7 ms·

You should read or reread Woz's comment from OP. He was already quite successful, and widely respected. He may not have ended up being a billionaire without Job

by phaus 13y ago

You should read or reread Woz's comment from OP. He was already quite successful, and widely respected. He may not have ended up being a billionaire without Jobs, but he wouldn't have been a failure. Jobs on the other hand struggled in nearly every aspect of his life, he couldn't stick with college, he got a job at Atari based on someone else's work, he was such a giant douche to everyone there that they wanted to fire him, he lied to the few friends he had and manipulated them to get money, he knocked someone up and then pretended that his daughter didn't exist, the list goes on. Steve Wozniak would have had a great life either way. Jobs would probably have died homeless and friendless if Apple never existed. Jobs proved his talents in many ways as the CEO of Apple, but if it weren't for Wozniak, Jobs likely would have never had a chance to show us what he could do.

mandeepj 13y ago
"Jobs would probably have died homeless and friendless if Apple never existed." - so funny. Besides Apple, Pixar and Next made Jobs billionaire too. So, no jobs would not have died homeless and friendless :-) . Jobs was a natural leader and visionary.
- ehsanu1 13y ago
  You can't really tell either way. The road to NEXT and Pixar was through Apple. And I do hear his role in Pixar is often portrayed as being much more than it really was.
  - Shamanmuni 13y ago
    Most of what's usually said about Steve Jobs' role in Pixar is a complete myth. It's quite outrageous the level of falsehood when you read about it from those who were there before Pixar was big. For starters, Steve Jobs didn't invest in the Pixar that you know (the one which makes films), it was a hardware company and it never occured to him to make an animated movie, just sell hardware. It was the people working there that saw the potential for films made 100% with computers. He didn't even pay much attention to Pixar until after they made the deal with Disney to make Toy Story and critics started saying it was going to be huge. After that the "visionary" took charge and, of course, took all the credit for himself. You can read more about it in the link below. You aks who Alvy Ray Smith is? Well, one of the cofounders of Pixar and its first Vice President. And by the way, he was the inventor of the Alpha Channel. http://alvyray.com/Pixar/PixarHistoryRevisited.htm http://alvyray.com/Pixar/PixarHistoryRevisited.htm
    - rblatz 13y ago
      Wow, Alvy sure has an axe to grind. And he tries to sound it objective and talks about himself in 3rd person the whole time. But he fails so hard on so many things, like the Steve Jobs investment didn't save Pixar rant. He says Steve's money didn't save Pixar and then says that Steve pumped more and more money in until it was actually worth something. Whatever points he makes that may be valid are completely made suspect by his tone and spiteful attitude.
- phaus 13y ago
  >Besides Apple, Pixar and Next made Jobs billionaire too. If Apple had never existed, he wouldn't have had the hundreds of millions dollars that he spent on these endeavors. >Jobs was a natural leader and visionary. Jobs was good at recognizing when the right time to bet on a technology was. When you are filthy rich, you can turn this talent into a license to print money. When you aren't already rich, it just makes you the average person on HN. I can predict the success and failure of specific technologies with a staggering degree of accuracy, and I'm sure that most of the techies here can do the same thing. Was anyone here surprised that RIM's brushing off of the capacitive touch-screen launched them into a death-spiral? Was anyone here doubting that moore's law, flash memory, and high-resolution touch-screens would eventually make it possible to create a tablet that consumers would actually want? Was anyone surprised that Android overtook a platform that was designed from the ground-up to serve as a symbol for exclusivity? Guess what happens when you launch with only one of the four major carriers? You just gave up any advantage you gained from being first to market. This shit is obvious to people who live for technology. Steve Jobs didn't create the iPhone or the iPad, the electrical and computer engineers who saw it coming a few decades ago did. They saw potential and so they spent the best years of their lives developing the technology that would one day make it possible. I'm not saying that Steve wasn't talented, because he was. I'm just saying that it takes more than talent, intelligence, and leadership ability to succeed at the level he did. There's a random element to it, and this random element is the largest factor. There are thousands upon thousands of talented, smart people with ideas that could change the world. Most of them, if they ever even get a chance to try, will end up being crushed by a world that is reluctant to change.
