6 ms·

Isaacson: The Genius of Jobs

82 points by robg 15y ago

dbbo 15y ago
"So was Mr. Jobs smart? Not conventionally. Instead, he was a genius." To me, this is just an abusive twisting of the word "genius". I know it has different meanings to different people, but I think being smart, or having some kind of intellectual capacity, is probably the best common ground between definitions. It seems like Isaacson thinks being a genius just means being really good at something. Dan Marino and JFK are geniuses based on their prowess in their respective fields.
- muhfuhkuh 15y ago
  To me, genius is the creative application of extreme knowledge. Geniuses posses a mind, like Clarke's Third Law on advanced technology, that is indistinguishable from magic. You can't pretend that Michael Jordan is simply some preternatural freak of athletic nature. I mean, he is that, but there are others stronger, faster, smarter and with much better leadership qualities then he could ever pretend. But none could excel in such ways as he could, not even his successor, LeBron James. The way he could push himself along with his team. He elevated modern basketball to the stratosphere, and inspired countless basketball players and coaches.
  - dbbo 15y ago
    So what kind of extreme knowledge/magic did Jobs have? I also disagree with that law because there is always a handful of people capable of explaining an advanced technology, but no one can explain magic. For example, Siri might seem magical to end-users with no technical background but it is definitely not magical to the engineers and programmers who made it.
    - technoslut 15y ago
      >So what kind of extreme knowledge/magic did Jobs have? Understanding design and people and making it applicable to his chosen profession. >...it is definitely not magical to the engineers and programmers who made it. It's obviously not magic but, for the large majority, it appears to be so. Even if you wanted to explain how the concept of Siri works to the average person they wouldn't want you to. I think it would ruin it for them.
    - georgieporgie 15y ago
      it is definitely not magical to the engineers and programmers who made it. I'm not sure if you're saying engineers in general, or specifically the ones who programmed it. I'll say this: I tried Siri for the first time the other day. It is magical. Not because any single part of what it does is such a huge leap, but the way in which it combines existing elements to create a whole new direction which is so much greater than its parts. While Google was busy making voice-driven Google searches, Apple was making voice-driven user interface. Overall, I was amazed at how much more integrated and useful the iPhone was than my Android device. Siri just brings that to a whole new UI level that others had the technical ability to bring, but not the willingness. Is that a product of genius? I don't know, but I get the impression that both Google and Microsoft are driven by committee, and have very smart people who can't seem to really finish anything properly. They seem to lack creative genius, leadership, and/or drive.
      - georgieporgie 15y ago
        Wow, downvotes with no response?
- softbuilder 15y ago
  I think a lot of smart people cling to the idea that they have the capacity for genius because they can solve hard problems or because they have created something interesting or unique. But when you see real genius, it works differently than that. It's not a matter of more processing power, it's a different perspective. Maybe Jobs had that, maybe he didn't. But to tie genius strictly to "intellectual capacity" is a mistake IMHO.
- mhb 15y ago
  The classic quote about Feyman by Mark Kac In science, as well as in other fields of human endeavor, there are two kinds of geniuses: the “ordinary” and the “magicians.” An ordinary genius is a fellow that you and I would be just as good as, if we were only many times better. There is no mystery as to how his mind works. Once we understand what he has done, we feel certain that we, too, could have done it. It is different with the magicians. They are, to use mathematical jargon, in the orthogonal complement of where we are and the working of their minds is for all intents and purposes incomprehensible. Even after we understand what they have done, the process by which they have done it is completely dark. They seldom, if ever, have students because they cannot be emulated and it must be terribly frustrating for a brilliant young mind to cope with the mysterious ways in which the magician’s mind works. Richard Feynman is a magician of the highest caliber.
  - anothermachine 15y ago
    > They seldom, if ever, have students because they cannot be emulated and it must be terribly frustrating for a brilliant young mind to cope with the mysterious ways in which the magician’s mind works. Richard Feynman is a magician of the highest caliber. That's a strange statement, because Feynman was perhaps the most revered physics teacher of the 20th century.
