13 ms·

It sounds like an awful place to work; a cult-like working environment controlled by an sociopathic ego maniac with no concept of the value of other people's se

It sounds like an awful place to work; a cult-like working environment controlled by an sociopathic ego maniac with no concept of the value of other people's self-worth and time. Demanding last minute changes to a design that's probably been presented and approved by you at least a dozen times in order to lie to your future customers at the cost of your engineer's weekend while telling them they ruined the whole thing. What? I mean, seriously? Who could possibly excuse that behaviour? I don't think Jobs was so much a charismatic leader as he was lucky enough to encourage trauma bonding between the right people while just barely managing to maintain control.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
icelancer 8y ago
"I don't think Jobs was so much a charismatic leader as he was lucky enough to encourage trauma bonding between the right people while just barely managing to maintain control." You are ignoring the whole other side of him that made him effective and revolutionary: His vision of the future was second to none. It doesn't make Steve - or people who act like Steve - in the right. But his genius wasn't just pissing off a bunch of people to get them to "trauma bond." The iPhone didn't get made that way.
- sgift 8y ago
  > But his genius wasn't just pissing off a bunch of people to get them to "trauma bond." The iPhone didn't get made that way. How do you know? Were you there? With each Steve Jobs story I read he seems less of a genius (though I never was in the "Steve Jobs is a genius" camp) and more like a mad man with incredible luck.
  - qplex 8y ago
    So I guess it was just luck how he pulled Apple out of the dirt after John Scully almost ran the company to ground?
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - evgen 8y ago
      Apple I, Mac, Pixar, iPhone.... that guy Jobs was sure a lucky person. I wonder if there is a word for people who have that sort of consistent luck...
      - justinjlynn 8y ago
        Yes, there is: outlier.
        evgen 8y ago
        How do those sour grapes taste?
        justinjlynn 8y ago
        Given that I asked for them, they taste delicious.
      - Drdrdrq 8y ago
        ...and iPad, iPod, which were achievements in themselves. I agree with you it's not luck, he simply knew how to create a product that fills the needs of the market. But I also think that his managerial style was unacceptable, and had nothing to do with Apple's success. As far as Pixar is concerned, he actually kept the distance on purpose (there's a great book "Creativity Inc" by Catmull) which shows it's not his management that is worth copying.
      - gaius 8y ago
        I wonder if there is a word for people who have that sort of consistent luck... That word is Woz. If Jobs had not met him, he (Jobs) would have died penniless and alone.
        saagarjha 8y ago
  - mturmon 8y ago
    Even Jobs said that he was a changed person when he returned to Apple as opposed to when he left to run NeXT.
    - justinjlynn 8y ago
      With advancing age, I find people rarely, if ever, truly change. Apropos, they simply become more efficient and skilled at hiding their true nature whilst applying it still to an even finer degree of effectiveness.
      - mturmon 8y ago
        For counterpoint, see the well-known Jobs video recanting the Microsoft/Apple feud, just after he regained control of Apple. His views did change. Link: https://stratechery.com/2013/steve-jobs-at-macworld-boston-in-1997/ https://stratechery.com/2013/steve-jobs-at-macworld-boston-i...
        justinjlynn 8y ago
        A fair assessment. I, however, would take care to separate the nature of a person from the views they find acceptable to express in public; especially those views for which there is considerable contention and/or ambiguity.
  - raverbashing 8y ago
    > How do you know? Were you there? We don't need to be there to know that there are a lot of assholes like SJ around. But none of them shipped the iPhone. Emulating that part of SJ is easy and is done in several places. But that was not all he did
  - Fnoord 8y ago
    > and more like a mad man with incredible luck This term "luck" is often abused in the gaming world. "I wasn't lucky" is a bullshit excuse to deal with bad RNG. You work around bad RNG and make the best of it. Calling others lucky is a way to deal with envy. "It isn't my lack of skill, he was just lucky." Personally, from what I gathered Jobs had some severe flaws which are fairly well documented in the movie made about him. Consider for example the way he dealt with his child (Lisa). Its interesting to learn more of his personality in his youth (same with e.g. Holmes, Gates, or any person of interest who seems flawed). Steve Jobs used LSD. Steve Jobs did phreaking together with Steve Wozniak. They even sold blue boxes.
- justinjlynn 8y ago
