We have such a false dichotomy built into our culture where the brilliant engineer types are unable to communicate their ideas with precision, zeal, persuasion, and charisma.
I think it is fair that we distrust only charisma. Many people prey upon this.
Still, I could hold up at least four personal friends and three former coworkers that blow the doors off any such assumptions.
Several have worked through up and around Silicon Valley, but others have found other paths, including bureaucracy.
Is it hard for me to believe that Steve Jobs fits that pattern? Quite the opposite.
Jobs often disagreed with people about what was attainable. Bending the perception of truth is not the same as denying or not caring about truth.
Jobs held core truths, ie testable claims, such as “design matters” and design could differentiate Apple and make it wildly valuable. He was largely correct.
Jobs had a track record of delivering. So his visions often did map on to reality. In this sense, the reality distortion field served as a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy.
Frankfurtian bullshitters, OTOH, don’t care if the truth catches up to them. To them it’s all just words you say for convenience.
disclaimer: ex Apple / like (not love — love is a word best preserved for human relationships) Apple products / strive to be generally skeptical and discontented with everything
He also described that working at Apple and under Jobs as scary. If you didn’t bring your A-game you would be fired rather quickly.
Anyway the book is interesting.