chxon Hacker News • Recommends
On “Apple and NeXT announce merger (1996)”
Watch Jobs in his prime a year later describing his philosophy: link to this video I am very far from an Apple fanboy but gosh, this guy totally gets it.
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- Recommended by 4 people: 4 on Hacker News.
- A classic. People kept recommending it from 2011 to 2022.
- Presented by Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple
- An opinion. It argues one side of a question engineers disagree on.
Beginner. No background in the topic needed.
10M views15 years ago4 recommendations
Tools and practiceHistory and culturePeople who shaped computingInside tech companies
Steve Jobs responds to a hostile question at WWDC 1997 by explaining his philosophy of starting with customer experience instead of technology.
Steve Jobs at the 1997 WWDC. This is the question that contains an insult based on a question asked by someone else about 45 minutes earlier. See the first video of this series. Copyright Fair Use provisions invoked as this is for an educational blog posting at mikecanex.wordpress.com I originally allowed Comments. Over time, it became a war zone that was taking too much time to moderate. So, no more Comments. I have better things to do with my time and the people who want to go to war apparently have nothing better to do with *their* time.Why it's here
4 people recommend thisWhat people say. Highly recommended by engineers as a masterclass in product philosophy, focus, and handling difficult questions gracefully.
nirvanaon Hacker News • Recommends
On “The last time I saw Steve Jobs”
…Jobs transformed himself on a fundamental level. The young Steve seemed arrogant and self centered. Getting pushed out of Apple seems to have been a kick to the soul, and then in his 10 years away, he seems to have changed everything about him that was bad. Just check out how he responded to the insult given to him at the 1997 after WWDC session. link to this video Now that enough time has passed, all the people who were bashing Jobs from 1990-2011 are back bashing Jobs again. But I think these stories are the real guy. I was in his presence on a couple of occasions. You can fake some things, but its really hard to fake who you are. Everyone has their good and bad days... but one thing I can say about…
EricEon Hacker News • Recommends
On “Celebrate Woz's 70th”
…one way he pushed modern computing into what it is today. Did he perform every detail himself? Nope - that would be absurd. But he took things that until that time no one else correlated, and he correlated and pushed for them. Often with amazing presence. And it wasn't willy-nilly, either. I mean just look at the way he handled this OpenDoc troll: link to this video How many can compose themselves and deliver that kind of a response that quickly? Not many. So yeah, those who try to dismiss Jobs as just a marketing or product guy are only displaying their profound ignorance. I don't think Jobs was perfect - far from it. But he certainly did make a dent in the universe, and many others too - perhaps it i…
SenHengon Hacker News • Recommends
On “Ask HN: How to talk with logical flow and coherence at interviews?”
Some good examples by Elon Musk and Steve Jobs described in this article. link This was probably one of Steve Job's most impressive example. link to this video
jroseattleon Hacker News • Mentions
On “Jobs Told Google's Page to Cut Bloat to Avoid Becoming Microsoft”
…in of tech companies, especially one the size of Google. Everything we as mere mortals in the tech business are taught is to try things, fail quickly, iterate. Jobs approach was to do a few things and do them well. Indeed, he felt the most important thing one could do, as an agent of change in that type of role, was to learn to effectively say no. link to this video Page has always been very smart and a phenomenal software engineer, but his new role is different. I believe Page finds himself in a somewhat similar position to Jobs in 1997, and it will be very interesting to see how he does as a technology leader.…
kunaion Hacker News • Mentions
On “Yahoo shutting down AltaVista and other services”
This is the video: link to this video For those not initiated, OpenDoc was a multimedia document format developed by Apple before Steve Jobs came back to Apple, which was when he violently killed OpenDoc.
