What Would You Answer If Jobs Asked “What Have You Done That’s So Great …”?

T. Roosevelt

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

Anton Ego from Ratatouille:

"In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little, yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the new. The world is often unkind to new talents, new creations. The new needs friends. Last night, I experienced something new; an extraordinary meal from a singularly unexpected source. To say that both the meal and its maker have challenged my preconceptions about fine cooking, is a gross understatement. They have rocked me to my core. In the past, I have made no secret of my disdain for Chef Gusteau's famous motto, "Anyone can cook". But I realize - only now do I truly understand what he meant. Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere. It is difficult to imagine more humble origins than those of the genius now cooking at Gusteau's, who is, in this critic's opinion, nothing less than the finest chef in France. I will be returning to Gusteau's soon, hungry for more."

You can play that game on all sorts of fronts. For example, an elitist-feeling Nobel Prize in Physics winner might pick out some reasonably successful YC company and ask them, "well, you have a website, but what have you really done lately?" And regardless of how useful they think their startup is, they can't compete with the Nobel-prize winner on the prize-winner's terms (unless, perhaps, they actually do invent something field-changing).

http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-ig/2004JulSep/02...

"Actually, no, it is not the responsibility of the critic to solve the problem. Pauline Kael was not expected to rewrite and redirect the films she disliked."

"[N]ot everybody who can spot a mistake can fix it (I know there's a leak in the ceiling; do you expect me to get up there with a ladder and a bucket o' tar?)"

This doesn't excuse people who rip on everything they see. However, good, balanced criticism is very valuable, regardless of the critic's Maker™ credentials. Don't let others tell you otherwise.

In this case, however, I think Steve was just lashing out against this guy's sense of entitlement. Tate also had a narrative fallacy problem.

The recurrent successful experiences of Steve Jobs can and should be used as a heuristic that he has no "vision problems" ;).

But the argument is unfair because the lack of successful experience proves nothing more that you didn't have YET a successful experience and certainly not that you might be wrong on the debated matter. As successful experiences won't prove that you will always be right, it's just a heuristic.

It makes me wonder why the two go together and whether I can break that link so I could answer 'nothing' and be OK with that.