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Scott Forstall tells story about Steve Jobs, Microsoft, and a dead fish [video]
- erreJulian 6y agoTried to save it to my watch later list and apparently it's disabled because it's a kids video. Interesting.
- saagarjha 6y agoWhy does it prevent you from saving a kids video when you presumably are not a kid?
- frosted-flakes 6y agoI don't know why the Watch Later feature is disabled for kids videos, but I think it's pretty common for kids to use their parents' accounts, particularly with device sharing (family iPad, or kid uses parent's phone).
- cma 6y agoCOPA says something like even if the user identifies as an adult through an age gate you are liable for the anti tracking stuff if the content is kid friendly/targeted at kids.
- anonymfus 6y agoBecause Google clamped all different concerns about kids on YouTube into the one feature without differentiating between videos with kids and videos for kids, and there was concern about recontextualisation of videos with kids as pedophilic erotic by including them into public playlists with inappropriate names and descriptions.
- smnrchrds 6y agoHow does it determine what is and isn't for kids? I noticed this "feature" watching Tom Lehrer's Poisoning Pigeons In The Park, which is emphatically not for kids. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hf-eIgFJg4w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hf-eIgFJg4w
- billme 6y agoFor starters, believe there is a option to identify a video when uploading it to YouTube as being for kids. There also settings to identify channel as being made for kids.
- camillomiller 6y agoIt’s a checkbox in Studio, Youtube’s upload and video management tool
- junar 6y agoYou can work around this by searching for the video within YouTube and adding it from the search results page.
- guiambros 6y agoHa, love this!
- jeromegv 6y agoNot sure why Youtube thinks its a kids video, but the preventing of saving to a list is may be because of child predators targeting videos featuring kids? https://news.yahoo.com/t-suspends-youtube-ad-spending-203549686.html https://news.yahoo.com/t-suspends-youtube-ad-spending-203549...
- sneak 6y agohttps://invidio.us/ https://invidio.us/ likely has no such restrictions, you may wish to check it out.
- AlbertoGP 6y agoIt’s available with another URL in YouTube, maybe it was re-uploaded: “Code Break 9.0: Events with Macklemore & Scott Forstall” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bcO-X9thds https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bcO-X9thds Forstall’s part (living in a tent in a park with his parents and brother, being able to afford only 2 minutes of warm shower per week): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bcO-X9thds&t=31m51s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bcO-X9thds&t=31m51s Fish story specifically: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bcO-X9thds&t=35m54s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bcO-X9thds&t=35m54s
- bangonkeyboard 6y agoHe also related this story in his interview with the Computer History Museum: https://youtu.be/IiuVggWNqSA?t=662 https://youtu.be/IiuVggWNqSA?t=662 I'm still upset that, at 48:36, Forstall offered to give his thoughts on what we could be doing with AI that we're not, but Markoff decided to move on.
- pmichaud 6y agoWhy don't you just ask him directly?
- bangonkeyboard 6y agoHow?
- sah2ed 6y agoHe’s on Twitter! https://twitter.com/forstall https://twitter.com/forstall
- Austin_Conlon 6y agoZero replies to any tweets.
- keeganpoppen 6y agoyeah it's somewhat of a running pet peeve of mine when interviewers dont follow up on even the most blatantly interesting things the interviewee says. interviewing is a dark art.
- Austin_Conlon 6y agoI wish Forstall would do a long form oral history with the Computer History Museum (usually around 2-3 hours) even if there was that shorter interview on stage there in 2017. He has a gift for storytelling.
- narak 6y agoTotally agree. The one with Jon Rubinstein [0] was illuminating in a way none of the biographies have been. [0] Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJxElfc0N9E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJxElfc0N9E Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47bNpIbCaL8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47bNpIbCaL8
- Austin_Conlon 6y agoAlso if you want to learn about the NeXT days (which live on in many ways!) check out the ones with Blaine Garst and Steve Naroff.
- mentos 6y agoJust watched the Computer History Museum interview with Scott Forstall: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjR2vegUBAo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjR2vegUBAo Scott gives an incredible story about how Steve Jobs saved his life was really moving.