- technoslut 15y ago
  >...but I think being smart, or having some kind of intellectual capacity, is probably the best common ground between definitions. Being intelligent is no the best common ground because there are so few of them out of many intelligent people. It is creating an artificial common ground. >Dan Marino and JFK are geniuses based on their prowess in their respective fields. As great as those you mentioned were, they are not geniuses. Dan Marino did not change the game of football. He had a great arm and was very good at recognizing defenses. People like Joe Montana and Lawrence Taylor changed the game because opposing teams had to develop strategies just around those two players. JFK, while great, was not a genius. Though he does have the Cuban missile crisis as his crowning achievement, he didn't even finish his first term. Much of JFK is about symbolism rather than accomplishments.
hooande 15y ago
tl;dr: "Steve Jobs was very successful, so he must have been a genius."
- sbuk 15y ago
  From the article: "So it’s probably best to ratchet the rhetoric down a notch and call it ingenuity"
- Tichy 15y ago
  But also, Einstein was a genius, and he thought about light beams, and Jobs about foam models, so they must be kind of the same. And also Einstein said that God doesn't play dice, so he must be religious, except that he wasn't particularly religious. OK sorry, my brain hurts, probably that means I am not a genius.
powertower 15y ago
> Trained in Zen Buddhism, Mr. Jobs came to value experiential wisdom over empirical analysis. He didn’t study data or crunch numbers but like a pathfinder, he could sniff the winds and sense what lay ahead. A choice quote from a man known as Osho... > Intellect takes things apart to see how they work; intelligence puts things together to see the functioning of the whole. (note that the above is greatly simplified, both are needed, neither is better, and there is overlap between the two) One is analytic and clinical, it can be put in a book and taught to people. It has a limit that's set by your neuron connections. The other is more spontaneous, exploratory, and creative.
- davidw 15y ago
  Perhaps "Osho" said some nice things, but he was also a grade-A crazy in some ways - some of them decidedly not 'good' ways - and had some followers who were outright dangerous: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_Rajneeshee_bioterror_attack http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_Rajneeshee_bioterror_attac... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985_Rajneeshee_assassination_plot http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985_Rajneeshee_assassination_p...
  - powertower 15y ago
    Separate the man from the media image and the actions of the organization and people that grew around him. Osho was not all seeing and knowing. The events that took place did so due to power hungry people that were attracted to him. Would you blame Christ for the sins of the Church? If you read any of Osho's material you'll find more insight on a single page, then you've received in your entire k12 education. He might have made some mistakes but I doubt he was actively poisoning people and herding children like they were cattle.
    - davidw 15y ago
      I'm not much into religions in general, even less so cults. And you can't claim that that lot were anything less than a cult. A picture is worth a thousand words: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Osho_Drive_By.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Osho_Drive_By.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osho_%28Bhagwan_Shree_Rajneesh%29#USA_and_the_Oregon_commune:_1981.E2.80.931985 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osho_%28Bhagwan_Shree_Rajneesh%...
deleted 15y ago
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sriramk 15y ago
This might be silly but I was thrilled that Jobs couldn't nail the monkey banana brain teaser. I was asked that at my first MSFT interview 6 years ago and struggled with it (I hated those brain teasers they did)
- iois93 15y ago
  to me, Jobs was a sociopath and he is not spending any energy in anything that doesn't lead to winning over someone. it is silly for the author to guess how BG would act. Also he didn't mention how BG at least try to make a better world to lots of less fortunate people with his own money, rather than Jobs tries to squeeze all the money he could with so-called "smart-marketing"
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
- potatolicious 15y ago
