HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

Another interesting resource is Jobs speaking at the MIT Sloan School of Management while NeXT was in the process of pivoting to enterprise rapid application development.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gk-9Fd2mEnI

⬐ crypto-boy-tkn

Love him or hate him, he was always a great speaker. Also recommend the lost interview of him if you can find it.

⬐ kumarvvr

Something about he way Jobs speaks is mesmerizing.

Don't know whether it's the structuring of the content, his voice or what.

Very very persuasive.

Heck, I watch the original iPhone unveiling video sometimes when I am bored, and never get bored of it.

This somewhat echoes some of Steve Job's own complaints about the Apple he was kicked out of: https://youtu.be/Gk-9Fd2mEnI?t=2078

Also note that at the time he was creating a NeXT, a Unix company.

⬐ HappyDreamer

Thanks for linking the video. Interesting to listen to Jobs -- seems to me too that he argues against what Apple is doing nowadays.

I actually 10 minutes ago had a look at how much a 32 GB Mac costs nowadays -- and it's like 2x more than a 32 GB PC. That's less than some years ago, then a Mac was more like 3x more expensive, if I remember correctly. Looks like the trend Jobs mentions in the video, about lower and lower ASP. (ASP = average selling price, right.)

In a talk Jobs gave at MIT [1] he described the NeXT automated manufacturing facility in a positive light. I can only begin to imagine how much better it could be done today than back then.

Articles like this one like to point out the number of people involved in the Chinese iPhone manufacturing as if that's somehow indicative of something other than simply using cheap labor instead of automation.

If we wanted to manufacture this stuff in the USA, we definitely could, and it would be done using fewer people through automation.

My understanding is the core reason we don't do manufacturing here anymore is it's a lot cheaper to do it where industrial pollution goes unchecked, where regulatory bodies are immature or entirely nonexistant.

When China gets its shit together enough to protect its lands and people from the toxic output of all this industrial activity, large-scale manufacturing will move on to the next victim.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gk-9Fd2mEnI

⬐ ardy42

> When China gets its shit together enough to protect its lands and people from the toxic output of all this industrial activity, large-scale manufacturing will move on to the next victim.

That's already happening: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-pollution-zibo/chin...

An acquaintance recently told me that Chinese ceramics production capacity is getting relocated to places like Cambodia.

⬐ froindt

I've read articles about the supply chain impacts of being in China, very near all your suppliers, compared to being in the US. When you need the screws in your first production run to be 0.1 mm shorter, you can call the screw manufacturer, they'll make a new mold right away and get you screws in 3 hours. Your screw manufacturer is almost certainly more than a 3 hour drive if you're in the US. [1]

Looks like labor flexibility is another factor. In the US, culturally, you can't summon people from their sleep to start making phones urgently. Apparently this happened after the iPhone prototype Steve Jobs had got a scratched plastic screen 6 weeks before launch. [2]

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/business/apple-america-an...

[2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/willyshih/2018/11/05/apple-only...

Steve said it too, but he said it like he was proud of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gk-9Fd2mEnI&feature=youtu.be...

"You need all the objects that come with it to make it work"

Consulting is like building a castle and giving it away to someone else to rule and enjoy the fruits. I refuse to do it now. With each new contract, you start from scratch, again. After a while, you'll realize - you are just hitting a reset switch on your career, with each new contract that you pick up.

I'm glad I share my thoughts with this very smart man - https://youtu.be/Gk-9Fd2mEnI?t=908

⬐ JoeAltmaier

That sounds just like 'any Engineering job'.

And No, its not resetting the switch, because the 'career path' that most companies offer is a hoax - a perk here, a perk there. What matters at bottom is, the money. And as a contractor you arrive there quicker. My references get the next job, and my pay goes up as I raise my rate. There's no reset involved.

⬐ onlyrealcuzzo

Is there any room for income growth in contracting outside of building an agency?

A couple of years ago, my career seemed to be dead in the water, so I thought about contracting. It's not clear to me what changed, but in the course of a year, I got two huge promotions and am now making double. I'm currently interviewing for a huge step up that might bump my salary another 25% more.

I imagine if I went the contracting route, short term, I could've made much more money per hour, since I am/was pretty productive. But I /really/ doubt I'd get to where I am now on an annual basis (especially considering benefits and vacation). I also seems to have a clear path toward being a VP, CTO doesn't seem unrealstic in a few years, if I want to continue down the career path (I don't, rather start my own business, but nice to have a solid backup).

I know there's a lot of money to be made running an agency, but I don't think that's a natural skillset for the vast majority of engineers. Also it seems like a really competitive space.

I'd love to hear more from some contractors about this.

⬐ chrisbennet

If you contract direct, you can make decent money. I have multiple clients at the same time and work 4-6 hours a day and make 40% more than when I was working 40hrs a week as an employee. I also have my own office close enough that I sometimes bike to work in the summer.