  No, the ends don't justify the means. History is replete with people who have grand vision -- domination, the elimination of undesirables, universal peace and love through enforced belief. We're fortunate then that Jobs's vision happened to be limited to "elegant" consumer electronics. His reportedly preferred means of achieving it: legendary abuse, ever changing requirements, pop "explain your job in the lift or you're fired" quizzes and removal of choice for consumers (when it suited his tastes) is simply repugnant. Who knows how many engineer's sanity, awesome hacks or creative careers his vision quest cost? I am not downplaying his accomplishments -- I'm saying that giving Jobs credit for what Apple accomplished is like giving credit to dust in the air for a rainstorm and acting as though that's the only way a rainstorm could happen. The iPhone happened because thousands of engineers threw themselves into a machine and ground themselves into a fine mist in order to produce it to Jobs's deadline and ever changing liking. We almost certainly would've had it or something like it -- with or without Jobs and his imminently destructive vision. Jobs didn't invent the iPhone from whole cloth, fully formed. He didn't magick up a whole new product category or new approach. At best, he (or more likely his market research team) extrapolated market demand. Palm and other feature phone manufacturers had been trending towards what the iPhone would become for years. Apple simply happened to be first to market and arrived with a barely passable product. The real innovation, the app store, was not a launch item. If I recall correctly, the web browser was supposed to be the future and was the only way for third-party "applications" to run on the device at launch. There is zero reason to think that vision was singular or complete. Jobs is not and never was a role model. He succeeded in spite of his flaws, not because of them -- or because of some ineffable genius.
  - makapuf 8y ago
    Nokia and telcos had a java app store before iPhone even started, so no he didn't invent those.
    - mattl 8y ago
      NeXTSTEP had digital distribution via Electronic AppWrapper in the early 90s.
- marcodave 8y ago
  > You are ignoring the whole other side of him that made him effective and revolutionary: His vision of the future was second to none. Well, it's easy to say this after-the-facts. The iPhone in my opinion was a HUGE gamble, and also in my opinion, was successful due to a stagnant smart/cell phone market and the desire to bring internet to the mobile world. The first iPhone provided a fast HTML+CSS+Javascript-enabled browser out of the box, albeit with severe limitations, no external apps, no 3G. Nevertheless Jobs had the luck to launch the iPhone at the right time, when no other manifacturer was daring to do that. And it was clear, when shortly after iPhone announcement, several other manifacturers released similar looking devices (Blackberry Storm, Nokia 5800)
qplex 8y ago
I think that's quite a downplay on Jobs achievements. It's well known that Jobs wasn't perfect, but he did have vision and an amazing capability to develop and sell products. I wonder what he'd say to the current MacBook team for example? Broken keyboard and problems with overheating? Apple is seriously lacking vision these days and it shows. This time Steve is not around to save them like he did after NeXT.
- Konryan 8y ago
  It's not like they didn't have MacBooks with serious design flaws when Steve Jobs was around...
  - rvense 8y ago
    My iBook G4 got a new logic board 4 times in its 5 year lifetime. Other than that it was a fantastic computer mind..
- tobr 8y ago
  It's an unreliable keyboard, but I'm not sure it's worse than e.g. the hockey puck mouse, the G4 Cube or "antennagate".
  - scruffyherder 8y ago
    Hockey puck was something people could (and did) replace. Especially if you wanted 2 mice buttons for OS X. G4 cube at least worked, although it was far too expensive. No doubt Steve was wanting another cube and it was purely "art".
  - scarface74 8y ago
    AntennaGate was way overblown. The GSM iPhone 4 was sold for four years without a redesign. The unreliable keyboard - yeah that's a real issue.
- enitihas 8y ago
  Well, he would say that the users are using them wrong. Precedent: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2010/jun/25/iphone-reception-problems-solved https://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2010/jun/25/ipho...
pking 8y ago
Trauma wasn't Steve's strategy; it was a side-effect of his strategy. His strategy was demanding an unreasonable level of excellence and being indifferent to how the people who worked for him might be impacted. Those that survived got to work at a company where everyone was extremely talented. People who couldn't stand the heat were free to work elsewhere. It's arrogant, but it did allow him to create a uniquely creative and effective environment. And keep in mind that if the Apple acquisition of NeXT hadn't worked out -- an acquisition that Steve was opposed to, I believe -- NeXT could have ended up in the dustbin of history, and there would be no OSX, iMac, iOS, iPod, or iPhone. So in many ways, the approach could have backfired, but in this case, it didn't.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

