6 ms·

In the last 20 years or so Steve Jobs often deflected praise from himself to the teams who worked on products. I have never seen him take any personal credit fo

by sjs 15y ago

In the last 20 years or so Steve Jobs often deflected praise from himself to the teams who worked on products. I have never seen him take any personal credit for any product he has introduced or discussed and always uses terms like "we", e.g. "I'm really excited to show you what we made." Without excusing his behaviour I'd like to remind people here that perhaps we have all acted selfishly or done things we are not proud of when we were younger (high school or college aged).

adrianwaj 15y ago
Did SJ actually bring people up on stage with him, and name them, and point out their roles? How generous was he in this respect?
- thaumaturgy 15y ago
  Does the orchestra bow with the conductor?
  - adrianwaj 15y ago
    SJ to me was a conductor, and an arranger and product visionary but a not a full bore composer, inventor or engineer on Mozart's level: more a Scott McNealy with design sense. I never met him, so I don't know how inspired he was in person. The best way I can sum it up, is that Apple may have been evolutionary, but not revolutionary, even though for many people owning one of their products was a revolution. Did Apple invent or just popularize the GUI? Was SJ more a popularizer or more an inventor? This is McNealy's take on Apple and SJ: "Apple is beyond proprietary, and the consumer has no idea that they are checking into the roach motel. Jobs has been brilliant, and he also understands the power of the secret better than anyone I have every seen." (3/10) http://mobile.informationweek.com/10244/show/e0e978f8df836638f534a82cdeac383b http://mobile.informationweek.com/10244/show/e0e978f8df83663... -- the conductor bows to audience with orchestra, and applauds orchestra as well.
  - leoc 15y ago
    The conductor is invariably expected to invite the orchestra to stand and take a bow after taking his own, if I recall correctly.
    - rquantz 15y ago
      Additionally, the conductor frequently asks individual members of the orchestra to stand -- section leaders, anyone who had a solo, etc. -- or asks sections to stand together if they had a particularly prominent role.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
- robterrell 15y ago
  I'd say this was fairly generous, and I've never heard of it repeated by any other technology company: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/Apple_Macintosh_128Kb_naked.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/Apple_Mac... Even Jef Raskin's signature is in there, for crying out loud, and Jobs stole the Mac team from him. But to your general point, have you ever seen a product intro where the entire team is brought up and named one by one? It seems like you're holding Jobs to an arbitrarily high standard.
  - adrianwaj 15y ago
    Thanks for answering.. I mainly bring it up because of this line: "Good artists copy great artists steal" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CW0DUg63lqU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CW0DUg63lqU
  - leoc 15y ago
    But he went off the idea of crediting individuals at some point after the release of the Macintosh, at least in part for fairly understandable reasons. http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Credit_Where_Due.txt http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story...
- ugh 15y ago
  Certainly. Quite often actually. Especially during the last years it were, for example, often the leading engineers themselves who demoed their software. In his public appearances I followed (all post-2000) I never ever had the feeling that he was taking undue credit, I never really had the feeling that he was taking credit at all. I can’t recall any instance where he presented something as his great idea, it was always “we”, never “I”. He didn’t always specifically thank everyone who worked on the products they presented but quite often. (You know, that whole routine where he asks all the people from Apple in the audience to stand up – didn’t always happen, but sometimes.) I’m not sure whether it makes a lot of sense to judge the 2000s Jobs based on the 70s and 80s Jobs. Humans do a lot of dumb stuff in their lives. But humans also change.

by sjs 15y ago

adrianwaj 15y ago

Did SJ actually bring people up on stage with him, and name them, and point out their roles? How generous was he in this respect?

thaumaturgy 15y ago
Does the orchestra bow with the conductor?
- adrianwaj 15y ago
  SJ to me was a conductor, and an arranger and product visionary but a not a full bore composer, inventor or engineer on Mozart's level: more a Scott McNealy with design sense. I never met him, so I don't know how inspired he was in person. The best way I can sum it up, is that Apple may have been evolutionary, but not revolutionary, even though for many people owning one of their products was a revolution. Did Apple invent or just popularize the GUI? Was SJ more a popularizer or more an inventor? This is McNealy's take on Apple and SJ: "Apple is beyond proprietary, and the consumer has no idea that they are checking into the roach motel. Jobs has been brilliant, and he also understands the power of the secret better than anyone I have every seen." (3/10) http://mobile.informationweek.com/10244/show/e0e978f8df836638f534a82cdeac383b http://mobile.informationweek.com/10244/show/e0e978f8df83663... -- the conductor bows to audience with orchestra, and applauds orchestra as well.
- leoc 15y ago
  The conductor is invariably expected to invite the orchestra to stand and take a bow after taking his own, if I recall correctly.
  - rquantz 15y ago
    Additionally, the conductor frequently asks individual members of the orchestra to stand -- section leaders, anyone who had a solo, etc. -- or asks sections to stand together if they had a particularly prominent role.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
robterrell 15y ago
I'd say this was fairly generous, and I've never heard of it repeated by any other technology company: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/Apple_Macintosh_128Kb_naked.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/Apple_Mac... Even Jef Raskin's signature is in there, for crying out loud, and Jobs stole the Mac team from him. But to your general point, have you ever seen a product intro where the entire team is brought up and named one by one? It seems like you're holding Jobs to an arbitrarily high standard.
- adrianwaj 15y ago
  Thanks for answering.. I mainly bring it up because of this line: "Good artists copy great artists steal" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CW0DUg63lqU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CW0DUg63lqU
- leoc 15y ago
  But he went off the idea of crediting individuals at some point after the release of the Macintosh, at least in part for fairly understandable reasons. http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Credit_Where_Due.txt http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story...
ugh 15y ago
Certainly. Quite often actually. Especially during the last years it were, for example, often the leading engineers themselves who demoed their software. In his public appearances I followed (all post-2000) I never ever had the feeling that he was taking undue credit, I never really had the feeling that he was taking credit at all. I can’t recall any instance where he presented something as his great idea, it was always “we”, never “I”. He didn’t always specifically thank everyone who worked on the products they presented but quite often. (You know, that whole routine where he asks all the people from Apple in the audience to stand up – didn’t always happen, but sometimes.) I’m not sure whether it makes a lot of sense to judge the 2000s Jobs based on the 70s and 80s Jobs. Humans do a lot of dumb stuff in their lives. But humans also change.