- Austin_Conlon 6y agoI thought that was a bizarre moment of the interview, where he defended acupuncture and Steve Jobs bringing a practitioner of his choosing to Stanford Hospital to intervene. Jobs was the last person one should've looked to for medical advice, but maybe I'm only saying this with the benefit of hindsight.
- ksec 6y agoWell it is also worth considering they had tried everything in ( the time ) modern science and medicine and it obviously wasn't working.
- shaggyfrog 6y agoI have to wonder about the competence of a hiring manager who thinks that sending a candidate (who just rejected their offer) a dead fish in a package, without any other context, is a good idea. But then again, we are talking about tech recruiting, so it’s probably not all that surprising.
- brailsafe 6y agoMeh, things in life don't need to be so serious. I'd get a good laugh out of it.
- EGreg 6y agoMicrosoft execs were never known for their sense of humor https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EtuDS0ntaJY https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EtuDS0ntaJY
- asveikau 6y agoSomehow I pictured it'd be this one: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=C2Zd3HYKCRE https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=C2Zd3HYKCRE
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- ralfd 6y agoTo be fair, the early Silicon Valley was delightfully dorky: https://www.macrumors.com/2012/05/10/steve-jobs-appeared-in-apples-original-1984-blue-busters-video-spoof-of-ghostbusters/ https://www.macrumors.com/2012/05/10/steve-jobs-appeared-in-...
- asveikau 6y agoI start to wonder if he might be loosely summarizing the story in a way that makes it more amusing. Like maybe there was a card explaining it and he either threw it away without reading or left it out of the story. Maybe the parallels to The Godfather are something he thought of later. Or maybe you're right, and whoever sent it was kinda dopey and thought a fellow Washington State person would immediately get the reference, and he didn't.
- yftsui 6y agoActual video starts at 2:06. I heard no sound but saw his mouth moving, thought something was wrong with my Airpods Bluetooth connection, so I kept disconnect and reconnect it lol.
- swang 6y agoIf you want the gist of the story: Scott Forstall interviews at Apple. During one of the many interviews onsite, Steve Jobs pulls the interviewer out of the room then eventually replaces the interviewer and begins peppering Forstall with questions. They have a connection and Jobs offers him a job on the spot (but also tells him to go through with the rest of the interviews). Scott calls up his contact at Microsoft and turns down the offer he had from there. The next day he gets a package at his doorstep. He opens it up and it's a huge dead fish. Forstall, thinking maybe it is a threat from Microsoft, calls up his contact and asks what the meaning of this was. His contact explains that they went down to Pike's Market, bought the largest King Salmon from there, packed it up with ice and shipped it down to him. He ate it that night but still ended up going to Apple.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- ponker 6y agoSounds like a fish story.
- enonevets 6y agoNeXT. Not Apple. Jobs wouldn’t return to Apple for a few more years.
- swang 6y agoThanks! You're right. Kinda just glossed over when I was typing up my summary.
- dntbnmpls 6y ago> bought the largest King Salmon from there That's easily a few hundred dollars just for the salmon. Maybe over $1000 depending on the size of the salmon. > He ate it that night but still ended up going to Apple. No way he ate it all that night. Family friend brought us a whole king salmon from a fishing trip. Lasted a few meals. The best salmon I've ever had. Nothing like the farmed atlantic salmon you get from the supermarket.
- olliej 6y agoI was interviewed by Forstall (many many years ago, back when that was actually sane) and he asked me one of those annoying puzzle questions - don't get me wrong I love those questions, they're just useless as interview questions. He was personable enough, but I feel that question also coloured my opinion for many years.
- sytelus 6y agoCare to share question any way?
- olliej 6y agoIIRC it is as follows: You are given two bags, and 10 marbles, 5 are black, 5 are white. You have to put the marbles into the two bags, and then the interviewer (I guess?) shuffles the bags and lets you pick a a bag to select a marble from. You "win" if you get a black marble (or white). The problem is essentially: how do you distribute the ten marbles between the two bags to maximize you probability of getting a specific color. My first answer was to point out the window behind him and say "look a zeppelin!" and he turned :D Like all such problems the actual answer is obvious once you realize it or if you already know it.