  I despise brain teaser interview questions - are you interviewing me as a Sunday Puzzles columnist or do you want me to program/design/manage? To me they reek of pop-psych bullshittery - as if somehow my responses to "why are manhole covers round" would represent some divine introspection to my inner personality and capabilities... or that my ability to gauge the temperatures of three light bulbs is in any way connected to my engineering ability.
dr_ 15y ago
With the ongoing rhetoric that America is on the decline and China and India are the superpowers of the future, I think the important takeaway paragraph is this: "China and India are likely to produce many rigorous analytical thinkers and knowledgeable technologists. But smart and educated people don’t always spawn innovation. America’s advantage, if it continues to have one, will be that it can produce people who are also more creative and imaginative, those who know how to stand at the intersection of the humanities and the sciences. That is the formula for true innovation, as Steve Jobs’s career showed." It is for this reason, short term economic maladies aside, in the longer run the United States will remain the strongest nation in the world.
- dyc 15y ago
  You assume that ways of thinking and doing are rigid. I don't know about that. Moreover, when we do look at the "humanities," the wisdom gained from China's five-thousand year history trumps that of this country.
  - dr_ 15y ago
    They are not just rigid. They are exceedingly strict beyond comparison. having spent a little time in the Indian system, this I can assure you. It's also no surprise that the biggest hit movie of India in the past few years was about how rigid the education system is and how students should be allowed to pursue their own passions, rather fulfill their parents desires. As for China, what they've gained culturally in the last 5000 years became irrelevant once communism took hold.
  - stretchwithme 15y ago
    hmm, 5000 years passed in the west as well and presumably people were also learning in the west. in the end, it is not how long knowledge has accumulated in a place but how open people are to learning from others. And how open is often a crap shoot accident of history. The US forced Japan open when Admiral Perry paid Tokyo a visit. Had he only gone to North Korea instead, history would have been completely different.
- jsm386 15y ago
js2 15y ago
I thought about how Bill Gates would have gone click-click-click and logically nailed the answer in 15 seconds Apropos Bill Gates and puzzle solving, http://www.borrett.id.au/computing/petals-bg.htm http://www.borrett.id.au/computing/petals-bg.htm
- chugger 15y ago
  Bill Gates is like Joe Satriani. Satch is one of the most technically gifted guitarist of all time. Hes a master at all the complicated alternate picking and shredding. But his music absolutely sucks. Steve Jobs is Eddie Van Halen. A tortured virtuoso artist who is not only a master at guitars and keyboards. This guy produced some of the most innovative guitar playing in the 70s and 80s. He also created some of the most kick ass rock and roll songs of all time. Satch plays awesome guitar. EVH creates awesome music.
  - rglullis 15y ago
    Your analogy is terrible. Both examples you gave refer to musicians who are technically capable, but with one being able to turn his mastery of the instrument into music that people like. Steve Jobs did not have mastery of the instrument. He was "technically limited", but still able to create compelling products. If you wanted to keep the analogy, it would be better to say that he was Bob Dylan (coincidentally, he was one of SJ personal idols). Anyway, I'm going to try again: can you please stop with the Apple fanboyism? Such blind worshiping and your monotonic comments are so annoying that it makes me want to dislike anything about SJ and Apple.
    - chugger 15y ago
      Steve is not technically limited. Just because he had limited formal education and training dosn't mean he's technically limited. That's just how insecure people describe him so they can feel better about themselves.
      - tempaccount10 15y ago
Tichy 15y ago
It's probably just too late in the day for me, but that article seemed like 90% gibberish to me. I hope the book is better...
deleted 15y ago
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1110101001 15y ago
"[A]nalytical thinkers and rigourous technologists" do produce innovation. They are almost exclusively the producers. But they don't normally try to sell it to the masses, or if they do, they often do a poor job of it. If "standing at the intersection" requires genius, then this "genius" should be qualified: marketing genius, sales genius, legal genius. And those types of "genius" involve measuring "success" and "value" in terms of success in the marketplace. No money means no success. Again, "success" should as such be qualified appropriately. Not all great technology succeeds in the marketplace. But that does not necessarily mean it is not good technology, with "genius" behind it.
