Steve Jobs' first boss: 'Very few companies would hire Steve, even today'
siliconvalley.com
siliconvalley.com
Steve Jobs could be many things. Inspired is one of them. An asshole is another. Just because people think you're an asshole doesn't automatically mean you're inspired.
Who is actually "unhireable"? And even if they are, does that mean they cannot accomplish anything? Are you in charge of deciding who will never amount to anything?
There's "obvious" bad ideas like trying to sell sand in the desert.
There's the bad (underwhelming) ideas, maybe that's the most common of them, it's probably the 'trying to make a weird idea sellable'. Like 'french fries are amazing but unhealthy so let's try to sell potatoes cut as fries, but baked, with no salt'
There's also quirky ideas as bad ideas, which is the way most people go and what PG probably meant. Not to mention sometimes your idea looks like the same as a failed one already but the devil is in the details.
You probably do quite nicely selling white sands to the beach resorts of the middle east.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pet_rock
There are some days I must grudgingly agree with screenwriter William Goldman's "Nobody knows anything."
If you're not more confused by life as you get older, you haven't been paying enough attention.
Who do you give the money to? Any of these guys?
Just because fads exist, doesn't mean bad ideas don't. Banking on the pet rock was a huge gamble for someone and it somehow worked out. Fad toys must have 1 out of 100,000 success rate, if that.
" It seemed the perfect bad idea: a site (1) for a niche market (2) with no money (3) to do something that didn't matter.
One could have described Microsoft and Apple in exactly the same terms"
1. They have something tangible to offer every single person that has to deal with them.
2. They are able to build bridges at least as fast as they're able to burn them down.
If the behavior isn't sustainable then I think its safe to say we have a problem, not an asset.
"The basics: Make work fun; weed out the naysayers; celebrate failure, and then learn from it; allow employees to take short naps during the day; and don't shy away from hiring talented people just because they look sloppy or lack college credentials."
Basically because if somebody like Steve Jobs doesn't have a Steve Wozniak to build things for him in the start he is more or less a arrogant egoistic tantrum throwing hippie kind of a guy whom nobody would like to deal with.
You meet a genius co-founder like Steve Wozniak very very rarely.
Nearly every program manager is a lesser version of Steve Jobs, that is how authority looks cool and glorified. Giving an impression that the manager is automagically creating success out of thin air while a engineer somewhere pushing 19 hr daily schedules to make it happen doesn't count or is irrelevant.
Steve Jobs reminds of Peter Keating from Ayn Rand's 'The Fountainhead'.
Tell me that using the dealer trick to not have a license plate is somehow not the same childish level of vanity that you would expect of a successful manchild.
A non-exhaustive list of things which the law allows for and which many people have the ability to do:
* Call you names * Give you projects that are doomed to fail * Place you on a team which will drag you down * Use you as a scapegoat for the failure of a project * Use KLOC as a metric of performance * Show you the finger at a traffic light
And yet we don't approve of these things. Something being lawful is the bare minimum, not the gold standard.
Is it tiresome to hear about Jobs? Yeah, I'm over it. But you know what's worse are the people coming back with the idea that the managers are all leaches. You don't work in a vacuum. You are not capable of accomplishing it all on your own. And guess what? Steve Jobs was capable of things that most people are not.
Criticize him for taking the aesthetic and not the architecture from PARC. Criticize him for creating locked platforms and eschewing FOSS. Criticize him on any number of substantive topics, but don't let's bog down every moment of cultural hero worship just because they didn't choose the guy with our job title. The engineers get their time.
Seriously? You think Hank Rearden developed Rearden Steel without all of the efforts others had first made in steel? Dagny inherited her damn railroad. She didn't create it. Richard Halley didn't invent music. John Galt was working in a damn auto factory. He didn't invent autos nor the idea of an engine. Midas Mulligan was a goddammed banker. He didn't invent currency or the idea of stored value.
Employees operate within the rules established by their employers - they have a boss and are expected to be a "good solider" to support objectives of their company / business unit... People like Steve Jobs are successful because of their audacity to disregard the rules and make their own.
These are entirely different mindsets and skillsets. Employees are given direction, entrepreneurs set the direction.
What I find a lot more interesting is that quite a few startup founders act like employees rather than leaders - constantly asking (explicitly or implicitly) for approval of others. Look around and see if you can recognize people who care about the opinions of press/investors/advisors/peers more than achieving product/market fit followed by revenue/profitability/growth.
Steve Jobs was a non-technical guy.We have 1 million topics on HN bashing these guys for 1 million reasons.Even on this one we have engineers talking about the same thing over and over.
