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Comment by behnamoh | Hacker News Reader

I wonder what it is about leaders like Steve Jobs that makes them popular despite how programmers working for them know the guy in charge has never written a line of code.

Is it charisma (whatever that means)? Is it vision? Is it luck and being at the right place at the right time? Is it a few devoted loyal programmers who spread the word about how amazing the Führer is?

I often think it also has to do with the person positioning himself/herself in crowds that appreciate/respect/value him/her. For instance, it's hard to imagine someone like Jobs at an Oracle-style corporation, or imagine Elon Musk running a bank. It seems like these types of people soon understand that certain groups match their "vibe" better, and it works as a positive feedback loop for them.

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I don't need to know anything about masonry to respect a skilled mason or for it to be mutual. Why would it be any different for a programmer and a leader? I don't know much about programming and avoid it at all costs [0], but all my programmer friends appreciate insights I have when they bounce ideas off me.

[0] I've written about this: https://kyefox.com/2022/08/05/learn-to-code-or-dont/

> I wonder what it is about leaders like Steve Jobs that makes them popular despite how programmers working for them know the guy in charge has never written a line of code.

People want to believe in the genius that conquered the world, because it gives them the impression that success is a function of individual agency. It is much less impressive to hear that some world changing product was made by hundreds of engineers who all have been in the industry for decades working late nights on boring engineer stuff. These Jobs like figures are then chosen by the masses, because they are the only ones putting themselves out there and thus receive a disproportionate amount of the credit.

How do you resolve that with the fact that the same hundreds of engineers doing boring engineer stuff nearly bankrupted the company before they brought Jobs back?

Some of the groups that kept Apple alive were also among first to axe.

What Jobs did fix (and some claim it was due to getting bitter pills few times before returning to Apple), was to play on the feelings when you buy apple gear. And that you stopped being important the moment you paid, though some support orgs were on life support until income stream became just too stable to worry.

Most of the people who worked directly under Steve Jobs knows he is an Asshole. At the same time they all loves him.

You may want to watch [1] Steve Jobs Insult Response. And you can imagine most people are the guy asking that question.

[1] https://youtu.be/oeqPrUmVz-o?si=4fMzMqFS8lLbMZJr

> You may want to watch [1] Steve Jobs Insult Response. And you can imagine most people are the guy asking that question.

Yes, but not every CEO is able to give the response he gave. At least, he tried to connect with the developers. When was the last time Google's CEO interacted with devs?

For those that haven't seen it the whole thing is worth it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQ16_YxLbB8

This Q&A is the evidence for why I think many tech people underestimated him, and as you observe such unfiltered Q&As do not occur with other tech CEOs, though he was not CEO at the time. He's not 100% right about how things would go, but he was a lot more right than anyone else proved to be.

Some of his answers to the really tough questions are not stellar, but Apple was in a truly terrible state at the time, and there were not nice answers to give. The fact that he stood there ready to take the hits spoke volumes though.

Exactly. Most people on HN dont commenting on Steve Jobs not only has never worked directly with or under him. They dont even bother to actually research into his real personality. Instead they rely on hearsay or very selective reporting or comments.

And if people hate him as an CEO so much, then no other CEO in tech history would get the pass mark.

I think it's literally just notoriety. There's collaborative and visionary leadership styles but nobody bats an eye because there's no conflict. People just work and its another Tuesday. Product gets delivered. Everyone moves on.

Think of it like how an orchestra conductor and musicians work together.

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