Comment by sgpl | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sgpl | Hacker News Reader

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>>> Steve clawed his way to the top, and turned himself into a god, when all of his talents were really nothing more than hiring the right people (Steve would have been an absolute nobody if he had never met Wozniak (or a man of similar talent) to flush out his ideas) -- in fact he probably would have turned out to be a homeless person

You can say the same of almost everyone that is successful in the world. Also, Steve didn't turn himself into god, people did. Ambition and determination play a huge role in successful people's lives (depending on your definition of success), but LUCK is always a huge factor.

For example...

0.) Lincoln wouldn't have become President if he had given up after a few election losses, and we could make an argument that slavery in America would have taken much longer to abolish or not at all without his leadership. Perhaps Lincoln was mentally ill to run so many times instead of gracefully accepting his loss.

1.) Elon Musk would never have cofounded SpaceX & Tesla would not be possible without him betting his financial future on the company. But you could make a similar statement that Elon wouldn't be who he is today, if he hadn't left Sooth Africa, if he hadn't stumbled upon SV, etc.

2.) JayZ would never have become what he is today, if he had gotten busted or shot in his younger years when he was dealing drugs.

3.) Nelson Mandel wouldn't be who he is today if he had given up on his ideals and dreams of the future while serving for 27 years in prison.

4.) Justin Bieber wouldn't be the most popular musician alive today if he(his mom) hadn't uploaded a video on youtube that resulted in his being recruited by some music manager and promoted just as social media and sharing where becoming the part of everyday life. He'd just be another guy that saw singing as a hobby or gained only regional fan following if he pursued his passion.

TL:DR -> Almost everyone you know, respect, admire or don't would have been an "absolute nobody" if it weren't for certain circumstances favorable/unfavorable in their lives.

On a more generic level, you could say if a person's biological mother hadn't consummated a relationship/fling/marriage with that person's biological father, that person and everything s/he has accomplished wouldn't exist.

Yep - if not x, than not y applies to every aspect of the universe. :) But what I am trying to drive home is that (IMHO) there is a huge disconnect between Job's actual talents, and the amount of respect he is given. Wozniak too would have likely been a nobody, sometimes it takes that pairing of people to produce enough drive to create a product (I know because I have experienced it first hand -- I used to work with what you might call a psychological clone of Steve Jobs, but he got me to work at a rate I never have before - only he was never abusive).

Anyway, all of what you say is basically true. :) But I feel like Jobs has stolen most of the respect from all the people who work so hard under him that really have made Apple what it is. I guess I kind of have the engineer's mind set, for better or worse - I admire people who can create things with their own two hands (or at least the people who get their hands dirty), and I don't particularly care for those who can't -- I can't really say that without sounding like an elitist prick, but maybe that is what I am. :)

So essentially, you're trying to say you're better than Steve Jobs because you can program?

For the record, I do not consider myself to be better than anyone - Steve was at least successful. My history is paved with failures.

Who is "JayZ" ? Somebody important, I assume?

me too.. i have never heard this name before. Then I googled. Here it is : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay-Z. He is a rapper.

Just to clarify why sgpl cited him: he is one of the (if not the absolute) most successful rappers of all time. Definitely top of his field. And married to Beyoncé (who is no slouch herself). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyoncé_Knowles (just in case)

This reminds me of the joke "How do you know if someone doesn't own a television."

(Searching JayZ on google yields About 123,000,000 results.)

I don't know the joke, could you explain? Googling it didn't give me any hints (the top result is an article at The Onion "Area Man Constantly Mentioning He Doesn't Own A Television")

The joke is:

- How do you know if someone doesn't own a television? They tell you.

The Onion article is just an elaborate version of the joke.

The joke here is people making a big deal about not knowing who Jay-Z is, to the extent they post comments about how they don't know it - rather than just google his name if they were curious. Which indicate that the do know who he is, but want to make a show of being the kind of guy who don't know who someone Jay-Z is.

There's a related joke: How do you know if someone thinks they might suffer from Aspeger's Syndrome?

If the question had been "Who is Justin Bieber?", I would have been a very happy man.

I honestly can't tell which is more tolerable. I might be a cynic, but they both sound like shit.

Dubmood OTOH, is excellent.

You're not a cynic. You're just a typical rube with unforgivably bad taste in eurotrash music.

We don't resort to ad hominems here. It would appear you're a fan of either Biebs or Jay-Z but not Dubmood and, as per the misclassification wrt genre, have been misinformed about said artists.

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