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I can't believe people compare Jobs with Musk. Jobs was so much better put together in public and seems like he can still be very coherent and persuasive even w
by rwbt 4y ago
I can't believe people compare Jobs with Musk. Jobs was so much better put together in public and seems like he can still be very coherent and persuasive even when angry (likely in this video) and insulted in public.
- kekkidy 4y ago
- LASR 4y agoI don’t think he was anywhere close to angry. It seems to me by his affect that he regards the audience member as simply not knowing any better about the big picture and what needed to be done to turn Apple around from its darkest days.
- rootusrootus 4y agoI agree, he doesn't look even remotely angry. The guy asking the question sure did, but Jobs looked pretty relaxed. And his response was amazing. No wonder he could create the Reality Distortion Field ;).
- JKCalhoun 4y agoI posit that Jobs was angry but that his Realty Distortion Field was extremely effective this time.
- mruniverse 4y agoI think he was angry too, but that makes it all the more impressive.
- etempleton 4y agoHe doesn’t strike me as angry as much as amused. This is probably not the first time he has been asked a very similar question. Maybe the first time he was annoyed, but what he actually does is explain the big picture, “why?” The question asker isn’t thinking big picture. He needs context. This person may never get it, but it is important for leaders to be able to convey direction. It is the same struggle that Woz had regarding the Apple II. Woz was looking at all of the success the Apple II had and was still having and Jobs knew it would not last forever and he had to create the next thing and that that is where the company has to put time, money, and attention.
- tambourine_man 4y agoThere’s no interesting comparison to be made, really. Both are rich CEOs, I guess. That’s it.
- bink 4y agoI think some people are drawn to this video because they want others to think that Jobs made big changes that were painful and he was very successful, therefore when Musk makes big changes that are painful he will also be successful. I disagree and think the similarities are only superficial, but I can see why some might think that.
- nequo 4y agoI also disagree with this. This implicitly assumes that anyone who makes big changes that are painful will be successful. But this is manifestly untrue. A big difference in what Jobs did and what Musk is doing is that Musk has fired people at Twitter pretty much indiscriminately. Jobs had a clear idea for a working product line. He brought NeXTSTEP with him to Apple, along with NeXT engineers. And he kept those teams that worked in critical areas.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- the_cat_kittles 4y agoi think elon has tried to emulate the superficial aspects of steve jobs presentation style, albeit very unconvincingly
- tambourine_man 4y agoHe can hardly finish a sentence. Jobs was a master presenter. Good luck for him.
- starik36 4y agoThat’s because back then your interaction with the public was maybe twice a year. Now it’s daily. Apples and oranges.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago> back then your interaction with the public was maybe twice a year. Now it’s daily. If you choose it to be. Plenty of CEOs are relatively recluse. For example, Apple’s, today.
- starik36 4y agoI seriously doubt Steve Jobs would be.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago> doubt Steve Jobs would be Jobs was alive when Twitter went mainstream. He didn’t fall for the bait.
- eyelidlessness 4y agoGiving you the benefit of the doubt, is it possible that’s your impression because his carefully crafted public persona is more familiar to you than his famous-but-somewhat-posthumously-so privateness?
- Spooky23 4y agoSure he would. Jobs controlled his public persona and presence very carefully. Being available to the world makes you the tail that wags the dog. It’s expensive to keep the mob happy. The big demagogues of our time aptly demonstrate that.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago> can't believe people compare Jobs with Musk Go back to Elon learning, during an interview, the things Buzz Aldrin—a childhood hero of his—said about SpaceX. I believe Musk once had the progenitors of this sense of reflection and maturity. Instead, he’s degraded where Steve Jobs learned.
- htag 4y ago> Go back to Elon learning, during an interview, the things Buzz Aldrin—a childhood hero of his—said about SpaceX. Is there a typo here? Can someone explain what this means in slightly different words? I've love to hear what Buzz Aldrin has to say about Elon Musk, but I just can't parse this phrase.
