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I hate articles that use Steve Jobs as some kind of guru, he was a lucky, successful asshole, but I guess that's charisma for you. > When you grow up you tend

I hate articles that use Steve Jobs as some kind of guru, he was a lucky, successful asshole, but I guess that's charisma for you. > When you grow up you tend to get told the world is the way it is and you’re life is just to live your life inside the world. > Try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to have a nice family, have fun, save a little money. > That’s a very limited life. > Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact: Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you and you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use. I wonder what bit of 60s counterculture that attitude was directly lifted from. While the people that came before weren't any smarter than you; it's important to remember that they had, collectively, more experience in more areas than you could ever dream of having. That doesn't mean they got everything right, but it does mean if you just take the quote to heart you'll probably end up more like a bull in a China shop than some sage-like innovator. But it is nice idea to remember, so you can mentally knock down people like Jobs, who want to portray themselves as sage-like innovators, a peg.

gizajob 4y ago
It's a very zen-inspired take on the world, and I've heard actual gurus give much less useful and down-to-earth advice than Steve here.
sys_64738 4y ago
> I hate articles that use Steve Jobs as some kind of guru, he was a lucky, successful asshole, but I guess that's charisma for you. He was lucky an awful lot then.
- aierou 4y ago
  I would estimate maybe 1 in ~7 billion odds (statistical liberties taken)
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    Jobs was highly successful 3 times (Apple I, Pixar, and his return to Apple). Once could be luck, twice is highly unlikely to be luck, and 3 times? fuggeddabootit
    - sys_64738 4y ago
      The sequence of events are linked. NeXT was hugely successful as it became the foundation of OS X and without it he'd never have returned. The individual product lines were a multiple amounts of luck too (Mac, iPod, iPhone, etc).
      - WalterBright 4y ago
        > The sequence of events are linked Not really. Look at Jobs' second coming to Apple. He replaced a sequence of CEOs that all failed to turn Apple around. Jobs turned a near-bankrupt company into the biggest company in the world, with the same crew and technology of the near-bankrupt company. Pixar enormous success was Jobs' doing. Nobody else believed in Pixar. NeXT was a failure, but Jobs found a way to salvage it.
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
        sys_64738 4y ago
        > NeXT was a failure, but Jobs found a way to salvage it. He sold that failure for $429m.
        WalterBright 4y ago
        NeXT only sold 50,000 computers, which is considered a failure. Likely the $400m was really to buy Jobs.
    - tablespoon 4y ago
      > Jobs was highly successful 3 times (Apple I, Pixar, and his return to Apple). Once could be luck, twice is highly unlikely to be luck, and 3 times? fuggeddabootit So someone who flips a coin an gets heads 10 times in row isn't lucky, they must be good at flipping coins? Jobs certainly had certain talents, but luck was definitely the bigger contributor to his successes. However, lots of people lose sight of that, and almost join a cargo cult centered on him.
nobodyandproud 4y ago
I like to think of Steve Jobs as one of the greatest adoption success stories. https://www.theladders.com/career-advice/this-is-what-steve-jobs-learned-building-fences-with-his-dad-that-changed-the-course-of-human-history https://www.theladders.com/career-advice/this-is-what-steve-... When he talks about his father, there was a moment where he realized he was smarter and at the time I found it to be an asshole move (I can’t find the quote and story anymore). But looking back I think he was truly honoring his adoptive parents in his own brusque way. In anycase: Someone “less intelligent” (Paul Jobs) indirectly had a major impact on company values and world impact.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
pessimizer 4y ago
> While the people that came before weren't any smarter than you; it's important to remember that they had, collectively, more experience in more areas than you could ever dream of having. People don't sum that way. It's more important to remember that they had, individually, a bit less, a bit more, or about the same experience in a few less, a few more, or about the same number of areas as you do, and that the collective experience you yourself have to draw on is vastly larger than theirs was.
WalterBright 4y ago
> he was a lucky, successful asshole I know contemporaries of Jobs that had every opportunity he had, and failed to notice those opportunities. I'm one of them. It was obvious in retrospect. I missed it, and many, many people I know were blind as a bat. There wasn't any particular magic in the hardware or software of the Apple I at the time. Yes, Woz did a great job doing it with fewer chips. But that was not key to its success.

gizajob 4y ago

It's a very zen-inspired take on the world, and I've heard actual gurus give much less useful and down-to-earth advice than Steve here.

sys_64738 4y ago

> I hate articles that use Steve Jobs as some kind of guru, he was a lucky, successful asshole, but I guess that's charisma for you. He was lucky an awful lot then.

aierou 4y ago
I would estimate maybe 1 in ~7 billion odds (statistical liberties taken)
- WalterBright 4y ago
  Jobs was highly successful 3 times (Apple I, Pixar, and his return to Apple). Once could be luck, twice is highly unlikely to be luck, and 3 times? fuggeddabootit
  - sys_64738 4y ago
    The sequence of events are linked. NeXT was hugely successful as it became the foundation of OS X and without it he'd never have returned. The individual product lines were a multiple amounts of luck too (Mac, iPod, iPhone, etc).
    - WalterBright 4y ago
      > The sequence of events are linked Not really. Look at Jobs' second coming to Apple. He replaced a sequence of CEOs that all failed to turn Apple around. Jobs turned a near-bankrupt company into the biggest company in the world, with the same crew and technology of the near-bankrupt company. Pixar enormous success was Jobs' doing. Nobody else believed in Pixar. NeXT was a failure, but Jobs found a way to salvage it.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - sys_64738 4y ago
        > NeXT was a failure, but Jobs found a way to salvage it. He sold that failure for $429m.
        WalterBright 4y ago
        NeXT only sold 50,000 computers, which is considered a failure. Likely the $400m was really to buy Jobs.
  - tablespoon 4y ago
    > Jobs was highly successful 3 times (Apple I, Pixar, and his return to Apple). Once could be luck, twice is highly unlikely to be luck, and 3 times? fuggeddabootit So someone who flips a coin an gets heads 10 times in row isn't lucky, they must be good at flipping coins? Jobs certainly had certain talents, but luck was definitely the bigger contributor to his successes. However, lots of people lose sight of that, and almost join a cargo cult centered on him.

nobodyandproud 4y ago

I like to think of Steve Jobs as one of the greatest adoption success stories. https://www.theladders.com/career-advice/this-is-what-steve-jobs-learned-building-fences-with-his-dad-that-changed-the-course-of-human-history https://www.theladders.com/career-advice/this-is-what-steve-... When he talks about his father, there was a moment where he realized he was smarter and at the time I found it to be an asshole move (I can’t find the quote and story anymore). But looking back I think he was truly honoring his adoptive parents in his own brusque way. In anycase: Someone “less intelligent” (Paul Jobs) indirectly had a major impact on company values and world impact.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

pessimizer 4y ago

> While the people that came before weren't any smarter than you; it's important to remember that they had, collectively, more experience in more areas than you could ever dream of having. People don't sum that way. It's more important to remember that they had, individually, a bit less, a bit more, or about the same experience in a few less, a few more, or about the same number of areas as you do, and that the collective experience you yourself have to draw on is vastly larger than theirs was.

WalterBright 4y ago

> he was a lucky, successful asshole I know contemporaries of Jobs that had every opportunity he had, and failed to notice those opportunities. I'm one of them. It was obvious in retrospect. I missed it, and many, many people I know were blind as a bat. There wasn't any particular magic in the hardware or software of the Apple I at the time. Yes, Woz did a great job doing it with fewer chips. But that was not key to its success.