The only thing that worries me about bringing focus to stuff like this is that people will walk away with the reverse impression- that if they're unhireable it must mean that they're just like Steve Jobs.
Steve Jobs could be many things. Inspired is one of them. An asshole is another. Just because people think you're an asshole doesn't automatically mean you're inspired.
Well, that's true, but Bushnell is really the focus of the article, and he says something that is spot-on:
"The basics: Make work fun; weed out the naysayers; celebrate failure, and then learn from it; allow employees to take short naps during the day; and don't shy away from hiring talented people just because they look sloppy or lack college credentials."
I'm worried about your impression that if you don't like someone, they can't do interesting things as Jobs did.
Who is actually "unhireable"? And even if they are, does that mean they cannot accomplish anything? Are you in charge of deciding who will never amount to anything?
They could well do interesting things, as Jobs did- I'm not saying they can't. I'm more trying to say that there is no guaranteed connection between the two, in the same way that wearing black turtlenecks isn't going to make you any more enlightened either.
This reminds me of PG's essay about startups - where he says that all great ideas look like really bad ideas in the beginning. Like black swans, the next big thing, and the person to create the next big thing seem to share the trait of not being easy to predict or spot.
There's "obvious" bad ideas like trying to sell sand in the desert.
There's the bad (underwhelming) ideas, maybe that's the most common of them, it's probably the 'trying to make a weird idea sellable'. Like 'french fries are amazing but unhealthy so let's try to sell potatoes cut as fries, but baked, with no salt'
There's also quirky ideas as bad ideas, which is the way most people go and what PG probably meant. Not to mention sometimes your idea looks like the same as a failed one already but the devil is in the details.
Depends on your investment strategy. Fads are nearly impossible to predict. So you have $100,000 to invest and this guy comes up to you with pet rocks. Another guy with toilets that sing. Another guy with shoes that play music.
Who do you give the money to? Any of these guys?
Just because fads exist, doesn't mean bad ideas don't. Banking on the pet rock was a huge gamble for someone and it somehow worked out. Fad toys must have 1 out of 100,000 success rate, if that.
I'm skeptical of trying to segment ideas into categories in the first place. It's one thing to say something is a good or bad idea as a rhetorical point, but when we're talking about sets of ideas I think it borders on useless.
At the same time, I have difficulty thinking of any examples of anyone trying to do such an obviously bad idea. The closest analogy that comes to mind for me is trying to penetrate an overly saturated market. Why would anyone want to do that? But hey, you could say that fast food burgers is extremely saturated, and yet, new companies like Five Guys are coming out, surprising, and thriving. Sometimes you can't know until it either succeeds or fails.
Selling sand in the desert isn't _that_ of an obviously bad idea. I bet some people are making good money selling sand for golf bunkers or white beaches in the likes of Abu Dhabi. Even the sand for artificial islands sometimes gets imported from elsewhere because the locally available one is too scarce or lacks some essential qualities.
You got there first. Sand for artificial beaches gets imported all the time, from many far flung places. Desert sand != coral reef sand (the white sand from dead coral, generally excreted from Parrot fish).
You probably do quite nicely selling white sands to the beach resorts of the middle east.
Jobs was almost unhirable because he had a vegan diet, no showers and no shoes. He ended up working night shifts. I haven't heard how Woz coped with this.
Downvoted for projecting your opinion of Jobs onto your (probably deliberate) misinterpretation of the story. Jobs was a difficult hire because he wasn't a team player.
I'm concerned assholes won't see assholeish behaviour as a bad thing, and instead see it as proof of their genius. I am partially concerned for them, but mostly concerned for those of us that have to work with them.
Basically because if somebody like Steve Jobs doesn't have a Steve Wozniak to build things for him in the start he is more or less a arrogant egoistic tantrum throwing hippie kind of a guy whom nobody would like to deal with.
You meet a genius co-founder like Steve Wozniak very very rarely.
Nearly every program manager is a lesser version of Steve Jobs, that is how authority looks cool and glorified. Giving an impression that the manager is automagically creating success out of thin air while a engineer somewhere pushing 19 hr daily schedules to make it happen doesn't count or is irrelevant.
Steve Jobs reminds of Peter Keating from Ayn Rand's 'The Fountainhead'.
Steve Jobs is the visible topic! You don't have to bring up Woz or any of the other countless engineers to still admire his genius-- you don't have to be an engineer to be a genius-- and common ignorance about the nuance of the story doesn't make for an incorrect story. Of course there were other brilliant people involved, and they are celebrated, without qualification, in the circles which understand their work.