⬐ blihp

Contracting is effectively going mercenary. It's straight up 'I've got the expertise, you've got money... let's get together for a while.' There's no career path for you as far as the client is concerned but the pay is better. The understanding going in is that you will likely not be together for more than about a year. In addition to the bump in pay, since you know it's not a long-term situation, you typically get to avoid much of the office politics and organizational dysfunction and focus on what you're there to do.

It's not an ideal terminal position: either you use it as a stepping stone to something better (i.e. starting your own agency, getting into consulting, starting some other kind of business etc.) or you use it as a way to test drive companies without committing (i.e. If you like the place, convert to an employee if it's offered. If not, move on ASAP)

There are people who do contracting for the same company indefinitely. That's usually a career mistake as you're not getting valuable new experiences which will prepare you for something better and your hourly rate will get stuck in the mud. After 2-3 years it will have often been better to have converted to an employee. (i.e. more relaxed relationship, benefits/paid time off, stock/bonus programs etc.) Many larger companies love it when contractors stay long term: for them it's all of the upside of having an employee with none of the downside. (it's also legally problematic but that doesn't stop most of them)

⬐ chrisbennet

I’m a consultant but maybe a different kind. I go in and create a product or the core technology and then move on.

It’s kind of like being an “explorer” vs. a “settler”; big kudos to those who clear the land and creating a farm from nothing, I’d just rather be exploring.

⬐ tonyedgecombe

On the other hand it's nice to have that disconnection from all the crap that goes on. No matter how bad it gets you know that in a couple of months you will be somewhere else.

⬐ ramblerman

Thanks for the link.

Very relevant to me. I've been contracting for the past 8 years, and earned very well through it. But I absolutely feel the cyclical nature, i.e. the constant starting over is wearing me out.

It's kept me sharp, but I know don't want to be contracting as a senior engineer when I'm 45, and contracting is not the best path to leadership, or product ownership - which I would like to transition to at that age.

⬐ pauljurczak

Upvote for the link.

⬐ jameslk

I'd argue contracting has been the best thing for my career. I've learned sales, marketing, accounting, business & legal essentials along the way. I've made great connections from the diverse companies I've worked in and vendors I've worked with. I'm now working on scaling and selling to larger enterprises. I may not own the companies or products I work on, but I own my own company. You can stay stagnant as an employee or as a contractor. It's up to you to make your career.

> I fought with him over stores as did virtually everyone on the board of Apple, and it turned out he was right.

He actually goes into depth about why Apple stores were necessary in a talk he did at MIT in 1992 [0][1]. Was it that he was not nearly as articulate in person with his team, as he was in this video?

EDIT: Luckily, the transcript is available. The money quote is:

" ... current distribution channels for the computer industry over the last several years have lost their ability to create demand. They can fulfill demand, but they can't create it. If a new product comes out, you're lucky if you can find somebody at the computer store that even knows how to demo it. So the more innovative the product is, the more revolutionary it is and not just an incremental improvement, the more you're stuck [in getting people to try learn about it enough to try it out]."

Here's a fuller quote:

There are some things I can't talk about here. In addition to that, if you look at how we sell our computers right now, we have a sales force in the US of about 130 professionals in the field out selling NeXT computers. They spend 90% of their time selling NeXTSTEP software, and then 10% of their time selling the hardware.

In other words, if they can get the customer to buy into NeXTSTEP, then they're going to sell the hardware, because right now we have the only hardware it runs on. So they are out there selling NeXTSTEP right now. And this is what is required to launch a new innovative product. The current distribution channels for the computer industry over the last several years have lost their ability to create demand.

They can fulfill demand, but they can't create it. If a new product comes out, you're lucky if you can find somebody at the computer store that even knows how to demo it. So the more innovative the product is, the more revolutionary it is and not just an incremental improvement, the more you're stuck. Because the existing channel is only fulfilling demand. Matter of fact, it's getting so bad, that it's getting wiped out, because there are more efficient channels to fulfill demand, like the telephone and Federal Express. So we're seeing the channel become condensed on its way to I think just telebusiness.

So how does one bring innovation to the marketplace? We believe the only way we know how to do it right now is with the direct sales force, out there in front of customers showing them the products in the environment of their own problems, and discussing how those problems can be mated with these solutions.

[0] https://infinitehistory.mit.edu/video/steve-jobs-next-comput...

[1] https://youtu.be/Gk-9Fd2mEnI

⬐ AceJohnny2

Thanks for this perspective. I wish I could save comments the way I can favorite posts, so I'm replying as a workaround.

It gives me new perspective on the value and purpose of the Apple Stores, which I previously viewed as just a luxury shopping experience as window dressing on the usual consumer electronics buying experience. That's still a big part of it, but your quote explains the deeper value.

It also explains to me why Microsoft chose to follow suite with their own Microsoft Stores, although I still wonder why theirs aren't as successful. It's always amusing and a bit sad to go to the Valley Fair Mall in Santa Clara, where the Microsoft Store is literally right across from the Apple Store, but Apple is packed where Microsoft is a ghost town. What secret sauce are they missing? My thought is that the Microsoft brand is still poison to the average consumer.

⬐ redler

You actually can save comments. Click the time stamp in the comment header to present the comment in isolation, then click “favorite”.