icelancer 8y ago

"I don't think Jobs was so much a charismatic leader as he was lucky enough to encourage trauma bonding between the right people while just barely managing to maintain control." You are ignoring the whole other side of him that made him effective and revolutionary: His vision of the future was second to none. It doesn't make Steve - or people who act like Steve - in the right. But his genius wasn't just pissing off a bunch of people to get them to "trauma bond." The iPhone didn't get made that way.

sgift 8y ago
> But his genius wasn't just pissing off a bunch of people to get them to "trauma bond." The iPhone didn't get made that way. How do you know? Were you there? With each Steve Jobs story I read he seems less of a genius (though I never was in the "Steve Jobs is a genius" camp) and more like a mad man with incredible luck.
- qplex 8y ago
  So I guess it was just luck how he pulled Apple out of the dirt after John Scully almost ran the company to ground?
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - evgen 8y ago
    Apple I, Mac, Pixar, iPhone.... that guy Jobs was sure a lucky person. I wonder if there is a word for people who have that sort of consistent luck...
    - justinjlynn 8y ago
      Yes, there is: outlier.
      - evgen 8y ago
        How do those sour grapes taste?
        justinjlynn 8y ago
        Given that I asked for them, they taste delicious.
    - Drdrdrq 8y ago
      ...and iPad, iPod, which were achievements in themselves. I agree with you it's not luck, he simply knew how to create a product that fills the needs of the market. But I also think that his managerial style was unacceptable, and had nothing to do with Apple's success. As far as Pixar is concerned, he actually kept the distance on purpose (there's a great book "Creativity Inc" by Catmull) which shows it's not his management that is worth copying.
    - gaius 8y ago
      I wonder if there is a word for people who have that sort of consistent luck... That word is Woz. If Jobs had not met him, he (Jobs) would have died penniless and alone.
      - saagarjha 8y ago
- mturmon 8y ago
  Even Jobs said that he was a changed person when he returned to Apple as opposed to when he left to run NeXT.
  - justinjlynn 8y ago
    With advancing age, I find people rarely, if ever, truly change. Apropos, they simply become more efficient and skilled at hiding their true nature whilst applying it still to an even finer degree of effectiveness.
    - mturmon 8y ago
      For counterpoint, see the well-known Jobs video recanting the Microsoft/Apple feud, just after he regained control of Apple. His views did change. Link: https://stratechery.com/2013/steve-jobs-at-macworld-boston-in-1997/ https://stratechery.com/2013/steve-jobs-at-macworld-boston-i...
      - justinjlynn 8y ago
        A fair assessment. I, however, would take care to separate the nature of a person from the views they find acceptable to express in public; especially those views for which there is considerable contention and/or ambiguity.
- raverbashing 8y ago
  > How do you know? Were you there? We don't need to be there to know that there are a lot of assholes like SJ around. But none of them shipped the iPhone. Emulating that part of SJ is easy and is done in several places. But that was not all he did
- Fnoord 8y ago
  > and more like a mad man with incredible luck This term "luck" is often abused in the gaming world. "I wasn't lucky" is a bullshit excuse to deal with bad RNG. You work around bad RNG and make the best of it. Calling others lucky is a way to deal with envy. "It isn't my lack of skill, he was just lucky." Personally, from what I gathered Jobs had some severe flaws which are fairly well documented in the movie made about him. Consider for example the way he dealt with his child (Lisa). Its interesting to learn more of his personality in his youth (same with e.g. Holmes, Gates, or any person of interest who seems flawed). Steve Jobs used LSD. Steve Jobs did phreaking together with Steve Wozniak. They even sold blue boxes.
justinjlynn 8y ago
No, the ends don't justify the means. History is replete with people who have grand vision -- domination, the elimination of undesirables, universal peace and love through enforced belief. We're fortunate then that Jobs's vision happened to be limited to "elegant" consumer electronics. His reportedly preferred means of achieving it: legendary abuse, ever changing requirements, pop "explain your job in the lift or you're fired" quizzes and removal of choice for consumers (when it suited his tastes) is simply repugnant. Who knows how many engineer's sanity, awesome hacks or creative careers his vision quest cost? I am not downplaying his accomplishments -- I'm saying that giving Jobs credit for what Apple accomplished is like giving credit to dust in the air for a rainstorm and acting as though that's the only way a rainstorm could happen. The iPhone happened because thousands of engineers threw themselves into a machine and ground themselves into a fine mist in order to produce it to Jobs's deadline and ever changing liking. We almost certainly would've had it or something like it -- with or without Jobs and his imminently destructive vision. Jobs didn't invent the iPhone from whole cloth, fully formed. He didn't magick up a whole new product category or new approach. At best, he (or more likely his market research team) extrapolated market demand. Palm and other feature phone manufacturers had been trending towards what the iPhone would become for years. Apple simply happened to be first to market and arrived with a barely passable product. The real innovation, the app store, was not a launch item. If I recall correctly, the web browser was supposed to be the future and was the only way for third-party "applications" to run on the device at launch. There is zero reason to think that vision was singular or complete. Jobs is not and never was a role model. He succeeded in spite of his flaws, not because of them -- or because of some ineffable genius.
- makapuf 8y ago
  Nokia and telcos had a java app store before iPhone even started, so no he didn't invent those.
  - mattl 8y ago
    NeXTSTEP had digital distribution via Electronic AppWrapper in the early 90s.
marcodave 8y ago
> You are ignoring the whole other side of him that made him effective and revolutionary: His vision of the future was second to none. Well, it's easy to say this after-the-facts. The iPhone in my opinion was a HUGE gamble, and also in my opinion, was successful due to a stagnant smart/cell phone market and the desire to bring internet to the mobile world. The first iPhone provided a fast HTML+CSS+Javascript-enabled browser out of the box, albeit with severe limitations, no external apps, no 3G. Nevertheless Jobs had the luck to launch the iPhone at the right time, when no other manifacturer was daring to do that. And it was clear, when shortly after iPhone announcement, several other manifacturers released similar looking devices (Blackberry Storm, Nokia 5800)

