My Neighbor, Steve Jobs

http://lisenstromberg.wordpress.com/2011/08/29/my-neighbor-steve-jobs/

by ryanwhitney • 15 years ago

226 44 15 years ago

lisenstromberg.wordpress.com

What a fantastic, feel-good piece on Steve. It's nice to know he's just like every other parent outside of Apple, and I'm glad someone remembered who he is as a person, not just a CEO.

orenmazor• 15 years ago

Agreed. it's sometimes hard to remember that these people who communicate with us using the products we buy/use are actually just people like us.

and that's kind of a big deal.

truthseeker• 15 years ago

Next up on HN:

Blog post from housekeeper of Mr. Steve about how exacting he is on some occasions and how kind he is on other.

I think Steve Jobs and his contributions to the tech world are extraordinary. I wish him well and hope he lives happily for a long long time. Just as I wish for anyone I know or do not know, that they live happily.

Steve is not a friend of either you or me. I do not need to know how he was as a neighbor, his driving record, his family life or anything that does not concern his work. I am not interested in those details of Steve or Salma Hayek or Steve Ballmer.

Can we stop senselessly idolizing people in areas that are not their expertise?

TheloniusPhunk• 15 years ago

I disagree. I think this story humanizes the guy and helps to dispel the Steve Jobs, Jedi Master, myth.

microtonal• 15 years ago

I agree, but such accounts can be read differently: he's just a normal person. Every normal person has potential to do something great.

runjake• 15 years ago

There may be some idolizing, but I think it's more about premature eulogizing of a man who's made huge contributions to technology, whether you buy Apple products or not. Ballmer isn't even in the same realm.

Personally, I'm interested in his life beyond Apple. He was an out-of-the-box thinker who went through many serious failures and successes. How could he NOT be interesting? I feel I could learn a lot from him. I certainly learned a lot from his now-classic Stanford(?) speech.

We all really do hope for the best for his health, but we all have this unspoken belief that his days are very numbered.

I suspect that like me, many others feel the need to thank him for what he's accomplished, and reviewing and celebrating his life is the next best thing to shaking his hand.

matwood• 15 years ago

premature eulogizing

I mentioned this to a friend the other day. If I only read all of the stories coming out about SJ I would have assumed he died and not just left his CEO position.

ryandotsmith• 15 years ago

I bet there aren't any biographies on your shelf.

inovica• 15 years ago

I personally think that its sometimes the small details that make up the man (sorry, or woman!) and because Steve Jobs is seen as such a success people want to look at what he does partly to look for traits to emulate and naturally partly as curiosity. Yes, there are elements here which are purely 'celebrity' but the interesting thing for me about some of these stories is just how 'ordinary' the guy is. I read one article about his house which is not ostentatious at all. There's a lot that can be learned from people like this and you have the choice to read (or not read) them.

reinhardt• 15 years ago

+1, just flag these posts and hope that enough us keep doing the same.

dasil003• 15 years ago

Maybe so, but in today's era of celebrity gossip, I'm thankful for someone to be famous for actually doing something memorable than the endless stream of minutiae about a sequence of borderline NPDs whose only talent is capitalizing on media exposure.

ellyagg• 15 years ago

The debate over whether your complaint is valid could seriously span volumes. Frankly, if you truly respected Steve Job's contributions and simultaneously found his personal life of zero interest, I would find that extremely odd.

Most, probably the vast majority of, people become very interested in every aspect of their hero's lives. I'm sure you can think of many reasons why this might be the case, both evolutionarily and practically. The fundamental attribution error notwithstanding, discovering what relationship a particular aspect of genius has to other traits of a person is powerfully interesting to human beings.

Perhaps you literally don't have any curiosity over your heroes beyond their strict niche. Perhaps you have no heroes. Perhaps you don't think Jobs deserves to be anyone's hero. But don't be surprised at everyone else's outpouring of interest, because most people aren't like you.

trekgunner• 15 years ago

I just checked CNN. I had to because the piece at the end made it sound like he ea dead.

sethbaur• 15 years ago

I've done the same thing. Even though I knew he wasn't dead, everyone is talking about him as though he is. And now we're supposed to be surprised by the fact that he's a normal person, just like you and me?

sriramk• 15 years ago

I'm ashamed to admit that part of the reason for my wife (artithmetic on HN) and I to pick our current apartment in Palo Alto several months ago was because it was a stone's throw away from Jobs' house. He's been a long time hero of mine and when we got a chance to live close by, we jumped at it.

Bonus - we're even closer to several YC startups, I suspect if I shout loudly, the LikeALittle guys can hear it.

rdl• 15 years ago

One of the most amazing things about Palo Alto is that the city-provided services are actually good enough that people like Steve Jobs use them, in preference to private schools, fortified compounds, etc. At least, this is amazing to me after living in a bunch of third world places where even lower middle class people try to avoid any contact with neighbors, government-provided services, etc.

(my girlfriend actually went to a Palo Alto high school with Lisa Jobs, too)

BoppreH• 15 years ago

In Brazil, the best colleges are public. They are so good it's bad: the rich kids take a semester or two of specific courses to pass the entrance exam, leaving the poor people out.

padmanabhan01• 15 years ago

This audio (6 min long) is worth a listen. Steve Jobs, when he was around 26 or so. http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/pagegen/brochure/p3.html

hunterjrj• 15 years ago

Great clip. Thanks for sharing.

kubrickslair• 15 years ago

Thank you for posting it.