deleted 15y ago
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endlessvoid94 15y ago
I really, really, really dislike the word "genius". It is a barrier, and exists solely to provide an excuse for us to point to when we compare ourselves to other, more successful people.
- pacomerh 15y ago
  I never saw it from that point of view but it's very true. I feel like that word should be reserved for very special cases like Tchaikovsky or picasso, but those kind of geniuses correspond to that era where most things didn't exist. In our times we had Jobs, a man that was really good at making technology feel like an extension of yourself while keeping it very sleek. This, in a world where there's information overload, I think is genius enough.
  - endlessvoid94 15y ago
    From my perspective, there usually isn't anything all that different about these "geniuses". They work their ASSES off, and maybe are a bit more talented in a specific area. Their hard work improves their talent relentlessly, which is why they appear so gifted. I think. Which, to me, is inspiring. It means they don't have anything I don't.
- bluekeybox 15y ago
  A related problem caused by this is that the word "genius" usually gets ascribed only to people working in some specific domains (obviously ones where other "geniuses" have worked). So we end up with a world where if you do things A, B, and C amazingly well, you get called a genius, but if you do D, E, and F equally well, you are either ignored or called greedy or something else. As a consequence, a ton of young naive people who were told they were smart in school flock to fields A, B, and C, while fields D, E, and F stagnate causing all sorts of economic problems.
  - potatolicious 15y ago
    I wish you were right, but unfortunately I disagree. The fields where we toss around the word "genius" like it's lettuce are all, IMO, severely undermanned and under-appreciated. Fields like physics, engineering, mathematics, atronomy, biology, music, etc. When we think "genius" names like Mozart, Einstein, Hawking, et al come to mind. I wouldn't mind if people flocked towards said fields. Instead, we have a giant talent drain into fields where we do call people "greedy" for their participation. Investment banking, for example. The labeling of people as "greedy" hasn't stopped the deluge of people pouring into said fields, and the label of "genius" hasn't really helped the ranks of academics and artists. I would be very delighted if indeed people flocked to a field known for "geniuses".
espeed 15y ago
Genius isn't really a measure of IQ (although a high IQ helps) — genius is an extreme form of insight. I like to think of it in terms of perspective and thus measure it by how rare and valuable a perspective is. The thing Jobs and Einstein had in common was an insatiable curiosity that helped them get to a place where they could see the world in a way that few others do. Jobs saw the connections between technology and humanities and relentlessly worked toward making his vision reality. Einstein became a genius because he would relentlessly explore a problem, following it out farther than anyone had taken it before. This allowed him to see how the universe connects in a way that no one had seen before, and his discoveries were valuable to humanity. Getting to these rare perspectives is usually a product of building up a mental framework and then seeing patterns in- and making associations or connections among seemingly unrelated phenomena. True genius is seeing associations among things previously unseen. A high IQ gives you more ability to build the mental framework needed to see these associations, and a genius has actually applied it.
- tempaccount10 15y ago
  Steve is a great business man. He knows how to manage,manipulate and bring out the best from his designers and engineers. He didn't design and he didn't code. He didn't invent ipods or iphones or ipads. Sure he approves it and demands it.But he didn't create any of those things. He is not an inventor. He is a great CEO. Comparing him with Einstein just disgust me. I'd feel better if he was compared to Jesus.(not an inventor either but knows how to influence people). And Bill Gates would be much closer to Einstein since both of them have high IQ.
  - espeed 15y ago
    Would you say that Warren Buffet is a financial genius? And would you say the thing that separates Buffett from the rest of us is that he has a high IQ, or is because he sees all of the dynamics and intricacies of the financial world in a way that few others do? You can control your environment if you see and understand its connections. Whatever Jobs saw and understood enabled him to create Apple, NeXT, and Pixar, and ultimately build Apple back to the most valuable technology company in the world.