mehrdadaon Hacker News • Mentions
On “Google Reader Founder: I Never Would Have Founded Reader Inside Today's Google”
"Google Reader founder Chris Wetherell said that if the idea came to him in today’s Google, he would leave the company and build it on his own rather than put it at the mercy of Google leadership." Guess what dude?! If I were in that position and I were primarily worried about my project "being at the mercy of Google" (or any company that I don't have sufficient control over, for that matter), I would have left _anytime_. It should not be something you realize _today_. This is just whining over a "wrong" (presumably; assuming you would have pulled it off well) tradeoff you, yourself, made back in the day. It's not "today's Google vs. back then's Google". This is the tradeoff that you make an…
veidron Hacker News • Mentions
On “Apple Is Set to Announce Two iPhones”
…in weird-colored plastic housings? And then how Apple-under-jobs returned to that playbook for their music player line? I think the people who now say Steve Jobs wouldn't have made a cheaper colored-plastic-clad iPhone are the same ones who now say he would never have worn stonewashed jeans with huge non-functional thigh and knee patches.1 1: link to this video…
teovallon Hacker News • Mentions
On “Remember when Apple was failing? Jobs responds to insulting question (1997)”
Cool video, by why not link to the original copy with 2.5+ million views instead of some copy with a bunch of SEO keywords and only 38 views? Here's the original: link to this video
eroppleon Hacker News • Mentions
On “And Then Steve Said, ‘Let There Be an iPhone’”
As `teovall noted, any particular reason you linked a version covered with SEO keywords with only a few views of the video instead of the one with 2.5 million (which has the exact same title but is remarkably lacking in SEO spam)? link to this video is the original, for anyone who's curious.
sreyaNotfilcon Hacker News • Mentions
On “Frameworkless JavaScript”
"By the way, the Retina image on the blog post was 46kb over the wire which is bigger than all the JS in his app." Boom Baby! Sorry, I just love how you picked up on that. Yeah, lets complain about size of our code, but hey look at my pretty high-res image! "The lady doth protest too much, me thinks". Anyway, at the end of the day its about creating an experience that gets the job done (and ultimately get more $$$ in your pocket). Many of the problems I see (here and in the office) are debates on which framework is the best for this and that. Though those are good debates to have, one shouldn't sacrifice the end goal for the "proper" software solution. Jobs said it best here... link to this video
strikingon Hacker News • Mentions
On “Ask HN: What will be the next wow product like the first iPhone?”
…t do already? Your question is the billion-dollar question that YC was founded for. Anyone you ask will have a different answer, if at all. I honestly think the Tesla company's products are going to cause an energy revolution. I think Elon Musk is the biggest "visionary" right now. The handheld computing space is pretty saturated at the moment. 1: link to this video…
Detruson Hacker News • Mentions
On “OpenDoc”
And then link to this video Don't forget Cyberdog link You could drag and drop files into that browser in 1997! Sadly some Youtube videos are hard to find. Should be here somewhere link
orblivionon Hacker News • Mentions
On “Nearly 1 in 3 drugs have a significant safety issue after FDA approval”
…argument for why they need more time and resources, and a great explanation for why they and their team are important. But they may have no sense of the needs of the outside world. This exchange between Steve Jobs and an (apparent) Apple employee highlights this mentality, vs the mentality of an entrepreneur who does respond to the outside world: link to this video It very well may be that the FDA does a fantastic job of filtering out bad stuff. And, as (I may as well come out and say it) a libertarian, perhaps I am guilty of not appreciating all the work that has gone into setting it up. But it doesn…
nadcon Hacker News • Mentions
On “Apple is now a privacy-as-a-service company”
…ch/Face ID to authenticate Keychain, Apple Pay etc. Until a proposal like Solid is widespread, I'd love for a browser/password manager vendor I trust (for me, Mozilla or Apple) to integrate with a privacy-forward email vendor for unique email addresses to provide a less 'fingerprinted' approach to auth, useful today with all legacy (web) apps. 1 link to this video…
hevi_joson Hacker News • Mentions
On “How Google Discovered the Value of Surveillance”
…. No other company has been able to do so at that scale. Lots of people wrongly believe that people is brainwashed to buy what they don't want or need, because they don't understand. They do not understand that it is the other way around. You design what is going to be sold like hotcakes. Because people want it or need it. It is not even a secret: link to this video By the way for a lot of years I wanted a laptop that was done in metal(instead of using plastic with flame retardants) and Apple was the only one doing it. With batteries that lasted lots of hours, lightweight, and silent. Those were essential for me as a traveler. People that could not understand would believe(because they did not have my…