- garganzol 6y agoThis is quite good question with an intuitive answer (at least to me): 50%/50% marble distribution maximizes the chances of getting specific color with a random selection.
- hnra 6y agoUnless you are allowed to ask questions or gain some prior knowledge, isn't the outcome of picking a black marble (given that you have to put all marbles into the bags) 50%? ~50/50 -> .5x(2/5) + .5x(3/5) = .5 ~0/1 -> .5x0 + .5x1 = .5
- bryanrasmussen 6y ago
- psaux 6y agoI worked in Scott’s group. He was on top of everything and was passionately involved. We would get in a room and pitch all (yes, all) ideas/changes to him and sometimes Steve. He had no tolerance for bugs, and quality was number one. He was like that coach you thought hated you, then you realized he cared.
- bangonkeyboard 6y agoWere you around for what came after him?
- ksec 6y ago>He had no tolerance for bugs, and quality was number one. Not something I could say about recent iOS. What are you thoughts on the whole Map fiasco? Still he had stayed at Apple.
- ksec 6y agoStill wished* he had stayed at Apple.
- Angostura 6y agoHow the hell did he let the original Maps out of the door?
- robenkleene 6y agoI don't understand what people wanted Apple to do differently with Apple Maps? Maps is core to the iPhone, given it's a device you use out and about. Google had them under their thumb, because they were dependent on their data, and were denying them features[0]. They couldn't wait until the data was better because that's not how it works, you need to collect data to improve data. I don't see what they could have done differently? Even in hindsight this seems like the right call? This whole situation sounds like people not liking to use a mediocre product, but just because the product is mediocre doesn't always mean it wasn't the right decision to release it, from both a company strategy perspective, and from a consumer benefit perspective (if you believe competition is healthy for consumers). [0]: https://daringfireball.net/2012/09/get_the_fainting_chair https://daringfireball.net/2012/09/get_the_fainting_chair
- jgunsch 6y agoI'm a little shocked to hear this, but I've had a similar fish story with Microsoft! I interned at Microsoft my junior year of college. Toward the end, I interviewed with Google and got a competing offer. But during the negotiation process, the recruiters had Chris Jones (Windows Live VP at the time) call me to try talking me into joining Microsoft. He told me his story about how at the start of his career, when he was comparing offers from a few companies, Microsoft (relatively unknown at the time) sent him a salmon from Pike Place Market --- and that gesture convinced him to accept Microsoft's offer. Two days later, a package of smoked salmon on ice from Pike Place Market showed up at my door in Tucson, AZ. (I went to Google for non-salmon-related reasons, but sending me food mostly became a reminder that Google was offering free food as a perk!)
- lostlogin 6y agoThe series of Microsoft fish stories here is truely bizarre. Surely there is a more universally agreeable gift food?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- numpad0 6y agoMaybe the failure rate had been acceptable, ain’t fix if it ain’t broke style. I wonder if it has been the inspiration for Steve Jobs’ “Japanese are like dead fish washing up” quote, if Microsoft was sending dead fish left and right around California and he was sick of it.
- deanCommie 6y agoWho doesn't like Salmon?
- rhaps0dy 6y agoVegan applicants would not find it funny.
- jarjoura 6y agoUnfortunately, I was only an intern then new-grad during those early aughts of Forstall's reign. He was quite a brilliant man, very quick-witted and always one step ahead of you. Steve Jobs entrusted all of Apple's coolest projects with him for that reason. So all the biggest demos you saw on stage were under Forstall's leadership at one point or another. However, if you wanted to work on those cool projects, it meant you had to work with Forstall and he was intimidating to say the least. A mini-SJ people internally would call him. Any feature you were working on that needed SJ approval went through Forstall's monocle eye first. On the one hand, he was one of the few leads that would remember my name and say hi to me when passing in the hall. On the other, I was scared to look him in the eye lol. I do think he held his reports to unreasonably high bars by expecting long hours of work and he seemed to find joy in seeing people squirm. It was weird.
