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Listening to this talk, you get a sense of how much more intelligent he was than he may have even gotten credit for. All the talk about his temper and his steal

Listening to this talk, you get a sense of how much more intelligent he was than he may have even gotten credit for. All the talk about his temper and his stealing of engineers ideas, an imperfect boss, etc, sorta gives the impression that he wasn't as smart and he was more of a salesman, but holy shit, he was incredibly intelligent, and a real thinker.

luckydata 8y ago
Some of the smartest people I've met work in sales. You don't have to be an engineer to be smart.
- sah2ed 8y ago
  Agreed. It's easy for engineers to assume because they have a deep understanding of a complex topic, that it is a good proxy for assessing general intelligence. Such assessment is a good proxy for a certain kind of intelligence only, because intelligence itself exists on a fairly wide spectrum, it is not a binary trait.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- jammi 8y ago
  The problem is that the average salesperson is pretty ignorant, even about the probuct he's supposed to sell and the target audience to sell to. Encountering a great salesperson is a rare occurrence in life, encountering a more or less average one is very common.
  - neonate 8y ago
    Same with programmers or anything else.
    - kingkongjaffa 8y ago
      The problem is the baseline STEM disciple looks on the baseline biz/marketing graduate with disdain like they took an easy route out. 'proper' Engineering (MECH/AERO/CIVIL/EEE) is full of memes about this mindset. CS is just as bad. Most decent engineers loose this mindset after freshman year but many go on to see them selves as the MVP department of whatever business. In some ways I think Startup culture fights against this because it's really obvious at small team scale how different skill sets are needed.
      - Retric 8y ago
        The absolute best in any field including fast food cook is probably as intelegent as any other field. However the average really can be meaningfully different based on self selection. HR for example really does not attract the best and brightest. Sales is an outlier because compensation for the best can be really good. So, it's got a large group of very talented people and many far less so.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - Ntrails 8y ago
      There's always the difficulty of being able to recognise that as a lamen. Mediocre sales people are often transparent to anybody who listens to them and is able to ask questions. A mediocre engineer "blinds with science" and is very hard to identify without some amount of specialist knowledge.
    - jammi 8y ago
      Of course, never said it's not. Are people reflecting from themselves, or what is this about?
  - typon 8y ago
    Classic programmer narcissism
    - Trundle 8y ago
      Possibly just ignorant. Most people have never/will never be in charge of large budgets. A normal consumer with a normal job is only really going to encounter the lower end of the field.
carlmr 8y ago
I read his biography by Isaacson. He was a fascinating person, extremely smart, a keen sense of design and a (self-taught) ability for sales. He was most definitely a boss I wouldn't have wanted to work for though, because he was an extreme narcissist. Smart and terrible person don't exclude each other.
- jryle80 8y ago
  I don't know, I'd rather be an early Apple's employee or part of the first iPhone team, witnessing a major new chapter of computing, than a comfortable developer in a comfortable setting.
  - briandear 8y ago
    True! And, this was change the world kind of stuff — it wasn’t being “mean” for the hell of it, it was being “mean” in the pursuit of a vision. It doesn’t excuse “being mean,” but it’s far different than having some jackass middle manager at some consulting firm yelling about TPS reports. It’s like the drill sergeant phenomenon— harsh leadership can have a place when attempting to forge ahead in a difficult mission as it often motivates the team to accomplish more than would normally be considered comfortable (or even healthy.) An asshole boss on a mission is far preferable (to me,) than a “nice” boss driven by nothing other than maintaining the status quo. Asshole bosses maintaining the status quo — now that genuinely sucks.
    - carlmr 8y ago
      >True! And, this was change the world kind of stuff — it wasn’t being “mean” for the hell of it, it was being “mean” in the pursuit of a vision. It doesn’t excuse “being mean,” but it’s far different than having some jackass middle manager at some consulting firm yelling about TPS reports. I don't think the meanness helped in creating the vision. They're two entirely separate things >An asshole boss on a mission is far preferable (to me,) than a “nice” boss driven by nothing other than maintaining the status quo. I'll agree on that, but still my experience has been that the bosses that extracted the most work from their employees were the ones that could give praise where it was due. I think Apple made it in spite of Steve Jobs character flaws, not because of them.
ggg9990 8y ago
Only today’s nitpicking culture could ever create an impression that Steve Jobs wasn’t intelligent. He basically created modern computing. The thought that he was just a snake oil huckster is lunacy.
- radiorental 8y ago
  > He basically created modern computing. Whooaa, that's quite a stretch. 'Modern Computing' was happening with or without Steve Jobs. He certainly was an exemplar visionary that put the right parts together at the right time. But, he did not create or define. Technological progress has it's own immutable momentum.
  - amelius 8y ago
    Perhaps a better expression is that he helped popularize computing.
    - radiorental 8y ago
      I would again push back on that. He did introduce a class of devices/products but Apple and Computational machines are not two concepts I associate. The Windows OS has done more. My point being... yes he's a genius but in terms of Marketing, Business and seeing where the hockey puck is going. He excelled at selling to desires, but look at the 'real computers' Apple has produced in recent years.
      - abakker 8y ago
        Dude...that sounds a lot like a "no true scotsman" line of argument. if by "real computers" you mean devices for programmers to train ML models, then yeah, Apple is pretty lacking, if by "real computers" you mean devices which operate end-user facing software, well, the spectrum widens enough to show you why Apple is approaching a trillion dollar market cap. put another way, a lot of the _reason_ that companies like facebook and google are doing any computation in the first place is because of the level of data and interaction that people are doing on devices made by apple. You are welcome to make a distinction between a Cray and a MacBook pro, bu it is kind of pedantic.

