He certainly understood tech enough to have good judgement. What I have seen in companies I worked that was that a lot of executives can be bullshitted a lot because they don't bother understanding the tech. Jobs was at least technical enough to not fall into this trap.
Yes, he understood very well, I agree. I got downvoted alot on this thread as many people don't seem to want to believe that Steve Jobs was also a techie. They should check out Walter Isaacsons biography if they doubt it. Just because he is the best at marketing didn't mean that he couldn't be a good techie. But it is ok, techies always think in binary terms
From what I have read he never was a big contributor though but his main strength was to look at other people's work and recognize good things.
I dont think he was a very good techie. I don't believe the biography because it was written by choice of Steve Jobs.
All I can say is that you should read up on him and what he did compared to his technical peers at the time. He was far better than most developers who call themselves developers today
I agree. The way he developed that arcade board for Atari - not many people would scam their best friend for a couple hundred bucks.
This. He was a scammer even for small amounts, even when he didn't really have to be.