- AussieWog93 4y agoNative speaker here! Parsing backwards: Buzz Aldrin said (implicitly negative) things about SpaceX. Elon heard the comments he made for the first time during a recorded interview. Elon (implicitly) reacted in a negative/foolish way during the interview, because he idolised Aldrin as a child and was upset to hear these comments.
- JumpCrisscross 4y agoThank you. Sorry HN.
- htag 4y agoI was just trying to understand. No reason for apologizing, communication problems happen :)
- nverno 4y ago> Elon (implicitly) reacted in a negative/foolish He just looks very sad, to the point of fighting back tears. What was the negative/foolish part? (was it a different interview than the 60 minutes one linked above?)
- eyelidlessness 4y agoI love Apple products and have since childhood, and I have little doubt Jobs’ personality, thinking, and talent, are major factors in what I liked about Apple then and do now. And I detest Musk. That disclosure out of the way… Jobs was notoriously quick to anger, imperious in his internal role, very selectively rational, and generally… well, often kind of a jerk. I know all of that can overlap with coherence and persuasion, in fact in a cynical sense it could be argued it was part of his persuasive strength. But… this isn’t the most infamous, nor probably the most convincing, example, it’s just the one that always resurfaces in my own memory: dude chucked a camera at some poor soul whose job it was to hand it to him on stage, because he was frustrated by a technical glitch during a presentation. That’s how not “put together” he could be in one of the more publicly visible tech events of the time: he did violence to a person who was helping him with tons of people watching because of something which wasn’t that person’s fault. I’m not saying Musk is any better, but I’m also not prepared to pretend that Jobs wasn’t an epic asshole.
- roperj 4y agoThat “poor soul” was a senior director of marketing, not some minimum wage assistant. And violence, a bit hyperbolic, it was an underhanded toss - no one calls that “chucking” where I’m from at least. Sure he had a temper but this is painting a misleading picture of that episode.
- eyelidlessness 4y agoYou know what, I looked it up, you’re right, and this is an incredibly poor example of the point. I will stop using this example of Steve Jobs being an asshole.
- fsckboy 4y ago> no one calls that “chucking” where I’m from at least not disagreeing in substance, but a couple of quibbles: that absolutely does qualify as chucking--it's the way woodchucks chuck--but it does not qualify as chucking at someone; so as an underhand toss, it wasn't underhanded
- remote_phone 4y agoSteve Jobs was a tyrant being closed doors and would often cry in meetings. This sounds very similar to Musk. Musk is undoubtably a genius, you can’t discount the success that Tesla and SpaceX have had. He’s just extremely heavy-handed and capricious. I heard from someone at Tesla that they loathe being in meetings with him because he will literally fire people on the spot. That type of arrogance did play during the era of tesla going to $1 trillion but now that it’s falling back to earth I wonder how much people will tolerate his arrogance and temper tantrums.
- xen2xen1 4y agoSteve Jobs was smart enough to not be dumb in public. That is a very, very important factor.
- remote_phone 4y agoI haven’t seen Musk have a temper tantrum in public.
- eyelidlessness 4y agoI find that difficult to imagine, but a recent one (over the past week) registered several times on the HN front page.
- CamperBob2 4y agoCalling someone a pedophile on Twitter withot evidence qualifies as a temper tantrum in my book.
- dumbotron 4y ago
- eyelidlessness 4y agoElon’s ego fluffers are clearly out tonight, but don’t be dissuaded. Your perception of reality is right.
- TwoNineFive 4y agoBoth Musk and Jobs are admired by the same kind of people. And for the reasons.
- rowanG077 4y agoMuch better put together? The guy who publicly threw away his life and then used his considerable funds to cheat the line of transplants and then died anyway. Musk is definitely not as well spoken as Jobs, but Jobs has Musk beat on the level of insanity by that alone.
- ksec 4y ago>I can't believe people compare Jobs with Musk. I know it is not a very nice thing to say but you may be surprised to learn, Most people cant really do comparison.