82 points by robg 15y ago

dbbo 15y ago

"So was Mr. Jobs smart? Not conventionally. Instead, he was a genius." To me, this is just an abusive twisting of the word "genius". I know it has different meanings to different people, but I think being smart, or having some kind of intellectual capacity, is probably the best common ground between definitions. It seems like Isaacson thinks being a genius just means being really good at something. Dan Marino and JFK are geniuses based on their prowess in their respective fields.

muhfuhkuh 15y ago
To me, genius is the creative application of extreme knowledge. Geniuses posses a mind, like Clarke's Third Law on advanced technology, that is indistinguishable from magic. You can't pretend that Michael Jordan is simply some preternatural freak of athletic nature. I mean, he is that, but there are others stronger, faster, smarter and with much better leadership qualities then he could ever pretend. But none could excel in such ways as he could, not even his successor, LeBron James. The way he could push himself along with his team. He elevated modern basketball to the stratosphere, and inspired countless basketball players and coaches.
- dbbo 15y ago
  So what kind of extreme knowledge/magic did Jobs have? I also disagree with that law because there is always a handful of people capable of explaining an advanced technology, but no one can explain magic. For example, Siri might seem magical to end-users with no technical background but it is definitely not magical to the engineers and programmers who made it.
  - technoslut 15y ago
    >So what kind of extreme knowledge/magic did Jobs have? Understanding design and people and making it applicable to his chosen profession. >...it is definitely not magical to the engineers and programmers who made it. It's obviously not magic but, for the large majority, it appears to be so. Even if you wanted to explain how the concept of Siri works to the average person they wouldn't want you to. I think it would ruin it for them.
  - georgieporgie 15y ago
    it is definitely not magical to the engineers and programmers who made it. I'm not sure if you're saying engineers in general, or specifically the ones who programmed it. I'll say this: I tried Siri for the first time the other day. It is magical. Not because any single part of what it does is such a huge leap, but the way in which it combines existing elements to create a whole new direction which is so much greater than its parts. While Google was busy making voice-driven Google searches, Apple was making voice-driven user interface. Overall, I was amazed at how much more integrated and useful the iPhone was than my Android device. Siri just brings that to a whole new UI level that others had the technical ability to bring, but not the willingness. Is that a product of genius? I don't know, but I get the impression that both Google and Microsoft are driven by committee, and have very smart people who can't seem to really finish anything properly. They seem to lack creative genius, leadership, and/or drive.
    - georgieporgie 15y ago
      Wow, downvotes with no response?
softbuilder 15y ago
I think a lot of smart people cling to the idea that they have the capacity for genius because they can solve hard problems or because they have created something interesting or unique. But when you see real genius, it works differently than that. It's not a matter of more processing power, it's a different perspective. Maybe Jobs had that, maybe he didn't. But to tie genius strictly to "intellectual capacity" is a mistake IMHO.
mhb 15y ago
The classic quote about Feyman by Mark Kac In science, as well as in other fields of human endeavor, there are two kinds of geniuses: the “ordinary” and the “magicians.” An ordinary genius is a fellow that you and I would be just as good as, if we were only many times better. There is no mystery as to how his mind works. Once we understand what he has done, we feel certain that we, too, could have done it. It is different with the magicians. They are, to use mathematical jargon, in the orthogonal complement of where we are and the working of their minds is for all intents and purposes incomprehensible. Even after we understand what they have done, the process by which they have done it is completely dark. They seldom, if ever, have students because they cannot be emulated and it must be terribly frustrating for a brilliant young mind to cope with the mysterious ways in which the magician’s mind works. Richard Feynman is a magician of the highest caliber.
- anothermachine 15y ago
  > They seldom, if ever, have students because they cannot be emulated and it must be terribly frustrating for a brilliant young mind to cope with the mysterious ways in which the magician’s mind works. Richard Feynman is a magician of the highest caliber. That's a strange statement, because Feynman was perhaps the most revered physics teacher of the 20th century.
technoslut 15y ago
>...but I think being smart, or having some kind of intellectual capacity, is probably the best common ground between definitions. Being intelligent is no the best common ground because there are so few of them out of many intelligent people. It is creating an artificial common ground. >Dan Marino and JFK are geniuses based on their prowess in their respective fields. As great as those you mentioned were, they are not geniuses. Dan Marino did not change the game of football. He had a great arm and was very good at recognizing defenses. People like Joe Montana and Lawrence Taylor changed the game because opposing teams had to develop strategies just around those two players. JFK, while great, was not a genius. Though he does have the Cuban missile crisis as his crowning achievement, he didn't even finish his first term. Much of JFK is about symbolism rather than accomplishments.