Is it tiresome to hear about Jobs? Yeah, I'm over it. But you know what's worse are the people coming back with the idea that the managers are all leaches. You don't work in a vacuum. You are not capable of accomplishing it all on your own. And guess what? Steve Jobs was capable of things that most people are not.
Criticize him for taking the aesthetic and not the architecture from PARC. Criticize him for creating locked platforms and eschewing FOSS. Criticize him on any number of substantive topics, but don't let's bog down every moment of cultural hero worship just because they didn't choose the guy with our job title. The engineers get their time.
>>>Steve Jobs reminds of Peter Keating from Ayn Rand's 'The Fountainhead'.
Seriously? You think Hank Rearden developed Rearden Steel without all of the efforts others had first made in steel? Dagny inherited her damn railroad. She didn't create it. Richard Halley didn't invent music. John Galt was working in a damn auto factory. He didn't invent autos nor the idea of an engine. Midas Mulligan was a goddammed banker. He didn't invent currency or the idea of stored value.
Wow that's fairly insulting and not really an appropriate comparison at all. Peter Keating was anything but an arrogant egoist, and he bent over backwards to please the people he dealt with (his superiors at least)
At the end of the day what Peter Keating did was because of how people reacted to him.
Tell me that using the dealer trick to not have a license plate is somehow not the same childish level of vanity that you would expect of a successful manchild.
Irrespective of whether or not the dealer trick is right, your argument is unconvincing.
A non-exhaustive list of things which the law allows for and which many people have the ability to do:
* Call you names
* Give you projects that are doomed to fail
* Place you on a team which will drag you down
* Use you as a scapegoat for the failure of a project
* Use KLOC as a metric of performance
* Show you the finger at a traffic light
And yet we don't approve of these things. Something being lawful is the bare minimum, not the gold standard.
None of those provide value. I think you're confusing a hack that only takes advantage of the government in a context where the government takes advantage of us and that's meant to provide value ultimately to someone else.
I do not understand why anyone would find this quote surprising, controversial or even newsworthy.
Employees operate within the rules established by their employers - they have a boss and are expected to be a "good solider" to support objectives of their company / business unit... People like Steve Jobs are successful because of their audacity to disregard the rules and make their own.
These are entirely different mindsets and skillsets. Employees are given direction, entrepreneurs set the direction.
What I find a lot more interesting is that quite a few startup founders act like employees rather than leaders - constantly asking (explicitly or implicitly) for approval of others. Look around and see if you can recognize people who care about the opinions of press/investors/advisors/peers more than achieving product/market fit followed by revenue/profitability/growth.
You don't actually have to be that much of a soldier at most places and most places today, imho, would hire steve jobs. I have a day job and my personal ventures and the bottom line is if you do your job, nobody cares. I think the vast majority of successful leaders also had a successful period working on someone else's project beforehand.
The sad, harsh reality is, no one would hire Steve Jobs today or almost no one.Why?Because times have changed (In a bad way).We live in a world full of arrogance, stupidity and ignorance.We no longer think how to change the world but how to make a lot of money.
Steve Jobs was a non-technical guy.We have 1 million topics on HN bashing these guys for 1 million reasons.Even on this one we have engineers talking about the same thing over and over.
How about being realistic at least once. We do not give these people any chance of working with us.Because we are so arrogant these days that we think the world belong to us and only we (programmers/engineers) can change it.
We cannot find a Steve Jobs when we are not willing to risk at all.How many of you helped a non-technical guy building a project without asking for a huge amount of money or 100% equity?Probably not many.Most of the help consists of telling the guy to find a cofounder or to quit the project.Not one programmer/engineer would say "hey you know what, you're crazy but I'll help you" or any other similar line.
The truth is we do not own the world and we are not all-knowing. We can be all-star programmers and yet have crap ideas.Nothing is set in stone.Someone out there is always better than you.And history shows us that small things count. Unbelievable things come from unexpected places.
I am not saying that every non-technical guy is a Steve Jobs because I had my own failures with these guys and yes, it's incredibly frustrating.But those were bad selections.A risk I was willing to take.I helped a non-technical guy with a startup 4 years ago.He had a weird idea and he asked me to help him in exchange for a fixed sum of 350K. He came to me with a damn paper and pen to talk about his idea. He had no money to hire a programmer only an ambition that could move mountains.And after 6 months I received the money in my account...the startup was a success...and that's when I changed my mentality.
So in conclusion, if we want to see a Steve Jobs, we have to take risks.Otherwise let's continue flipping the coin and wait for it.
