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Comment by general_failure | Hacker News Reader

It looks like some people like Steve are charismatic enough to get the complete devotion of very talented people. It's a great personality trait to have and pretty much guarantees success. We all know geniuses in our everyday life like Wozniak, Bob, cook. But how many of us can get these guys be terrified of us, make them change their lives for our visin and make them give us their complete attention... That's the beauty of Steve. Despite flaws in his character, people seem to be feel previliged working for him.

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It's probably common in technology area that due to Dunning-Kruger effect many super talented engineers have low self-esteem and real-life skills, and are attracted by "magical" personalities, forming narcissist-codependent pairs. I see it all around, it's sad, but unless engineers fix their broken "insides", it's going to happen. It's then pretty logical that the narcissistic part of the pair gets all the fame, spotlight, power, and the co-dependent part gets used, squeezed, depleted and thrown away once not useful.

Dunning-Kruger is the opposite (when unskilled individuals think of themselves as being much more talented than they actually are).

D-K goes both ways - unskilled think of themselves highly, highly skilled lowly. I often wonder if this is the ultimate joke of the Universe embedded deeply in the fabric of "matrix".

MarkTee is right - DK only goes one way. The other direction is called "Impostor Syndrome". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

I don't see how it's invalid to argue that they're just two sides of the same coin. If no-talent hacks think they're better than they are, how could the opposite not be true for the same underlying reasons?

Not logically ironclad, of course, but we are talking pop psychology here.

Nailed it. Most of the Silicon Valley hotshots are those who've become extremely adept at exploiting talented people with low self-esteem.

It`s almost a covalent bond. The same that diamonds are made of.

Many engineers spend their lives struggling to do great work within seemingly arbitrary constraints on budget, timeline, vision, or internal politics. Part of the power of Steve Jobs was that he removed many of those constraints, but in return demanded a very high level of innovation and quality.

Why is the DK effect mentioned in every second thread here?

Because it's a fancy scientific-sounding way for nerds to look down on those stupid jocks who are so dumb they don't even know how dumb they are and thereby buoy our foundering sense of self-esteem.

It's also thrown out as a red herring pretty often around here.

Is it not possible that what you describe as a two-way parasitic relationship is in fact one of symbiosis?

I sort of find it a little sad that very talented people have this god like image of someone like Steve. Without them he would have been nothing, but still he gets all the glory and fear, and they get little respect.

The part of the cult of personality I find most fascinating is the attributions of Apple's successes to Jobs personally, but Apple's failures were attributed to the relevant teams, who 'let Jobs down'.

You are generalizing, incorrectly. Many people (including myself) are quite aware of Steve's flaws, and yet appreciate the fact that in the end he Got Things Done and achieved impressive things.

Admiring or having respect for someone does not necessarily imply you're having a "god-like image" of the person, or that you're unconditionally accepting everything the person has done.

It's bizarre to me that people have this perception when Jony Ive is practically a household name in the US; not to mention that Tim Cook, Phil Schiller, and Scott Forstall all have been given props by Steve in his keynotes. I could rattle off more of Apple's senior leadership than any other tech company, so I really don't understand why people claim that Steve Jobs took all the glory.

I agree.

Nobody denies that Jobs has a world-class ego, but I challenge anybody to point out where, in one of Jobs' keynotes or interviews, where he ever takes credit for an invention or innovation using "I" instead of "we."

So why is Apple not releasing any new products lately - just revamps? Companies are thriving under perfectionist, customer-oriented dictators.

Competent leadership is, I'm finding, incredibly hard to come by. Most tech leaders I've had the fortune/misfortune to be under seem to be of the sort where they were in the right industry at the right time, and they were the only game in town. When it comes to demonstrating leadership and innovation, their ideas end up closer to "The Homer" (car on the Simpsons) than even the worst products Apple has come up with.

Judging by the number of high level departures from Apple after Jobs' death, it seems like that devotion to Jobs was the main glue holding those personalities together.

"But how many of us can get these guys be terrified of us, make them change their lives for our vision and make them give us their complete attention"

I'll list a few:

* Stalin

* Pol Pot

* Shoko Ashara

* David Koresh

Did you struggle too much to come up with that list? You only missed Hitler by an inch.

Ad hominem attack on a dead man is so low I can't even describe it.

Sadly, this is HN. So long HN.

Don't worry, I was saying the same thing when he was alive.

Good for you.

It's been a nice day since I left, much more productive. So in the end I guess I have to thank you for being such an asshhole.

Doing the same thing you accuse of others, eh?

Personal attacks are not allowed on Hacker News.

I do not wish to participate in this community. Please remove my account. And thanks for all the fish and hype.

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