hooande 15y ago

tl;dr: "Steve Jobs was very successful, so he must have been a genius."

sbuk 15y ago
From the article: "So it’s probably best to ratchet the rhetoric down a notch and call it ingenuity"
Tichy 15y ago
But also, Einstein was a genius, and he thought about light beams, and Jobs about foam models, so they must be kind of the same. And also Einstein said that God doesn't play dice, so he must be religious, except that he wasn't particularly religious. OK sorry, my brain hurts, probably that means I am not a genius.

powertower 15y ago

> Trained in Zen Buddhism, Mr. Jobs came to value experiential wisdom over empirical analysis. He didn’t study data or crunch numbers but like a pathfinder, he could sniff the winds and sense what lay ahead. A choice quote from a man known as Osho... > Intellect takes things apart to see how they work; intelligence puts things together to see the functioning of the whole. (note that the above is greatly simplified, both are needed, neither is better, and there is overlap between the two) One is analytic and clinical, it can be put in a book and taught to people. It has a limit that's set by your neuron connections. The other is more spontaneous, exploratory, and creative.

davidw 15y ago
Perhaps "Osho" said some nice things, but he was also a grade-A crazy in some ways - some of them decidedly not 'good' ways - and had some followers who were outright dangerous: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_Rajneeshee_bioterror_attack http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_Rajneeshee_bioterror_attac... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985_Rajneeshee_assassination_plot http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985_Rajneeshee_assassination_p...
- powertower 15y ago
  Separate the man from the media image and the actions of the organization and people that grew around him. Osho was not all seeing and knowing. The events that took place did so due to power hungry people that were attracted to him. Would you blame Christ for the sins of the Church? If you read any of Osho's material you'll find more insight on a single page, then you've received in your entire k12 education. He might have made some mistakes but I doubt he was actively poisoning people and herding children like they were cattle.
  - davidw 15y ago
    I'm not much into religions in general, even less so cults. And you can't claim that that lot were anything less than a cult. A picture is worth a thousand words: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Osho_Drive_By.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Osho_Drive_By.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osho_%28Bhagwan_Shree_Rajneesh%29#USA_and_the_Oregon_commune:_1981.E2.80.931985 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osho_%28Bhagwan_Shree_Rajneesh%...

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

sriramk 15y ago

This might be silly but I was thrilled that Jobs couldn't nail the monkey banana brain teaser. I was asked that at my first MSFT interview 6 years ago and struggled with it (I hated those brain teasers they did)

iois93 15y ago
to me, Jobs was a sociopath and he is not spending any energy in anything that doesn't lead to winning over someone. it is silly for the author to guess how BG would act. Also he didn't mention how BG at least try to make a better world to lots of less fortunate people with his own money, rather than Jobs tries to squeeze all the money he could with so-called "smart-marketing"
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
potatolicious 15y ago
I despise brain teaser interview questions - are you interviewing me as a Sunday Puzzles columnist or do you want me to program/design/manage? To me they reek of pop-psych bullshittery - as if somehow my responses to "why are manhole covers round" would represent some divine introspection to my inner personality and capabilities... or that my ability to gauge the temperatures of three light bulbs is in any way connected to my engineering ability.