I don't think the world is that much different today than it was yesterday. You perspective on it may be different and will continue to evolve over time, but for the most part the world we live in continues much the same as it always has. The problems you speak of is nothing new. Just look on the history of a different industry and you're likely to find much the same.
But, during the early years Jobs was not selling his own crazy ideas, he was selling Woz's. Plus I wouldn't say that Jobs was a non-technical guy as he clearly knew tech, he just accepted his place in that field.
The thing I don't get about your comment is that we see people risking things on non-technical people's ideas every day, so I don't understand your point.
I have to disagree here.Even though my perspective has changed, times have changed too.How?Look around.If you do not see it than I will stop here.
Steve Jobs was a non-technical guy.That's why there were so many debates about tech and non tech guys during these years.He acquired knowledge over time through various sources.He had everything on a plate.And you can be a complete outsider in a company.When you spend so much time in your industry, in your environment, you learn.But you couldn't say he was a programmer or engineer.
Saying that people are risking things on non-tech people's ideas every day is like saying people are driving a car every day.Of course they are.In this world there is a little bit of everything.Rich people, poor people, low jobs, high jobs etc. We are talking about the majority or current situation. And for the moment the situation is just how I described it.
If you think it is not true, post a project on HN as a non-technical guy and ask for someone to help you build your project.I am curious how many would help you.
That is just my personal opinion based on my observations and experiences.
If you do not see that your third paragraph contradicts your first then I cannot help you.
Jobs was involved in numerous projects creating highly popular technical products in several different roles. Now did he dig in to create the circuit boards and code the programs himself? No, he did not. But that's like saying a team lead is not a technical person because he doesn't code himself. To help create technical products from the ground up there has to be some level technical knowledge involved. Maybe your standard of what constitutes technical knowledge is higher than mine or maybe we just think of being technical as different things.
As I said before, your third paragraph agrees with my point. What you are complaining about has been around for quite a while and will most likely will exist for a time to come.
Someone with no technical knowledge asking for help on a project and not getting it does not necessarily lead to your conclusion on the community in general. One could say the same if you have a crazy idea for a new type of house, when you've never built a house before, and no one in the construction industry steps forward to build your house on spec for no money down. That's simply how the world works and has always worked. What you want is the exception to be the rule.
But then again, I'm sure the open source world has several examples of what you say doesn't happen.
I don't see the contradiction but my point is, if we want to see more steves we should improve the relationship between us and them even if we have the hard part of the startup.Which is almost always the case.
But hey, if you choose to be a programmer, you should do it because you really like it not because you make a lot of money. I can work 30h non stop on a project I like even if it's not mine, because I really like to build projects.
I don't want the exception to be the rule.It would be impossible after all.What I want is tech guys to risk more when it comes to non-technical people.
Btw, when you are smart and very talented you don't really need to get that technical.I already wrote about a non-technical guy I've worked with which had no technical background and no experience with startups that was able to build a product from his mind. I was shocked.I mean he didn't even know how to design it in photoshop.He was able to guide us through the building process almost perfectly.Now, of course he was reading a lot about everything but besides that he had no real technical background.
Should I say that guy was technical or non-technical?We probably see things differently.
We should return to our topic subject because we are entering the eternal debate and we will just ruin the topic.
Well, the other thing to consider about Jobs + Wozniak is that they were young at the time. The young are more apt to take risks -- and they were also friends with mutual interests beyond just computing. Did Jobs tend to use Wozniak? Yes. But Wozniak had to be willing to go along on the ride. Also, being young, they had their parents to still fall back on, whereas if you're older and being asked to take a risk, you have to consider the web of financial and personal obligations that have grown up to ensnare you.
Exactly.Wozniak had to be willing to go along on the ride.And he did it.Did he ever create a scandal or, I don't know, fight for glory with Jobs?No.He was always a humble guy and got the work done.No drama or anything.And he was well repaid.
We have plenty of young talented people in this world.But I already stated the problem in my initial post.
I'm not sure Steve Jobs would be such a great employee anyway. He was born to lead, not follow. To innovate, not bend himself to someone else's vision. Invest in him? Yes. Hire him? Hmmmmm. Maybe not.
"A grown man that throws tantrums, belittles subordinates, and never admits when his company has made a mistake is not what I would call a born leader."
So, one could easily compare him with Stalin, Hitler, and other people like these who happened to have similar habits? Well, the life story of well-adjusted sociopaths...
>According to whom?
Anyone with a brain. Steve Jobs wasn't successful because he found it appropriate to act like a 2 year old in a business environment. He was successful in spite of it.
>Leadership isn't about making friend; It's about getting people to obey.
