Comment by phaus | Hacker News Reader

Comment by phaus | Hacker News Reader

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>Besides Apple, Pixar and Next made Jobs billionaire too.

If Apple had never existed, he wouldn't have had the hundreds of millions dollars that he spent on these endeavors.

>Jobs was a natural leader and visionary.

Jobs was good at recognizing when the right time to bet on a technology was. When you are filthy rich, you can turn this talent into a license to print money. When you aren't already rich, it just makes you the average person on HN.

I can predict the success and failure of specific technologies with a staggering degree of accuracy, and I'm sure that most of the techies here can do the same thing.

Was anyone here surprised that RIM's brushing off of the capacitive touch-screen launched them into a death-spiral?

Was anyone here doubting that moore's law, flash memory, and high-resolution touch-screens would eventually make it possible to create a tablet that consumers would actually want?

Was anyone surprised that Android overtook a platform that was designed from the ground-up to serve as a symbol for exclusivity? Guess what happens when you launch with only one of the four major carriers? You just gave up any advantage you gained from being first to market.

This shit is obvious to people who live for technology. Steve Jobs didn't create the iPhone or the iPad, the electrical and computer engineers who saw it coming a few decades ago did. They saw potential and so they spent the best years of their lives developing the technology that would one day make it possible.

I'm not saying that Steve wasn't talented, because he was. I'm just saying that it takes more than talent, intelligence, and leadership ability to succeed at the level he did. There's a random element to it, and this random element is the largest factor.

There are thousands upon thousands of talented, smart people with ideas that could change the world. Most of them, if they ever even get a chance to try, will end up being crushed by a world that is reluctant to change.

You don't need millions to make technology bets. You were so sure RIM was going to implode? Why didn't you short the stock and laugh all the way to the bank?

I'll tell you why. Things aren't so obvious when you have some skin in the game.

>You don't need millions to make technology bets.

To become a household name as a genius capable of predicting the future you most certainly do.

>I'll tell you why. Things aren't so obvious when you have some skin in the game.

I'll tell you the real reason why: I make enough money to cover my living expenses, and that's about it. I am right about technology most of the time, but I don't have enough expendable income to afford ever being wrong. I'm not saying that I would be a wealthy investor if I obtained a few million dollars to get started with, there are a lot of other variables that determine how well suited a person is to that kind of work, and I'm fairly certain that its not for me.

I'm just saying that Jobs wasn't some kind of futurist demigod.

I think there are virtual stock markets that you can partake in to see how good you are (although this likely requires investing time which won't directly get paid back if you do well at it.) I wonder if people who do especially well in them can use virtual stock market success as a stepping stone to managing other peoples' money (and getting a cut).

It's well agreed upon that paper trading is nothing like trading with money on the line. It's ALL about psychology.

> It's well agreed upon that paper trading is nothing like trading with money on the line. It's ALL about psychology.

It's also pretty well agreed on (mainly from scientific studies into the actual results of investors) that this is not only bullcrap, but believing it's true was a major contributing factor in the enormous economic disaster we're all still living through right now. I'd like to say how galling it is to see someone hasn't learnt the basic hubris-based lesson we paid so much for -- except that I really can't express that in words adequately.

>It's also pretty well agreed on (mainly from scientific studies into the actual results of investors) that this is not only bullcrap

Are you sure you actually understand what nicholas actually argued? All nicholas (as well as me) wrote is that your decision making changes completely when you have something on the line. And of course it would! So what are you talking about?

When I say money on the line, it really means your own money on the line. The disaster you refer to is when people trade other people's money for a share of profits but no liability.

"Jobs was good at recognizing when the right time to bet on a technology was. When you are filthy rich, you can turn this talent into a license to print money. When you aren't already rich, it just makes you the average person on HN."

Jobs recognized the right time to bet on the personal computer when he had almost no money, and started Apple. You seem to be inferring Jobs always had a lot of money, which just isn't true.

The conversation was under the hypothetical context of Apple not existing.

Yes but the point is that Apple only existed because Jobs worked to make it exist, despite not having any money of his own.

>The conversation was under the hypothetical context of Apple not existing.

> If Apple had never existed, he wouldn't have had the hundreds of millions dollars that he spent on these endeavors.

Steve jobs was an entrepreneur. He did not had millions of dollars when he started with Apple so he could have also started with something else besides Apple and money would have came along as it did with Apple.

I agree with you there are so many genius people in this world. Not everyone gets to see Jobs like magnitude of success. I guess luck, tireless persuasion of your dreams, target also play part in your success rate

he could have also started with something else besides Apple

Assuming he had a Woz, perhaps. Perhaps he would have found another engineer, or perhaps Woz had a unique combination of skills that really meant Jobs was in the right place at the right time.

Jobs failed in his vision - a lot. Had the Apple II not kept Apple plodding along - remember what Woz said about Jobs's desire to kill it - and some of the strategic investments along the way from outside (Microsoft's investment of $150M when Apple was on the verge of bankruptcy), Apple would be a memory today.

I know that violates the meme on HN and elsewhere that Apple's success is purely the result of Jobs's genius and vision, but that's a rewriting of history.

>Jobs was good at recognizing when the right time to bet on a technology was. When you are filthy rich, you can turn this talent into a license to print money. When you aren't already rich, it just makes you the average person on HN.

Hahahahahaha. Yes.

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