⬐ martin1b

Microsoft has never been great at marketing.

Steve put so much effort into giving Apple products life, figuratively. For example, he would call the iphone, "iphone", not "an iphone" and was adamant about it. Almost giving existence to it. Also, the way he introduced products was brilliant. He was a master at teasing the public and peaking interest prior to product launch.

Where Microsoft would release products akin to the Zune..in brown, or products with unmemorable names like 'Surface Pro x', with very little marketing. I've always thought MS has interesting products and they have been first to market many times. However, due to lack of marketing, they didn't gain traction.

⬐ sumedh

> What secret sauce are they missing?

I remember someone on ESPN segment which had been sponsored by Microsoft and the people on the screen were using MS Surface but the commentator said we are using an Ipad like device.

I guess MS needs some innovate ads which will tell people what MS does in the consumer space.

⬐ pwinnski

It's even worse than that! MS spent $400 million to sponsor the NFL and provided many Microsoft Surface Pro devices, and the week they debuted, all the announcers called them "iPads." So MS threw a fit, and rightly so, and the next week all the announcers called them "iPad-like devices" instead.

I mean: "iPad" is two syllables, short and sweet, and MS wanted people to call the devices the "Microsoft Surface Pro," six syllables that don't exactly roll off the tongue.

That's not even getting into how they packaged all of those Surface Pros in gigantic blue padded cases, giving the impression that Microsoft's version of the iPad was big and clunky. Necessary for use on the sidelines, I'm sure, but not well thought out.

⬐ bobsil1

That MS Store used to be a ghost town. It's pretty crowded on weekends now with people playing with Surface Book, Surface Studio.

⬐ jamiek88

If you click on the time stamp of a comment you can then save/ fav it.

I just found this out recently too, not a new member either!

⬐ Spooky23

The thing to remember about the Apple store is that it made world class computers accessible to the masses.

In the old days, a Thinkpad or Toshiba Tecra were only seen by commercial accounts and college kids. Your only way to see and touch an expensive ($2k in 98-2000) purchase was some awful bolted down display at CompUSA or BestBuy. And you only saw shitty consumer product, and were stuck dealing with a salesman of questionable knowledge looking for a warranty spiff.

The Microsoft vs Apple store thing is easy — they are selling the same dreck, spiffed up with a few first party products.

⬐ pjmlp

Given that the average salary in many countries is way below 1000 € per month, I would disagree with "world class computers accessible to the masses".

⬐ gowld

> So we're seeing the channel become condensed on its way to I think just telebusiness.

Stealth prediction of Amazon. If you know what you want, you order it online (until Amazon kills itself with counterfeits.) If you don't know what you want, you go to a store.

⬐ caro_douglos

Amazon should figure this out soon. They just need to improve the way to get after counterfeits by having a clear and concise way for attorneys and manufacturers to report what fake stuff is being hocked. Right now Amazon is too segregated internally to get the guilty parties off their platform (quickly). Consider how many of those there might be. Meanwhile the manufacturers are too paranoid to sell on Amazon because they view them as competition. Once walmat and microsoft team up for some bar lifting you will only see a better version of Amazon with respect to counterfeits.

-3rd party Amazon seller.

⬐ bartread

That's a great quote and the argument sounds convincing but worth remembering that, in terms of sales numbers, NeXT was a wart on the arse of other manufacturers selling workstation computers, like Sun Microsystems, which suggests they weren't doing an amazing job of mating "those problems with these solutions" on the software front.

The software was fantastic, and thankfully Apple acquired NeXT, but let's be honest: if NeXT hadn't been acquired (by somebody) their days were numbered.

⬐ andromeduck

I mean it was going to be NeXT or BeOS right? Seems like they couldn't have gone wrong with either.

⬐ sjwright

I dunno. BeOS would have helped overcome some of their technical debt, but that alone would have not fundamentally changed Apple's 1996 market position. And don't forget, Be technology was not battle-tested, it was not multi-platform, it wasn't even multi-user.

NeXT technology didn't just overcome technical debt, it became a solid foundation for over two decades worth of cutting-edge software, hardware and product development by Apple. It remains one of Apple's greatest technical assets. But again, the technology alone would not have fundamentally changed Apple's 1996 market position.

Apple's market position was turned around by Steve Jobs, the "freebie" included in the NeXT acquisition.

⬐ robotresearcher

Sales numbers over what time period? NeXT reverse-acquired Apple and sold hundreds of millions of units. Sun not so much. The vision of UNIX for everyone, under a best-in-class UI, was very powerful.

⬐ bartread

Umm, sorry, where are you getting "hundreds of millions of units" from?

Official figures are hard to come by but estimates suggest that NeXT sold about 50,000 units over its entire lifetime. The company had to stop manufacturing hardware and was very much dying.

You could classify the deal with Apple as a merger in that both companies were in a certain amount of trouble by that point and needed eachother (or some other merger partner) for survival, but Apple had a lot more runway. They did, after all, hand over $429 million in cash for NeXT, plus some quantity of shares.