How about being realistic at least once. We do not give these people any chance of working with us.Because we are so arrogant these days that we think the world belong to us and only we (programmers/engineers) can change it.
We cannot find a Steve Jobs when we are not willing to risk at all.How many of you helped a non-technical guy building a project without asking for a huge amount of money or 100% equity?Probably not many.Most of the help consists of telling the guy to find a cofounder or to quit the project.Not one programmer/engineer would say "hey you know what, you're crazy but I'll help you" or any other similar line.
The truth is we do not own the world and we are not all-knowing. We can be all-star programmers and yet have crap ideas.Nothing is set in stone.Someone out there is always better than you.And history shows us that small things count. Unbelievable things come from unexpected places.
I am not saying that every non-technical guy is a Steve Jobs because I had my own failures with these guys and yes, it's incredibly frustrating.But those were bad selections.A risk I was willing to take.I helped a non-technical guy with a startup 4 years ago.He had a weird idea and he asked me to help him in exchange for a fixed sum of 350K. He came to me with a damn paper and pen to talk about his idea. He had no money to hire a programmer only an ambition that could move mountains.And after 6 months I received the money in my account...the startup was a success...and that's when I changed my mentality.
So in conclusion, if we want to see a Steve Jobs, we have to take risks.Otherwise let's continue flipping the coin and wait for it.
EDIT: Typo killed.
We have plenty of young talented people in this world.But I already stated the problem in my initial post.
But, during the early years Jobs was not selling his own crazy ideas, he was selling Woz's. Plus I wouldn't say that Jobs was a non-technical guy as he clearly knew tech, he just accepted his place in that field.
The thing I don't get about your comment is that we see people risking things on non-technical people's ideas every day, so I don't understand your point.
Steve Jobs was a non-technical guy.That's why there were so many debates about tech and non tech guys during these years.He acquired knowledge over time through various sources.He had everything on a plate.And you can be a complete outsider in a company.When you spend so much time in your industry, in your environment, you learn.But you couldn't say he was a programmer or engineer.
Saying that people are risking things on non-tech people's ideas every day is like saying people are driving a car every day.Of course they are.In this world there is a little bit of everything.Rich people, poor people, low jobs, high jobs etc. We are talking about the majority or current situation. And for the moment the situation is just how I described it.
If you think it is not true, post a project on HN as a non-technical guy and ask for someone to help you build your project.I am curious how many would help you.
That is just my personal opinion based on my observations and experiences.
Jobs was involved in numerous projects creating highly popular technical products in several different roles. Now did he dig in to create the circuit boards and code the programs himself? No, he did not. But that's like saying a team lead is not a technical person because he doesn't code himself. To help create technical products from the ground up there has to be some level technical knowledge involved. Maybe your standard of what constitutes technical knowledge is higher than mine or maybe we just think of being technical as different things.
As I said before, your third paragraph agrees with my point. What you are complaining about has been around for quite a while and will most likely will exist for a time to come.
Someone with no technical knowledge asking for help on a project and not getting it does not necessarily lead to your conclusion on the community in general. One could say the same if you have a crazy idea for a new type of house, when you've never built a house before, and no one in the construction industry steps forward to build your house on spec for no money down. That's simply how the world works and has always worked. What you want is the exception to be the rule.
But then again, I'm sure the open source world has several examples of what you say doesn't happen.
But hey, if you choose to be a programmer, you should do it because you really like it not because you make a lot of money. I can work 30h non stop on a project I like even if it's not mine, because I really like to build projects.
I don't want the exception to be the rule.It would be impossible after all.What I want is tech guys to risk more when it comes to non-technical people.
Btw, when you are smart and very talented you don't really need to get that technical.I already wrote about a non-technical guy I've worked with which had no technical background and no experience with startups that was able to build a product from his mind. I was shocked.I mean he didn't even know how to design it in photoshop.He was able to guide us through the building process almost perfectly.Now, of course he was reading a lot about everything but besides that he had no real technical background.
Should I say that guy was technical or non-technical?We probably see things differently.
We should return to our topic subject because we are entering the eternal debate and we will just ruin the topic.
So, one could easily compare him with Stalin, Hitler, and other people like these who happened to have similar habits? Well, the life story of well-adjusted sociopaths...
You should read "How to Make Friends and Influence People" It contains quite a few examples of what true leadership is.
According to whom?
>"How to Make Friends and Influence People"
Leadership isn't about making friends; it's about getting people to obey. Hitler, Stalin and Steve Jobs all knew this well.
>Leadership isn't about making friend; It's about getting people to obey.
I agree that leadership isn't about making friends, but the other half of the book's title is "and Influencing People," which is about getting people to do what you want them to, which is exactly what you said leadership is about.