dr_ 15y ago

With the ongoing rhetoric that America is on the decline and China and India are the superpowers of the future, I think the important takeaway paragraph is this: "China and India are likely to produce many rigorous analytical thinkers and knowledgeable technologists. But smart and educated people don’t always spawn innovation. America’s advantage, if it continues to have one, will be that it can produce people who are also more creative and imaginative, those who know how to stand at the intersection of the humanities and the sciences. That is the formula for true innovation, as Steve Jobs’s career showed." It is for this reason, short term economic maladies aside, in the longer run the United States will remain the strongest nation in the world.

dyc 15y ago
You assume that ways of thinking and doing are rigid. I don't know about that. Moreover, when we do look at the "humanities," the wisdom gained from China's five-thousand year history trumps that of this country.
- dr_ 15y ago
  They are not just rigid. They are exceedingly strict beyond comparison. having spent a little time in the Indian system, this I can assure you. It's also no surprise that the biggest hit movie of India in the past few years was about how rigid the education system is and how students should be allowed to pursue their own passions, rather fulfill their parents desires. As for China, what they've gained culturally in the last 5000 years became irrelevant once communism took hold.
- stretchwithme 15y ago
  hmm, 5000 years passed in the west as well and presumably people were also learning in the west. in the end, it is not how long knowledge has accumulated in a place but how open people are to learning from others. And how open is often a crap shoot accident of history. The US forced Japan open when Admiral Perry paid Tokyo a visit. Had he only gone to North Korea instead, history would have been completely different.
jsm386 15y ago

js2 15y ago

I thought about how Bill Gates would have gone click-click-click and logically nailed the answer in 15 seconds Apropos Bill Gates and puzzle solving, http://www.borrett.id.au/computing/petals-bg.htm http://www.borrett.id.au/computing/petals-bg.htm

chugger 15y ago
Bill Gates is like Joe Satriani. Satch is one of the most technically gifted guitarist of all time. Hes a master at all the complicated alternate picking and shredding. But his music absolutely sucks. Steve Jobs is Eddie Van Halen. A tortured virtuoso artist who is not only a master at guitars and keyboards. This guy produced some of the most innovative guitar playing in the 70s and 80s. He also created some of the most kick ass rock and roll songs of all time. Satch plays awesome guitar. EVH creates awesome music.
- rglullis 15y ago
  Your analogy is terrible. Both examples you gave refer to musicians who are technically capable, but with one being able to turn his mastery of the instrument into music that people like. Steve Jobs did not have mastery of the instrument. He was "technically limited", but still able to create compelling products. If you wanted to keep the analogy, it would be better to say that he was Bob Dylan (coincidentally, he was one of SJ personal idols). Anyway, I'm going to try again: can you please stop with the Apple fanboyism? Such blind worshiping and your monotonic comments are so annoying that it makes me want to dislike anything about SJ and Apple.
  - chugger 15y ago
    Steve is not technically limited. Just because he had limited formal education and training dosn't mean he's technically limited. That's just how insecure people describe him so they can feel better about themselves.
    - tempaccount10 15y ago

Tichy 15y ago

It's probably just too late in the day for me, but that article seemed like 90% gibberish to me. I hope the book is better...

