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I really don't know why people want to venerate anything to do with Steve Jobs. He was an absolute disgrace of a human being, treated people like garbage, a bor

I really don't know why people want to venerate anything to do with Steve Jobs. He was an absolute disgrace of a human being, treated people like garbage, a borderline psychopath. And yet some venerate him because he made some pretty things before other people would have inevitably made those same pretty things. P.S. I somewhat agree with the commentator saying that hacker news is in many ways a sort of venture capital pornography, but I think the people comparing jobs to historical figures that confronted adolf hitler or changed the course of human history need some very long and deep self reflection.

alisonkisk 5y ago
It's been 40 years and no one's made pretty things like them yet.
- michaelmrose 5y ago
  Can you give some examples? Certainly good ideas that nobody has replicated for decades would be valuable avenues worth pursuing.
  - spoonjim 5y ago
    The entire concept of what a “computer” is in people’s minds comes from Steve Jobs’ evangelism of these ideas. While you can be certain that the transistor would have been invented by someone if not Shockley, computing would be very different (perhaps better, perhaps not) without Jobs.
robbiep 5y ago
I’m honestly confused by the points of view that hold that unless a person was/is as pure as the driven snow they deserve to be scrubbed from the history books. Jobs, Churchill, Gates, Musk - I don’t understand. It’s as if proponents of that view believe that the only people deserving of recognition are those that were completely internally consistent, including by the times in which they are being judged (ie present tense). Humans are complex. None of us (or at least, very very few of us) are fully internally consistent. The personality flaws that cause the greatest consternation may also be those that lead to our greatest triumphs. If they are not criminal, why not recognise people for doing great things? And why is it so hard to say add the caveat that like all humans, they had their flaws?
- p1necone 5y ago
  I don't think parent is saying that Jobs should be "scrubbed from the history books", quite the opposite really. They're saying that we shouldn't just talk about all the positive things that Jobs did as if he was some kind of paragon - the history books should also talk about the bad.
  - gibolt 5y ago
    He completely transformed modern life and changed the human trajectory for everyone on the planet, multiple times. So he was an ass to work with... That doesn't void anything else that was done, nor should it be a highlight. Worth mentioning, sure. Visionaries are usually hard to deal with (perhaps because they are fighting against the grain). Most visionaries are wrong, but that diversity is what pushes us forward.
    - Groxx 5y ago
      To some degree yes... but to some degree you sound like you're claiming they did what they did in a vacuum. iPhone launched 2007. Android was announced in 2007 and released in 2008. Palm had large-screen phones with apps and a browser in 2002[1]. A lot of things happen around people that isn't completely due to them being them. We can't know what would have happened without Jobs, but it seems fair to say that much of the global-scale stuff would have, though perhaps not Apple itself. [1]: if not earlier. randomly skimming wikipedia finds e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treo_180 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treo_180 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Palm_OS_devices https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Palm_OS_devices
      - carlosdp 5y ago
        > We can't know what would have happened without Jobs, but it seems fair to say that much of the global-scale stuff would have, though perhaps not Apple itself. I believe there's a logical fallacy that described this thinking. I definitely don't think the smartphone revolution was inevitable, at least not on the timetable it happened on because Jobs pushed it forward. Yea, Palm had large-screen phones, and yet most people didn't care and still didn't have smartphones. That could have kept repeating for a long time more, with just Blackberry holding the market and just for "business phones," if Apple hadn't come in with its consumer gravitas. It's easy to look in hindsight and think the future was inevitable, but it often wasn't.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
austhrow743 5y ago
This is the forum for a VC firm. You would be hard pressed to find a social media platform with a greater concentration of people wanting to make a shitload of money by growing a tech company outside of the one that's exclusively for people who have received YC funding. Steve Jobs made a shitload of money growing a tech company. The broad overview of his career involving him being there when it went from nothing to something, leaving, succeeding while it floundered, then returning to have it then also succeed; gives him more credibility for having caused that success than many other potential role models have.
- Austin_Conlon 5y ago
  Grew Pixar too. Here’s how Alan Kay put it: > I was contacted by the people who became Pixar–I knew them well, and they wanted to get out of Lucasfilm. They called me up and asked me for advice, and so I said, I can talk to Steve. I explained very carefully to him who these people were, and you shouldn’t fuck around with them, like he did with his normal employees. He did a good job with them. [Pixar] was the most honest billion he ever made, because he put a lot of his own personal money into nurturing those guys. They got fabulous. That was Steve’s best hour.
- kortilla 5y ago
  > This is the forum for a VC firm. It may be, but that’s not who posts on it and determines the content.
  - austhrow743 5y ago
    Right you are that the VC firm doesn't. People who have, out of all possible internet feeds with comment sections they could have discovered and then stuck with, discovered and then stuck with the forum of a VC firm do.
systemvoltage 5y ago
I think Steve Jobs was one of the most amazing people ever to be alive. He was an ass but he also loved many, respected many, made enormous number of friends and literally changed the world. He was a brilliant, charismatic leader that inspired so many to work towards his vision. I get goosebumps thinking about his life and watching some of the old clips on YT.
NL807 5y ago
John Carmack paints an interesting picture on what kind of man Jobs was. https://www.facebook.com/SteveJobsFeed/posts/john-carmack-remembers-his-work-relationship-with-steve-jobs-his-last-sentence-s/1660796817337666/ https://www.facebook.com/SteveJobsFeed/posts/john-carmack-re... Sorry about the facebook link
- divbzero 5y ago
  I remember reading this before and great to re-read it again. John Carmack does a good job honoring the man without placing him on a pedestal.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  Here ya go: https://www.macrumors.com/2018/05/14/john-carmack-shares-steve-jobs-details/ https://www.macrumors.com/2018/05/14/john-carmack-shares-ste...
elromulous 5y ago
This. I cannot upvote this comment enough.
kortilla 5y ago
> He was an absolute disgrace of a human being, treated people like garbage, a borderline psychopath. So what? Many celebrated people (artists, scientists, architects, leaders) were actually quite miserable people to be around and work with.
shusaku 5y ago
> I really don't know why people want to venerate anything to do with Steve Jobs. Pretty ironic that your complaining about Steve Jobs in the comment section of an article that has almost nothing to do with him.
- OJFord 5y ago
  If it has almost nothing to do with him, then a headline about him - even Steve Jobs couldn't hire them - is the sort of veneration GP is talking about.
  - shusaku 5y ago
    Yes I understand perfectly fine that he (and apparently you) only read the headline.
jasode 5y ago
>I really don't know why people want to venerate anything to do with Steve Jobs. He was an absolute disgrace of a human being, treated people like garbage, a borderline psychopath. Fyi... in case the gp's top-voted comment gives a misleading impression about this thread's article content... This blog post is actually about designer Richard Sapper who did work for IBM. (E.g. the IBM ThinkPad black aesthetics.) The "2 perspectives" of Richard Sapper are: (1) the 1983 video documentary on youtube, and (2) a recent 2016 book showing a portfolio of his work I totally understand gp's advice to not celebrate Steve Job's human flaws but based on the text's actual content (Richard Sapper), the SJ complaint is really a non-sequitur in this thread. The author is just name-dropping SJ in the headline and in one sentence to hook the reader into reading more about Richard Sapper.
elisbce 5y ago
I'm not a Steve Jobs or Apple fan and I don't like some of his personalities, but to say someone is "an absolute disgrace of a human being", despite the fact that what he did inevitably revolutionized the entire computer/mobile world, sounds more like an absolute disgrace of a human being to me. I don't know what gets you so mad at him, maybe you were the guy he fired from his meeting? Or is it just jealousy and denial of truth. He is not a moral saint, nor are you. He sometimes gets angry and attacks people, so did you in your post. Judging from how biased you were in your post, you are in no position to judge him to be honest, let alone belittling his massive contributions to mankind. Where were you when he introduced iPhone to the world?

