4 ms·

What do you take out of a story such as this?

16 points by zaidf 20y ago

zaidf 20y ago
I love what he says about Steve Jobs: "By the way," says Charan, "the last time I talked about Steve Jobs, remember? I've now verified from two directors of Apple, and they say it's right on the button." Gomber and Bartridge perk up their ears. "I asked, Well, tell me his three God's gifts. And they think about it, and they say first thing, this human being has a talent to figure out what the consumer really wants. This is a very valuable thing! No. 2, he has the will and the talent to find - no matter where it is! - the right technology that will deliver what they want. Nobody said he invented one! And third, he has the talent to create demand at the right time. I say, Where do you find those human beings? But he is one."
JMiao 20y ago
He gets marketing.
jkush 20y ago
It's a strange portrait. The way he's described, I picture a character from an Ayn Rand novel.
- gibsonf1 20y ago
  He is extreme in a sense that is really hard to imagine. He clearly makes a great deal of money, but according to the article, he doesn't use it at all. His life is his work - no romance, no home. Does he ever take a vacation? He focuses on purpose to explain his lifestyle, and has clearly achieved incredible success at his business. But what about forging intimate personal relationships, both romantic and with friends? I get such great value from having close relationships, a "home", an "office" that to imagine life without them is almost impossible. Of course he has 30+ year relationships with his clients, so maybe he has developed close friendships with some of them. If Rand had created him as a character, maybe the purpose would be to show the downside of total focus on only business. Life without romance - never!
falsestprophet 20y ago
It is a caricature of failure despite epic success; his life is a dire warning.
- zaidf 20y ago
  For you and I, we may never be able to accept such a life. But this guy seems totally content with what he has. That is the more shocking part. You don't really sense much of wishing it wasn't like this from the tone of the story - but then again, I don't know him personally.
Alex3917 20y ago
Fascinating. My basic take is that he has both a unique philosophy of business/life and a unique way of thinking/problem_solving, and he gets his enjoyment out of applying this to other people's problems. It would be interesting to make a meta-cognitive model of his problem solving process.
Goladus 20y ago
Reminds me a little of Paul Erdős, although Erdős maybe wasn't quite so extreme. According to Wikipedia, he voluntarily spent most of his life as a vagabond, showing up at people's houses to collaborate on Math papers. (csci type stuff: Combinatorics, Graph Theory, approximation, etc) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Erd%C5%91s http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Erd%C5%91s
ecuzzillo 20y ago
In many ways, I'd love to be that guy. It'd mean I'd never be unhappy because I'm in place A doing thing X instead of in place B doing thing Y-- I'd be doing the thing I most wanted to do 100% of the time. No complicated issues with people and obligations and such. Simple, and exactly right. My only problem with it would be meaning-- I'd have trouble doing something that would probably have no trace when I was gone, aside perhaps from whatever philanthropy resulted. Excellent article, by the way; reminds me of the old Reddit. However, speaking of Reddit, this is pretty tangential to startups-- beware of community drift!
- dfranke 20y ago
  Excellent article, by the way; reminds me of the old Reddit. Not terribly surprising, considering how many of the people on the leaderboard are refugees from it.
startupper 20y ago
Truly inspiring. I thank you for posting this link. Wonderful way to start a morning.
ido 20y ago
Couldn't you have given this article a more descriptive title? This was an interesting read, almost skipped it because of the title.
dhbradshaw 20y ago
You can focus on externals or on internals. He seems to focus completely on internals. He worries about the quality of the work he does at any given moment rather than about where his work will lead him or what he will get for it. It is as though he has given up fear.

16 points by zaidf 20y ago

zaidf 20y ago

I love what he says about Steve Jobs: "By the way," says Charan, "the last time I talked about Steve Jobs, remember? I've now verified from two directors of Apple, and they say it's right on the button." Gomber and Bartridge perk up their ears. "I asked, Well, tell me his three God's gifts. And they think about it, and they say first thing, this human being has a talent to figure out what the consumer really wants. This is a very valuable thing! No. 2, he has the will and the talent to find - no matter where it is! - the right technology that will deliver what they want. Nobody said he invented one! And third, he has the talent to create demand at the right time. I say, Where do you find those human beings? But he is one."

JMiao 20y ago

He gets marketing.

jkush 20y ago

It's a strange portrait. The way he's described, I picture a character from an Ayn Rand novel.

gibsonf1 20y ago
He is extreme in a sense that is really hard to imagine. He clearly makes a great deal of money, but according to the article, he doesn't use it at all. His life is his work - no romance, no home. Does he ever take a vacation? He focuses on purpose to explain his lifestyle, and has clearly achieved incredible success at his business. But what about forging intimate personal relationships, both romantic and with friends? I get such great value from having close relationships, a "home", an "office" that to imagine life without them is almost impossible. Of course he has 30+ year relationships with his clients, so maybe he has developed close friendships with some of them. If Rand had created him as a character, maybe the purpose would be to show the downside of total focus on only business. Life without romance - never!

falsestprophet 20y ago

It is a caricature of failure despite epic success; his life is a dire warning.

zaidf 20y ago
For you and I, we may never be able to accept such a life. But this guy seems totally content with what he has. That is the more shocking part. You don't really sense much of wishing it wasn't like this from the tone of the story - but then again, I don't know him personally.

Alex3917 20y ago

Fascinating. My basic take is that he has both a unique philosophy of business/life and a unique way of thinking/problem_solving, and he gets his enjoyment out of applying this to other people's problems. It would be interesting to make a meta-cognitive model of his problem solving process.

Goladus 20y ago

Reminds me a little of Paul Erdős, although Erdős maybe wasn't quite so extreme. According to Wikipedia, he voluntarily spent most of his life as a vagabond, showing up at people's houses to collaborate on Math papers. (csci type stuff: Combinatorics, Graph Theory, approximation, etc) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Erd%C5%91s http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Erd%C5%91s

ecuzzillo 20y ago

In many ways, I'd love to be that guy. It'd mean I'd never be unhappy because I'm in place A doing thing X instead of in place B doing thing Y-- I'd be doing the thing I most wanted to do 100% of the time. No complicated issues with people and obligations and such. Simple, and exactly right. My only problem with it would be meaning-- I'd have trouble doing something that would probably have no trace when I was gone, aside perhaps from whatever philanthropy resulted. Excellent article, by the way; reminds me of the old Reddit. However, speaking of Reddit, this is pretty tangential to startups-- beware of community drift!

dfranke 20y ago
Excellent article, by the way; reminds me of the old Reddit. Not terribly surprising, considering how many of the people on the leaderboard are refugees from it.

startupper 20y ago

Truly inspiring. I thank you for posting this link. Wonderful way to start a morning.

ido 20y ago

Couldn't you have given this article a more descriptive title? This was an interesting read, almost skipped it because of the title.

dhbradshaw 20y ago

You can focus on externals or on internals. He seems to focus completely on internals. He worries about the quality of the work he does at any given moment rather than about where his work will lead him or what he will get for it. It is as though he has given up fear.