4 ms·

I think he'd be lined up with the other tech leaders just doing what's needed to gain power. He wasn't a saint, he was just a bit of a visionary with the greed

I think he'd be lined up with the other tech leaders just doing what's needed to gain power. He wasn't a saint, he was just a bit of a visionary with the greed to succeed.

consumer451 2y ago
Personally, I hold him in somewhat high regard. At the same time, he made billions while conspiring to deprive many HN users of their just rewards. This should not be forgotten, or forgiven. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/04/24/306592297/tech-giants-settle-wage-fixing-lawsuit https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/04/24/306592297... https://old.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/y9eyxq/til_during_the_2000s_google_apple_adobe_intel_and/ https://old.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/y9eyxq/til_d...
- DC-3 2y ago
  > just rewards * liberalised labour market rewards unless you think there is inherent moral justice in being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to write software
  - consumer451 2y ago
    Yeah, I escaped communism as a child, so please excuse my potential bias. While I think that pure libertarians are just as silly as pure socialists, I do believe in the benefits of a well regulated market economy. If the market economy indicates that a dev with particular skills can be paid even 10M per year, then heck yes. Good for them. If the companies who hire these devs could not pay that, then the market for them would not exist. They could, and conspired not to. This is why they settled the case.
    - bertylicious 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - consumer451 2y ago
        > and it probably wasn't even communism. Please, tell me more! In your opinion, has "commumism" ever really existed/been implemented properly at scale? If so, please give me an example.
        bertylicious 2y ago
        There just aren't that many countries that ever claimed to be communist. You speak like a privileged person, so you're probably born somewhere in the western world. Judging from the current time, I'd say Europe. My guess is your parents left socialist (i.e. not communist) Eastern Germany when you were little and you keep telling people that this was your great escape from communism ever since.
        deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
        consumer451 2y ago
        Let us avoid the personal, and entirely inaccurate personal attacks on myself. Instead, let's focus on openly provable facts: > There just aren't that many countries that ever claimed to be communist. Are you denying the agency of Russia, Cuba, China, and Vietnam as a few examples? Are you telling me that these countries did not at one point, and most even today, declare themselves as "communist?" It's amazing how privileged you are to deny factual history. [0] To be honest, I feel that you are agreeing with me that "communism" is just some theoretical panacea, as is "libertarianism." Both theoretical concepts which only ever existed in minds of true-believers, and nowhere else. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_socialist_states https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_socialist_states
        dns_snek 2y ago
        > Are you telling me that these countries did not at one point, and most even today, declare themselves as "communist?" It's amazing how privileged you are to deny factual history. Many nations "declare" to be something they're not. North Korea is officially "Democratic People's Republic of Korea", for example. Are we now going to evaluate how viable democracy is as a concept by looking at North Korea, simply because they call themselves democratic, or are we first going to analyze their actual political system to determine whether they're actually democratic?
  - saagarjha 2y ago
    Seems more moral than their employer conspiring to deprive them of that
    - DC-3 2y ago
      true
  - whateveracct 2y ago
    okay britta - are there people starving in uganda too?
  - ikekkdcjkfke 2y ago
    I guess if you harbour skills that exceed those rewards you could start on your own taking your own risks. There are some tradeoffs and simple marxism does not take into account all the variables
- sneak 2y ago
  He was a criminal who literally conspired to steal billions. It wasn’t just deprivation; it was stealing.
colechristensen 2y ago
I’d say he was… half as bad.
kortilla 2y ago
“greed to succeed” is a simplistic trope. He was already wealthy by the time he went back to fix Apple.
- smolder 2y ago
  I meant it a bit differently. You can still have drive to succeed even when money doesn't have much marginal utility. Social capital is a thing, not to completely discount money as a motivator.
- someothherguyy 2y ago
  "Already wealthy, no desire for more" is a trope as well
  - kortilla 2y ago
    Greed is not a good driver for risking so much time on a failing company
BurningFrog 2y ago
I don't think anyone has claimed he was a saint... He had a genius for dreaming up products the world didn't know it needed yet, and for developing those products to perfection. Several of those products were quantum leaps that the world would not have figured out for several years, if ever, without Jobs.
- Hizonner 2y ago
  Um, bullshit. Apple II: Very similar to contemporary products. Interesting improvements added by Wozniak. Lisa: Stolen from Xerox (and made worse). Jobs' contribution: cosmetics, mostly. Mac: Oops, the Lisa was too good. Next: A somewhat better Xerox ripoff with a mix-in of other common stuff. Newton: OK, somewhat innovative. iPod: Stolen from a whole bunch of people iPhone: Nothing but a PDA with a phone integrated in it. Obvious next step. As for "developing to perfection", well, if a smooth, candy-colored shell around a deliberately limited device is perfection, then yeah. I guess you can credit Jobs with a willingness to break from standards, but not with unusually good judgement about when to do it.
  - thomassmith65 2y ago
    To recap: • Steve Jobs's bad judgment led to the Apple II, Mac, iPod, and iPhone. • John Sculley's good judgment led to the Apple Newton. That assessment seems like a refusal to be impressed by the public idolatry of Steve Jobs. Yet even if he wasn't some superhuman philosopher king, nor even supremely technical, he still had talent, and did help bring some seminal tech products into the world.
    - Hizonner 2y ago
      It's an "innovation" coin, not a "judgement" coin or a "profitability" coin. For some reason, people get the idea that innovation comes from executive management. It doesn't. Popularization may. Commercial success may. Innovation generally doesn't. Jobs had talent for (a) packaging up existing stuff, but not in shockingly innovative ways, (b) recognizing and refusing to accept garbage products, and (c) selling the stuff. That's all execution, not innovation.
khazhoux 2y ago
> he was just a bit of a visionary Maybe he deserves "a bit" more credit than that?