alisonkisk 5y ago

It's been 40 years and no one's made pretty things like them yet.

michaelmrose 5y ago
Can you give some examples? Certainly good ideas that nobody has replicated for decades would be valuable avenues worth pursuing.
- spoonjim 5y ago
  The entire concept of what a “computer” is in people’s minds comes from Steve Jobs’ evangelism of these ideas. While you can be certain that the transistor would have been invented by someone if not Shockley, computing would be very different (perhaps better, perhaps not) without Jobs.

robbiep 5y ago

I’m honestly confused by the points of view that hold that unless a person was/is as pure as the driven snow they deserve to be scrubbed from the history books. Jobs, Churchill, Gates, Musk - I don’t understand. It’s as if proponents of that view believe that the only people deserving of recognition are those that were completely internally consistent, including by the times in which they are being judged (ie present tense). Humans are complex. None of us (or at least, very very few of us) are fully internally consistent. The personality flaws that cause the greatest consternation may also be those that lead to our greatest triumphs. If they are not criminal, why not recognise people for doing great things? And why is it so hard to say add the caveat that like all humans, they had their flaws?

p1necone 5y ago
I don't think parent is saying that Jobs should be "scrubbed from the history books", quite the opposite really. They're saying that we shouldn't just talk about all the positive things that Jobs did as if he was some kind of paragon - the history books should also talk about the bad.
- gibolt 5y ago
  He completely transformed modern life and changed the human trajectory for everyone on the planet, multiple times. So he was an ass to work with... That doesn't void anything else that was done, nor should it be a highlight. Worth mentioning, sure. Visionaries are usually hard to deal with (perhaps because they are fighting against the grain). Most visionaries are wrong, but that diversity is what pushes us forward.
  - Groxx 5y ago
    To some degree yes... but to some degree you sound like you're claiming they did what they did in a vacuum. iPhone launched 2007. Android was announced in 2007 and released in 2008. Palm had large-screen phones with apps and a browser in 2002[1]. A lot of things happen around people that isn't completely due to them being them. We can't know what would have happened without Jobs, but it seems fair to say that much of the global-scale stuff would have, though perhaps not Apple itself. [1]: if not earlier. randomly skimming wikipedia finds e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treo_180 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treo_180 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Palm_OS_devices https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Palm_OS_devices
    - carlosdp 5y ago
      > We can't know what would have happened without Jobs, but it seems fair to say that much of the global-scale stuff would have, though perhaps not Apple itself. I believe there's a logical fallacy that described this thinking. I definitely don't think the smartphone revolution was inevitable, at least not on the timetable it happened on because Jobs pushed it forward. Yea, Palm had large-screen phones, and yet most people didn't care and still didn't have smartphones. That could have kept repeating for a long time more, with just Blackberry holding the market and just for "business phones," if Apple hadn't come in with its consumer gravitas. It's easy to look in hindsight and think the future was inevitable, but it often wasn't.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