Hitler and Stalin were not good leaders. Sure, you can force people to do things if your commands are backed up by the promise of torture and death, but that's not leadership by any stretch of the imagination.
You can be successful for a number of reasons. Most good leaders are successful, but success alone isn't an indicator of leadership ability. Good leaders are far too rare for every successful organization to have one.
Hitler and Stalin weren't born with the ability to have anyone tortured or killed. They didn't inherit generals and secret police under their command. These power structures they built themselves over the course of their respective political careers. Their ability to rally people to their respective causes was formidable.
For another example of belligerence and downright nastiness as a leadership quality: look no further than the military. Drill Instructors are legendary for the intimidating and degrading treatment of their subordinates and yet I find it very hard to argue with the results. By and large, they're able to produce unshakably loyal soldiers.
Also, most Soldiers are loyal because most people who aren't already patriotic wouldn't have much of a reason to go through all the bullshit. Anyone who thinks that you can get brainwashed by 9 weeks of mild exercise and ass-chewings delivered by a group of regular people who are paid to pretend that they are mad at you must have had a pretty easy life. Basic training is the codecademy of military discipline.
Totally different situation. You're talking about maintaining high morale with career soldiers. I'm talking about rousing up a bunch of conscripts and packing them off to war. Historically, these types of people made up the bulk of the armies and didn't live long enough to cause trouble for the organization.
" Finally, I'd like to once again talk about investment management. That is a funny business because on a net basis, the whole investment management business together gives no value added to all buyers combined. That's the way it has to work. " - Charlie Munger
When people rejected or passed on .. at that point in time .. it would have been entirely rational to do so. I am not certain even Mr.Jobs knew how time would turn.
Here is a short post talk interview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odcXGIQuxAg
And, the talk itself (5th one in the list), plus many other interesting ones from computing legends if anyone wants to check them out: http://www.sjsu.edu/at/atn/webcasting/archives/fall_2011/his...
$50 000 in 1976, the year Apple was founded, had the purchasing power of over $200 000 today. Without the benefit of hindsight he probably made a sensible, if unlucky, decision.
Cash only makes a difference in the event of a tie-break, and I think he's ahead of most.
Also, I'm sick of hearing people downplay Jobs' role in Apple and giving Woz all of the credit (although I'm not surprised; I'm assuming that many introverted code monkeys here aspire to be the unsung hero co-founder of a company).
It's the same shit I hear about how the Beatles would be nothing without George Martin or LSD. It should go without saying that these revolutionary things (i.e. Apple and the Beatles) are products of both serendipitous events AND the surrounding cultural context. Yes, if you remove one piece of the puzzle, OF COURSE the end-result will be different. But what makes it a moot point is that the converse is also true -- George Martin would be nothing without the Beatles, and Woz would be completely unheard of if it weren't for Steve Jobs.
Surprised Jobs would have offered so much of Apple, even in the formative stages, for $50k (which surely translates to much more money than $50k is today). It is interesting to consider how that would have changed the control/direction of Apple.
But they still have to do things like pay rent, buy food, buy clothes, buy tech. Those things take money. And money is usually gotten from a job. The point is, Jobs wouldn't have even been able to get a job to survive first. That old guy sweeping floors in McDonald's today? Did you ever stop to think what led him there? (For the Rand worshipers out there, how was Galt employed at Taggart Transcontinental?)
One could make the argument that even a founder is "hired" when he requires somebody else's money to make it happen.
Interesting seeing the egos on display.
We might not like them, but we can recognise them
Michael, have you read Managing the Professional Service Firm by David Maister? He writes powerfully about economics, incentives, and culture as they relate to management. I think his book would give you a lot to think about, and you'd find plenty both to learn and to argue against. His focus is a "firm" structured on the partner/associate model. I'd love to see more people thinking about and experimenting with that model for software developers. I think it offers many similarities to what you admire about Github and Valve. And perhaps it is a model where Steve Jobs could find a place.
I don't like the partner/associate model as it works in law firms, because (at least in 2013) it becomes a two-class system as toxic as the tenured/not distinction in academia.
Also, law firm bonuses aren't direct profit-sharing. What I proposed in my recent essay ( http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/03/26/gervais-macle... ) is real, motivationally significant profit-sharing extended to all employees. In biglaw, they are hosed if they work hard for 7 years and don't make partner; in VC-istan, engineers in a 50-person company get ~0.04% equity instead of the ~0.45% profit sharing they'd get under my system.
The idea that I have in mind is one where profit sharing's open to all employees and substantial but very few people end up holding equity, because the thing's not built to be sold and equity is only for people expected to be long-term (10+ years) contributors.