⬐ mattl

It was literally a merger on paper, for what that’s worth. NeXT were also close to an IPO and their dev tools were second to none. WebObjects and EOF were first rate products easily worth hundreds of millions to the right people in their own right.

⬐ oblio

That distortion field is very powerful, I see. NeXT failed as an enterprise. It was close to going the way of the Lisp Machines.

⬐ mattl

Oh yeah. I have no doubt they were failing. But those two pieces of tech were very smart for their time.

⬐ oblio

Yes, I, too, saw that demo from the 80's. But the best tech doesn't always win :)

⬐ mattl

I don’t think EOF is from the 80s. WebObjects certainly isn’t.

⬐ derefr

That money quote is great. It strikes me that that's exactly where the toy market is today, as well. There is a reason Toys R Us crashed: you can go into a toy store and buy a toy, but you can do that just as well on Amazon. Current toy stores offer no way to discover and learn about toys you don't already know about. (Exception: gaming stores. Weekly collectible-card-game nights are a great way to discover said card game.)

⬐ a_d

I am amazed how much truth there is in these paragraphs, esp for B2B cos.

⬐ 4714

Great video. Thanks!

⬐ cmacaskill

That's a great find. I hadn't seen that. I didn't even remember him saying this. We did try to sell through VARs who were supposedly a higher-end channel. Sun had a lot of luck with VARs, I understand.

Here is the full YouTube video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gk-9Fd2mEnI

⬐ vshan

"When we were learning about manufacturing at Mac, we hired a Stanford Business School Professor at the time named Steven Wheelwright, and he did a neat thing. He drew on the board a little chart, first time I met him. He said, you can view all companies from a manufacturing perspective this way.

"You can say there's five stages-- one, two, three, four, five. They have all these things. And stage one is companies that view manufacturing as a necessary evil. They wish they didn't have to do it, but damn it, they do. And all the way up through stage five, which is companies that view manufacturing as a competitive opportunity for competitive advantage. We can get better time to market, and get new products out faster. We get lower costs. We get higher quality.

"And in general, you know, you can put the American flag here [puts it under 1], and put the Japanese flag here [puts it under 5] [Laughter] [Applause]. And that's changing, however.

"By the way, just going back to software for a minute, I often apply this scale to computer companies, and how they look at software. See, I think most computer companies are stage one. They wish software had never been invented. I put Compaq in that category. And IBM is maybe stage two, and things like that. And I think there's only three companies in here [pointing at 5] and that's us, Apple and Microsoft, in stage five. We start everything with the software and work back."

Wow. I think this is a great way to look at how companies look at ML/AI: You have Facebook, Google, MS, Amazon trying to use it as a competitive advantage, whereas I'm sure there are some companies (medical?) that wish these systems were never invented.

This also shows why you would want to be at companies that look at software as a competitive advantage: as an engineer you are the profit centre and not the cost centre.

⬐ antoniuschan99

Alan Kay which Steve Jobs quoted said if you're serious about Software you should build your own hardware.

I think they're both important. It's also interestng to note in this video he says that hardware has no competitive edge. But that was 1992. Now it has flipped, software has less competitive edge than hardware.

⬐ sah2ed

Context matters.

Jobs was repeatedly referring to system software in this talk, a category distinct from application software.

System software + own hardware = competitive advantage

Application software + own hardware = ?*

*Most likely a world of pain and heavy losses.

⬐ mandeepj

Will keep it short -

Using same analogy - When you look at Toyota, what does the first thing come to your mind? I hope Cars. So, computer engineering is going to be a secondary endeavor there.

Internally, MS and Apple have a lot of units\departments, which have many computer engineers, which they treat them as cost centres

⬐ shas3

Very good framework! Recursively applying it, given an individual's expertise and interest, we should all perhaps aim to be in Stage 5 companies (or verticals within companies) within our fields of expertise. That's where your work is most likely to be meaningful and hopefully, at the cutting edge.

⬐ denzil_correa

> “I think that without owning something over an extended period of time, like a few years, where someone has a chance to take responsibility for one’s recommendations, where one has to see one’s recommendations through all action stages and accumulate some scar tissue for the mistakes and pick one’s self up off the ground and dust one’s self off, one learns a fraction of what one can,” Jobs said. “You do get a broad cut at companies, but it’s very thin.”

> “You never get three-dimensional,” he said. “You might have a lot of pictures on your wall, you can say ‘Look, I’ve worked in bananas, I’ve worked in peaches, I’ve worked in grapes.’ But you never really taste it.”

His view on Consulting is pretty interesting. Any consultants here who'd like to give the other perspective?

http://mitsloan.mit.edu/newsroom/articles/steve-jobs-talks-c...

⬐ grajaganDev

He started hiring consultants a few years later at NeXT. I was hired to code WebObects projects for NeXT customers.

Steve branded us as 'WebObjects Experts'.

⬐ burger_moon

Could you write about your experiences being a consultant during that time? Are you still a consultant, how has it changed over the years?

⬐ sah2ed

I agree with his take as well.