qplex 8y ago

I think that's quite a downplay on Jobs achievements. It's well known that Jobs wasn't perfect, but he did have vision and an amazing capability to develop and sell products. I wonder what he'd say to the current MacBook team for example? Broken keyboard and problems with overheating? Apple is seriously lacking vision these days and it shows. This time Steve is not around to save them like he did after NeXT.

Konryan 8y ago
It's not like they didn't have MacBooks with serious design flaws when Steve Jobs was around...
- rvense 8y ago
  My iBook G4 got a new logic board 4 times in its 5 year lifetime. Other than that it was a fantastic computer mind..
tobr 8y ago
It's an unreliable keyboard, but I'm not sure it's worse than e.g. the hockey puck mouse, the G4 Cube or "antennagate".
- scruffyherder 8y ago
  Hockey puck was something people could (and did) replace. Especially if you wanted 2 mice buttons for OS X. G4 cube at least worked, although it was far too expensive. No doubt Steve was wanting another cube and it was purely "art".
- scarface74 8y ago
  AntennaGate was way overblown. The GSM iPhone 4 was sold for four years without a redesign. The unreliable keyboard - yeah that's a real issue.
enitihas 8y ago
Well, he would say that the users are using them wrong. Precedent: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2010/jun/25/iphone-reception-problems-solved https://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2010/jun/25/ipho...

pking 8y ago

Trauma wasn't Steve's strategy; it was a side-effect of his strategy. His strategy was demanding an unreasonable level of excellence and being indifferent to how the people who worked for him might be impacted. Those that survived got to work at a company where everyone was extremely talented. People who couldn't stand the heat were free to work elsewhere. It's arrogant, but it did allow him to create a uniquely creative and effective environment. And keep in mind that if the Apple acquisition of NeXT hadn't worked out -- an acquisition that Steve was opposed to, I believe -- NeXT could have ended up in the dustbin of history, and there would be no OSX, iMac, iOS, iPod, or iPhone. So in many ways, the approach could have backfired, but in this case, it didn't.