwbt wrote: post #15

I can't believe people compare Jobs with Musk. Jobs was so much better put together in public and seems like he can still be very coherent and persuasive even when angry (likely in this video) and insulted in public.

I love Apple products and have since childhood, and I have little doubt Jobs’ personality, thinking, and talent, are major factors in what I liked about Apple then and do now. And I detest Musk. That disclosure out of the way… Jobs was notoriously quick to anger, imperious in his internal role, very selectively rational, and generally… well, often kind of a jerk. I know all of that can overlap with coherence and pers…

> but I’m also not prepared to pretend that Jobs wasn’t an epic asshole.

I think the video linked to (Steve Jobs Insult Response) is honestly one of Steve's finest moments (with regard to dealing with people that is). But to bolster your point, there are of course an overwhelming number of stories that capture Steve's less stellar moments.

Re: Steve Jobs Insult Response (1997) [video]

#82

Post by raydiatian »

johnsillings wrote: post #77
LarsDu88 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who don't understand the dude's question on a technical level don't realize how much doublespeak Jobs is using here.

Can you elaborate? I don't understand the dude's question on a technical level.

To my mind it’s a bit of a trick question intended to bait Jobs into comparing apples to oranges. OpenDoc’s goal seems to be something of an early fediverse (shoot me if you disagree): a component framework that would allow applications to aggregate/compose/edit/display documents or subfragments thereof simultaneously from a federated network of sources, in an open standard that would allow anybody to roll their own UI. Java, completely different, is I suppose most comparable to this in the notion that Java is portable/run anywhere. Perhaps there was some equal footing between the two in the realm of licensing as well.

Jobs straight up dances around the question to basically say (in pretty unclear terms) “I don’t know how or want to sell OpenDoc because of my product philosophy, so we’re not gonna bother with it.”

However, instead of just bluntly stating ‘I don’t know how to sell OpenDoc’, Jobs goes on a self contradictory rant about asking his executive staff “what great things can we give our customers (why would the exec staff know)” rather than “what great tech can we sell”. They’re the same fucking question, unless you’re Steve Jobs, and decide that you can force people to work insane hours to build something that doesn’t exist and then take all the credit for it.

Re: Steve Jobs Insult Response (1997) [video]

#83

Post by adolph »

eyelidlessness wrote: post #59
rwbt wrote: post #15

I can't believe people compare Jobs with Musk. Jobs was so much better put together in public and seems like he can still be very coherent and persuasive even when angry (likely in this video) and insulted in public.

I love Apple products and have since childhood, and I have little doubt Jobs’ personality, thinking, and talent, are major factors in what I liked about Apple then and do now. And I detest Musk. That disclosure out of the way… Jobs was notoriously quick to anger, imperious in his internal role, very selectively rational, and generally… well, often kind of a jerk. I know all of that can overlap with coherence and pers…

The one where Gassee disses him for bad behavior is funny; wonder if it really happened.

https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Handicapped.txt

Re: Steve Jobs Insult Response (1997) [video]

#84

Post by mruniverse »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #75
rootusrootus wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, he doesn't look even remotely angry. The guy asking the question sure did, but Jobs looked pretty relaxed. And his response was amazing . No wonder he could create the Reality Distortion Field ;).

I posit that Jobs was angry but that his Realty Distortion Field was extremely effective this time.

I think he was angry too, but that makes it all the more impressive.

Re: Steve Jobs Insult Response (1997) [video]

#85

Post by etempleton »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #75
rootusrootus wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, he doesn't look even remotely angry. The guy asking the question sure did, but Jobs looked pretty relaxed. And his response was amazing . No wonder he could create the Reality Distortion Field ;).

I posit that Jobs was angry but that his Realty Distortion Field was extremely effective this time.

He doesn’t strike me as angry as much as amused. This is probably not the first time he has been asked a very similar question. Maybe the first time he was annoyed, but what he actually does is explain the big picture, “why?” The question asker isn’t thinking big picture. He needs context. This person may never get it, but it is important for leaders to be able to convey direction.

It is the same struggle that Woz had regarding the Apple II. Woz was looking at all of the success the Apple II had and was still having and Jobs knew it would not last forever and he had to create the next thing and that that is where the company has to put time, money, and attention.

Re: Steve Jobs Insult Response (1997) [video]

#86

Post by fsckboy »

fuzzythinker wrote: post #25
CharlesW wrote: post #4

That 10 second pause before he responds — 25 seconds if you don't count the reference to the famous quote, which buys him a bit more time — is amazing. What may be less well understood by people who weren't there is that he's addressing Apple employees just as much as he is Apple developers. Many Apple employees had the same question. [Source: Was at Apple at the time.] "You've got to start with the customer experien…

Not sure if he can really use that extra 15 secs as it's really hard to multitask on thinking and speaking. Even if he's able to, it would be only some % of it, as even a robot will have to do context switching.

with the extra time his emotions will still continue cool, and much of thought is unconscious, and the unconscious is essentially parallel processing, i.e. multitasking. This is how good comedians or poets or Freudian-slippers are able to come up with les mots justes ("just the right words"), the words that do justice on multiple levels.

Re: Steve Jobs Insult Response (1997) [video]

#87

Post by Spooky23 »

starik36 wrote: post #46
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> back then your interaction with the public was maybe twice a year. Now it’s daily. If you choose it to be. Plenty of CEOs are relatively recluse. For example, Apple’s, today.

I seriously doubt Steve Jobs would be.

Sure he would. Jobs controlled his public persona and presence very carefully.

Being available to the world makes you the tail that wags the dog. It’s expensive to keep the mob happy. The big demagogues of our time aptly demonstrate that.

Re: Steve Jobs Insult Response (1997) [video]

#88

Post by andrewflnr »

Octokiddie wrote: post #21

One thing that's interesting here is how Jobs doesn't answer the specific technical question: How does Java address the ideas embodied in OpenDoc? Instead, Jobs answers the question behind the question: What role should new technologies play at Apple going forward? This is a very useful technique to practice. When asked a question whose premise you don't agree with, you can become confrontational on that point. Or yo…

For everyone talking about politicians and their BS: I want to point out that there's a difference between answering the question that should have been asked, and the question you wish had been asked. The former is honest, and genuinely educational if the answerer is correct in their judgement. The latter is a tactic for sophistry/bullshit and potentially deceptive, especially when it pretends to be the former.

The difference is primarily in intent: it's hard to tell externally, but advice basically takes an internal perspective to its recipient, so it's perfectly reasonable to suggest someone do something with good intentions.

Re: Steve Jobs Insult Response (1997) [video]

#90

Post by TwoNineFive »

rwbt wrote: post #15

I can't believe people compare Jobs with Musk. Jobs was so much better put together in public and seems like he can still be very coherent and persuasive even when angry (likely in this video) and insulted in public.

Both Musk and Jobs are admired by the same kind of people. And for the reasons.
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