The nature of consulting in my experience is such that a consultant will generally not have enough skin in the game, to use NNT's well-known phrase, to be able to deliver an out-sized outcome for the client, or to deliver an expensive but important life lesson for the consultant, if things go south.

⬐ scarface74

I agree with his view on consultants from my own experience. I've never been a consultant, but in the last 10 years, I have been a "job hopper", but only because companies refuse to give market based raises and the best way to get a "raise" is to get a new job.

⬐ jonbarker

I've met consultants who have described it as sort of 'addictive' for people with ADD, mainly because they get to feel like they are in the middle of some big drama, for a short time, too short usually to really own the problem, then the engagement is over and they go on to the next thing.

⬐ doomlaser

I pulled out a section of this talk the other week that I thought was especially brilliant: his description of "Technological Windows of Opportunity" — when enough trends converge onto a radically new platform/experience and the economic costs of the technology align to make sense for a company to deploy and become the widely adopted platform in that window

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJX476dDFVc

The Lisa was too early. So was the Newton. So was the Next Cube and NeXTStep... (which of course now is iOS)

⬐ ghaff

A huge percentage of ideas aren’t bad ideas but they’re not at the right time because people aren’t ready for them, complementary technologies aren’t mature enough, they solve a problem that isn’t a current market priority, etc.

⬐ doomlaser

You can find plenty of articles in magazines in the early 1990s talking about the handheld internet connected device (that nobody could succeed with until the iPhone).

The Mac itself was too early for wide adoption. The first Mac had a tiny memory footprint and no hard drive. CPU and GPU technology needed time to speed up and shrink in size and cost. Apple survived on Apple II sales for years after the Mac was introduced and iterated, and nearly suffocated from mismanagement until Jobs returned and the iMac launched — Windows 95 was right on time.

Here's an Apple video about conversational voice-based digital assistants... from 1987 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGYFEI6uLy0

The Valley is littered with husks of companies that had the right vision before the technology was ready (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Magic). NeXT was almost one of them.

⬐ scarface74

The Mac wasn't just "too early" it was overpriced.

The popular narrative that Apple struggled from 1984 until 1997 isn't true. Apple was doing fine between around 1987-1994. It was vying for the #1 computer seller in the early 90s with HP.

Two things happen in 1995. Apple made a lot of low end computers and not enough high end computers and Windows 95 was good enough.

⬐ copperx

There is some truth to that in my experience. Most of my friends coveted a Mac, but only a few could afford one. We settled for Windows 95.

⬐ doomlaser

It was overpriced because it was too early. The components to deliver the GUI experience weren't sufficiently commoditized yet.

In 1995, the entire product line was confused, and the then-CEO had opened up the platform to commodity cloners, robbing Apple of its vertical market and hardware margin.

⬐ scarface74

The Mac had ridiculous margins compared to PCs by 1987 - especially for color Macs.

Jean Louis Gassée (founder of Be) was the main executive of Apple who went for short term margins instead of going for market share.

I got my first Mac in 1992 after owning an Apple //e for years. For the price of my Mac LCII - 68030-16Mhz with slow built in graphics, and a 512x384 12" monitor that wasn't compatible with most Mac games, I could have gotten a much faster 386, a sound card, and better graphics, much cheaper. Then Apple even cheap out more and had a 16 bit bus instead of the 32 bit bus. The Mac used 68030 processors that were used by other workstations, SCSI chips that were widely available, etc.

⬐ doomlaser

Yes, they managed the company terribly in the years after Jobs left (with the exception of the alignment with IBM and Motorola for the Power architecture and chip transition). Apple had something like 5 different CEOs in 8 years before Amelio decided to buy NeXT and bring Jobs back into the fold.

⬐ scarface74

Sculley wasn't a bad CEO. He was Steve Ballmer style CEO. He knew how to profitably manage a company but he had no vision. Under his leadership, he brought Apple from the brink of extinction in 86, led the transistion to the PPC, the PowerBooks defined what a modern laptop should be and between 1989 - 1992, Apple was at it height. Scully would have been a better CEO than all of the CEOs that came between 1993 and the return of Jobs.

There are very few tech companies that successfully pivot into new areas and can transistion when technology changes that are not led by their founders. Just like "only Nixon could go to China", only Jobs could make the famous deal with Microsoft in 1997.

⬐ doomlaser

but then there was Spindler and Amelio. Though Spindler handled the 68k->PPC transition, and Amelio did pull the trigger on Next over Be and brought back Jobs.

⬐ zer0faith

I never watched a Jobs talk until now. I always thought he was an asshole based on what others had said. Shame on me. But now I've got a very different take. This guy was in a league of his own. He may not have been the best programmer, manager, salesman or other various roles he held but he was smart enough to know failure paves the way for success. I was moved by his way of conveying a complex message in a simple saying is priceless. It is a shame he is no longer with us.

⬐ matco11

You should listen to the commencement speech he made in 2005 at Stanford https://youtu.be/D1R-jKKp3NA

⬐ pcurve

I'm amazed at his ability to deliver this type of presentation with such fluidity. Granted, this is most likely amalgamation of his daily talks and thinking that he internalized, but in order to formulate them, he must spend a better part of his day just thinking.

