Comment by TomOfTTB | Hacker News Reader

Comment by TomOfTTB | Hacker News Reader

I HATED this list. A few rebuttals to point out why...

Steve Jobs did not create products he created an organization. No. He was partially responsible for the creation. He sat in on design meetings and offered input and feedback. Plus he vetoed bad idea (just as important)

Steve Jobs did not wrest market share from competitors he created new markets: Tell that to Creative Labs and Microsoft. Creative labs had an MP3 player and Microsoft had tablets before apple came along. Apple just did things better.

Steve Jobs did not design anything he gave others freedom to think: Not really. He certainly encouraged people to think for themselves but anyone whose studied Jobs will tell you he stuck to his own vision. Your only way to design a product at Apple under Jobs was to make your case to him and change his vision.

Steve Jobs did not develop new management theories he showed by example: Well how do you think management theory is born? Good management theory comes from people who practiced what they preached.

Steve Jobs was not a futurist he built the future one piece at a time: WHAT?!? You don't build the future one piece at a time unless you have a vision of what it will be like as a whole.

Steve Jobs was not charismatic he spoke from the heart: WHAT?!? What do you think "being Charismatic" means?

Steve Jobs was not a gifted orator he spoke plainly: A gifted orator is someone who is engaging to watch speak. Jobs was engaging.

You're so close to understanding this essay, and yet I fear you're a thousand miles away.

I'm going to kill the poetry by trying to explain it, but try translating each phrase like this: When you read:

"Steve Jobs did not [do X], he [did Y]."

read it as:

"It's not so much that Steve Jobs did [legendary thing X], as that he did [apparently simple thing Y, and did you notice that by doing so he just happened to accomplish X as a side effect?]"

The author agrees with you.

(Note, by the way, that my rephrasing is absolutely bloated with weasel words that diminish its impact. That's why the original author wrote the way he did, at the expense of losing the literalists in the audience.)

I find such sentences as:

>Steve Jobs was not a futurist. He just built the future one piece at a time.

to be almost hypnotically devoid of meaning and disrespectful to the reader. Why not just say what's true? A good reader can be stunned by the truth, without needing to be lead through a difficult contradiction for dramatic effect.

Well sure. I mean, Abe Lincoln could have shortened the Gettysburg Address to "Let's free the slaves and reunite the union", but that wouldn't have had the same impact as the speech he did give.

There's nothing wrong with presenting a difficult idea that has a more dramatic effect. Do you think Moby Dick or War and Peace are considered great due to their simple ways of communicating ideas?

"Do you think Moby Dick or War and Peace are considered great due to their simple ways of communicating ideas?"

This is not an argument for being deliberately obtuse.

As long as you don't lose accuracy, sure. I think many of these crossed that line. They remind me of the tendency for bloggers to make a link-bait headline that obviously sounds bad, then they spend their whole post redefining what those words mean so at the end, their title is a good thing.

Apologies for the digression, but this subject matters to me. The Gettysburg Address is perhaps the greatest example of writing that's stunning without being difficult to interpret. For that matter of War & Peace is clear and generally free of embellishment.

I agree with scott_s that the whole article is written more in the style of linkbait than a challenging poem.

So I take it you don't read poetry.

That would be fine if his statements were factually correct. For example, the author's point is Steve Jobs built an organization that created great products. But he also ACTUALLY HELPED BUILD great products. Along with creating the organization.

So he doesn't really agree with me. I see your point about poetic license (and I'll be the first to admit I'm dense in the ways of poetry) but if your poetic license leads to factually incorrect statements you've taken it to far.

There are people who see the results that Steve Jobs helped create, and because they don't understand the process, they think that somehow he had magical instincts, or this was a unique talent.

Then there are those who see the process Steve Jobs utilized and recognize that the process is where he really innovated... and further, by studying and understanding this process, we can do better.

It's obvious that you are in the first group. I quote, from your own blog: "To be honest I don’t think you can learn much from Steve Jobs because he had such an extraordinary talent. His instincts were better than the combined rational thought of an entire industry. So in most things you can’t hope to emulate Steve Jobs."

So long as you believe this, you will never learn from him. That's fine. But when you post on HN and blatantly miss the forest for the trees, you're not going to be abel to successfully debate people who are telling you about the forest.

I had a similar reaction to grandparent. On reflection, my issue is that while the author may intend this as a tribute to steve, it comes across to me as exploitation. The author uses steve's death to advance an ideology. You say "poetry", I say "crass marketing". On the occasion of his death, let steve be steve, not a way to argue a point.

I think Horace's intention here was to inspire us all to believe that we are closer to becoming great than we think we are. I'm not crazy about the rhetorical device "Steve Jobs was not X", because of its absolute tone.

Read less literally, the reader could take a lot of things away from this list: the value of teamwork, trust, seeing things through, and being yourself. Steve Jobs was unique in many ways, not the least of which was an absolute commitment to the things he believed to be true. There are plenty of people out there today doing that same thing, but their ideas are horrible. Still, I'm thankful for them, for without that dedication there would have never been a Steve jobs.

I agree with you. In fact, the comments contradict one another.

If they did their homework, they would know Jobs holds many design patents.

and this one is funny...

"Steve Jobs was not a visionary. He put the dots together and saw where they led."

vs.

"He created an organization that predictably and reliably created emotionally resonant products."

" He made a company that predictably and reliably made blockbusters."

"He created new markets that attracted and sustained competitors."

" He gave others the freedom to think about what jobs products are hired to do."

"He brought engineering processes to works of creativity and the creative process to engineering."

I'm not sure how you "make a company" and "create new markets" without being a visionary.

All this hype about a geek yet no one really paid attention to another fine gentleman by the name of Ralph Steinman.

I am so sick and tired of people like Jobs getting all this attention and maybe I ought to start using it as a stage to remind people that while Jobs contributions to computer science are important, we ought to give the same attention to others who are equally, if not, great contributors to science. I never knew Jobs earned a nobel prize?

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