  - mandeepj 13y ago
    > If Apple had never existed, he wouldn't have had the hundreds of millions dollars that he spent on these endeavors. Steve jobs was an entrepreneur. He did not had millions of dollars when he started with Apple so he could have also started with something else besides Apple and money would have came along as it did with Apple. I agree with you there are so many genius people in this world. Not everyone gets to see Jobs like magnitude of success. I guess luck, tireless persuasion of your dreams, target also play part in your success rate
caycep 13y ago
That isn't to say Jobs didn't have his own talents, but he had to find the best way to use them. He said himself that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that happened to him. Some would argue that the later years w/ the iMac, iPod, iOS, etc wouldn't have happened without this.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
jaredsohn 13y ago
>He may not have ended up being a billionaire without Jobs I don't think he is a billionaire. Googling "net worth woz" finds several articles citing a net worth around $100 million. But the point still stands (just at 1/10 the level.)
- phaus 13y ago
  Thanks for the correction.
- markdennehy 13y ago
  Wow. You do get, don't you, that there's no real difference between personal wealths of $100 million and $1000 million? And that there shouldn't be? Why do so few people get that there's a ceiling here? You earn enough money so that you can live off the interest of what's in your bank account, and congratulations, your financial worth is now $MAX. Seriously. $MAX is a real thing in the real world. It's where you can stop working for money and start spending all your life with your kids, or doing the things you want to do regardless of the mortgage and the food bills and the school bills and so on. Folks who think $MAX is a naive concept... need to grow up a little bit and remember that life ends and if you don't enjoy it during it, you don't get to enjoy it afterwards.
  - jaredsohn 13y ago
    There is a big difference. A person with a wealth of $100 million shouldn't be called a billionaire which is why I wrote that comment. :) I don't get why you wrote what you did as a response to mine; I just made a factual correction. (I even stated that the point still stands.) Edit: This was not an argument over the meaning of the word 'billionaire'; the post I replied to likely assumed that Wozniak was a billionaire (defined in the way that over 99% of Americans would understand it) and I mentioned that it doesn't seem that is the case. If you're arguing about the alternative definitions of 'billionaire', it could have been an interesting sidenote, but ultimately the definition that I am using is what most Americans (i.e. the country Woz lives in) would assume and to use another definition in this context is poor communication. The whole point of the post I responded to was just saying that if Woz wasn't working with Jobs, he might not have been as rich as he is now; no judgment was made on what it means to be "rich enough", etc.
pbreit 13y ago
I suspect the opposite but we'll never know. It seems clear to me that jobs had the vision and ability to make things happen which is typically more important than the technical know-how.
vasilipupkin 13y ago
My guess is if it werent't for Wozniak, Steve Jobs would have found himself another Wozniak or would have put himself into a situation where he would have not needed a Wozniak. What has Wozniak accomplished since he left Apple?
- varjag 13y ago
  > My guess is if it werent't for Wozniak, Steve Jobs would have found himself another Wozniak or would have put himself into a situation where he would have not needed a Wozniak. Unless you're religious or believe in fate, Jobs life would probably be very different. He could become a successful artist or car salesman or crack cocaine dealer, but unlikely a tech visionary.
  - vasilipupkin 13y ago
    Steve Jobs left Apple, wasn't Wozniak there that whole time? Then he came back and lo and behold, not just did a good job of running the company but turned it into world's biggest company by market cap. Could Woz have done that? Once they parted ways, Woz did not much ( relatively ), while Jobs did a lot.
    - varjag 13y ago
      > Steve Jobs left Apple, wasn't Wozniak there that whole time? No, he left shortly after. > Then he came back and lo and behold, not just did a good job of running the company but turned it into world's biggest company by market cap. The company struggled when Jobs was outed in the first place. > Could Woz have done that? Probably not, Wozniak is not a businessman. But I have a better question, could Jobs become a leader of Apple and figure of note in first place if he had not walked on Wozniak with already complete Apple prototype? There's a lot to be said to being in the right place at the right time.
      - vasilipupkin 13y ago
        Since we all agree that Jobs was a great businessman, my guess is he would have found another way to realize his talent.

