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> "Steve Jobs was an engineer" I read the Jobs biography cover to cover, and I'm going to stop you right there, no. The guy who couldn't engineer an Atari game

> "Steve Jobs was an engineer" I read the Jobs biography cover to cover, and I'm going to stop you right there, no. The guy who couldn't engineer an Atari game and ripped off his friend's work instead is not an engineer, and the idea that he had any kind of empathy for anyone is frankly hilarious. He had good taste, and he was a tyrant. In most cases these traits amount to mediocrity. Jobs was in the right place at the right time, in any other situation he'd have been a middle manager at best.

justinator 7y ago
Right place at the right time. Twice. Three times if you count Pixar. Which you should. Maybe there's more to him.
- nordsieck 7y ago
  > Right place at the right time. Twice. Three times if you count Pixar. Which you should. > Maybe there's more to him. That makes him an excellent manager. Which he was. Clearly he was a world class CEO. What does that have to do with him being an engineer?
cgy1 7y ago
I believe he did do some technical work as a teenager, IIRC from the biographies of him that I've read. I don't know if that means he was an engineer, but he does have some technical work experience.
Wowfunhappy 7y ago
He had really good taste, and he knew how to channel that into products. Perhaps that's not usually such an exceptional quality, but for Jobs it truly was. He wasn't an engineer (for the most part), but he was a designer, of sorts. I don't think he was just "at the right place at the right time", and I don't think the iPod or iPhone would exist without him. I say most of this based on the Bio, by the way. It seems we came out of that book with very different impressions.
- mullingitover 7y ago
  My impression from reading that bio was, if I was superstitious, I'd think his ultimate fate was the answer to a lot of prayers. He stabbed many, many people in the back, or in the face. The thing that made him different was his foundation in the humanities, and his good business sense.
  - mercer 7y ago
    > My impression from reading that bio was, if I was superstitious, I'd think his ultimate fate was the answer to a lot of prayers. If anything his ultimate fate was ridiculous luck if not for his own stupidity. Iirc, he had an extremely rare form of curable pancreatic cancer, but because of his own stupid choices he didn't survive it. Which strikes me as kind of fitting for a man like him.
chongli 7y ago
the idea that he had any kind of empathy for anyone is frankly hilarious As a counterpoint, he was a good neighbour [1]. The guy had some serious issues with the way he treated people, and he may have had a personality disorder, but it's a bit extreme to think he had no empathy for any other human being. [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/10/steve-jobs-was-my-neighbor/246327/ https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/10/steve-j... Edit: whoops! This was the wrong link. Here is the article I had in mind (it's been years since I read it and apparently there are multiple neighbour stories about Jobs): https://patch.com/california/paloalto/my-neighbor-steve-jobs https://patch.com/california/paloalto/my-neighbor-steve-jobs
- throwlaplace 7y ago
  that article doesn't say anything about him being a good neighbor? all it says is that he kept a simple home. what kind of weird deification is it that there's an article about a guy walking around jobs house (occasionally seeing jobs himself) and in your mind that constitutes being a good neighbor.
  - mirimir 7y ago
    Being a "good neighbor", in much of the US, means that their house and yard are tasteful and well maintained. And that they don't have loud parties.
    - throwlaplace 7y ago
      Op was trying to exhibit jobs' empathy. Does maintaining your yard demonstrate empathy?
      - mirimir 7y ago
        Sure. Empathy for your property value. At one point, I lived across the street from a guy whose "front yard" was basically a loading dock. He was not considered a good neighbor, except by the guy down the street. Whose property included a house that apparently hadn't been painted or roofed for maybe a century. And who spent much of his time drinking beer, sitting on his porch. Often with the other guy. They hosted great parties, though. One time, they had a live band, with a sound system on a trailer. Too many iffy bikers, though. Fights, and occasional gunfire.
m463 7y ago
Yeah, he was hunting for a word and "engineer" wasn't quite spot on. Look, Steve Jobs was an integrator. He integrated people. He got the record companies integrated with computers. He got detail-focused engineers working with lateral-thinking designers. He was an asshole with little patience for idiots, and was hard to work with. He paid attention when customers said something sucked and got the right people involved. I think Tim Cook is just over his head a little. And a new generation (or generations) of apple employees has taken over and lessons learned have been forgotten again. I don't know, the mac pro is ridiculously expensive. I think the $400 wheels and almost $1000 for a monitor stand is just stupid marketing. It says that people should blindly pay what we ask instead of considering value. Personally, I wish they would bring the value back. When they switched to intel, all of a sudden they were the best mac on the planet and the best pc on the planet too. They were competing. Now it's just different.

