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Comment by actusual | Hacker News Reader

Steve quotes in the video "I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been" which is of course a Wayne Gretsky quote, and I think it captures this sentiment very well. Moving from leader to follower is such a classic move for an incumbent like Apple, and with Steve they never seemed to lose that insurgent mindset, even when they were absolutely enormous. They've steadily stagnated and truly lost that founder's mentality, and it sucks. I miss Steve Jobs a lot, and think about him often.

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Honestly I don't see this. I realize it's a simple narrative, and it's one that plays well with the heroic arc, but businesses are not Aesop's Fables, sat on this earth to give us a morality tale to use to guide our children. The facts on the ground are far more complicated than "Apple was creative under Steve and isn't under Cook." Apple had MORE products when in the market when Steve came back as CEO, and he ruthlessly pared them down to the core. If Tim Cook killed half of Apple's lineup, would you say "wow, what a Steve-like move?" or would you say the company is simply resting on its laurels?

Apple has been managed by Tim Cook for more years now than it was by Steve Jobs. By business measures it is significantly more successful. They haven't released the next iPhone-class product, but one does not simply walk into Mordor, nor does one make an iPhone of products every year, or even every decade.

I think Apple is doing fine, warts and all. N of 1, but I've spent more money on their stuff in the last 4 years than I did in the 12 before that.

I think Steve was a product guy and Cook is more likely a business guy. I'm not making a value judgement either way, but I do see a lack of product vision/innovation under Cook, and I believe product vision/innovation is what excites me most about consumer electronics. I think the fact that Steve released several "once in a lifetime" level of success products in such a short time span is evidence enough for this.

Something that Steve jobs did well was understanding that building great products and successful business metrics aren't necessarily always aligned, especially in a product's nascent period.

I agree, and I don't think the time is right for the next major product category. Force something through and you get the cube again. They'll presumably wait for head-mounted displays of some sort, and a play at cars.

Did you know Steve Jobs personally?

I'm stupefied as to how someone who didn't know him socially can miss a CEO of a giant faceless corporation, especially one known to be such a monumental asshole.

I mean his company made consumer products. It's like saying you miss the former CEO of Braun.

I honestly don't get it.

The answer of this question is complicated and requires mastery in psychology. In layman terms is something about religious experience mixed with father figure and deep symbolism. People need something to believe and worship, this is part of multinational traditions in different forms. I personally have used Apple computers from purely UX an UI motivation, never trusted a slogan or marketing "reality distortion field", never been an early adopter or Apple fetishist. Simply put, in one distant point in time Macs were the ultimate professional tools. UNIX based, clean, logical software with reliable and beautifully designed hardware.

Now they are just a services and fashion company with hardware appliances as vehicles for vertical integration.

I respected Jobs intuition towards product design and execution but never "idolized" him for a second.

Even today, people don't get it, thousands of talented and faceless people are involved in Apples success but everything that the world can see is the face of the CEO and marketing presentation (This on second thought is one of biggest Jobs innovations).

The bigger problem is that we are "stuck" in Jobs vision of "user oriented" product (which figures as Tim Cook effectively abused and shifted towards monopoly, politics and shareholders driven existence) and cannot move forward.

The success stories of Jobs and Apple are considered "The Holly Grail" of tech companies and we have even some impostors using perception tricks (Elizabeth Holmes).

It is sad and frightening at the same time. If User Centered Design was really applied (not only advertised) the current state of personal computing would include real focus on encryption, privacy, data protection and accessibility, not some fetishistic obsession with tech specs and decoration in the name of "perception of progress" or corporate profits.

I’m stupefied as to how someone who didn’t know him socially can miss the CEO of a giant faceless corporation

Would you have called Apple “faceless” if Steve Jobs were still CEO?

I miss Steve Jobs because he did great things and he inspired others to do great things. The world was a more vibrant and creative place with him in it. As a software engineer I have used Apple products to do almost all of my day-to-day work since 2004 and I am thankful I have not had to use Linux, Windows or Android instead. It makes me sad to think of what we might have today if he was still alive.

And in comparison, here on HN, you mention the CEO of company that makes - electric razors? Whose name you cannot even remember?

The fact that Steve Jobs was an asshole to people at times is irrelevant. You value people for their strengths, not their weaknesses.

As an interesting aside, Braun was led by Dieter Rams, a towering figure in product design and one of Jobs most influential idols.

https://blogs.lt.vt.edu/andrewpacio/2016/02/19/how-a-designe...

Dieter Rams was the legendary head of industrial design at Braun but I don't think you could say that he led the company.

His role was more akin to Jony Ive's at Apple.

Jobs was a different kind of animal. It's hard to say exactly what the source of his magic was but the fact that he remained interesting throughout his career showed he had something special that's still worth talking about.

What I miss is his insight into the state of the industry, the direction technology is going, and his discourse on design and why Apple products he worked on are engineered the way they are.

Yes he was a flawed person especially when he was younger, but he was also incredibly insightful, a master communicator and was always interesting to listen to. I think it's reasonable to miss that, and hence the person.

The stagnation started well into Jobs' era, right after the iPad.

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