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> I’m not an uncritical Steve Jobs fan. I know, from having worked closely with people who worked directly for Jobs for many years, that he could be a mercurial
by kvuj 16d ago
> I’m not an uncritical Steve Jobs fan. I know, from having worked closely with people who worked directly for Jobs for many years, that he could be a mercurial, and brutish, boss.
That's a pretty big euphemism for Steve Jobs being a piece of shit. What I've realized throughout the years of working is that being able to work as a team is almost more important than your technical capacity. You can always become better in your field, but becoming a better human is a lot harder.
- walrus01 16d agoI've repeatedly said here on HN that Steve Jobs was king of the assholes and a huge piece of shit, and been soundly flamed for it. A vast amount of first hand anecdotes of him being an asshole exist and are likely not fabrications by the people reporting them. And yet people think he's some sort of god like figure because apple made cool products.
- andsoitis 16d agoYou can be a jerk and be brilliant at the products you create. One can admire the latter while criticize the former. Jobs revolutionized music and computing.
- walrus01 16d agoAs a counter point some very boring individuals who are not jerks nor capable of forming a cult of personality have invented singularly iconic and widespread products which achieved great market share. One example would be Eugene Stoner and his design for the AR-15/M16.
- hnfong 16d agoAs much as Steve Jobs was an asshole, at least he didn't invent tools whose only purpose is to kill people... Like, maybe find a better example?
- andsoitis 16d agoYou’re comparing Eugene Stone to Steve Jobs?
- walrus01 16d agoNo, I'm saying Eugene Stoner was a singularly boring individual apart from inventing one thing. Sort of an anti steve jobs.
- andsoitis 16d agoYeah but I would not say the products Stone invented are the same kind of, and I quote, “iconic”, as the products that Jobs invented. They’re just in totally different universes.
- spankibalt 16d agoThe AR-15 pattern rifle is certainly iconic; on its own probably more so (i. e. more recognizable) than almost all of Jobs's products. When allowing for the typical collective amnesia, the only two products that match, or manage to exceed, its iconographic status are the iPhone and the iPad; when bringing in historical expertise you can probably add the Apple II.
- andsoitis 16d agoInteresting. I wouldn't have guessed that if you asked people in the US or around the world to pick the most iconic products that they would rank the AR-15 in particular above the top Apple products. I guess it is possible, but I would be very surprised. I might even think that the AK-47 or the Glock have more name recognition. But what do I know?
- spankibalt 16d ago> I might even think that the AK-47 or the Glock have more name recognition. A "yes" on the AK, and a "no" on the Glock. The AR-15, incl. its variants, isn't called "America's Rifle" for nothing; it's the West's (tm) (cultural) analogon to the AK. Make the test and ask some "normies" to pick out an AR-15. Then do the same for the Apple products. I doubt many will be able to pick out an Apple II.
- raverbashing 16d agoAgree If anything he was one of the few hard a-holes that managed to channel that to productive purposes Being a jerk is easy. Being a jerk that still keeps people motivated it really hard. Kubrick was known for that as well.
- qsera 16d agoNo one has been remembered for being extra nice alone. I mean, being an asshole is inconsequential if you are brilliant. Only total losers whine about such silly things in successful people...
- walrus01 16d agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Rogers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Rogers
- ksaun 16d ago> No one has been remembered for being extra nice alone. That might depend on how strict "alone" is. (Perhaps by definition, only having a singular exceptional trait makes it challenging to be renown.) For example, might Fred Rogers count? Or Dolly Parton who, though remembered for many things, has kindness as a core part of her legacy. I think many people are remembered for being kind, but only by those who knew them very well, such as family and friends.
- qsera 16d agoYea, you should be already known for some other things. Then being nice could add to it. But just being nice is not going to make you known.
- zanellato19 16d agoSteve Jobs will be forever be remembered as an asshole.
- AtlasBarfed 16d agoThe man, the myth, the legend. That phrase gets bandied about quite casually in my experience. Usually is an ironic light joke about somebody in your peer group on talking to other people or near your peer group. As such, it's been sort of semantically watered down quite a lot in our popular cult. But it's perfect for people like Steve Jobs.
