4 ms·

> I've been criticizing Gruber more often than not, but I found this one to be a to the point, fairly balanced piece - especially around the visionary vs. tweak

by tomlin 15y ago

> I've been criticizing Gruber more often than not, but I found this one to be a to the point, fairly balanced piece - especially around the visionary vs. tweaker vs. inventor part. I as well. And I like Gladwell, I just think he and Isaacson have seriously misrepresented Steve Jobs and what he did in his life & at Apple.

evanlong 15y ago
Specific points please.
- pilsetnieks 15y ago
  Don't get me wrong, I like Gladwell and his writing but the usual criticism is that he cherrypicks useful facts and disregards conflicting ones so that he can build up his case. If you try to refute him point by point, you can't because every fact in his essays is correct. Every specific point is going to be correct and irrefutable but conclusion drawn from them would be just so wrong.
calyth 15y ago
I don't agree with Gruber's gripe about Gladwell's view of Steve Jobs being a tweaker. It's easy to point out that no one is a visionary if a visionary has to come up with something completely fresh. And I agree with Gruber on that front. Yet Gruber, and Jeff Atwood on a tweet, really had a problem with tweaker. Casting that visionary / innovator argument aside, Gladwell rightly pointed out that Jobs improved on an existing object, and took it to the next level. Macintosh stemmed from Xerox, iPod stemmed from the existing music players, iPhone stemmed from the BlackBerry and Treos at the time. But he created new products that are truly leaps forward from what they were. And he did it iteratively. Yet people see the word tweaker and think that was a put down. To me, Gladwell's piece serves a good reminder to people that without Jobs, computers, music players and phones existed. Jobs created the computers, music players, and phones that we know it today. Drawing the percentage of change needed to call Jobs an innovator or a tweaker is like defining how many whiskers would have to be on a guy's face to call it a beard.

by tomlin 15y ago

evanlong 15y ago

Specific points please.

pilsetnieks 15y ago
Don't get me wrong, I like Gladwell and his writing but the usual criticism is that he cherrypicks useful facts and disregards conflicting ones so that he can build up his case. If you try to refute him point by point, you can't because every fact in his essays is correct. Every specific point is going to be correct and irrefutable but conclusion drawn from them would be just so wrong.

calyth 15y ago

I don't agree with Gruber's gripe about Gladwell's view of Steve Jobs being a tweaker. It's easy to point out that no one is a visionary if a visionary has to come up with something completely fresh. And I agree with Gruber on that front. Yet Gruber, and Jeff Atwood on a tweet, really had a problem with tweaker. Casting that visionary / innovator argument aside, Gladwell rightly pointed out that Jobs improved on an existing object, and took it to the next level. Macintosh stemmed from Xerox, iPod stemmed from the existing music players, iPhone stemmed from the BlackBerry and Treos at the time. But he created new products that are truly leaps forward from what they were. And he did it iteratively. Yet people see the word tweaker and think that was a put down. To me, Gladwell's piece serves a good reminder to people that without Jobs, computers, music players and phones existed. Jobs created the computers, music players, and phones that we know it today. Drawing the percentage of change needed to call Jobs an innovator or a tweaker is like defining how many whiskers would have to be on a guy's face to call it a beard.