- derangedHorse 6y agoFor some reason it's always the people who you try to avoid that end up learning your name the quickest. I knew a VP known to encourage harsh working conditions that I tried to steer clear of, but he always took the effort of remembering my name and coming over to my desk to say hi lol
- thijsvandien 6y agoI always wonder if Forstall will ever return to Apple to save it, just like Jobs once did. Surely cash is not a problem right now, to say the least, but I feel the spirit is fading. While there is Apple University and all that, he's probably the closest to a true Jobs replacement that is—or might ever be—around (for better or for worse).
- tosers4 6y agoSave it? Apple gets more profitable each day. last year it has 1-year returns of 70%
- thijsvandien 6y agoIt's not so much saving the company from bankruptcy, but saving what they stand/stood for. Other than for shareholders, profitability isn't that exciting. If Apple becomes the new old Microsoft, or the next IBM, they're essentially dead to me. When was the last time you felt really inspired by one of their keynotes?
- tosers4 6y agoApple is still the only big tech that is consumer centric. Microsoft revolves around enterprise. Consumer stuff is just getting the users familiar with they tech. Amazon is logistics. Google and Facebook is Ad Tech, they don't add or polish experience if it doesn't make their ads better. Apple has stayed true in providing excellent products for individuals, not marketing agencies or enterprise. That's what they show every update. Sure you miss an Ipod or Iphone reveal, but they are still showing new things (TouchId, card, watch, and the AirPods that everyone even non apple fans, love), and polishing old one( even listening to feedback like the keyboard stuff).
- romanr 6y agoHe is Alan Wilder of Apple
- hmexx 6y agoSo he interviewed at two really competitive companies. One CEO offered him to skip the entire interview chain after chatting to him for a few minutes. The other sent him a desperate gift by mail after he turned down their offer. Scott must be really good at interviews! :P
- drawkbox 6y agoI think software quality has gone way down at Apple since Scott Forstall left. Side note, I still have fond memories of working at 2XL Games and on ESPN X-Games Snocross and it was one of the first games shown on the iPad on stage by Scott Forstall that highlighted the ability to run on iPhone and scale up to iPad [1]. We had made the game in 9 weeks which was very fast from ATV Offroad, adding snowmobiles for the "slednecks" as they are called. The game launched and while we were working on our next game, we tuned into the keynote as all devs did in 2010, it was Jan 27, 2010, we saw our game come up on stage and no one knew it was happening. It was one of those killer moments that made the work worth it. Turns out it was largely because Steve Jobs was on the board at ABC/Disney and ESPN properties got promoted. We later made the first game on Apple GameCenter matchup/networking in Ricky Carmichael's Motocross Matchup. The early versions of the Apple systems were actually quite solid for matchup/networking. This was before Android had Google Game Play Services so we eventually swapped it for a platform agnostic networking system but still lots of fun. I was lucky enough to be lead game dev on both and got to help with the direction/game design as well especially on Ricky Carmichael's Motocross Matchup which is still pretty high up in racing on iOS. Overall, I really feel iOS was a more solid/robust platform back then and trailed off after iOS 6 in terms of speed/quality, I think that has alot to do with Scott Forstall. I think Scott Forstall was required for Steve Jobs to really make NeXT and iPhone happen. The way he was let go after the Apple Maps push, which I am sure was pushed out early, was disheartening. [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20100130175713/http://wireless.ign.com/articles/106/1064149p1.html https://web.archive.org/web/20100130175713/http://wireless.i...
- blueyes 6y agoScott starts speaking around minute 32.
- monkeycantype 6y agoA few years ago, oh hang on, more than a few years ago, Jobs was still alive - I was training at a muay thai gym south of bangkok and I met the executive chef on Larry Ellison's yacht. He was training to get fit, because a wealthy couple had told him if he could lose weight they'd set him up with a cooking show. Jobs often borrowed Larry's yacht, and he had galley stocked with everything Jobs wanted, except that Jobs wanted fresh fish from a particular Hawaiian fishing company, fresh every day. So there was a young, beautiful woman who flew to meet them every day that Jobs was on board, wherever they were in the world, who would charm her way through customs with a big dead fish packed in ice. Guess he liked fish.