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It always frustrates me when techies have an irreverence for Steve Jobs, or let his brashness overshadow the value he bestowed upon the world. Jobs was once as

It always frustrates me when techies have an irreverence for Steve Jobs, or let his brashness overshadow the value he bestowed upon the world. Jobs was once asked what distinguishes the ordinary from the great, and he said it boils down to "taste". he also described his job as being "an editor". instead of adding more and more, he decided what to sacrifice and what to focus on making great. that's a rare quality, especially in tech.

comice 5y ago
I'm sure some don't give Jobs the credit he's due, but I'd say it's far more common for people to have too much reverence for him. You yourself here have reduced his often outrageous and terrible behaviour simply as "brashness".
soperj 5y ago
He set back wages for techies for years, and was a prick to his family & friends (disavowing his daughter, screwing Woz out of money). I don't care if he was the brightest guy on earth, or what "value" he bestowed on the world. He wasn't a good human being. Same goes for Gates.
- dzhiurgis 5y ago
  Gates is borderline criminal
- gridlockd 5y ago
  > He wasn't a good human being Good is the enemy of great.
- ekianjo 5y ago
  I have never liked Jobs (or even Apple) - even more so after the cult following his death - but nevertheless I would not pretend to know him and to be able to pass a final judgment on him as a human being. Maybe he was an asshole? Maybe he treated people badly? Yet people still worked for him and respected him nonetheless. And if we ever were in his position, would we be worse or better? It's not something we can easily know or guess.
- etempleton 5y ago
  You have to take the good with the bad. Steve and Bill were able to accomplish what they did because of their unique personality quirks. Those same quirks make them not always compassionate or empathetic people. No one is perfect. Steve was who he was. A lot of people who were closest to him seemed very sad that he passed. He must have made a positive impression on them.
  - soperj 5y ago
    Sorry, but disavowing your daughter to not pay child support, or trying to recoup someones shares because they have cancer isn't a personality quirk.
    - adventured 5y ago
      Since it's important to be accurate when you're condemning someone - Gates never tried to take back Paul Allen's shares. That isn't merely a bit of nuance. It never happened. The only thing that ever happened was the infamous discussion between Gates and Ballmer, which Allen overheard. Gates offered to purchase the shares in 1983, which Allen rejected. Allen is quite clear about what happened in his book Idea Man. A detestable conversation by Gates, certainly. And yet Allen checked out of Microsoft in 1982 and kept his enormous fortune from it and Gates never tried to take it from him. Everyone on HN would spontaneously combust if they were judged by their worst thoughts or conversations, without exception.
      - soperj 5y ago
        They were discussing ways to dilute his shares. Bill tried to buy him out at a much reduced rate ($5 a share). When they went public a couple years later, the share price was $35 on the first day. Either way the whole thing was precipitated because he wasn't being as productive on account of having cancer. Bill likes to say that the relationship was repaired near the end of Paul's life, but at the same time, he wouldn't take or return a call from him when he was on his death bed, which they talk about in the mini-doc "Inside Bill's Brain".
rxhernandez 5y ago
I think it's convenient to give a leader all of the credit for what is a massive effort by a massive organization. I think it's convenient to say that a massive organization is doing well only because of that leader and not, at least occasionally, despite that leader. Moreover, a lot of educated people understand that graphs have incredibly complex behavior and can't be well understood from the "first" node a stimulus enters through and yet we are quick to laud Jobs for all of the successes of his network; it's like this insane pyramid scheme of credit attribution.
bcantrill 5y ago
Appreciate your frustration, but you should appreciate something else in turn: Steve Jobs was an asshole to many, many people for many, many years -- and "Steve stories" abound among the veterans in our industry. Speaking personally, my own introduction to Jobs was being at a friend's house as a kid, and overhearing her father being absolutely screamed at by someone on a speaker phone in his office. I looked at her, alarmed -- and she explained that this was just Steve Jobs, and that Jobs screamed at her father frequently. Her father, it must be said, is Fred Ebrahimi, then CEO of Quark.[0] It took me many years to appreciate that he was likely being screamed at by Jobs -- who was then CEO of NeXT -- because Jobs desperately needed software for the NeXT Cube, and that QuarkXpress was high on the list. (And as relayed in Randall Stross's book on Jobs at NeXT[1], he in fact did much worse than scream at Ebrahimi, stooping to belittle him based on his national origin.) So yes, I'm afraid you are just going to have to be frustrated; Jobs was -- to put it generously -- complicated: his vision is rightfully lauded, but his conduct should broadly not serve as a model. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quark_(company) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quark_(company) [1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/226316.Steve_Jobs_the_NeXT_Big_Thing https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/226316.Steve_Jobs_the_Ne...
- johnwheeler 5y ago
  I know I’ll get downvoted, but who cares. I know that’s callous but people have too much an aversion of getting yelled at by their bosses nowadays. That’s ego and vanity.
  - flitzofolov 5y ago
    Your response is sad.
    - johnwheeler 5y ago
      Why? Would you rather know where you stand or have your boss put on on a performance improvement plan and marginalize you until you quit? Which is worse?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
sneak 5y ago
Just because his positives were rare doesn't mean we should ignore the fact that he was a criminal swindler who conspired to cheat workers as his company as well as others out of billions of dollars of wages. It's not like Apple or these other companies whose executives participated in the criminal conspiracy were struggling at the time, either. They could have paid the salaries required for retention. It was pure, unmitigated greed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L... > The defendants are Adobe, Apple Inc., Google, Intel, Intuit, Pixar, Lucasfilm and eBay Don't ever work for any of these firms, and remember that Schmidt and Jobs et al are thieves.

