8 ms·

Great list! A few more: We're so successful because we're smarter than everyone else. We learned everything we needed to know in college. Our technology was

by edw519 15y ago

Great list! A few more: We're so successful because we're smarter than everyone else. We learned everything we needed to know in college. Our technology was so good, it was only a matter of time before everyone found us. Most of our unit tests were successful on the first run. We were usually able to knock off at 5 p.m. Customer service issues went pretty much as we expected. We always knew better than our customers. Eventually, they realized that. We always had plenty of time to spend with our family and friends. We outsourced all of the technical work. I'm so glad I spent so much time on Hacker News.

damoncali 15y ago
I've heard successful people say half of those. Be carful not to paint yourself into the corner of conventional wisdom.
benjoffe 15y ago
> We always knew better than our customers. Eventually, they realized that. Pretty sure I've read quotes from Steve Jobs that follow that line of thinking actually.
- mgkimsal 15y ago
  Sadly, I know a few entrepreneurs that also think this way. They're not having much success, but cling to the notion that the world will 'wake up' and see things their way, eventually, some day, if they could just talk to enough people (and they usually cite Apple as their inspiration for this approach). The Steve Jobs / Apple approach is more the exception that proves the rule, and even then, they've had their Newton moments too. What that proves is that with a successful enough company you can have a few failures. When you've only got the one product, you can't afford the luxury of your own Newton.
  - sjwright 15y ago
    The first thing Steve Jobs did when he returned to Apple was kill off the Newton. There's been the occasional slip, but nothing too ghastly (except the flower power iMacs).
    - gcb 15y ago
      why did he return to apple? everyone forget this, because he couldn't have the same luck at his second company. also apple would have forwarded the osx success a couple years if the acquired beos instead of next. so that was steves luck acting again
      - kanamekun 15y ago
        How do you explain the success of Pixar, the company that Steve bought and eventually made him a billionaire?
        gcb 15y ago
        This is like saying carl icahn is genius for making motorola mobile a success and making him a billionaire. apple was a success because of woz. Jobs was good at milking it, that i will give him. jobs wasted all his apple-money on next. Pixar was more proof that even he never thought apple would be the hit it is today. i don't think they had a single mac there until 5yrs ago.
        sjwright 15y ago
        > Pixar was more proof that even he never thought apple would be the hit it is today. The facts don't align with that theory. Steve Jobs left Apple in 1985. Toy Story was released in 1995. There wasn't any plausible path for Steve to return to Apple until 1996.
      - eropple 15y ago
        I'm no huge fan of the NeXT underpinnings of OS X, but the idea that using BeOS as an underlying operating system "would have forwarded the osx success a couple years" is silly. Aside from the still-continuing claims of Be adherents and their Haiku descendants, BeOS was so very much Nothing Special and I find it highly unlikely the Magic BeOS Fairy Powder would have materially improved OS X.
        15y ago
  - matwood 15y ago
    I think people take the ignoring customers as an on or off thing, but no company ignores what their customers want (including Apple). What a good company does is never listen to only a single customer. What a good company does is listen to all customers and take that knowledge and solve the over arcing problem. Each individual customer is likely only seeing part of the problem and thus only asking for partial solutions. The problem is that they simply do not have the visibility to know the entire problem, and that's where a good 3rd party business comes into play.
