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What an excellent speaker. Despite many moral issues with his character, I am a big admirer of Jobs in a professional capacity. I have found that audiences gen

What an excellent speaker. Despite many moral issues with his character, I am a big admirer of Jobs in a professional capacity. I have found that audiences genuinely appreciate when you speak powerfully and simply; you can rephrase something like > "we're considering many different possible pathways, and some of them we're finding are less optimized to meet our institutional goals" to > "we're not sure what to do, and so far most of the ideas we thought of were pretty bad" and your audience laughs and leans in. I try to emulate that Jobs-ian style at work and a lot of people seem to like my presentations. I think people really like it when someone takes the responsibility of standing up and saying "let's not overcomplicate this, I'll take responsibility for making the decisions and I don't spend a lot of time trying to hide my real level of knowledge. In fact, I may know less than some of you." (Even if that's probably not true.) Another good (albeit hyperbolic) example of this is Jeremy Irons' speech near the end of Margin Call (2011) where he tells the junior analyst to "speak to me as if I am a very small child, or possibly a golden retriever." In fact, that's also an explicit direction given to flight controllers at NASA during their training.

Bluestein 2y ago
> where he tells the junior analyst to "speak to me as if I am a very small child, or possibly a golden retriever That entire scene is gold.- - "Sell. Sell it all. Today"
- Qub3d 2y ago
  Its a great compliment to The Big Short (2015). The Big Short gives you a nice explanation of what the heck is going on but mainly follows "outsider" points of view, while Margin Call gives a sense of the thoughts and concerns of the big banks at the time. Both how deluded everyone was, but also how flawed and human the systems were (as they ultimately reflect the people that built them).
  - Keysh 2y ago
    I remember thinking, after watching Margin Call first and then The Big Short, that you could pretty much identify exactly where within The Big Short the (single-night) events of Margin Call would have taken place...
    - Bluestein 2y ago
      Both are masterful.- I really do wish however that we had learned some of the lessons from that whole fiasco ...
joe_the_user 2y ago
Jobs communicates amazing well. But I don't think this can be reduced to just a skill "good communication". He communicates with passion because he has something he's passionate about and not in corporate terms. He's passionate that the objects around us, humanity, can beautiful rather than ugly and work in a beautiful rather than ugly way. If you step back and think, that's a big thing for humankind. We live a lot of our lives with objects. I too have qualms about the practical Steve Jobs but he saw that the world was being built of out computer and it could be nice or it could be terrible. He put forward that vision and I think it was the power of that vision rather than doing speaking right that powered his speech here.
rrrrrrrrrrrryan 2y ago
> "speak to me as if I am a very small child..." A core component of that film is that the higher you go up the corporate ladder, the more distant and ignorant the individuals are. Further, they wear their distance and ignorance with pride - they have the luxury of remaining distant and ignorant and they're not afraid to flaunt it. Don't get me wrong: it's a great scene, and speaking plainly is always something to aspire to, but the individuals in those scenes are supposed to be viewed as somewhat monstrous and lizard-brained.
- Qub3d 2y ago
  The context is that Jeremy Irons' character knew exactly what was going on, he wanted the risk analyst to state it to everyone else in the room, and keep him on track and focused. Right before that meeting, there is a scene as the characters walk in where they are warned by the CEO's right hand man not to try and bullshit, since he would know.
  - rrrrrrrrrrrryan 2y ago
    I don't disagree with anything you've said - I was trying to make a tangential point: while the CEO is ignorant of financial analysis, and the quant is ignorant to the business ramifications of said analysis, both people lack humanity: neither character gave a damn about the wider consequences of their company's actions. Steve Jobs may not have cared much for individual people, but for all his faults, he really did seem to care about humanity (in his own way). He preferred plain language because he deeply valued shared understanding, not because he wanted to flex on his overly cerebral underlings.
- gumby 2y ago
  As another commenter said, the film was trying to make the opposite point: that Irons’ character knew full well — probably better than the other characters — what was going on. But the detachment you mention can / is very important. When you’re working deep in the woods you really can’t see the forest for the trees. You may be working on a feature that will make the user’s life a lot easier, but the real customer is IT and your feature could be cut because the customer won’t like it (“this will add retraining cost”). In Margin Call, perhaps the thing that could increase your bonus is, from the overall company’s PoV a distraction because it’s more urgent to save the company (so bonuses can be paid out at all). So a good manager operates at a higher level of abstraction. The best ones have a lot of experience so can see from the signals they get what’s happening at the lower levels of abstraction. Irons’ character is supposed to be one of those. Of course the high level abstraction, when the boss fell upwards and doesn’t have the Fingerspitzengefühl to be able to see what’s below the surface, is a common problem. It can kill a company: look at how Welch and Immelt destroyed GE. A good sign of this is also called out by a different commenter: opaque language is often used to try to cover up ignorance.
nomonnai 2y ago
> I have found that audiences genuinely appreciate when you speak powerfully and simply Unfortunately, that only works if the speaker has interesting ideas to share. Often, obtuse language hides the lack of interesting ideas. Sometimes, there are no ideas at all. Saying "most of our ideas were pretty bad" only works if an interesting idea comes afterwards. But such every interesting idea requires a lot of work; work that many speakers have not performed.
consf 2y ago
Jobs was known for his ability to convey complex ideas in a simple, engaging and often entertaining manner. His presentation style is amazing
- throwaway2037 2y ago
  Have you ever seen his interview titled "A Bicycle of the Mind"? You only need to watch the first minute. He says the computer is a bicycle of the mind -- in terms of (intellectual) efficiency. That interview is amazing. His ability to explain a very complex topic in simple, relatable terms is nearly unmatched in that era of technology. YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L40B08nWoMk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L40B08nWoMk