⬐ axelfontaine

One aspect which really struck me was his diametrical opposition to Amazon's famous "disagree and commit" core value. Very interesting to hear the counter argument.

⬐ olivermarks

Job's read and perception of where things were going is very impressive, hard to think of anyone today who could be this eloquent and persuasive...

⬐ josu

Probably Naval https://twitter.com/naval?s=09

⬐ olivermarks

that's just someone who has tweeted 16.7k times, I can't imagine Jobs would waste his time on doing that...

⬐ mandeepj

> waste his time on doing that...

Not a time waste. Look at Elon. He spends a lot of his time in engaging at Twitter

⬐ briandear

He should spend more of his time building cars.

⬐ sah2ed

Elon has said that his tweet frequency should not be construed as time spent on the platform.

⬐ olivermarks

He must have better access to the space time continuum than everyone else then - I tend to put manic tweeters into a low attention span, high hand waving for attention group who only have a few hours left in their day to actually do anything else...

⬐ ebrenes

What he probably has access to is people who review his feed and replies and curate that for him. So he's not responding to tweets he's found himself; but rather to tweets that have been highlighted for him to respond to (if he so desires). Heck, his team might actually include possible response ideas.

The fallacy is thinking Elon uses Twitter like any other person uses Twitter. Sitting on his device, manually scrolling through it and replying sequentially. He's probably outsourced much of this to his media teams or other people he trusts to provide relevant material to engage with.

⬐ josu

>eloquent and persuasive

Nothing to do with how they conducted their lives.

⬐ IkmoIkmo

Not sure I agree here, but he was a CEO who was simultaneously in this underdog position but also playing it really well. The refreshing thing about this is that he's relatively open about talking about his thoughts for the future and the strategy of his company. Most CEOs (including Jobs at a later stage) are much more apprehensive about talking openly. He turned his futurism into a marketing move, a bit like Elon Musk uses his vision, goals and trajectory as a marketing move.

That's basically the only reason I like to listen to the big VCs, because they're actually terribly open about their thoughts unlike virtually all CEOs. Because they also use their vision of the future as a marketing move. Someone mentioned Naval for example, that's no coincidence I think, angel/venture investors cluster quite high on my list of people talking openly about their perception of where things are going (regardless of whether it's a correct perception or not).

⬐ olivermarks

I was probably hard on Naval just now - IMO Jobs created what is today the most successful company on the planet. VC's are great at placing other people's bets and sounding convincing about it, not in the same league...

⬐ forapurpose

I wonder in what directions and how much Jobs' thinking about management developed since 1992. He had been fired from Apple, partly because of his management practices. Certainly, he learned things in the 'wilderness', and learned things after he returned.

⬐ mercer

If only someone had written a biography about his life... I'm sure it would have spent a bunch of time looking into this crucial period!

⬐ doomlaser

This would have been around the time he negotiated a gigantic deal with Disney for Toy Story at Pixar, after selling them Pixar's hardware and CAPS software for digital compositing — used to great effect in the 'Disney Renaissance' era (it was first deployed in this opening shot for The Rescuers Down Under (1990): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjkdOAjtJ1k)

⬐ raghavkhanna

"We won't see another operating environment for computers, because it's extremely hard to fund a professional sales force to educate users with an ASP of around $500"

It's amazing how well this insight/prediction holds after 26 years, the only other comparable OS/OE today is linux, which didn't rely on the funding. Makes me think if/how another leap in computing software will happen.

⬐ rdlecler1

I’d say that Android and the iPhone OS count (or maybe that didn’t fall under the definition of computer) the difference here is that there was a new hardware interface driving the development of a new operating environment.

⬐ abakker

Well, iOS, right? or Android? or are those not "Computers" ?

If I had the money to bet, I'd be betting on AR as the next major paradigm, though. I think the idea of OS changes a lot when you get rid of the "slab of glass with a terminal" model. If computers are fundamentally ubiquitous, then what an OS does will need to be quite a bit different. I'm not sure it replaces a legacy computer, but I genuinely hope to have AR be a completely alternative option for most applications.

If I had to guess where the funding for that salesforce will come from, I'd guess: Softbank, and other mega-VC funds. if you do successfully create the next wave forward for computing, and you can provide the systems to enable it, the rewards are likely commensurate. I think this is why everyone is so interested in AR. Magic Leap is the darling, but Google, Apple, and Microsoft all agree that this is a critical turn, and are putting in the dollars to win.

⬐ rdlecler1

I’d place my bet on driverless and personal assistants as the next OS platforms. VR will be part of a personal assistant OS.

⬐ grecy

> Well, iOS, right? or Android? or are those not "Computers" ?

iOS is NextStep, and Android is Linux, so in that way what Steve said holds true, given that Linux wasn't developed commercially.

⬐ grecy

"The best code is the code you don't write"

This really rang true for me when I started developing with WebObjects (from Next). In the first week I was blown away how little code I had to write and how much was done for me. I knew the theory of a "Framework" and I think to this day many Libraries are called "Frameworks", but working with a real one is a game changer.

