7 ms·

Jobs is a designer. Using existing pieces to create a good product. While this is an important skill to have, it is nothing I would idolize someone for, moreove

by wirrbel 13y ago

Jobs is a designer. Using existing pieces to create a good product. While this is an important skill to have, it is nothing I would idolize someone for, moreover, Jobs only was capable of focussing on design because countless Wozniaks did the plumbing (and really awesome hacking). This is _division of labor_. You just cannot build products alone. While Jobs did his job, he certainly was arrogant and a few times too often humbled those people making his products possible. This is not cool at all. I refuse the viewpoint that a manager has to be that way to implement his vision. Since the era of Romanticism in the 19th century, we like to think in terms of "Geniuses" and look out for them to admire them. This is pretty sad, because it should be well known by now, that only with collaboration real products and inventions can be delivered.

ghshephard 13y ago
Anybody who worked anywhere near Jobs will observe he was one of the biggest assholes around. I know quite a few people who worked in, or near his sphere - and they are all pretty consistent on this point. And yet, who else in modern history has driven as many companies to such such success, and lead the creation of so many great products? We had a ton of the NeXT machines at my university, and I still believe they, more than anything, demonstrate the height of Steve's capability of creating a company and product. Anybody who used Sun's Desktop OS and associated applications 5 years later saw how far ahead of the market NeXT was. I thought it was a far superior product to the Macintosh, which, by 1993/1994, was starting to get long in the tooth, and by 1996/1997 had fallen behind Windows in platform power/flexibility, causing me (never particularly religious about the platform I worked on - best tool for the job and all) to leave the Mac behind and switch to Windows (Followed by a switch back in 2003 when OS X took the lead again) Does anyone honestly think Apple would exist today (and certainly not in it's current dominance) were it not for this single individual? And, is it really a coincidence that Pixar rose to the heights it did with Steve at the helm? Sadly (speaking as one) - technologists are for the most part fungible, you can swap out one for another. Designers/Architects are somewhat more rare, but they can be identified, recruited, and hired. But Geniuses/Leaders - they come but once in a lifetime, and we admire them for that uniqueness. Certainly doesn't mean we have to like them as people though.
- angularly 13y ago
  I did the exact same thing, because of similar views (using the best tool for the job). I also switched to Windows in 1995 or so, and switched back to Mac in 2004.
- hboon 13y ago
  I mostly agree, but just one nit: Pixar was mostly John Lasseter, Ed Catmull, and many wonderful folks including many animators. While Jobs personally funded the company for a long time (10 years or so? That's really quite a vision), he wasn't really running it.
  - ghshephard 13y ago
    I've spent a few hours reading the history of Pixar (it's controversial as to what role Jobs had, particularly around the "founding" - which he really wasn't) - and while I've come to the conclusion that Steve Jobs had very little (if any) role in actually running Pixar, he appears to have had some "catalyzing" effect - Issacson never really dived into that aspect of Job's personality - it might be his negotiating skill (which was epic), or his reality distortion field (which I think even Jobs fell under the influence of) - but from the very start of Apple, he just believed in a series of realities, and did whatever he could to change things so they came true. Now, he didn't always win (most memorably in his ejection from Apple by the board), and sometimes this egomania had catastrophic effects - from his personal life, and most likely to his own health, where he refused to accept other people's opinion of what the best course of action was. You can argue and shape some people minds, but ultimately you can't win an argument with nature. It may very well have been the case, that without the bad, there could never have been the good - they were inexorably linked.
    - pjmorris 13y ago
      > It may very well have been the case, that without the bad, there could never have been the good - they were inexorably linked. I think there's something important to this notion. I once read a biography of Churchill that suggested Churchill's distrust of Hitler in the 1930's partly sprang from Churchill being the kind of egomaniac who could recognize an egomaniac. I'm sure I've done neither Churchill nor the book justice in this description, but I think there's support for the notion that personality doesn't simply or easily decompose into good parts and bad parts. [1] 'The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Alone, 1932-1940', William Manchester
VLM 13y ago
"Jobs only was capable of focussing on design because countless Wozniaks did the plumbing" As an EE-type dude Woz's design work was pretty impressive. He's in no danger of being worshipped like a Williams, Pease, or Widlar (much less a Tesla) but he's at most only one tier down. Lets say he's in the top ten, or in serious competition to be in that class. Multiple independent people repeatedly come up with the phrase "elegant" to describe his electrical design work. So calling a highly skilled stuffed suit the designer and the guy who did all the good design work a mere plumber is somewhat historically revisionist. For that matter I don't think either of them would have gotten as far as they did without teaming up, so other than some desire to dominate, there's not much point in placing one higher than the other. What it is, is a highly effective social commentary. A genius grade stuffed suit gets all the credit. A genius grade designer is a mere plumber to be used as a resource by the really important person, that being the stuffed suit. In other words, it sucks.
- crusso 13y ago
  "social commentary" implies that there's something nonsensical about it or only understandable in a cultural idiosyncratic way - but is it at all surprising that the genius communicator, marketing, salesperson has a much better communicated, marketed, and sold reputation?
- gurkendoktor 13y ago
  > A genius grade stuffed suit gets all the credit. A genius grade designer is a mere plumber to be used as a resource by the really important person, that being the stuffed suit. I don't think that's a general rule though, compare Tim Cook and Jony Ive. (Maybe I'm reading too much MacRumors for my own good, though...)
codyb 13y ago
I think in the end it sounds like they both had very different skill sets. Woz seems in his comment and from comments in this topic to have wonderful integrity, and empathy. He builds cool things because he can and because he wants to help others. He had incredible intellectual power and expertise in a newly developing field and worked in almost all aspects of it. Jobs on the other hand had an incredible business sense. He lacked the empathy that Woz had but had the drive which actually put certain products out to market where they reached millions and millions of people. I think this is very much a case of comparing apples to oranges. Who would you rather hang out with and have as your lead engineer? Woz. Of course. No brainer. Who would you rather have as your lead business man, innovator, and idea man? Jobs. No brainer. Are there things both can probably be faulted for? Sure. Are there things that both can be idolized for? Sure. You don't have to idolize an entirety of a person. Just like no one things you idolize wife beaters for liking Rick James music, or idolize pedophiles for liking Michael Jacksons. The list of people who've done incredible things but had terrible sides to them is tremendous. And the list of terrible things is incredibly subjective in a lot of cases. Is being an asshole manager who accomplishes amazing things a bad thing? Yes to some and no to others. It's a very gray area I believe.
neilk 13y ago
When Jobs designs things, sometimes you get an extreme focus on simplicity ("Why can't this CD burner have just one button that says 'burn CD'?") and sometimes you get skeuomorphic atrocities like Game Center. I don't think Jobs was a designer per se. He set ambitious goals for other designers to accomplish, maybe. Jobs was great at recognizing talent, motivating talent, browbeating talent until it quit, and then taking credit for whatever that talent accomplished.

