Such assessment is a good proxy for a certain kind of intelligence only, because intelligence itself exists on a fairly wide spectrum, it is not a binary trait.
'proper' Engineering (MECH/AERO/CIVIL/EEE) is full of memes about this mindset.
CS is just as bad.
Most decent engineers loose this mindset after freshman year but many go on to see them selves as the MVP department of whatever business.
In some ways I think Startup culture fights against this because it's really obvious at small team scale how different skill sets are needed.
Sales is an outlier because compensation for the best can be really good. So, it's got a large group of very talented people and many far less so.
A normal consumer with a normal job is only really going to encounter the lower end of the field.
Whooaa, that's quite a stretch.
'Modern Computing' was happening with or without Steve Jobs. He certainly was an exemplar visionary that put the right parts together at the right time.
But, he did not create or define. Technological progress has it's own immutable momentum.
He did introduce a class of devices/products but Apple and Computational machines are not two concepts I associate.
The Windows OS has done more. My point being... yes he's a genius but in terms of Marketing, Business and seeing where the hockey puck is going.
He excelled at selling to desires, but look at the 'real computers' Apple has produced in recent years.
Spend hours and hours going through the unedited version of history and judge for yourself. You can see the birth of many industries(Youtube-Mac Streaming, Google Search - Sherlock) in those keynotes and its refreshing to see it done so well. I'm not saying Jobs succeeded at all these things, but he definitely saw these things way way before anyone.
put another way, a lot of the _reason_ that companies like facebook and google are doing any computation in the first place is because of the level of data and interaction that people are doing on devices made by apple. You are welcome to make a distinction between a Cray and a MacBook pro, bu it is kind of pedantic.
If being able to create the 'end use software' on these devices, then again you're right.
If these devices are little more than portable web browsers, computing ?
It’s an interpretation, on what all but the extremes on either side can agree is a subjective inquiry in the first place. Also, a bit of a futile and misguided one if used to minimize other’s contributions in the field.
But for the same reason, it’s folly to discount Jobs as not a, if not the, closest thing to a creator. This is true despite engineers’ immutable/incorrect belief that actually creating product value + building working software = changing the world is inevitable, this video proves otherwise (back room computing vs actually empowering operations using computing) and reminds us that real artists ship.
Had Steve not, who knows what computing would look like 2008-2018, but it’s certainly not a stretch to posit that it’d look a whole lot different, which is what it seems gg99 was saying.
Windows has done far far more in terms of being a platform for computational work.
Incorrect. Perhaps this was just your attempt at humor, but it couldn't possibly be further from the truth.
> The thought that he was just a snake oil huckster is lunacy.
That someone is intelligent does not prevent them from also being a snake oil huckster. As a matter of fact, intelligence will make you the best snake oil huckster.
Smart and terrible person don't exclude each other.
It’s like the drill sergeant phenomenon— harsh leadership can have a place when attempting to forge ahead in a difficult mission as it often motivates the team to accomplish more than would normally be considered comfortable (or even healthy.)
An asshole boss on a mission is far preferable (to me,) than a “nice” boss driven by nothing other than maintaining the status quo.
Asshole bosses maintaining the status quo — now that genuinely sucks.
I don't think the meanness helped in creating the vision. They're two entirely separate things
>An asshole boss on a mission is far preferable (to me,) than a “nice” boss driven by nothing other than maintaining the status quo.
I'll agree on that, but still my experience has been that the bosses that extracted the most work from their employees were the ones that could give praise where it was due. I think Apple made it in spite of Steve Jobs character flaws, not because of them.