⬐ baxtr

So fascinating. 70 minutes, not a single slide.

⬐ copperx

Just like most University lectures in the country. I don't think that is good or bad in itself.

⬐ kbos87

One thing that stood out to me is how much of what he talked about is still true and still playing out decades later. The fundamentals of technology businesses and the dynamics that occur really don’t change all that often.

⬐ shanghaiaway

Wait until you realize that they never change, and apply to all industries in slightly different flavors.

⬐ fishcakes

Interesting to think about why this reality didn’t come to pass. Ben was clearly right about the opportunity market being huge and i think it’s timing. Without having thought too much about I think he underestimated or couldn’t compete with Microsoft. Having cheap wintel PCs everywhere made next irrelevant.

⬐ danielbarla

The points Steve makes in the early parts of the session were quite visionary, but when he got to the hardware parts, I guess it's quite easy to say in retrospect what they got wrong.

What's interesting, however, is that he does discuss this from several angles (my interpretation / memory below), namely that a) the hardware angle was a way to get people to use the software, b) a purely software venture couldn't sustain funding for the level of marketing required to break into the market, c) software seems to be moving slower than hardware (? - I guess that's the 80s / early 90s for you) and d) there's still a juicy hardware business that would be left off the table, if it were a software-only venture. So, it was a fairly well researched and opinionated bet, that just didn't pay off. I guess by tying the success of their software to their hardware, they ended up sealing its fate.

⬐ nickgrosvenor

Listening to this talk, you get a sense of how much more intelligent he was than he may have even gotten credit for. All the talk about his temper and his stealing of engineers ideas, an imperfect boss, etc, sorta gives the impression that he wasn't as smart and he was more of a salesman, but holy shit, he was incredibly intelligent, and a real thinker.

⬐ ggg9990

Only today’s nitpicking culture could ever create an impression that Steve Jobs wasn’t intelligent. He basically created modern computing. The thought that he was just a snake oil huckster is lunacy.

⬐ hungerstrike

> He basically created modern computing.

Incorrect. Perhaps this was just your attempt at humor, but it couldn't possibly be further from the truth.

> The thought that he was just a snake oil huckster is lunacy.

That someone is intelligent does not prevent them from also being a snake oil huckster. As a matter of fact, intelligence will make you the best snake oil huckster.

⬐ radiorental

> He basically created modern computing.

Whooaa, that's quite a stretch.

'Modern Computing' was happening with or without Steve Jobs. He certainly was an exemplar visionary that put the right parts together at the right time.

But, he did not create or define. Technological progress has it's own immutable momentum.

⬐ Gorbzel

Wrong, not a stretch.

It’s an interpretation, on what all but the extremes on either side can agree is a subjective inquiry in the first place. Also, a bit of a futile and misguided one if used to minimize other’s contributions in the field.

But for the same reason, it’s folly to discount Jobs as not a, if not the, closest thing to a creator. This is true despite engineers’ immutable/incorrect belief that actually creating product value + building working software = changing the world is inevitable, this video proves otherwise (back room computing vs actually empowering operations using computing) and reminds us that real artists ship.

Had Steve not, who knows what computing would look like 2008-2018, but it’s certainly not a stretch to posit that it’d look a whole lot different, which is what it seems gg99 was saying.

⬐ radiorental

Are you conflating 'computing' and consumption of screen time?

Windows has done far far more in terms of being a platform for computational work.

⬐ amelius

Perhaps a better expression is that he helped popularize computing.

⬐ radiorental

I would again push back on that.

He did introduce a class of devices/products but Apple and Computational machines are not two concepts I associate.

The Windows OS has done more. My point being... yes he's a genius but in terms of Marketing, Business and seeing where the hockey puck is going.

He excelled at selling to desires, but look at the 'real computers' Apple has produced in recent years.

⬐ abakker

Dude...that sounds a lot like a "no true scotsman" line of argument. if by "real computers" you mean devices for programmers to train ML models, then yeah, Apple is pretty lacking, if by "real computers" you mean devices which operate end-user facing software, well, the spectrum widens enough to show you why Apple is approaching a trillion dollar market cap.

put another way, a lot of the _reason_ that companies like facebook and google are doing any computation in the first place is because of the level of data and interaction that people are doing on devices made by apple. You are welcome to make a distinction between a Cray and a MacBook pro, bu it is kind of pedantic.

⬐ radiorental

If sending emails and browsing Facebook is 'computing' then you're right.

If being able to create the 'end use software' on these devices, then again you're right.

If these devices are little more than portable web browsers, computing ?

⬐ TheLegace

I shared the same ignorant view until I saw with my eyes what really happened. Everything done in the early 2000s was done by Apple first(and for the most part really well) as much as I hate to admit that. All Windows did was copy much of the functionality(and did a terrible job at it). If you go through the Keynotes during Steve Jobs return to Apple from 1999-2002 you can see WiFi coming out at least 1 year before anyone, high quality, performing laptops with good battery life and WiFi before anyone. Take a look at the OS X Aqua interface[1](which hasn't changed much even to this day) coming out 1 year before even XP. Lets not even forget the failure of Vista. It took almost a decade for something even close to come out on Windows.