luckydata 8y ago

Some of the smartest people I've met work in sales. You don't have to be an engineer to be smart.

sah2ed 8y ago
Agreed. It's easy for engineers to assume because they have a deep understanding of a complex topic, that it is a good proxy for assessing general intelligence. Such assessment is a good proxy for a certain kind of intelligence only, because intelligence itself exists on a fairly wide spectrum, it is not a binary trait.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
jammi 8y ago
The problem is that the average salesperson is pretty ignorant, even about the probuct he's supposed to sell and the target audience to sell to. Encountering a great salesperson is a rare occurrence in life, encountering a more or less average one is very common.
- neonate 8y ago
  Same with programmers or anything else.
  - kingkongjaffa 8y ago
    The problem is the baseline STEM disciple looks on the baseline biz/marketing graduate with disdain like they took an easy route out. 'proper' Engineering (MECH/AERO/CIVIL/EEE) is full of memes about this mindset. CS is just as bad. Most decent engineers loose this mindset after freshman year but many go on to see them selves as the MVP department of whatever business. In some ways I think Startup culture fights against this because it's really obvious at small team scale how different skill sets are needed.
    - Retric 8y ago
      The absolute best in any field including fast food cook is probably as intelegent as any other field. However the average really can be meaningfully different based on self selection. HR for example really does not attract the best and brightest. Sales is an outlier because compensation for the best can be really good. So, it's got a large group of very talented people and many far less so.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - Ntrails 8y ago
    There's always the difficulty of being able to recognise that as a lamen. Mediocre sales people are often transparent to anybody who listens to them and is able to ask questions. A mediocre engineer "blinds with science" and is very hard to identify without some amount of specialist knowledge.
  - jammi 8y ago
    Of course, never said it's not. Are people reflecting from themselves, or what is this about?
- typon 8y ago
  Classic programmer narcissism
  - Trundle 8y ago
    Possibly just ignorant. Most people have never/will never be in charge of large budgets. A normal consumer with a normal job is only really going to encounter the lower end of the field.

carlmr 8y ago

I read his biography by Isaacson. He was a fascinating person, extremely smart, a keen sense of design and a (self-taught) ability for sales. He was most definitely a boss I wouldn't have wanted to work for though, because he was an extreme narcissist. Smart and terrible person don't exclude each other.

jryle80 8y ago
I don't know, I'd rather be an early Apple's employee or part of the first iPhone team, witnessing a major new chapter of computing, than a comfortable developer in a comfortable setting.
- briandear 8y ago
  True! And, this was change the world kind of stuff — it wasn’t being “mean” for the hell of it, it was being “mean” in the pursuit of a vision. It doesn’t excuse “being mean,” but it’s far different than having some jackass middle manager at some consulting firm yelling about TPS reports. It’s like the drill sergeant phenomenon— harsh leadership can have a place when attempting to forge ahead in a difficult mission as it often motivates the team to accomplish more than would normally be considered comfortable (or even healthy.) An asshole boss on a mission is far preferable (to me,) than a “nice” boss driven by nothing other than maintaining the status quo. Asshole bosses maintaining the status quo — now that genuinely sucks.
  - carlmr 8y ago
    >True! And, this was change the world kind of stuff — it wasn’t being “mean” for the hell of it, it was being “mean” in the pursuit of a vision. It doesn’t excuse “being mean,” but it’s far different than having some jackass middle manager at some consulting firm yelling about TPS reports. I don't think the meanness helped in creating the vision. They're two entirely separate things >An asshole boss on a mission is far preferable (to me,) than a “nice” boss driven by nothing other than maintaining the status quo. I'll agree on that, but still my experience has been that the bosses that extracted the most work from their employees were the ones that could give praise where it was due. I think Apple made it in spite of Steve Jobs character flaws, not because of them.

ggg9990 8y ago

Only today’s nitpicking culture could ever create an impression that Steve Jobs wasn’t intelligent. He basically created modern computing. The thought that he was just a snake oil huckster is lunacy.

radiorental 8y ago
> He basically created modern computing. Whooaa, that's quite a stretch. 'Modern Computing' was happening with or without Steve Jobs. He certainly was an exemplar visionary that put the right parts together at the right time. But, he did not create or define. Technological progress has it's own immutable momentum.
- amelius 8y ago
  Perhaps a better expression is that he helped popularize computing.
  - radiorental 8y ago
    I would again push back on that. He did introduce a class of devices/products but Apple and Computational machines are not two concepts I associate. The Windows OS has done more. My point being... yes he's a genius but in terms of Marketing, Business and seeing where the hockey puck is going. He excelled at selling to desires, but look at the 'real computers' Apple has produced in recent years.
    - abakker 8y ago
      Dude...that sounds a lot like a "no true scotsman" line of argument. if by "real computers" you mean devices for programmers to train ML models, then yeah, Apple is pretty lacking, if by "real computers" you mean devices which operate end-user facing software, well, the spectrum widens enough to show you why Apple is approaching a trillion dollar market cap. put another way, a lot of the _reason_ that companies like facebook and google are doing any computation in the first place is because of the level of data and interaction that people are doing on devices made by apple. You are welcome to make a distinction between a Cray and a MacBook pro, bu it is kind of pedantic.