austhrow743 5y ago

This is the forum for a VC firm. You would be hard pressed to find a social media platform with a greater concentration of people wanting to make a shitload of money by growing a tech company outside of the one that's exclusively for people who have received YC funding. Steve Jobs made a shitload of money growing a tech company. The broad overview of his career involving him being there when it went from nothing to something, leaving, succeeding while it floundered, then returning to have it then also succeed; gives him more credibility for having caused that success than many other potential role models have.

Austin_Conlon 5y ago
Grew Pixar too. Here’s how Alan Kay put it: > I was contacted by the people who became Pixar–I knew them well, and they wanted to get out of Lucasfilm. They called me up and asked me for advice, and so I said, I can talk to Steve. I explained very carefully to him who these people were, and you shouldn’t fuck around with them, like he did with his normal employees. He did a good job with them. [Pixar] was the most honest billion he ever made, because he put a lot of his own personal money into nurturing those guys. They got fabulous. That was Steve’s best hour.
kortilla 5y ago
> This is the forum for a VC firm. It may be, but that’s not who posts on it and determines the content.
- austhrow743 5y ago
  Right you are that the VC firm doesn't. People who have, out of all possible internet feeds with comment sections they could have discovered and then stuck with, discovered and then stuck with the forum of a VC firm do.

systemvoltage 5y ago

I think Steve Jobs was one of the most amazing people ever to be alive. He was an ass but he also loved many, respected many, made enormous number of friends and literally changed the world. He was a brilliant, charismatic leader that inspired so many to work towards his vision. I get goosebumps thinking about his life and watching some of the old clips on YT.

NL807 5y ago

John Carmack paints an interesting picture on what kind of man Jobs was. https://www.facebook.com/SteveJobsFeed/posts/john-carmack-remembers-his-work-relationship-with-steve-jobs-his-last-sentence-s/1660796817337666/ https://www.facebook.com/SteveJobsFeed/posts/john-carmack-re... Sorry about the facebook link

divbzero 5y ago
I remember reading this before and great to re-read it again. John Carmack does a good job honoring the man without placing him on a pedestal.
WalterBright 5y ago
Here ya go: https://www.macrumors.com/2018/05/14/john-carmack-shares-steve-jobs-details/ https://www.macrumors.com/2018/05/14/john-carmack-shares-ste...

elromulous 5y ago

This. I cannot upvote this comment enough.

kortilla 5y ago

> He was an absolute disgrace of a human being, treated people like garbage, a borderline psychopath. So what? Many celebrated people (artists, scientists, architects, leaders) were actually quite miserable people to be around and work with.

shusaku 5y ago

> I really don't know why people want to venerate anything to do with Steve Jobs. Pretty ironic that your complaining about Steve Jobs in the comment section of an article that has almost nothing to do with him.

OJFord 5y ago
If it has almost nothing to do with him, then a headline about him - even Steve Jobs couldn't hire them - is the sort of veneration GP is talking about.
- shusaku 5y ago
  Yes I understand perfectly fine that he (and apparently you) only read the headline.

jasode 5y ago

>I really don't know why people want to venerate anything to do with Steve Jobs. He was an absolute disgrace of a human being, treated people like garbage, a borderline psychopath. Fyi... in case the gp's top-voted comment gives a misleading impression about this thread's article content... This blog post is actually about designer Richard Sapper who did work for IBM. (E.g. the IBM ThinkPad black aesthetics.) The "2 perspectives" of Richard Sapper are: (1) the 1983 video documentary on youtube, and (2) a recent 2016 book showing a portfolio of his work I totally understand gp's advice to not celebrate Steve Job's human flaws but based on the text's actual content (Richard Sapper), the SJ complaint is really a non-sequitur in this thread. The author is just name-dropping SJ in the headline and in one sentence to hook the reader into reading more about Richard Sapper.

elisbce 5y ago

I'm not a Steve Jobs or Apple fan and I don't like some of his personalities, but to say someone is "an absolute disgrace of a human being", despite the fact that what he did inevitably revolutionized the entire computer/mobile world, sounds more like an absolute disgrace of a human being to me. I don't know what gets you so mad at him, maybe you were the guy he fired from his meeting? Or is it just jealousy and denial of truth. He is not a moral saint, nor are you. He sometimes gets angry and attacks people, so did you in your post. Judging from how biased you were in your post, you are in no position to judge him to be honest, let alone belittling his massive contributions to mankind. Where were you when he introduced iPhone to the world?