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| The 'Lost' Steve Jobs speech from 1983 |
| By Thom Holwerda on 2012-10-03 22:41:24 |
| "Regarding the speech, it is amazing to hear Steve Jobs talk about some things that were not fully realized until only a handful of years ago. This talks shows us just how incredibly ahead of his time he was. I've listened to the entirety of the recording a few times now and have taken extensive notes, of which I will further elaborate on in future blog postings." This 1983 speech by Jobs is not as visionary as it seems. It's virtually identical to Alan Kay's mind-blowing Dynabook vision... From 1968. Kay even describes multitouch (p. 8) and Siri (p. 6). Not entirely coincidentally, Kay joined Apple in 1984. Look people, Steve Jobs was an incredibly talented individual that left a real imprint on the world - you don't need to make him larger than he was. |
|
| Woz created... |
| By thavith_osn on 2012-10-03 22:54:35 |
| ...the objects that created Apple, Jobs put those objects in our hands... |
 - Score: 4 |
| Comment by Laurence |
| By Laurence on 2012-10-03 23:01:32 |
|
To be fair, I do think Jobs was a visionary. He just wasn't the only visionary nor was he the 1st to predict many of the technologies he'd later go on to sell. But who do you credit with being the 1st? The manufactorers or developers? The scientists? or how about sci-fi writers? Gene Roddenberry had Siri-like interfaces on Star Trek and that was long before desktop computers were even conceived, let alone smart phones. And while we're on the subject of phones, he also invented the flip phone (aka communicator). However I'm pretty sure vocal communication interfaces were written about even before Star Trek. So I guess my point is this: Jobs was a visionary, but there's no shortage of them. Getting those visions to market and making people buy them is the hard part, and like or loath the guy, he was a good sales man. Bill Gate is/was too, for that matter. |
| - Score: 5 |
| RE: Comment by Laurence |
| By Thom_Holwerda on 2012-10-03 23:02:05 |
|
> Getting those visions to market and making people buy them is the hard part, and like or loath the guy, he was a good sales man. Bill Gate is/was too, for that matter. Exactly. |
| - Score: 4 |
| RE: Comment by Laurence |
| By WorknMan on 2012-10-03 23:46:48 |
|
> But who do you credit with being the 1st? The manufactorers or developers? The scientists? or how about sci-fi writers? If we use a concrete example, the Apple 1, I credit both the man who had the skills to build it, and the man who had the vision to bring it to the masses. Apple being what it is couldn't have been done without both of them. |
| - Score: 5 |
| Jobs knew how to make things happen... |
| By galvanash on 2012-10-04 01:01:53 |
|
That was his primary skill. People called him a "visionary". That is an accurate label I guess, but it's meaning tends to be lost on most people. Visionaries don't invent things or create things. They take small ideas they believe in (their's or other's) and run as far as they can with them. They play things out, see where it leads, get things done, make things happen. Their value is not in the idea itself, but their ability to mold it into their vision of what it could be. Any idea they feel is worth pursuing they pursue as if it is the most profound idea in the history of man - the goal being to convince everyone else to see it the way they do... I think people do gloss over the fact that someone like Jobs cannot do what he does without being surrounded by some very talented people... At the same time though, he was always the guy in the spotlight, so he tends to get most of the credit. He was very good at that part too, the showmanship aspect of selling the general public on his vision. I don't begrudge the accolades he gets. You absolutely need people like Jobs to turn ideas into successful products. He was lucky in many ways because he had enough money and was surrounded by enough talent that most of the time he could execute pretty damn well on his vision. Anyway, visionary is just as good of a label as any I guess. Ive seen people call him a "salesman", but that just doesn't cut it. Salesman just sell things, it requires skill but not faith... Jobs made his own koolaid, and drank it regularly - no one can say he didn't believe in what he was doing. He may not have invented much of anything, but he sure knew how to run with an idea. |
| - Score: 10 |
| RE: The inverse is also true |
| By No it isnt on 2012-10-04 06:07:20 |
| Right. Insisting on not making him bigger than he was is somehow making him smaller. |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE[2]: Comment by Laurence |
| By sicofante on 2012-10-04 07:15:48 |
|
And so we're back to square one. Everybody is trying to remember Jobs as a "visionary", when he mostly "envisioned" obvious things many others were envisioning at the same time or well before him. Instead, Jobs should be remembered as the guy who made some of those visions come true, by hiring the right people (starting by Woz...), selling the products well and all the other stuff a good CEO is supposed to do. I "invented" the Google Street Car and View many years before Google even existed, and I shared that "invention" with a number of people that would testify I did. I never took it to the market, because I'm lazy, so it just doesn't count at all. Point being, what's important is actually executing the "inventions" and "visions". All of us have great ideas every now and then. That doesn't make us so special. Jobs wasn't either in that regard. Remember the guy for what made him different (a great CEO and sales pitch genius), not what make him equal to so many people. |
| - Score: 4 |
| Steve Jobs could be very wrong too |
| By karunko on 2012-10-04 07:25:07 |
|
Like in this "internal use only" video while at NeXT. It's all about workstations, a market that was about to tank: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p... And even though I think that NeXT hardware was good but overpriced and NeXT OS probably the best at the time, that doesn't make him any less wrong on nearly all counts. RT. |
| - Score: 3 |
| RE: Steve Jobs could be very wrong too |
| By galvanash on 2012-10-04 08:05:35 |
|
> And even though I think that NeXT hardware was good but overpriced and NeXT OS probably the best at the time, that doesn't make him any less wrong on nearly all counts. I watched the video and I have to say I don't understand your criticism. The video was made in 90/91 (not sure which)... The professional workstation market was growing, rapidly, and it continued to grow for another 5 years or so. NexT quit making hardware well before the workstation market peaked - the death of workstations had nothing to do with their failure. Sure, betting on the workstation market may seem like a bad move 25 years later, but 25 years ago it was a perfectly logical thing to do. No one knew that Intel would drop the Pentium Pro bomb on the whole industry in 1995... |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE[3]: Comment by Laurence |
| By kovacm on 2012-10-04 09:44:17 |
|
> I "invented" the Google Street Car and View many years before Google even existed, and I shared that "invention" with a number of people that would testify I did. I never took it to the market, because I'm lazy, You work worked with Andrew Lippman ?? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H... |
| - Score: 2 |
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