Where is the “genius”?
I was reading an interesting article the other day about how after World War II people were obviously opposed to populism, and by the '80s and certainly the '90s people that were born after the war had lost the awareness of the danger that hero worship creates.
At the same time, many organizations including government organizations had failed to update themselves over the years, so people romanticized the idea of someone walking in and magically making the correct snap judgments that would remedy the situation. This was so pervasive in the business world I think in part because it allowed corporate executives to justify f****** over ordinary employees. If the company makes or breaks because of one person at the top, who cares if you’re paying people minimum wage and they can’t even afford to pay for dental care or a car.
What amazed me is how long that vision of Steve Jobs stuck around. Even in recent years people have been praising him, but if you think of the value in his company, it’s mostly a load of s***. Those phones and computers are incredibly overpriced, and they have so many bad aspects, especially lock-in, which most people intuitively understand these days. And still we have Apple addicts.
I’m not an Apple fan, I never liked the way he dictated form and function and told everyone to fuck off about their feelings. Now that said, his leadership did bring some things to market that would not have grown organically, for better or for worse.
The competition had to contend with good phone battery life, unibody laptops with high DPI screens, and large touchpads with physical feedback. Left to their own devices, these companies would have just kept regurgitating/iterating the same cheap designs they had made for decades.
He wasn’t magic; if he had any superpower, it was attracting and retaining talent.
Your take feels incredibly aggressive. Most people do not want to tinker, they just want their tech to work… Regarding Steve Jobs, are you saying he did not steer Apple to a level of success and prosperity that 99% other companies dream of?
Your opinion of what is overpriced is just your opinion. Apples sales numbers says otherwise, they do not have a monopoly in any market they compete in.
An apple a day keeps the doctor away
true, with just an apple a day only the forensic pathologist will show up
If you don’t have anything funny to say, then don’t say anything at all
Steve jobs ain’t a genius. He was just a good salesman.
The sales people almost always end up doing well in companies. And then when they get high up in the company they only value others ability to make sales and work for bonuses. As time goes on a company’s e-suite gets more and more saturated with charismatic dummies who will do anything for a buck, leaving less room for good administrators and engineers.
Small thing, but I’ve never heard it called an e-suite, only c-suite. I assume the “e” stands for executive vs the “c” being chief.
He tried to fight P.C. with apples.
Jesus Christ. That is fucking poetry.
where’s the lie?
This 😂. A fucking genius choosing pseudoscience…
Jobs paved the way for Musk. I hate that he’s so often cited as a genius to look up to in the tech world
Not musk, the entire silicon valley fake it and hope you make it mindset. Jobs opened the door for Holmes. Jobs opened the door for Uber to completely make up a business plan. Jobs opened the door to Elon buying “founder” status. His genius contribution is in making the tech industry the batch of lying scum it is today.
Which is one of the reasons I’m giving up on working in tech despite having a PhD from my home country in Telecommunications. I have skills and could learn the ones I lack but I just don’t have the mindset and attitude and don’t feel like developing them. I’d rather code my own projects in my own way while remaining underemployed.
The behind the bastards episodes on Jobs was really eye-opening to just how awful of a leader he was
People mistaking Marketing people for tech genies happens to often.
Maybe, but then you also have people like my brother who basically worship Jobs, and say shit like “Wozniak is expendable.”
I told him people like Wozniak are the real geniuses who actually make shit work, and he told me straight faced that without people like Jobs people like Wozniak will probably just have a desk job.
People that worship psuedo intellectuals like Jobs are just coping with that fact that they’re less intelligent. Sales dudes love having sales rule over engineering. I’d go as far to say it’s difficult to be a decent human being and in sales at the same time.
The cause goes the other way
You need a desk to place the components on to build the computer and then to place the computer on, to do the programming.
I’d say, even with Jobs, Wozniak had a desk job.
Of course, unless you use a projector or floor-stands for the monitors and keep the keyboard+mouse on your lap, in which case, you can get away from the desk.
I find it really amusing to know Bill Gates ones made fun of him:
“Steve’s achievements are all the more impressive when you know that he couldn’t look at a piece of code and know what it was.”
However he also said:
“Clearly, he had so many skills that I didn’t, but we were both a little bit pied pipers in terms of getting people to work ridiculous hours.”
Which really should tell you everything you need to know given who made the money and how many people were made to work “ridiculous hours”.
Back on the old site on one of those text based subreddits there was a question posted:
Would you rather have free WiFi wherever you go, or any apple product you wish at any time.
My (then unrotted) brain was like: mmh WiFi everywhere is good, but apple cake, apple pie, apple sauce, apple spritz, apple cider, apple strudel, dried apples… Yeah I’m going with apple products
Wifi might become obsolete some time in the future, but apple pie is eternal.
Until Jimbo fucks it.
Apple cream pie
Being rich makes you so divorced from consequences that you start to believe that what is in your brain is what is real. Money isn’t what we think it is.
Money is like radioactive material. Having a little bit in your house probably is fine but having a mountain of it will make you hole up in a Las Vegas hotel with tissue boxes for shoes
Or you can become president
Or even better, you can buy yourself a pet president.
