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Comment by WalterSear | Hacker News Reader

I'm not sure what I'm supposed to take away from this story. Perhaps someone can enlighten me?

It just doesn't seem any different from a host of corporate conferences I've help produce. The fact that they got Herbie Hancock shows that this wasn't balls instead of budget.

Even Micheal Jackson likes macs? Working at a popular, high profile tech firm can help when making cold calls?

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The post title is about big dreams. Jobs could have thought "Michael Jackson would be great to have but he's too big of a star and would never agree, so let's settle for Herbie Hancock instead". The outcome would have been exactly the same. Instead, Jobs wanted it to happen, and Mark didn't know any better so he tried to make it happen. And guess what... it would have happened, if only for the budget mismatch.

That in and of itself would be a nice historical story and no takeaway is required. However, if you insist on there being a takeaway, then try this one on for size: don't put artificial limits on what you think is possible. Move forward and make it happen as your assumptions about what is possible and what isn't are probably wrong.

Except that's not dreaming so big, IMHO. And experience.

You can take away that Michael Jackson's record company is very efficient at directing calls, reaching Michael in 5 minutes. And, Michael Jackson negotiates his own payment for appearances, apparently.

I think this story is about not giving up on hard/impossible tasks. Most people would not have even tried to attempt to contact Michael Jackson because to them it would be an "impossible" task. Just like most people will tell you why a new business or product idea should not be made.

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