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Comment by cmelbye | Hacker News Reader

This brings up a question that I've been wondering lately. Does Steve Jobs code, or did he simply bring business skills to the table when Apple was starting out?

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From what i understand he has a knowledge of CS, but didnt delve into code at apple. From Mortiz' book, I can tell he did write code for Atari.

He reportedly claimed to have read Knuth's The Art of Computer Programming, which would certainly require some serious CS and mathematics chops to comprehend.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Professor Knuth," Steve said. "I've read all of your books."

"You're full of shit," Knuth responded.

http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Close_Encounters_of_t...

There's a Google talk that Randall Munroe did. Knuth was there and Munroe asked him about that story, Knuth seemed to deny it.

"Full of shit" seems a very un-Knuth-y expression.

[edited to add: I should of course just have called it "unknuth", but my pun-sense wasn't quick enough on the mark.]

He mostly did business, but he was somewhat well versed in electronics. He was nowhere near a match for Woz, so he got out of it fairly quickly. He probably did lend a hand on the assembly line in the early days.

With the Apple I and Apple II, there was a lot of work in assembling the machines, lining up parts, and arranging sales. It's not like a startup now where it's mostly software.

I think you mean "It's not like a [software] startup now where it's mostly software." There are still hardware startups where people are populating boards and assembling products. The goal is to quickly get through that stage, but in the beginning, not everyone can afford the large order requirements for outsourced manufacturing.

There's an idea for a startup: outsourced manufacturing for startups with small orders.

It's not really necessary since even the big contract manufacturers will take pretty small orders, especially if there's an opportunity for a JDM/ODM project or a sustaining engineering contract in the future. The big guys also have the advantage of an economy of scale in dealing with component suppliers.

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