comice 5y ago

I'm sure some don't give Jobs the credit he's due, but I'd say it's far more common for people to have too much reverence for him. You yourself here have reduced his often outrageous and terrible behaviour simply as "brashness".

soperj 5y ago

He set back wages for techies for years, and was a prick to his family & friends (disavowing his daughter, screwing Woz out of money). I don't care if he was the brightest guy on earth, or what "value" he bestowed on the world. He wasn't a good human being. Same goes for Gates.

dzhiurgis 5y ago
Gates is borderline criminal
gridlockd 5y ago
> He wasn't a good human being Good is the enemy of great.
ekianjo 5y ago
I have never liked Jobs (or even Apple) - even more so after the cult following his death - but nevertheless I would not pretend to know him and to be able to pass a final judgment on him as a human being. Maybe he was an asshole? Maybe he treated people badly? Yet people still worked for him and respected him nonetheless. And if we ever were in his position, would we be worse or better? It's not something we can easily know or guess.
etempleton 5y ago
You have to take the good with the bad. Steve and Bill were able to accomplish what they did because of their unique personality quirks. Those same quirks make them not always compassionate or empathetic people. No one is perfect. Steve was who he was. A lot of people who were closest to him seemed very sad that he passed. He must have made a positive impression on them.
- soperj 5y ago
  Sorry, but disavowing your daughter to not pay child support, or trying to recoup someones shares because they have cancer isn't a personality quirk.
  - adventured 5y ago
    Since it's important to be accurate when you're condemning someone - Gates never tried to take back Paul Allen's shares. That isn't merely a bit of nuance. It never happened. The only thing that ever happened was the infamous discussion between Gates and Ballmer, which Allen overheard. Gates offered to purchase the shares in 1983, which Allen rejected. Allen is quite clear about what happened in his book Idea Man. A detestable conversation by Gates, certainly. And yet Allen checked out of Microsoft in 1982 and kept his enormous fortune from it and Gates never tried to take it from him. Everyone on HN would spontaneously combust if they were judged by their worst thoughts or conversations, without exception.
    - soperj 5y ago
      They were discussing ways to dilute his shares. Bill tried to buy him out at a much reduced rate ($5 a share). When they went public a couple years later, the share price was $35 on the first day. Either way the whole thing was precipitated because he wasn't being as productive on account of having cancer. Bill likes to say that the relationship was repaired near the end of Paul's life, but at the same time, he wouldn't take or return a call from him when he was on his death bed, which they talk about in the mini-doc "Inside Bill's Brain".

rxhernandez 5y ago

I think it's convenient to give a leader all of the credit for what is a massive effort by a massive organization. I think it's convenient to say that a massive organization is doing well only because of that leader and not, at least occasionally, despite that leader. Moreover, a lot of educated people understand that graphs have incredibly complex behavior and can't be well understood from the "first" node a stimulus enters through and yet we are quick to laud Jobs for all of the successes of his network; it's like this insane pyramid scheme of credit attribution.

bcantrill 5y ago

Appreciate your frustration, but you should appreciate something else in turn: Steve Jobs was an asshole to many, many people for many, many years -- and "Steve stories" abound among the veterans in our industry. Speaking personally, my own introduction to Jobs was being at a friend's house as a kid, and overhearing her father being absolutely screamed at by someone on a speaker phone in his office. I looked at her, alarmed -- and she explained that this was just Steve Jobs, and that Jobs screamed at her father frequently. Her father, it must be said, is Fred Ebrahimi, then CEO of Quark.[0] It took me many years to appreciate that he was likely being screamed at by Jobs -- who was then CEO of NeXT -- because Jobs desperately needed software for the NeXT Cube, and that QuarkXpress was high on the list. (And as relayed in Randall Stross's book on Jobs at NeXT[1], he in fact did much worse than scream at Ebrahimi, stooping to belittle him based on his national origin.) So yes, I'm afraid you are just going to have to be frustrated; Jobs was -- to put it generously -- complicated: his vision is rightfully lauded, but his conduct should broadly not serve as a model. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quark_(company) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quark_(company) [1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/226316.Steve_Jobs_the_NeXT_Big_Thing https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/226316.Steve_Jobs_the_Ne...

johnwheeler 5y ago
I know I’ll get downvoted, but who cares. I know that’s callous but people have too much an aversion of getting yelled at by their bosses nowadays. That’s ego and vanity.
- flitzofolov 5y ago
  Your response is sad.
  - johnwheeler 5y ago
    Why? Would you rather know where you stand or have your boss put on on a performance improvement plan and marginalize you until you quit? Which is worse?

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

sneak 5y ago

Just because his positives were rare doesn't mean we should ignore the fact that he was a criminal swindler who conspired to cheat workers as his company as well as others out of billions of dollars of wages. It's not like Apple or these other companies whose executives participated in the criminal conspiracy were struggling at the time, either. They could have paid the salaries required for retention. It was pure, unmitigated greed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L... > The defendants are Adobe, Apple Inc., Google, Intel, Intuit, Pixar, Lucasfilm and eBay Don't ever work for any of these firms, and remember that Schmidt and Jobs et al are thieves.