I agree that leadership isn't about making friends, but the other half of the book's title is "and Influencing People," which is about getting people to do what you want them to, which is exactly what you said leadership is about.
Hitler and Stalin were not good leaders. Sure, you can force people to do things if your commands are backed up by the promise of torture and death, but that's not leadership by any stretch of the imagination.
You can be successful for a number of reasons. Most good leaders are successful, but success alone isn't an indicator of leadership ability. Good leaders are far too rare for every successful organization to have one.
>Hitler and Stalin were not good leaders. Sure, you can force people to do things if your commands are backed up by the promise of torture and death, but that's not leadership by any stretch of the imagination.
Hitler and Stalin weren't born with the ability to have anyone tortured or killed. They didn't inherit generals and secret police under their command. These power structures they built themselves over the course of their respective political careers. Their ability to rally people to their respective causes was formidable.
For another example of belligerence and downright nastiness as a leadership quality: look no further than the military. Drill Instructors are legendary for the intimidating and degrading treatment of their subordinates and yet I find it very hard to argue with the results. By and large, they're able to produce unshakably loyal soldiers.
I'm a 3rd generation Soldier that was in the Army for a decade, what you are describing is called toxic leadership, and it destroys organizations. Slowly, the military is starting to admit that its ineffective when your subordinates aren't a bunch of mouth breathing illiterates.
Also, most Soldiers are loyal because most people who aren't already patriotic wouldn't have much of a reason to go through all the bullshit. Anyone who thinks that you can get brainwashed by 9 weeks of mild exercise and ass-chewings delivered by a group of regular people who are paid to pretend that they are mad at you must have had a pretty easy life. Basic training is the codecademy of military discipline.
>I'm a 3rd generation Soldier that was in the Army for a decade, what you are describing is called toxic leadership, and it destroys organizations. Slowly, the military is starting to admit that its ineffective when your subordinates aren't a bunch of mouth breathing illiterates.
Totally different situation. You're talking about maintaining high morale with career soldiers. I'm talking about rousing up a bunch of conscripts and packing them off to war. Historically, these types of people made up the bulk of the armies and didn't live long enough to cause trouble for the organization.
And is Steve Wozniak more than a career engineer without Steve Jobs? I think it's more accurate to say they are both exponentially more valuable in tandem than solo.
Don't forget some companies are big and old enough to no longer have the initial vision and can differentiate into other markets with employees that are leaders like Steve. Maybe a good example would be Eisner with Disney
Early stage investing provably cannot be as rational as most try and make it to be. When a group tips and looks like a good score is about to emerge.. the score-keepers have to increment the score ( i.e. give investment ) as that is about the only function they serve.
" Finally, I'd like to once again talk about investment management. That is a funny business because on a net basis, the whole investment management business together gives no value added to all buyers combined. That's the way it has to work. " - Charlie Munger
When people rejected or passed on .. at that point in time .. it would have been entirely rational to do so. I am not certain even Mr.Jobs knew how time would turn.
I will never forget. The day Jobs died, Al Alcorn was giving a talk at San Jose State University for my Computer History course. He took about 15-20 minutes before the talk and shared many inside stories from the Atari days about Jobs. Truly remarkable stuff. As he put it, "I was the only boss he ever had". I am sad that his stories got cut out from the recorded lecture, maybe because he said a lot of colorful things :)
"Bushnell, now 70, could have reaped even more from his relationship with Jobs if he hadn't turned down an offer from his former employee to invest $50,000 in Apple during its formative stages."
$50 000 in 1976, the year Apple was founded, had the purchasing power of over $200 000 today. Without the benefit of hindsight he probably made a sensible, if unlucky, decision.
It's really insulting to reduce a human being to some kind of archetype incapable of adapting to a situation. Steve was a bright guy -- I'm sure that if he ever found himself in a position where he needed to apply as an employee of a company, he would know how to 'play the game' and adapt to the situation.
Also, I'm sick of hearing people downplay Jobs' role in Apple and giving Woz all of the credit (although I'm not surprised; I'm assuming that many introverted code monkeys here aspire to be the unsung hero co-founder of a company).
It's the same shit I hear about how the Beatles would be nothing without George Martin or LSD. It should go without saying that these revolutionary things (i.e. Apple and the Beatles) are products of both serendipitous events AND the surrounding cultural context. Yes, if you remove one piece of the puzzle, OF COURSE the end-result will be different. But what makes it a moot point is that the converse is also true -- George Martin would be nothing without the Beatles, and Woz would be completely unheard of if it weren't for Steve Jobs.