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

1110101001 15y ago

"[A]nalytical thinkers and rigourous technologists" do produce innovation. They are almost exclusively the producers. But they don't normally try to sell it to the masses, or if they do, they often do a poor job of it. If "standing at the intersection" requires genius, then this "genius" should be qualified: marketing genius, sales genius, legal genius. And those types of "genius" involve measuring "success" and "value" in terms of success in the marketplace. No money means no success. Again, "success" should as such be qualified appropriately. Not all great technology succeeds in the marketplace. But that does not necessarily mean it is not good technology, with "genius" behind it.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

endlessvoid94 15y ago

I really, really, really dislike the word "genius". It is a barrier, and exists solely to provide an excuse for us to point to when we compare ourselves to other, more successful people.

pacomerh 15y ago
I never saw it from that point of view but it's very true. I feel like that word should be reserved for very special cases like Tchaikovsky or picasso, but those kind of geniuses correspond to that era where most things didn't exist. In our times we had Jobs, a man that was really good at making technology feel like an extension of yourself while keeping it very sleek. This, in a world where there's information overload, I think is genius enough.
- endlessvoid94 15y ago
  From my perspective, there usually isn't anything all that different about these "geniuses". They work their ASSES off, and maybe are a bit more talented in a specific area. Their hard work improves their talent relentlessly, which is why they appear so gifted. I think. Which, to me, is inspiring. It means they don't have anything I don't.
bluekeybox 15y ago
A related problem caused by this is that the word "genius" usually gets ascribed only to people working in some specific domains (obviously ones where other "geniuses" have worked). So we end up with a world where if you do things A, B, and C amazingly well, you get called a genius, but if you do D, E, and F equally well, you are either ignored or called greedy or something else. As a consequence, a ton of young naive people who were told they were smart in school flock to fields A, B, and C, while fields D, E, and F stagnate causing all sorts of economic problems.
- potatolicious 15y ago
  I wish you were right, but unfortunately I disagree. The fields where we toss around the word "genius" like it's lettuce are all, IMO, severely undermanned and under-appreciated. Fields like physics, engineering, mathematics, atronomy, biology, music, etc. When we think "genius" names like Mozart, Einstein, Hawking, et al come to mind. I wouldn't mind if people flocked towards said fields. Instead, we have a giant talent drain into fields where we do call people "greedy" for their participation. Investment banking, for example. The labeling of people as "greedy" hasn't stopped the deluge of people pouring into said fields, and the label of "genius" hasn't really helped the ranks of academics and artists. I would be very delighted if indeed people flocked to a field known for "geniuses".

espeed 15y ago

Genius isn't really a measure of IQ (although a high IQ helps) — genius is an extreme form of insight. I like to think of it in terms of perspective and thus measure it by how rare and valuable a perspective is. The thing Jobs and Einstein had in common was an insatiable curiosity that helped them get to a place where they could see the world in a way that few others do. Jobs saw the connections between technology and humanities and relentlessly worked toward making his vision reality. Einstein became a genius because he would relentlessly explore a problem, following it out farther than anyone had taken it before. This allowed him to see how the universe connects in a way that no one had seen before, and his discoveries were valuable to humanity. Getting to these rare perspectives is usually a product of building up a mental framework and then seeing patterns in- and making associations or connections among seemingly unrelated phenomena. True genius is seeing associations among things previously unseen. A high IQ gives you more ability to build the mental framework needed to see these associations, and a genius has actually applied it.

tempaccount10 15y ago
Steve is a great business man. He knows how to manage,manipulate and bring out the best from his designers and engineers. He didn't design and he didn't code. He didn't invent ipods or iphones or ipads. Sure he approves it and demands it.But he didn't create any of those things. He is not an inventor. He is a great CEO. Comparing him with Einstein just disgust me. I'd feel better if he was compared to Jesus.(not an inventor either but knows how to influence people). And Bill Gates would be much closer to Einstein since both of them have high IQ.
- espeed 15y ago
  Would you say that Warren Buffet is a financial genius? And would you say the thing that separates Buffett from the rest of us is that he has a high IQ, or is because he sees all of the dynamics and intricacies of the financial world in a way that few others do? You can control your environment if you see and understand its connections. Whatever Jobs saw and understood enabled him to create Apple, NeXT, and Pixar, and ultimately build Apple back to the most valuable technology company in the world.