Spend hours and hours going through the unedited version of history and judge for yourself. You can see the birth of many industries(Youtube-Mac Streaming, Google Search - Sherlock) in those keynotes and its refreshing to see it done so well. I'm not saying Jobs succeeded at all these things, but he definitely saw these things way way before anyone.

[1]https://youtu.be/auXc0tgdJSo?t=8m43s

⬐ carlmr

I read his biography by Isaacson. He was a fascinating person, extremely smart, a keen sense of design and a (self-taught) ability for sales. He was most definitely a boss I wouldn't have wanted to work for though, because he was an extreme narcissist.

Smart and terrible person don't exclude each other.

⬐ jryle80

I don't know, I'd rather be an early Apple's employee or part of the first iPhone team, witnessing a major new chapter of computing, than a comfortable developer in a comfortable setting.

⬐ briandear

True! And, this was change the world kind of stuff — it wasn’t being “mean” for the hell of it, it was being “mean” in the pursuit of a vision. It doesn’t excuse “being mean,” but it’s far different than having some jackass middle manager at some consulting firm yelling about TPS reports.

It’s like the drill sergeant phenomenon— harsh leadership can have a place when attempting to forge ahead in a difficult mission as it often motivates the team to accomplish more than would normally be considered comfortable (or even healthy.)

An asshole boss on a mission is far preferable (to me,) than a “nice” boss driven by nothing other than maintaining the status quo.

Asshole bosses maintaining the status quo — now that genuinely sucks.

⬐ carlmr

>True! And, this was change the world kind of stuff — it wasn’t being “mean” for the hell of it, it was being “mean” in the pursuit of a vision. It doesn’t excuse “being mean,” but it’s far different than having some jackass middle manager at some consulting firm yelling about TPS reports.

I don't think the meanness helped in creating the vision. They're two entirely separate things

>An asshole boss on a mission is far preferable (to me,) than a “nice” boss driven by nothing other than maintaining the status quo.

I'll agree on that, but still my experience has been that the bosses that extracted the most work from their employees were the ones that could give praise where it was due. I think Apple made it in spite of Steve Jobs character flaws, not because of them.

⬐ luckydata

Some of the smartest people I've met work in sales. You don't have to be an engineer to be smart.

⬐ jammi

The problem is that the average salesperson is pretty ignorant, even about the probuct he's supposed to sell and the target audience to sell to. Encountering a great salesperson is a rare occurrence in life, encountering a more or less average one is very common.

⬐ typon

Classic programmer narcissism

⬐ Trundle

Possibly just ignorant. Most people have never/will never be in charge of large budgets.

A normal consumer with a normal job is only really going to encounter the lower end of the field.

⬐ neonate

Same with programmers or anything else.

⬐ Ntrails

There's always the difficulty of being able to recognise that as a lamen. Mediocre sales people are often transparent to anybody who listens to them and is able to ask questions. A mediocre engineer "blinds with science" and is very hard to identify without some amount of specialist knowledge.

⬐ None

None

⬐ jammi

Of course, never said it's not. Are people reflecting from themselves, or what is this about?

⬐ kingkongjaffa

The problem is the baseline STEM disciple looks on the baseline biz/marketing graduate with disdain like they took an easy route out.

'proper' Engineering (MECH/AERO/CIVIL/EEE) is full of memes about this mindset.

CS is just as bad.

Most decent engineers loose this mindset after freshman year but many go on to see them selves as the MVP department of whatever business.

In some ways I think Startup culture fights against this because it's really obvious at small team scale how different skill sets are needed.

⬐ Retric

The absolute best in any field including fast food cook is probably as intelegent as any other field. However the average really can be meaningfully different based on self selection. HR for example really does not attract the best and brightest.

Sales is an outlier because compensation for the best can be really good. So, it's got a large group of very talented people and many far less so.

⬐ sah2ed

Agreed. It's easy for engineers to assume because they have a deep understanding of a complex topic, that it is a good proxy for assessing general intelligence.

Such assessment is a good proxy for a certain kind of intelligence only, because intelligence itself exists on a fairly wide spectrum, it is not a binary trait.

⬐ None

None

>that was something I respected about Jobs (and a few other industrialists) -- the combined ability to understand new technology, visualize how it could be brought to a broad market, and then do it successfully

Jobs participated in a Q&A at the MIT Sloan School of Management in 1992, and one of the topics he discussed were the marketing pivots needed for the Mac and Next once he figured out what real world tasks those platforms excelled at that their competition did not. (desktop publishing and enterprise rapid application development)

Video of the talk has recently been made available.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gk-9Fd2mEnI

Steve Job's opinion on consulting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gk-9Fd2mEnI&feature=youtu.be...

The full video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gk-9Fd2mEnI The 2 minute excerpts are nice, but the 73 minute talk is better.

⬐ throwaway4719

Thanks!