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Comment by timbre | Hacker News Reader

I don't see why you read this as belligerent, unless you think altering and changing designs is inferior to coding and original design. There were a lot of articles after Tim Cook took over that described Jobs' genius as that of a design editor, knowing what to cut and what to keep. Wozniak's comment here seems consistent with that.

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I think it's worse than belligerent. It makes both of them look bad (both Steve and Woz), to show that perceived split between them. There's what you say, and then there's what you say.

It also makes engineers look bad because it only enhances the perception that we can only handle the raw technical aspects, and that we get bitter when someone passes us because of non-technical reasons. I don't know why engineers are singled out here because I've seen it happen in all other specializations. Perhaps it's in the way we generally react?

I didn't read it as belligerent. He stuck to facts only and avoided emotional vocabulary.

Totally agree. I don't understand why people are reading Woz's words are belligerent...maybe based on their own preconceived notions or experiences, but certainly not because of anything Woz said.

He simply stated the truth: "Steve didn't ever code."

It's not a judgement. He didn't say it made him inferior in any way. In fact, he praised him in the very next sentence saying "he was technical enough to alter and change and add to other designs".

I'm not sure any of this is a big revelation anyway...didn't we all pretty much know that Woz was the tech/programming guy and Jobs was the marketing/sales/business deal guy? They were amazingly successful together and it is doubtful that either one of them would have attained the same success if they had gone about it independently.

I disagree. I think it sounds belligerent. If he had stopped at "Steven didn't ever code" (which I'm not sure is accurate), maybe. But then he goes on to include zingers like "no original design" which is sort of a fighting phrase (and not part of the question) and "I did...all the feature choices" which we know is false, it becomes belligerent. Then Woz has to pile on even more about doing everything solely except for some tiny, trivial component. Belligerent in my book.

Agreed, this is classic Woz. He didn't take any of the offense that others seem to think he should have, nor was he heaping scorn on Jobs here. Just telling it like it is, as is his want.

Split between them? You should read how Jobs got some work with Atari, got Woz to do the work and said they'd split it 50-50. Atari paid Jobs $5000, told Woz they paid him $700. Kept the rest.

Woz himself said that the money was no big deal. If this was a big deal, he should have confronted Jobs about it in person.

Unfortunately, society at large does not really care about "fairness." People have a tendency to blame the victim, and that victim would be us.

People do not intrinsically value what we do. They value what we can do for them. To that end, it's easy to understand why they would prefer the story of Jobs to the story of Wozniak. Saying that Jobs was not a coder did not significantly hurt Jobs. Jobs may have been an asshole, but he had enough charisma to go keep going. Saying that Jobs was not a coder hurt engineers because it pigeonholes us into the technical-only side of things. Woz did the engineering and hardware design. Jobs did everything else.

Ultimately, in any such situation, it is important to keep this kind of drama under the sheets. Most people are not like Jobs. Most management would not be able to deal with the fallout of these kinds of statements.

I know a lot of engineers IRL who resent Jobs because of these things. My response to them has always been: start your own business, because the more technical entrepreneurs there are out there, the less likely that a future Jobs figure would act the way that Jobs did.

>society at large does not really care about "fairness."

[Citation needed]

Perpetuating these sorts of things spreads them.

For some reason it won't let me reply to you. Anyway, He said the _money_ was no big deal, that he would have done it for free. The outright lie/ money grab was a big deal. If he'd learned about it earlier instead of 10 years after the fact he probably wouldn't have gone into business with him.

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