I agree except for your last comment where you do the very thing you complain others are doing with Jobs. You downplayed Woz's contributions by implying that he would have done nothing exceptional unless Jobs was there to hold his hand. Except that Woz is credited with developing the Apple I by himself but I suppose he would have just tossed the thing in the bin if not for Jobs.
"Bushnell, now 70, could have reaped even more from his relationship with Jobs if he hadn't turned down an offer from his former employee to invest $50,000 in Apple during its formative stages. Had he seized that opportunity, Bushnell would have owned one-third of Apple, which is now worth about $425 billion -- more than any other company in the world."
Surprised Jobs would have offered so much of Apple, even in the formative stages, for $50k (which surely translates to much more money than $50k is today). It is interesting to consider how that would have changed the control/direction of Apple.
But this is wrong. The $50k would have gone through many dilutions. He may have owned 1/3 of Apple. There is no way that today he would have 1/3rd. That said, it does raise the question: if he had gone in to Apple, would Jobs have ever left and started NeXT and Pixar???
You might be the best as an individual but if you are not a team player, the probability of succeeding is minimal. Team members complement each other to make successful products/companies or any relationship
No one would hire him today. Companies are risk averse, given the current economic/political climate. If you can't produce and "fit in", don't bother submitting your resumé.
It's possible that nobody would hire an unknown Steve Jobs now, but it really doesn't matter. Jobs wasn't an employee, he was a founder. Founders don't have to concern themselves with getting hired.
>>>Founders don't have to concern themselves with getting hired.
But they still have to do things like pay rent, buy food, buy clothes, buy tech. Those things take money. And money is usually gotten from a job. The point is, Jobs wouldn't have even been able to get a job to survive first. That old guy sweeping floors in McDonald's today? Did you ever stop to think what led him there? (For the Rand worshipers out there, how was Galt employed at Taggart Transcontinental?)
That's a nice way to strawman what I said, but I was talking about hiring, not buying stuff, income, or money. Here's the thing: Steve Jobs did not have to get hired, in the employee sense, because he founded his own company.
I don't see it necessarily as a strawman since it is essentially true, as he did have jobs leading up to Apple. Keep in mind that he founded his company with funding, it's not as if he founded the company and was instantly making enough money to survive with.
One could make the argument that even a founder is "hired" when he requires somebody else's money to make it happen.
The problem is that no one would hire Steve Jobs as a subordinate, but he was an evident great hire for a decision-making role, even then. People like him usually get filtered out before they get high enough to use their talents, though. In fact, Jobs is the opposite of what corporations promote, which explains a lot about them.
Michael, have you read Managing the Professional Service Firm by David Maister? He writes powerfully about economics, incentives, and culture as they relate to management. I think his book would give you a lot to think about, and you'd find plenty both to learn and to argue against. His focus is a "firm" structured on the partner/associate model. I'd love to see more people thinking about and experimenting with that model for software developers. I think it offers many similarities to what you admire about Github and Valve. And perhaps it is a model where Steve Jobs could find a place.
I don't like the partner/associate model as it works in law firms, because (at least in 2013) it becomes a two-class system as toxic as the tenured/not distinction in academia.
Also, law firm bonuses aren't direct profit-sharing. What I proposed in my recent essay ( http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/03/26/gervais-macle... ) is real, motivationally significant profit-sharing extended to all employees. In biglaw, they are hosed if they work hard for 7 years and don't make partner; in VC-istan, engineers in a 50-person company get ~0.04% equity instead of the ~0.45% profit sharing they'd get under my system.
The idea that I have in mind is one where profit sharing's open to all employees and substantial but very few people end up holding equity, because the thing's not built to be sold and equity is only for people expected to be long-term (10+ years) contributors.
I would debate whether those traits make for sure-fire great decision making. That sounds more like the kind of guy you stick in the corner by himself and let him go at it to see what he comes up with. A person with a lack of deference to authority may not be good at maintaining his authority. Being of an independent mindset may not mix well with a team.
IMHO it's strange that we are discussing hiring Mr reality distortion field for a technical position here. If he were reincarnated and looking for a job now, he would probably go into sales. What do they care more about in sales, team playing or closing contracts for new leads? Then there is the "motivational speaking", another fruitful and remunerative area of endeavor for this sort of people :)
In other news: Grey-haired dude from long-ago bigs himself up for hiring someone who is seen as a bad employee. "I was smarter back then than all y'all are today." Also missed the chance to buy 33% of Apple for 5k, with Apple now being valued at 425 billion USD.
Steve Jobs could be many things. Inspired is one of them. An asshole is another. Just because people think you're an asshole doesn't automatically mean you're inspired.