by wirrbel 13y ago

ghshephard 13y ago

Anybody who worked anywhere near Jobs will observe he was one of the biggest assholes around. I know quite a few people who worked in, or near his sphere - and they are all pretty consistent on this point. And yet, who else in modern history has driven as many companies to such such success, and lead the creation of so many great products? We had a ton of the NeXT machines at my university, and I still believe they, more than anything, demonstrate the height of Steve's capability of creating a company and product. Anybody who used Sun's Desktop OS and associated applications 5 years later saw how far ahead of the market NeXT was. I thought it was a far superior product to the Macintosh, which, by 1993/1994, was starting to get long in the tooth, and by 1996/1997 had fallen behind Windows in platform power/flexibility, causing me (never particularly religious about the platform I worked on - best tool for the job and all) to leave the Mac behind and switch to Windows (Followed by a switch back in 2003 when OS X took the lead again) Does anyone honestly think Apple would exist today (and certainly not in it's current dominance) were it not for this single individual? And, is it really a coincidence that Pixar rose to the heights it did with Steve at the helm? Sadly (speaking as one) - technologists are for the most part fungible, you can swap out one for another. Designers/Architects are somewhat more rare, but they can be identified, recruited, and hired. But Geniuses/Leaders - they come but once in a lifetime, and we admire them for that uniqueness. Certainly doesn't mean we have to like them as people though.