- nknight 15y ago
  I think the quote I've heard is that they don't bother with outside market research. That's different from simply ignoring customers. Any sane company will tell you feedback is important, what can differ is where the feedback comes from, how it's interpreted, and whether customers have as much knowledge of what is or isn't possible/economical as the people at the company. It's also important to note that companies like Apple are always trying new things, building strange prototypes, etc.. If a customer screams for Widget X, a company might try building a Widget X prototype, and discover it doesn't work so well in practice.
  - sjwright 15y ago
    > If a customer screams for Widget X, a company might try building a Widget X prototype, and discover it doesn't work so well in practice. _This._ It's a lesson I learned early on in my developer career: when customers ask for Widget X, it's often a symptom of an underlying problem that customers are trying to solve. Your role as a product developer is to understand the customer's underlying problem. Discover what the problem is, and you might discover that they don't need a Widget X; maybe they need a Feature X or a Gadget X. Maybe it reveals holes in your training processes. Maybe they just revealed a seemingly trivial bug with existing stuff. Or maybe you realise you never understood why clients ever used your product until now.
- jamesaguilar 15y ago
  Another one to add: "I am as good as Steve Jobs." ;)
rokhayakebe 15y ago
I'm so glad I spent so much time on Hacker News. Hence, CTRL + W.
- olalonde 15y ago
  Hmmm, I had to CTRL + SHIFT + T that.
- Tichy 15y ago
  What does it do (nothing on OS X, apparently)?
  - marvin 15y ago
    Close the window. Same as Command+W.
    - ewald 15y ago
      Actually it closes the tab, not the window (unless there is only one tab.)
rimantas 15y ago
> We always had plenty of time to spend with our family and > friends. If you cannot say that, I's say you failed. > We always knew better than our customers. Eventually, > they realized that. Should I repeat Ford's saying about faster horse? And not doing focus groups hurts Apple so much…
- irahul 15y ago
  > We always had plenty of time to spend with our family and > friends. > If you cannot say that, I's say you failed. Doesn't "not having plenty of time to spend with our family and friends" follows directly from not winding up at 5? Regardless of what you consider a failure, the hard fact is most of the businesses demand time - a lot of time. And there are only so many hours in a day. For the starting days, putting up south of 12 hours is common, and that takes a toll on the time you would have spent with your near and dear ones.
- palish 15y ago
  Actually, Ford never said that.[1][2] [1] - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2747106 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2747106 [2] - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2819549 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2819549
itrackmine 15y ago
This made me lol while taking a swig of my lemonade...point for you ;p "I'm so glad I spent so much time on Hacker News." ...ok, not a constructive reply other than: laughter generates beneficial chemicals in the brain and it's good to be good to others...thanks! carry on. :)
Iv 15y ago
"We'll share profits with employees that actually worked on the product we sold"
cma 15y ago
>Our technology was so good, it was only a matter of time before everyone found us. Google...
tudorizer 15y ago
"We were usually able to knock off at 5 p.m." That's what 37Signals always preaches.
Tichy 15y ago
"We were usually able to knock off at 5 p.m" Actually I am pretty sure I heard/read that a couple of times (or equivalent, not completely busting their asses). "We always knew better than our customers. Eventually, they realized that." Apple?