by phaus 13y ago

mandeepj 13y ago

"Jobs would probably have died homeless and friendless if Apple never existed." - so funny. Besides Apple, Pixar and Next made Jobs billionaire too. So, no jobs would not have died homeless and friendless :-) . Jobs was a natural leader and visionary.

ehsanu1 13y ago
You can't really tell either way. The road to NEXT and Pixar was through Apple. And I do hear his role in Pixar is often portrayed as being much more than it really was.
- Shamanmuni 13y ago
  Most of what's usually said about Steve Jobs' role in Pixar is a complete myth. It's quite outrageous the level of falsehood when you read about it from those who were there before Pixar was big. For starters, Steve Jobs didn't invest in the Pixar that you know (the one which makes films), it was a hardware company and it never occured to him to make an animated movie, just sell hardware. It was the people working there that saw the potential for films made 100% with computers. He didn't even pay much attention to Pixar until after they made the deal with Disney to make Toy Story and critics started saying it was going to be huge. After that the "visionary" took charge and, of course, took all the credit for himself. You can read more about it in the link below. You aks who Alvy Ray Smith is? Well, one of the cofounders of Pixar and its first Vice President. And by the way, he was the inventor of the Alpha Channel. http://alvyray.com/Pixar/PixarHistoryRevisited.htm http://alvyray.com/Pixar/PixarHistoryRevisited.htm
  - rblatz 13y ago
    Wow, Alvy sure has an axe to grind. And he tries to sound it objective and talks about himself in 3rd person the whole time. But he fails so hard on so many things, like the Steve Jobs investment didn't save Pixar rant. He says Steve's money didn't save Pixar and then says that Steve pumped more and more money in until it was actually worth something. Whatever points he makes that may be valid are completely made suspect by his tone and spiteful attitude.
phaus 13y ago
>Besides Apple, Pixar and Next made Jobs billionaire too. If Apple had never existed, he wouldn't have had the hundreds of millions dollars that he spent on these endeavors. >Jobs was a natural leader and visionary. Jobs was good at recognizing when the right time to bet on a technology was. When you are filthy rich, you can turn this talent into a license to print money. When you aren't already rich, it just makes you the average person on HN. I can predict the success and failure of specific technologies with a staggering degree of accuracy, and I'm sure that most of the techies here can do the same thing. Was anyone here surprised that RIM's brushing off of the capacitive touch-screen launched them into a death-spiral? Was anyone here doubting that moore's law, flash memory, and high-resolution touch-screens would eventually make it possible to create a tablet that consumers would actually want? Was anyone surprised that Android overtook a platform that was designed from the ground-up to serve as a symbol for exclusivity? Guess what happens when you launch with only one of the four major carriers? You just gave up any advantage you gained from being first to market. This shit is obvious to people who live for technology. Steve Jobs didn't create the iPhone or the iPad, the electrical and computer engineers who saw it coming a few decades ago did. They saw potential and so they spent the best years of their lives developing the technology that would one day make it possible. I'm not saying that Steve wasn't talented, because he was. I'm just saying that it takes more than talent, intelligence, and leadership ability to succeed at the level he did. There's a random element to it, and this random element is the largest factor. There are thousands upon thousands of talented, smart people with ideas that could change the world. Most of them, if they ever even get a chance to try, will end up being crushed by a world that is reluctant to change.
- mandeepj 13y ago
  > If Apple had never existed, he wouldn't have had the hundreds of millions dollars that he spent on these endeavors. Steve jobs was an entrepreneur. He did not had millions of dollars when he started with Apple so he could have also started with something else besides Apple and money would have came along as it did with Apple. I agree with you there are so many genius people in this world. Not everyone gets to see Jobs like magnitude of success. I guess luck, tireless persuasion of your dreams, target also play part in your success rate