angularly 13y ago
I did the exact same thing, because of similar views (using the best tool for the job). I also switched to Windows in 1995 or so, and switched back to Mac in 2004.
hboon 13y ago
I mostly agree, but just one nit: Pixar was mostly John Lasseter, Ed Catmull, and many wonderful folks including many animators. While Jobs personally funded the company for a long time (10 years or so? That's really quite a vision), he wasn't really running it.
- ghshephard 13y ago
  I've spent a few hours reading the history of Pixar (it's controversial as to what role Jobs had, particularly around the "founding" - which he really wasn't) - and while I've come to the conclusion that Steve Jobs had very little (if any) role in actually running Pixar, he appears to have had some "catalyzing" effect - Issacson never really dived into that aspect of Job's personality - it might be his negotiating skill (which was epic), or his reality distortion field (which I think even Jobs fell under the influence of) - but from the very start of Apple, he just believed in a series of realities, and did whatever he could to change things so they came true. Now, he didn't always win (most memorably in his ejection from Apple by the board), and sometimes this egomania had catastrophic effects - from his personal life, and most likely to his own health, where he refused to accept other people's opinion of what the best course of action was. You can argue and shape some people minds, but ultimately you can't win an argument with nature. It may very well have been the case, that without the bad, there could never have been the good - they were inexorably linked.
  - pjmorris 13y ago
    > It may very well have been the case, that without the bad, there could never have been the good - they were inexorably linked. I think there's something important to this notion. I once read a biography of Churchill that suggested Churchill's distrust of Hitler in the 1930's partly sprang from Churchill being the kind of egomaniac who could recognize an egomaniac. I'm sure I've done neither Churchill nor the book justice in this description, but I think there's support for the notion that personality doesn't simply or easily decompose into good parts and bad parts. [1] 'The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Alone, 1932-1940', William Manchester

VLM 13y ago

"Jobs only was capable of focussing on design because countless Wozniaks did the plumbing" As an EE-type dude Woz's design work was pretty impressive. He's in no danger of being worshipped like a Williams, Pease, or Widlar (much less a Tesla) but he's at most only one tier down. Lets say he's in the top ten, or in serious competition to be in that class. Multiple independent people repeatedly come up with the phrase "elegant" to describe his electrical design work. So calling a highly skilled stuffed suit the designer and the guy who did all the good design work a mere plumber is somewhat historically revisionist. For that matter I don't think either of them would have gotten as far as they did without teaming up, so other than some desire to dominate, there's not much point in placing one higher than the other. What it is, is a highly effective social commentary. A genius grade stuffed suit gets all the credit. A genius grade designer is a mere plumber to be used as a resource by the really important person, that being the stuffed suit. In other words, it sucks.

crusso 13y ago
"social commentary" implies that there's something nonsensical about it or only understandable in a cultural idiosyncratic way - but is it at all surprising that the genius communicator, marketing, salesperson has a much better communicated, marketed, and sold reputation?
gurkendoktor 13y ago
> A genius grade stuffed suit gets all the credit. A genius grade designer is a mere plumber to be used as a resource by the really important person, that being the stuffed suit. I don't think that's a general rule though, compare Tim Cook and Jony Ive. (Maybe I'm reading too much MacRumors for my own good, though...)

codyb 13y ago

I think in the end it sounds like they both had very different skill sets. Woz seems in his comment and from comments in this topic to have wonderful integrity, and empathy. He builds cool things because he can and because he wants to help others. He had incredible intellectual power and expertise in a newly developing field and worked in almost all aspects of it. Jobs on the other hand had an incredible business sense. He lacked the empathy that Woz had but had the drive which actually put certain products out to market where they reached millions and millions of people. I think this is very much a case of comparing apples to oranges. Who would you rather hang out with and have as your lead engineer? Woz. Of course. No brainer. Who would you rather have as your lead business man, innovator, and idea man? Jobs. No brainer. Are there things both can probably be faulted for? Sure. Are there things that both can be idolized for? Sure. You don't have to idolize an entirety of a person. Just like no one things you idolize wife beaters for liking Rick James music, or idolize pedophiles for liking Michael Jacksons. The list of people who've done incredible things but had terrible sides to them is tremendous. And the list of terrible things is incredibly subjective in a lot of cases. Is being an asshole manager who accomplishes amazing things a bad thing? Yes to some and no to others. It's a very gray area I believe.

neilk 13y ago

When Jobs designs things, sometimes you get an extreme focus on simplicity ("Why can't this CD burner have just one button that says 'burn CD'?") and sometimes you get skeuomorphic atrocities like Game Center. I don't think Jobs was a designer per se. He set ambitious goals for other designers to accomplish, maybe. Jobs was great at recognizing talent, motivating talent, browbeating talent until it quit, and then taking credit for whatever that talent accomplished.