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Comment by istari | Hacker News Reader

I read the book "Never Eat Alone", basically a how to guide written by a Saul. Much of the advice is similiar.

Many posts are rationalizing Saul away as just another douchebag who'll never rise above middle management. I think this is the wrong approach.

If we divide "ability" between technical and people skills(an oversimplification, but useful), Saul is one extreme and we, at HN, is the other. That instinctal disgust you feel at the base of your gut is self justification.

Saul's skills would be EXTREMELY useful in a startup, to promote, to sell, to evangalize, to do a hundred things. Remember that it takes 2 people to start an startup, a Saul and a Hacker.

Steve Jobs is a Saul.

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I don't agree. While he shows a similar, uh, detachment from others, Steve Jobs is not a conformist. He does not attempt to project an aura of conventional success. His home famously had no furniture, and Jobs sometimes showed up for his Atari job without shoes. Furthermore Stevehas real skill at picking technology winners, and weaving them into a strategy, championing them to others.

He does take the credit for the work of the less dominant, though.

"Steve Jobs is not a conformist."

That's true, but I think it's true because that's what his fanbase wants him to be.

I always got the impression that Steve was projecting his customers' projections of what they wanted to be themselves. He's cool, he's likeable, he's barefoot on stage. He makes flashy, shiny products and lives comfortably as a result.

I wonder how much of Apple's success is due to a younger crowd saying, "hell yeah! If Steve can do it, I can do it!" and then going out to buy Apple products in the subconscious hope that some of Steve's success will rub off on them.

Steve Jobs seems to me to be constantly saying, "hey, you hep cats! I'm livin' the dream, and you can, too! Buy an iPod to remind yourself of this fact!" It's an interesting combination of Cult of Personality and Sympathetic Magic.

"In Andy Warhol's "Diaries", he describes being at a Thanksgiving 1983 dinner party at Yoko Ono's apartment. Bowie and Madonna are also there. Warhol wanders to a bunch of people in Sean's room, where "some kid is setting up one of those Apple computers". The "kid" springs up to greet him, "Hi, I'm Steve Jobs."

Even before product placement, Jobs was very keen on real-life placement, getting his products in the hands of the "right" people, tastemakers, before anyone else. The Macintosh he was setting up for Sean would famously come out 2 months later. It was a sort of high-end salesmanship he never really stopped, at least when a new product was launching."

I disagree with you: I consider myself as having relatively good people skills and Saul still disgusts me.

However, Saul isn't the single one to blame. After all, he's only a player in the corporate game. He didn't make up the rules.

If only Saul's strategies (i.e. getting promoted on the basis of a friendship) didn't work in the real life, there would be less Sauls in this world.

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