- fortran77 16d agoHe was a huge piece of shit. Yet, when I lived in Silicon Valley, I saw parents scrambing to get a house in the right district so their kid could go to Homestead High and have a shot of "being like Steve Jobs." They want their kids to be deadbeat dads who die in their 50s?
- t43562 16d agoIt's the implication that success excuses it that sucks. The fans don't care how their status symbols came about - only that they have them. The illusion is presented that without him we'd all be using MS-DOS to this day.
- VCFundedGenYer 16d agoI don't get your point. He was, objectively, a huge POS. Ask anyone who worked with him. He ruined people for capital gain. He failed to acknowledge his first child. He time and again made people miserable.
- xyzelement 16d ago[dead]
- LatencyKills 16d agoI spent 11 years at Apple and attended many meetings with SJ. It was amazing to see how quickly he could understand a problem while, at the same time, being brutally harsh about why it hadn't already been solved. No one but Steve would have been allowed to consistently act that way towards coworkers. Steve showed a generation of CEOs that being an asshole was a viable strategy.
- ProllyInfamous 16d agoI grew up in a one-highschool Texas town, a notorious football powerhouse. The brainwashing we received as players was incredible, and we were definitely respected members of our community (e.g. newspaper would interview us; girls; getting away with murder). The football t-shirts we were given for dailywear said something to the effect of "loved by few, feared by some, respected by ALL" – and I just can't help but feel this message was terrible advice for [our] young impressionable minds. We probably deserved it, when playing more-modest football programs, when the opposing team changed their objective from scoring points to breaking our ankles (literally). ---- All to say, I have several brothers, two of whom are experts in their respective fields (engineering and law), with decades (each) of practice and expertise: they come off immediately as know-it-all assholes (to most people; to me, occassionally) simply because their levels of expertise come with the sacrifice of social niceties (not always, but often). [within their circles, however, they are respected as gods] ---- But to offer from their perspective (as a stupider brother of these two): most people my two "asshole" brothers deal with actually are quite stupid [relatively]; they are having to deal with us "morons" on an hourly basis [†] Once you get past the outer asshole wrapper, these are the people that are driving our societies (for better or worse) "forwards" – do not forget this – they are assholes because they care so much about their work/goals [∑] [†] remember the Carlin joke: think of the average person, and realize that half of people are dumber that that || to true geniuses (which I am not, but two brothers are) we are all "fucking idiots, most of the time" (to paraphrase their amalgamation) [∑] e.g: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price%27s_law> [tl;dr: half the work is performed by the sqrt(#people)]
- cindyllm 16d ago[dead]
- t43562 16d agoI don't think intelligence entitles anyone to being an arsehole thought it might sometimes be frustrating. Lets say we make AIs that are more intelligent than us in the end - do we want them being arseholes to us just to achieve some new technology or dream that they have? Perhaps we would be just as happy without scalable fonts on our computers or phones that we can doom-scroll on and don't need to be whipped into achieving them?
- boxed 16d ago> What I've realized throughout the years of working is that being able to work as a team is almost more important than your technical capacity. You can always become better in your field, but becoming a better human is a lot harder. Is this a true realization though? Lots of people are very nice, but Jobs got a shit ton done that was truly remarkable.
- unknownfuture 16d agoSurvivorship bias. My own experience is that the jerks self-select out because no one wants to work for them. That said, in the entrepreneurial space it's less clear to me this is true. In a team setting? Sure. But the C-suite of a business isn't necessarily a team sport and a lot of wildly successful CEOs are notoriously pieces of shit including Gates, Bezos, Zuck, Musk, and many others.
- devld 16d ago> You can always become better in your field, but becoming a better human is a lot harder. This sounds so self-gratifying. You could have also written: "I am better than Steve Jobs and I look down on him".
- deleted 16d ago[deleted]
- JKCalhoun 16d agoIt can also be taken as an attack on the cult of personality surrounding Jobs.