I think he'd be lined up with the other tech leaders just doing what's needed to gain power. He wasn't a saint, he was just a bit of a visionary with the greed to succeed.

consumer451 2y ago

Personally, I hold him in somewhat high regard. At the same time, he made billions while conspiring to deprive many HN users of their just rewards. This should not be forgotten, or forgiven. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/04/24/306592297/tech-giants-settle-wage-fixing-lawsuit https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/04/24/306592297... https://old.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/y9eyxq/til_during_the_2000s_google_apple_adobe_intel_and/ https://old.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/y9eyxq/til_d...

DC-3 2y ago
> just rewards * liberalised labour market rewards unless you think there is inherent moral justice in being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to write software
- consumer451 2y ago
  Yeah, I escaped communism as a child, so please excuse my potential bias. While I think that pure libertarians are just as silly as pure socialists, I do believe in the benefits of a well regulated market economy. If the market economy indicates that a dev with particular skills can be paid even 10M per year, then heck yes. Good for them. If the companies who hire these devs could not pay that, then the market for them would not exist. They could, and conspired not to. This is why they settled the case.
  - bertylicious 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - consumer451 2y ago
      > and it probably wasn't even communism. Please, tell me more! In your opinion, has "commumism" ever really existed/been implemented properly at scale? If so, please give me an example.
      - bertylicious 2y ago
        There just aren't that many countries that ever claimed to be communist. You speak like a privileged person, so you're probably born somewhere in the western world. Judging from the current time, I'd say Europe. My guess is your parents left socialist (i.e. not communist) Eastern Germany when you were little and you keep telling people that this was your great escape from communism ever since.
        deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
        consumer451 2y ago
        Let us avoid the personal, and entirely inaccurate personal attacks on myself. Instead, let's focus on openly provable facts: > There just aren't that many countries that ever claimed to be communist. Are you denying the agency of Russia, Cuba, China, and Vietnam as a few examples? Are you telling me that these countries did not at one point, and most even today, declare themselves as "communist?" It's amazing how privileged you are to deny factual history. [0] To be honest, I feel that you are agreeing with me that "communism" is just some theoretical panacea, as is "libertarianism." Both theoretical concepts which only ever existed in minds of true-believers, and nowhere else. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_socialist_states https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_socialist_states
        dns_snek 2y ago
        > Are you telling me that these countries did not at one point, and most even today, declare themselves as "communist?" It's amazing how privileged you are to deny factual history. Many nations "declare" to be something they're not. North Korea is officially "Democratic People's Republic of Korea", for example. Are we now going to evaluate how viable democracy is as a concept by looking at North Korea, simply because they call themselves democratic, or are we first going to analyze their actual political system to determine whether they're actually democratic?
- saagarjha 2y ago
  Seems more moral than their employer conspiring to deprive them of that
  - DC-3 2y ago
    true
- whateveracct 2y ago
  okay britta - are there people starving in uganda too?
- ikekkdcjkfke 2y ago
  I guess if you harbour skills that exceed those rewards you could start on your own taking your own risks. There are some tradeoffs and simple marxism does not take into account all the variables
sneak 2y ago
He was a criminal who literally conspired to steal billions. It wasn’t just deprivation; it was stealing.

colechristensen 2y ago

I’d say he was… half as bad.

kortilla 2y ago

“greed to succeed” is a simplistic trope. He was already wealthy by the time he went back to fix Apple.

smolder 2y ago
I meant it a bit differently. You can still have drive to succeed even when money doesn't have much marginal utility. Social capital is a thing, not to completely discount money as a motivator.
someothherguyy 2y ago
"Already wealthy, no desire for more" is a trope as well
- kortilla 2y ago
  Greed is not a good driver for risking so much time on a failing company

BurningFrog 2y ago

I don't think anyone has claimed he was a saint... He had a genius for dreaming up products the world didn't know it needed yet, and for developing those products to perfection. Several of those products were quantum leaps that the world would not have figured out for several years, if ever, without Jobs.

Hizonner 2y ago
Um, bullshit. Apple II: Very similar to contemporary products. Interesting improvements added by Wozniak. Lisa: Stolen from Xerox (and made worse). Jobs' contribution: cosmetics, mostly. Mac: Oops, the Lisa was too good. Next: A somewhat better Xerox ripoff with a mix-in of other common stuff. Newton: OK, somewhat innovative. iPod: Stolen from a whole bunch of people iPhone: Nothing but a PDA with a phone integrated in it. Obvious next step. As for "developing to perfection", well, if a smooth, candy-colored shell around a deliberately limited device is perfection, then yeah. I guess you can credit Jobs with a willingness to break from standards, but not with unusually good judgement about when to do it.
- thomassmith65 2y ago
  To recap: • Steve Jobs's bad judgment led to the Apple II, Mac, iPod, and iPhone. • John Sculley's good judgment led to the Apple Newton. That assessment seems like a refusal to be impressed by the public idolatry of Steve Jobs. Yet even if he wasn't some superhuman philosopher king, nor even supremely technical, he still had talent, and did help bring some seminal tech products into the world.
  - Hizonner 2y ago
    It's an "innovation" coin, not a "judgement" coin or a "profitability" coin. For some reason, people get the idea that innovation comes from executive management. It doesn't. Popularization may. Commercial success may. Innovation generally doesn't. Jobs had talent for (a) packaging up existing stuff, but not in shockingly innovative ways, (b) recognizing and refusing to accept garbage products, and (c) selling the stuff. That's all execution, not innovation.

khazhoux 2y ago

> he was just a bit of a visionary Maybe he deserves "a bit" more credit than that?