Bluestein 2y ago

> where he tells the junior analyst to "speak to me as if I am a very small child, or possibly a golden retriever That entire scene is gold.- - "Sell. Sell it all. Today"

Qub3d 2y ago
Its a great compliment to The Big Short (2015). The Big Short gives you a nice explanation of what the heck is going on but mainly follows "outsider" points of view, while Margin Call gives a sense of the thoughts and concerns of the big banks at the time. Both how deluded everyone was, but also how flawed and human the systems were (as they ultimately reflect the people that built them).
- Keysh 2y ago
  I remember thinking, after watching Margin Call first and then The Big Short, that you could pretty much identify exactly where within The Big Short the (single-night) events of Margin Call would have taken place...
  - Bluestein 2y ago
    Both are masterful.- I really do wish however that we had learned some of the lessons from that whole fiasco ...

joe_the_user 2y ago

Jobs communicates amazing well. But I don't think this can be reduced to just a skill "good communication". He communicates with passion because he has something he's passionate about and not in corporate terms. He's passionate that the objects around us, humanity, can beautiful rather than ugly and work in a beautiful rather than ugly way. If you step back and think, that's a big thing for humankind. We live a lot of our lives with objects. I too have qualms about the practical Steve Jobs but he saw that the world was being built of out computer and it could be nice or it could be terrible. He put forward that vision and I think it was the power of that vision rather than doing speaking right that powered his speech here.

rrrrrrrrrrrryan 2y ago

> "speak to me as if I am a very small child..." A core component of that film is that the higher you go up the corporate ladder, the more distant and ignorant the individuals are. Further, they wear their distance and ignorance with pride - they have the luxury of remaining distant and ignorant and they're not afraid to flaunt it. Don't get me wrong: it's a great scene, and speaking plainly is always something to aspire to, but the individuals in those scenes are supposed to be viewed as somewhat monstrous and lizard-brained.

Qub3d 2y ago
The context is that Jeremy Irons' character knew exactly what was going on, he wanted the risk analyst to state it to everyone else in the room, and keep him on track and focused. Right before that meeting, there is a scene as the characters walk in where they are warned by the CEO's right hand man not to try and bullshit, since he would know.
- rrrrrrrrrrrryan 2y ago
  I don't disagree with anything you've said - I was trying to make a tangential point: while the CEO is ignorant of financial analysis, and the quant is ignorant to the business ramifications of said analysis, both people lack humanity: neither character gave a damn about the wider consequences of their company's actions. Steve Jobs may not have cared much for individual people, but for all his faults, he really did seem to care about humanity (in his own way). He preferred plain language because he deeply valued shared understanding, not because he wanted to flex on his overly cerebral underlings.
gumby 2y ago
As another commenter said, the film was trying to make the opposite point: that Irons’ character knew full well — probably better than the other characters — what was going on. But the detachment you mention can / is very important. When you’re working deep in the woods you really can’t see the forest for the trees. You may be working on a feature that will make the user’s life a lot easier, but the real customer is IT and your feature could be cut because the customer won’t like it (“this will add retraining cost”). In Margin Call, perhaps the thing that could increase your bonus is, from the overall company’s PoV a distraction because it’s more urgent to save the company (so bonuses can be paid out at all). So a good manager operates at a higher level of abstraction. The best ones have a lot of experience so can see from the signals they get what’s happening at the lower levels of abstraction. Irons’ character is supposed to be one of those. Of course the high level abstraction, when the boss fell upwards and doesn’t have the Fingerspitzengefühl to be able to see what’s below the surface, is a common problem. It can kill a company: look at how Welch and Immelt destroyed GE. A good sign of this is also called out by a different commenter: opaque language is often used to try to cover up ignorance.

nomonnai 2y ago

> I have found that audiences genuinely appreciate when you speak powerfully and simply Unfortunately, that only works if the speaker has interesting ideas to share. Often, obtuse language hides the lack of interesting ideas. Sometimes, there are no ideas at all. Saying "most of our ideas were pretty bad" only works if an interesting idea comes afterwards. But such every interesting idea requires a lot of work; work that many speakers have not performed.

consf 2y ago

Jobs was known for his ability to convey complex ideas in a simple, engaging and often entertaining manner. His presentation style is amazing

throwaway2037 2y ago
Have you ever seen his interview titled "A Bicycle of the Mind"? You only need to watch the first minute. He says the computer is a bicycle of the mind -- in terms of (intellectual) efficiency. That interview is amazing. His ability to explain a very complex topic in simple, relatable terms is nearly unmatched in that era of technology. YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L40B08nWoMk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L40B08nWoMk