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"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 job

"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

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