4 ms·

People in the comments here focus on the bad bits (working at night), but then there's this: - an enthusiastic CEO working with the team on Sunday morning - s

People in the comments here focus on the bad bits (working at night), but then there's this: - an enthusiastic CEO working with the team on Sunday morning - standing ovations from the customer on Monday Sure, if you have a family you probably can't do that often, but I'd love a job with an occasional experience like this.

rusk 8y ago
Also: - An opportunity to contribute to computing history. - To work on something new and novel. - Not having to worry about politics because there's only one diva allowed. Not for everyone I'd agree, but there is certainly enough unhealthy appeal, kind of like hard liquor or bungee jumping ..
- wpietri 8y ago
  Is there any reason to think other people weren't intensely political? If everybody's running around trying to look good for the abusive diva, I'd expect there'd be a ton of politicking.
  - rusk 8y ago
    Fair point ... I kind of thought it was more like everybody is in the firing line. But yeah - I can see how this could just lead to people just trying to not be the one to mess up. In my head I was thinking of that other narcissistic megalomaniac boss Jose Mourinho, and how his style of management drew the media away from the players and allowed them to "just play". A benefit for the top players no doubt, but I've no evidence that this was how Jobs operated ...
- segmondy 8y ago
  What history? What's new and novel? Xerox parc, SGI & Sun already did everything the hardware could. Software-wise it gave us terrible things I rather not know about. Objective-C & Appstore.
  - ksec 8y ago
    >Xerox parc, SGI & Sun already did everything the hardware could. The question of invention vs innovation pops up again on HN.
  - rusk 8y ago
    > what’s new and novel Literally the genesis of OSX.
    - segmondy 8y ago
      What's new and novel about OS X? It's another Unix OS and not even a great one at that.
      - rusk 8y ago
        As an OS for the masses it was groundbreaking.
- taeric 8y ago
  The opportunity to contribute to computer history is hindsight here. Many other amazing opportunities the same way also had the same footing. Some probably looked more well positioned, all told. Same for the other points, honestly. You want to read some fun history, read up on what it was like to work with some of the earlier members of Lucasfilm games.
  - rusk 8y ago
    > history is hindsight here Sounds like loser talk
capslockremap 8y ago
They may have had a standing ovation without the all-nighter we'll never know as we live in the universe where the all-nighter happened
johnvanommen 8y ago
I once met a developer who bragged about how he'd take his laptop into the bathroom and work on issues with his software, because his wife would give him flak for working too much. Basically he could hide in the bathroom for an hour and she'd give him a pass. He recounted to me how he'd done this on Thanksgiving and I was just scratching my head, wondering "why would you do that?" These are people you might only see twice a year, the code will still be there on November 26th.

rusk 8y ago

Also: - An opportunity to contribute to computing history. - To work on something new and novel. - Not having to worry about politics because there's only one diva allowed. Not for everyone I'd agree, but there is certainly enough unhealthy appeal, kind of like hard liquor or bungee jumping ..

wpietri 8y ago
Is there any reason to think other people weren't intensely political? If everybody's running around trying to look good for the abusive diva, I'd expect there'd be a ton of politicking.
- rusk 8y ago
  Fair point ... I kind of thought it was more like everybody is in the firing line. But yeah - I can see how this could just lead to people just trying to not be the one to mess up. In my head I was thinking of that other narcissistic megalomaniac boss Jose Mourinho, and how his style of management drew the media away from the players and allowed them to "just play". A benefit for the top players no doubt, but I've no evidence that this was how Jobs operated ...
segmondy 8y ago
What history? What's new and novel? Xerox parc, SGI & Sun already did everything the hardware could. Software-wise it gave us terrible things I rather not know about. Objective-C & Appstore.
- ksec 8y ago
  >Xerox parc, SGI & Sun already did everything the hardware could. The question of invention vs innovation pops up again on HN.
- rusk 8y ago
  > what’s new and novel Literally the genesis of OSX.
  - segmondy 8y ago
    What's new and novel about OS X? It's another Unix OS and not even a great one at that.
    - rusk 8y ago
      As an OS for the masses it was groundbreaking.
taeric 8y ago
The opportunity to contribute to computer history is hindsight here. Many other amazing opportunities the same way also had the same footing. Some probably looked more well positioned, all told. Same for the other points, honestly. You want to read some fun history, read up on what it was like to work with some of the earlier members of Lucasfilm games.
- rusk 8y ago
  > history is hindsight here Sounds like loser talk

capslockremap 8y ago

They may have had a standing ovation without the all-nighter we'll never know as we live in the universe where the all-nighter happened

johnvanommen 8y ago

I once met a developer who bragged about how he'd take his laptop into the bathroom and work on issues with his software, because his wife would give him flak for working too much. Basically he could hide in the bathroom for an hour and she'd give him a pass. He recounted to me how he'd done this on Thanksgiving and I was just scratching my head, wondering "why would you do that?" These are people you might only see twice a year, the code will still be there on November 26th.