I should say this: When Steve Jobs talks about intersection of Liberal Arts and Technology people think it's some marketing gimmick. But he was saying pretty much the same thing in 1982, when he was at the top, the same thing in 1997 [1] when the chips were down, and the same thing in 2011 when he was back at the top.

I think a breadth of experiences is pretty important. Whether in a specific field- experience with different types/levels of languages, having done both academic research and grunt work. Or in life- hallucinogenics, life-jeopardizing risks, depression, unfulfilled love. Not to say that one should always have to be a wreck as a person, or never settle and focus on a project or set of languages. But a little time spent increasing your breadth goes a long way than incrementally bettering your depth. And more generally, I have met too many people who always did the 'right' thing to do, always got straight As, but are pretty clueless when they step out of their domain or world view. Creativity, empathy, connecting-the-dots may sound as buzz words because you cannot learn them through books. But not all of it is genetic; a lot of it comes through the breadth of your experiences.

[1] "I wish him the best, I really do. I just think he and Microsoft are a bit narrow. He'd be a broader guy if he had dropped acid once or gone off to an ashram when he was younger." talking about Bill Gates in 1997.

tuxguy2• 15 years ago

One of the most insightful comments . Great articulation @kubrickslair

tuxguy2• 15 years ago

Great find @padmanabhan01, i think this talk is not very widely known about.

Direct link to the audio talk by SJ : http://www.achievement.org/newsletter/audio/jobs-aud.mov

tedkalaw• 15 years ago

This reminded me that the people that seem to know the most ABOUT Steve Jobs don't actually know Steve Jobs. Really cool to read.

idanb• 15 years ago

A few months ago I had just taken a meeting in Palo Alto and went down the street to sit at a Starbucks to wait for a ride since I rode the caltrain and had no way to get around. I was doing some work when Steve Jobs walked in. My grandfather passed away from Pancreatic cancer and was by no means walking around having a coffee with friends at this stage. It was really inspiring to see him pushing through the condition and refusing to give up.

Some jerk kid walked up to him and asked if it'd be alright to take a picture with him. Steve dismissed him with such a confidence you wouldn't expect. I think in general a guy like that with such amazing ideas has to have this extremely thick shell to the world, but underneath I'm sure he's an amazing father, husband, and friend. I was really lucky to be there that day, definitely changed my perspective on a few things.

elb0w• 15 years ago

Thank god this is on HN, not sure what I would of done without reading this article. Lets make sure to spread this one around folks.

dctoedt• 15 years ago

When [EDIT: you think] someone's dying, it's more satisfying to tell him (or her) how much you appreciate him, while he's still around to take some pleasure in it, than to attend the funeral wishing you'd done so.

sp332• 15 years ago

"We're dying, Jim. We're all dying."

He's not dying.

hnsmurf• 15 years ago

I don't get this one. I would assume that you'd have to be extremely wealthy to be Steve Jobs's neighbor. As a result you'd think bumping into other extremely wealthy, successful people would be routine.

burrokeet• 15 years ago

there's a mix of housing in Palo Alto - a fair amount of students and young persons intermingled with home owners of (very) expensive homes. I lived in a $1500/month place on Everett (cheap) and across the street there were million dollar houses, but a block in another direction were a few places that looked like 1920s era sharecroppers houses.

capkutay• 15 years ago

Old palo alto represent!

hans• 15 years ago

I know he's going, we all do, but man it feels like a kick in the gut for tech. Yes we know tech is actually bullshit, in the grand scheme of things, to keep us occupied, but somehow no Jobs means something less ... like the suits will kill off all the beauty because they don't understand that.

We need a new big visionary in the higher boardrooms but I don't see any, lately they're all just wall street and more so with time.

napierzaza• 15 years ago

tl;dr

Steve (yes I call him by his first name) live near me. As a neighbour. Just down the street. I have moments where he has acknowledged my existence. He even knows my waspy name.

idlewords• 15 years ago

If you've ever wondered what a pure name-drop is like when extended to multiple paragraphs, your wait is over.

granitepail• 15 years ago

Yeah -- it was about as textbook as it gets. I respect the guy to no end, but this "article" was pretty absurd. Four-some-odd paragraphs of the author explaining how flabbergasted she was by Job's presence in _her own neighborhood_ and one beyond-cliched moment in which Steve Jobs is -- GASP -- proud of his child.

dvdhsu• 15 years ago

One or two Halloweens ago, I went over to Steve's house. While everybody was waiting in line, it turned out that Steve was standing behind a doorway, where everybody was going through.

He just stood there. Nobody noticed until they started walking back having gotten their treats from the front door.

I was impressed. Impressed because he was not the one handing out the treats, but the one standing behind a doorway, where nobody noticed him.

gabaix• 15 years ago

Marc Zuckerberg goes past my house almost every week in Palo Alto. Seeing on the streets someone you see in the media helps making him normal.

oflannabhra2• 15 years ago

Honestly, I think the neighborly thing for the author to do is to allow Steve his privacy.

mcantor• 15 years ago

Out of curiosity, how does this violate his privacy?

oflannabhra2• 15 years ago

I don't know if it violates his privacy, but it sure doesn't respect it. Retelling personal moments such as Steve watching his son graduate (while essentially putting words in his mouth) basically makes her a paparazzo.

espressodude• 15 years ago

The human touch to this one makes it the best article I've read about Steve Jobs.

WordSkill• 15 years ago

Nice article but I am Steve Jobs' neighbor on the other side and he has been nothing but a nightmare for my family, especially all the nude gardening.

My Neighbor, Steve Jobs

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