justinator 7y ago

Right place at the right time. Twice. Three times if you count Pixar. Which you should. Maybe there's more to him.

nordsieck 7y ago
> Right place at the right time. Twice. Three times if you count Pixar. Which you should. > Maybe there's more to him. That makes him an excellent manager. Which he was. Clearly he was a world class CEO. What does that have to do with him being an engineer?

cgy1 7y ago

I believe he did do some technical work as a teenager, IIRC from the biographies of him that I've read. I don't know if that means he was an engineer, but he does have some technical work experience.

Wowfunhappy 7y ago

He had really good taste, and he knew how to channel that into products. Perhaps that's not usually such an exceptional quality, but for Jobs it truly was. He wasn't an engineer (for the most part), but he was a designer, of sorts. I don't think he was just "at the right place at the right time", and I don't think the iPod or iPhone would exist without him. I say most of this based on the Bio, by the way. It seems we came out of that book with very different impressions.

mullingitover 7y ago
My impression from reading that bio was, if I was superstitious, I'd think his ultimate fate was the answer to a lot of prayers. He stabbed many, many people in the back, or in the face. The thing that made him different was his foundation in the humanities, and his good business sense.
- mercer 7y ago
  > My impression from reading that bio was, if I was superstitious, I'd think his ultimate fate was the answer to a lot of prayers. If anything his ultimate fate was ridiculous luck if not for his own stupidity. Iirc, he had an extremely rare form of curable pancreatic cancer, but because of his own stupid choices he didn't survive it. Which strikes me as kind of fitting for a man like him.

chongli 7y ago

the idea that he had any kind of empathy for anyone is frankly hilarious As a counterpoint, he was a good neighbour [1]. The guy had some serious issues with the way he treated people, and he may have had a personality disorder, but it's a bit extreme to think he had no empathy for any other human being. [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/10/steve-jobs-was-my-neighbor/246327/ https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/10/steve-j... Edit: whoops! This was the wrong link. Here is the article I had in mind (it's been years since I read it and apparently there are multiple neighbour stories about Jobs): https://patch.com/california/paloalto/my-neighbor-steve-jobs https://patch.com/california/paloalto/my-neighbor-steve-jobs

throwlaplace 7y ago
that article doesn't say anything about him being a good neighbor? all it says is that he kept a simple home. what kind of weird deification is it that there's an article about a guy walking around jobs house (occasionally seeing jobs himself) and in your mind that constitutes being a good neighbor.
- mirimir 7y ago
  Being a "good neighbor", in much of the US, means that their house and yard are tasteful and well maintained. And that they don't have loud parties.
  - throwlaplace 7y ago
    Op was trying to exhibit jobs' empathy. Does maintaining your yard demonstrate empathy?
    - mirimir 7y ago
      Sure. Empathy for your property value. At one point, I lived across the street from a guy whose "front yard" was basically a loading dock. He was not considered a good neighbor, except by the guy down the street. Whose property included a house that apparently hadn't been painted or roofed for maybe a century. And who spent much of his time drinking beer, sitting on his porch. Often with the other guy. They hosted great parties, though. One time, they had a live band, with a sound system on a trailer. Too many iffy bikers, though. Fights, and occasional gunfire.

m463 7y ago

Yeah, he was hunting for a word and "engineer" wasn't quite spot on. Look, Steve Jobs was an integrator. He integrated people. He got the record companies integrated with computers. He got detail-focused engineers working with lateral-thinking designers. He was an asshole with little patience for idiots, and was hard to work with. He paid attention when customers said something sucked and got the right people involved. I think Tim Cook is just over his head a little. And a new generation (or generations) of apple employees has taken over and lessons learned have been forgotten again. I don't know, the mac pro is ridiculously expensive. I think the $400 wheels and almost $1000 for a monitor stand is just stupid marketing. It says that people should blindly pay what we ask instead of considering value. Personally, I wish they would bring the value back. When they switched to intel, all of a sudden they were the best mac on the planet and the best pc on the planet too. They were competing. Now it's just different.