caycep 13y ago

That isn't to say Jobs didn't have his own talents, but he had to find the best way to use them. He said himself that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that happened to him. Some would argue that the later years w/ the iMac, iPod, iOS, etc wouldn't have happened without this.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

jaredsohn 13y ago

>He may not have ended up being a billionaire without Jobs I don't think he is a billionaire. Googling "net worth woz" finds several articles citing a net worth around $100 million. But the point still stands (just at 1/10 the level.)

phaus 13y ago
Thanks for the correction.
markdennehy 13y ago
Wow. You do get, don't you, that there's no real difference between personal wealths of $100 million and $1000 million? And that there shouldn't be? Why do so few people get that there's a ceiling here? You earn enough money so that you can live off the interest of what's in your bank account, and congratulations, your financial worth is now $MAX. Seriously. $MAX is a real thing in the real world. It's where you can stop working for money and start spending all your life with your kids, or doing the things you want to do regardless of the mortgage and the food bills and the school bills and so on. Folks who think $MAX is a naive concept... need to grow up a little bit and remember that life ends and if you don't enjoy it during it, you don't get to enjoy it afterwards.
- jaredsohn 13y ago
  There is a big difference. A person with a wealth of $100 million shouldn't be called a billionaire which is why I wrote that comment. :) I don't get why you wrote what you did as a response to mine; I just made a factual correction. (I even stated that the point still stands.) Edit: This was not an argument over the meaning of the word 'billionaire'; the post I replied to likely assumed that Wozniak was a billionaire (defined in the way that over 99% of Americans would understand it) and I mentioned that it doesn't seem that is the case. If you're arguing about the alternative definitions of 'billionaire', it could have been an interesting sidenote, but ultimately the definition that I am using is what most Americans (i.e. the country Woz lives in) would assume and to use another definition in this context is poor communication. The whole point of the post I responded to was just saying that if Woz wasn't working with Jobs, he might not have been as rich as he is now; no judgment was made on what it means to be "rich enough", etc.

pbreit 13y ago

I suspect the opposite but we'll never know. It seems clear to me that jobs had the vision and ability to make things happen which is typically more important than the technical know-how.

vasilipupkin 13y ago

My guess is if it werent't for Wozniak, Steve Jobs would have found himself another Wozniak or would have put himself into a situation where he would have not needed a Wozniak. What has Wozniak accomplished since he left Apple?

varjag 13y ago
> My guess is if it werent't for Wozniak, Steve Jobs would have found himself another Wozniak or would have put himself into a situation where he would have not needed a Wozniak. Unless you're religious or believe in fate, Jobs life would probably be very different. He could become a successful artist or car salesman or crack cocaine dealer, but unlikely a tech visionary.
- vasilipupkin 13y ago
  Steve Jobs left Apple, wasn't Wozniak there that whole time? Then he came back and lo and behold, not just did a good job of running the company but turned it into world's biggest company by market cap. Could Woz have done that? Once they parted ways, Woz did not much ( relatively ), while Jobs did a lot.
  - varjag 13y ago
    > Steve Jobs left Apple, wasn't Wozniak there that whole time? No, he left shortly after. > Then he came back and lo and behold, not just did a good job of running the company but turned it into world's biggest company by market cap. The company struggled when Jobs was outed in the first place. > Could Woz have done that? Probably not, Wozniak is not a businessman. But I have a better question, could Jobs become a leader of Apple and figure of note in first place if he had not walked on Wozniak with already complete Apple prototype? There's a lot to be said to being in the right place at the right time.
    - vasilipupkin 13y ago
      Since we all agree that Jobs was a great businessman, my guess is he would have found another way to realize his talent.