by edw519 15y ago

damoncali 15y ago

I've heard successful people say half of those. Be carful not to paint yourself into the corner of conventional wisdom.

benjoffe 15y ago

> We always knew better than our customers. Eventually, they realized that. Pretty sure I've read quotes from Steve Jobs that follow that line of thinking actually.

mgkimsal 15y ago
Sadly, I know a few entrepreneurs that also think this way. They're not having much success, but cling to the notion that the world will 'wake up' and see things their way, eventually, some day, if they could just talk to enough people (and they usually cite Apple as their inspiration for this approach). The Steve Jobs / Apple approach is more the exception that proves the rule, and even then, they've had their Newton moments too. What that proves is that with a successful enough company you can have a few failures. When you've only got the one product, you can't afford the luxury of your own Newton.
- sjwright 15y ago
  The first thing Steve Jobs did when he returned to Apple was kill off the Newton. There's been the occasional slip, but nothing too ghastly (except the flower power iMacs).
  - gcb 15y ago
    why did he return to apple? everyone forget this, because he couldn't have the same luck at his second company. also apple would have forwarded the osx success a couple years if the acquired beos instead of next. so that was steves luck acting again
    - kanamekun 15y ago
      How do you explain the success of Pixar, the company that Steve bought and eventually made him a billionaire?
      - gcb 15y ago
        This is like saying carl icahn is genius for making motorola mobile a success and making him a billionaire. apple was a success because of woz. Jobs was good at milking it, that i will give him. jobs wasted all his apple-money on next. Pixar was more proof that even he never thought apple would be the hit it is today. i don't think they had a single mac there until 5yrs ago.
        sjwright 15y ago
        > Pixar was more proof that even he never thought apple would be the hit it is today. The facts don't align with that theory. Steve Jobs left Apple in 1985. Toy Story was released in 1995. There wasn't any plausible path for Steve to return to Apple until 1996.
    - eropple 15y ago
      I'm no huge fan of the NeXT underpinnings of OS X, but the idea that using BeOS as an underlying operating system "would have forwarded the osx success a couple years" is silly. Aside from the still-continuing claims of Be adherents and their Haiku descendants, BeOS was so very much Nothing Special and I find it highly unlikely the Magic BeOS Fairy Powder would have materially improved OS X.
      - 15y ago
- matwood 15y ago
  I think people take the ignoring customers as an on or off thing, but no company ignores what their customers want (including Apple). What a good company does is never listen to only a single customer. What a good company does is listen to all customers and take that knowledge and solve the over arcing problem. Each individual customer is likely only seeing part of the problem and thus only asking for partial solutions. The problem is that they simply do not have the visibility to know the entire problem, and that's where a good 3rd party business comes into play.
nknight 15y ago
I think the quote I've heard is that they don't bother with outside market research. That's different from simply ignoring customers. Any sane company will tell you feedback is important, what can differ is where the feedback comes from, how it's interpreted, and whether customers have as much knowledge of what is or isn't possible/economical as the people at the company. It's also important to note that companies like Apple are always trying new things, building strange prototypes, etc.. If a customer screams for Widget X, a company might try building a Widget X prototype, and discover it doesn't work so well in practice.
- sjwright 15y ago
  > If a customer screams for Widget X, a company might try building a Widget X prototype, and discover it doesn't work so well in practice. _This._ It's a lesson I learned early on in my developer career: when customers ask for Widget X, it's often a symptom of an underlying problem that customers are trying to solve. Your role as a product developer is to understand the customer's underlying problem. Discover what the problem is, and you might discover that they don't need a Widget X; maybe they need a Feature X or a Gadget X. Maybe it reveals holes in your training processes. Maybe they just revealed a seemingly trivial bug with existing stuff. Or maybe you realise you never understood why clients ever used your product until now.
jamesaguilar 15y ago
Another one to add: "I am as good as Steve Jobs." ;)

rokhayakebe 15y ago

I'm so glad I spent so much time on Hacker News. Hence, CTRL + W.

olalonde 15y ago
Hmmm, I had to CTRL + SHIFT + T that.
Tichy 15y ago
What does it do (nothing on OS X, apparently)?
- marvin 15y ago
  Close the window. Same as Command+W.
  - ewald 15y ago
    Actually it closes the tab, not the window (unless there is only one tab.)

rimantas 15y ago

> We always had plenty of time to spend with our family and > friends. If you cannot say that, I's say you failed. > We always knew better than our customers. Eventually, > they realized that. Should I repeat Ford's saying about faster horse? And not doing focus groups hurts Apple so much…

irahul 15y ago
> We always had plenty of time to spend with our family and > friends. > If you cannot say that, I's say you failed. Doesn't "not having plenty of time to spend with our family and friends" follows directly from not winding up at 5? Regardless of what you consider a failure, the hard fact is most of the businesses demand time - a lot of time. And there are only so many hours in a day. For the starting days, putting up south of 12 hours is common, and that takes a toll on the time you would have spent with your near and dear ones.
palish 15y ago
Actually, Ford never said that.[1][2] [1] - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2747106 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2747106 [2] - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2819549 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2819549

itrackmine 15y ago

This made me lol while taking a swig of my lemonade...point for you ;p "I'm so glad I spent so much time on Hacker News." ...ok, not a constructive reply other than: laughter generates beneficial chemicals in the brain and it's good to be good to others...thanks! carry on. :)

Iv 15y ago

"We'll share profits with employees that actually worked on the product we sold"

cma 15y ago

>Our technology was so good, it was only a matter of time before everyone found us. Google...

tudorizer 15y ago

"We were usually able to knock off at 5 p.m." That's what 37Signals always preaches.

Tichy 15y ago

"We were usually able to knock off at 5 p.m" Actually I am pretty sure I heard/read that a couple of times (or equivalent, not completely busting their asses). "We always knew better than our customers. Eventually, they realized that." Apple?