Hacker News Reader

Comment by trevor99 | Hacker News Reader

Thanks pg.

My intent was not to bash Jobs, quite the opposite as I called him "one of the best CEOs ever to live" in the conclusion.

My goal is to reflect on what skills are really important in an early startup. The Apple II wasn't a success because of Jobs's leadership or because of his design focus like with the iPhone. Founders don't think about Markkula's role in getting the Apple II mainstream. Furthermore, Jobs had to fail over and over, wasting millions of dollars, before he tamed his bad habits and realized what would work. Then again, I only know what I'm talking about from reading Isaacson's biography and doing my own research. Thought this would make an interesting discussion.

View on HN

"Jobs’s most important contribution was just general hustling."

This is where I think you went wrong. You can have the greatest product in the World, and if you can't sell it, you're toast.

So the question is, who sold it, Jobs or Markkula?

Jobs sold Woz and Markkula on the idea of starting a company to build and sell computers, which was probably the most important sales job of all.

The most valuable skill in a startup is Jobs-style hustling. The whole article and your attempts to defend it are misguided.

Are you sure about that? I do not almost nothing about those early years, but I get the impression that what made the Apple ][ a success is that it got accepted as a office machine. It got that status because it had a case and a keyboard.

VisiCalc played a role here, too, but I think it came to the Apple ][ because it was (relatively) popular in business, and then helped increase sales, rather then that it made the Apple ][ popular completely on its own.

Now, why did the Apple ][ get a case to start with? I think that was more Jobs' than Woz's work (<http://allaboutstevejobs.com/blog/tag/woz/>)

"I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."

-Michael Jordan

"Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly." ― Robert F. Kennedy

Was he the one who actually came up with that? It sounds suspiciously like Nike ad copy. In fact, it would make a very good Nike ad.

Yep.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45mMioJ5szc

Reply on news.ycombinator.com