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Comment by tomcam | Hacker News Reader

You made the right choice. I have talked to lots of people who worked at Apple in the early days, including some key people from the first dozen or so employees. I never met anyone who said it was enjoyable working with Jobs. (Lots of people said they grew a lot, learned a lot, and so on, but never anything along the lines of "I felt great going in to work every day".

For those reasons I went to Microsoft. And you know what? I felt great going into work every day. That's way more important than a billion dollars.

Also, I'm a somewhat high net worth individual (nothing remotely in the Steve Jobs range). I'm lucky to be where I am, but the price of being a billionaire seems much too high for me.

You appear to be at peace with your decision. It is a much deserved peace.

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Tom, what a small world! I see you had to deal with the aftermath of some of my code when you were PM for VB5/6. If you remember the horrible VBX interface, that was my fault.

I really appreciate your comment. One friend of mine was interviewed and they asked about her experiences working with Steve, and she said something like, "you'll probably find that some people who've worked with him don't want to talk about it." Ouch.

See my reply to enraged_camel for some related thoughts...

Best HN comment ever.

Cannot believe I missed this wonderful reply. For those who don't know, the VBX interface is one of the most successful component models in the history of computing. Growing pains != to failure.

>>For those reasons I went to Microsoft. And you know what? I felt great going into work every day. That's way more important than a billion dollars.

Is it, though? I mean, don't get me wrong, happiness is very important, but we're talking about literally a billion dollars. You can use that type of money to do a shit ton of things, and virtually guarantee that your children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren etc. live very, very comfortable lives. Personally, given the choice, I'd gladly choose half a decade (or whatever) of absolute misery working for an asshole boss if it will net me a billion dollars in the end. Because for me, my own happiness is not more important than the happiness and comfort of those around me and those who come after me.

Personally, given the choice, I'd gladly choose half a decade (or whatever) of absolute misery working for an asshole boss if it will net me a billion dollars in the end.

Many of us would. But that's hindsight.

The reality is, of those who try, most wind up working for the asshole boss with nothing to show for it at the end.

That's a very valid point!

Besides the billion dollars or the fame, there is another question I've asked myself a few times when I've been in a speculative mood.

Steve was famous for his "bozo bit". You could be his greatest hero one day, and the next day he would flip the bozo bit on you and you were the scum of the earth.

When he told me "you couldn't possibly program these microcomputers, they are completely different from the mainframes you've worked on," what if I had pushed back and shown him they weren't so different and I could do a great job with them?

There's a possibility he would have learned from that experience, realized he was mistaken in his snap judgment, and improved his relations with other people he worked with.

Of course that may be wishful thinking. And being Steve, he probably still would have had a bozo bit. But maybe he wouldn't have flipped it so often! :-)

>virtually guarantee that your children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren etc

It only really takes about $50mm for that. (I guess it does depend a bit on the number of progeny you choose to have)

> ersonally, given the choice, I'd gladly choose half a decade (or whatever) of absolute misery working for an asshole boss

Some people quite literally kill themselves under such circumstances, so it really is a ymmv situation. (and I probably lean towards your side of the specrum)

> You can use that type of money to do a shit ton of things, and virtually guarantee that your children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren etc. live very, very comfortable lives.

I think that is naive. I've met quite a few people with large trust funds, and in every case I thought "Man, I am so glad I'm not them." Human joy and self-worth does NOT come about from being "comfortable".

You imply that making your [grand]children wealthy is something really beneficial for them.

It is not.

The same way as winning big in lottery usually leads to misery, the same way huge inheritances do not really make people happy.

It is better for your descendants to earn their wealth themselves (whatever that wealth would be).

I completely agree. There is no guarantee that they will invest wisely. Adversity is a great teacher and wisdom is the fruit of that labor if not somewhat liberating. I think through that wisdom, the phrase "never enough" has much more meaning. 10k needs to be 100k after time passes and we keep finding excuses to inflate that number.

You do know that when Jobs became iCEO in '96 Apple was a few months away from insolvency. There are far more companies where people bust their ass for years and all they get for it is worthless stock.

Most wealthy people in history have not been able to guarantee that their own children, let alone grandchildren or great-grandchildren, would continue on in wealth. To me, if you get rich, it's probably an awful idea to just give it to your kids, if you care about how they turn out at all.

>To me, if you get rich, it's probably an awful idea to just give it to your kids, if you care about how they turn out at all.

Besides, Ferrari dealership owners, exotic dancers and cocaine dealers have kids too! They could use some of your money for their support!

Yeah, you could always do that, if philanthropy doesn't tickle your pickle.

How is that not philanthropy?

It's just that you still don't want to hand over the money on a silver platter, it's better for people's character and pride to do some work to get it (e.g. build and sell a Ferrari to you)...

Okay, dude.

Whoosh.

Interesting. That's what I thought about you four posts up.

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