These words resonate so hard with me that my head is ringing like a bell right now. “Money isn’t what we think it is.” ^5, you.
Also bought his way up the organ donor list even after he took so long ignoring it, passing over a bunch of people who should have had claim to it and some who died instead, all just so he could die anyway because he took too long to get treatment. Failed so hard multiple people died.
Source on this? I read that Tim Apple offered a donation and Steve refused. I have not read that he had the surgery.
He did get a transplant, in TN. Not in CA where he lived. He used his wealth to add himself to a areas with more donors and fewer on the wait list because he could hop on a jet unlike normal plebians.
That doesn’t describe jumping a line, it just describes waiting in more lines. Is that all there was to it?
You can literally just look on Wikipedia. Tim cook offered part of his, jobs said “nah I want a whole one from some poor person” and the rest is history.
Not to mention the actual pioneer of generic-text languages, the inventor of the compiler, Grace Hopper.
She was on Letterman. https://youtu.be/oE2uls6iIEU
I highly doubt the consequences of Dennis Richie not existing. Yes, his work was foundational, but he didn’t do it on his own, and if he wasn’t around, someone else would’ve filled in.
The same is true for Steve Jobs. In fact, most of his contribution was being a jerk to people so his ideas won. He had a clear vision, but his internal implementation was… iffy.
My crusading teenage ass posted this in 2011 on social media. Nobody cared lol
Fact of the matter is way more people know who Steve Jobs is compared to Dennis Ritchie, so it’s no wonder his death garnered way more attention too. But the sentiment still stands IMO
well one is good at selling stuff including himself
Only fanboys. The same kind that worship Musk or any other fellated-by-the-press CEO as some kind of hero. They softball any criticisms and turn them into positives - “He murdered a bunch of kids, but the creativity he got from the blood splatter and time spent in court-ordered community service got us this addictive device we’re all fawning over…let’s justify the ridiculous price and wait in line for one!” Something about objectively shitty people heading up organizations seems to attract sycophants and bootlickers.
Only fanboys.
Oh I wish. It’s more like 2/3 of American society, and I’m sure plenty of others around the world. But if you wanted to cast a wide net and call them fanboys of the rich, I guess that’s fair.
If you are worth billions, and even moreso if you are a business leader and therefore “earned” those billions, then “worship” is the right word. They are not just good people, but the greatest among us who should be put in charge of everything. (Enter our new emperor)
The truth of genius is its only momentary and usually highly specific.
Except for Euler. That guy was on a hot streak for his entire life.
Ramanujan did pretty good, just died young.
I mean, fucking up is a common thing people do and is an integral part of the human condition. What should be emphasized about Jobs case is that he fucked up his own liver, learned the cause and treatments, used his wealth to cut in the waiting line to get a liver transplant, and then fucked his second liver just the same way. This is the definition of terminally stupid, and no UX focus will ever change that.
I remember reading a story a while back about the documentary they were making on him. He had his special diet of juices and supplements and whatnot, which he claimed helped him while his liver was failing. The actor who portrayed him started following the same diet to better get in character. Only then he collapsed on set with liver problems. They did a full medical work up and basically told him whatever you’re doing stop doing it because it’s killing you. He went back to his normal diet and he was fine. Raising the serious question, did Steve Jobs outsmart himself to death? If he had given up all the diets and supplements and whatnot might he have lived?
If he had pursued modern medical treatments rather than a sugar filled diet he might have lived. He would have to have stepped down though and he did not want to do that.
He would also have to admit he was completely wrong about his diet and that he absolutely did not want to do as it was tied to some dumbass “philosophy” he followed.
If “outsmart” is ignore people who know things because you believe you know everything…yes
A better description would be that he treated his body the way he treated his employees. Or he let himself believe his own reality distortion field. “Outsmart” is not the word I’d choose for a narcissistic asshole who thinks he knows better but in fact does not.
How did he fuck up his liver? Do you mean that he was doing something that caused him to develop that tumor?
Jobs ate only fruit. That is a lot of sugar. Your liver doesn’t like that.
Iirc, what we normally call “sugar” is sucrose, made up of glucose and fructose. Glucose is used all over the place and too much is definitely bad (ask diabetics), while fructose is processed in your liver. Like a poison.
Just trying to remember that from stuff I’ve seen from Robert Lustig MD. There’s a very old “sugar: the bitter truth” lecture of his on YouTube, plus lots of media since then.
Glucose is only bad in the same way oxygen is bad. I think you need to rewatch your lecture.
Diabetics don’t have a problem with too much glucose they have an issue with too little insulin or insulin resistance
Too much glucose is a great way to get diabetes.
As is an autoimmune disorder
Kind of? Getting fat and eating too much regularly are great ways to get diabetes, and sugar is a great way to get fat.
Sugar is also acidic. Not enough to kill you, but that’s why ketoacidosis kills people. It also increases blood viscosity, making it pump harder and causing hypertension. Plus, it causes chronic inflammation, which calcifies triglycerides in your blood to form clots.
Sugar has tons of negative effects.
Forgot about that. I too am deeply irresponsible with my liver, but I would never ask for a second one. That’s an entire human organ!
