Memories of Steve

http://donmelton.com/2014/04/10/memories-of-steve/

by zekers • 12 years ago

399 152 12 years ago

ghiculescu• 12 years ago

Some great stories there. Wasn't sure on the Apple stores presentation joke though, can anyone explain the reference?

It's not really a reference - read it over a bit more carefully and I think you'll get it. Basically, Phil is meant to believe that Steve actually was serious about putting the slide in the presentation.

donmelton3• 12 years ago

Exactly. And for a moment there, he bought it. :)

oxymoron• 12 years ago

Here's the image, for anyone curious: http://c0la.s3.amazonaws.com/nice_cup.jpg

misingnoglic• 12 years ago

Lol, some of it seems a bit stockholm syndrome-y, but hilarious nonetheless.

general_failure• 12 years ago

It looks like some people like Steve are charismatic enough to get the complete devotion of very talented people. It's a great personality trait to have and pretty much guarantees success. We all know geniuses in our everyday life like Wozniak, Bob, cook. But how many of us can get these guys be terrified of us, make them change their lives for our visin and make them give us their complete attention... That's the beauty of Steve. Despite flaws in his character, people seem to be feel previliged working for him.

13hours• 12 years ago

I sort of find it a little sad that very talented people have this god like image of someone like Steve. Without them he would have been nothing, but still he gets all the glory and fear, and they get little respect.

vacri• 12 years ago

The part of the cult of personality I find most fascinating is the attributions of Apple's successes to Jobs personally, but Apple's failures were attributed to the relevant teams, who 'let Jobs down'.

jwr• 12 years ago

You are generalizing, incorrectly. Many people (including myself) are quite aware of Steve's flaws, and yet appreciate the fact that in the end he Got Things Done and achieved impressive things.

Admiring or having respect for someone does not necessarily imply you're having a "god-like image" of the person, or that you're unconditionally accepting everything the person has done.

rmrfrmrf• 12 years ago

It's bizarre to me that people have this perception when Jony Ive is practically a household name in the US; not to mention that Tim Cook, Phil Schiller, and Scott Forstall all have been given props by Steve in his keynotes. I could rattle off more of Apple's senior leadership than any other tech company, so I really don't understand why people claim that Steve Jobs took all the glory.

CmonDev• 12 years ago

So why is Apple not releasing any new products lately - just revamps? Companies are thriving under perfectionist, customer-oriented dictators.

bippi• 12 years ago

Competent leadership is, I'm finding, incredibly hard to come by. Most tech leaders I've had the fortune/misfortune to be under seem to be of the sort where they were in the right industry at the right time, and they were the only game in town. When it comes to demonstrating leadership and innovation, their ideas end up closer to "The Homer" (car on the Simpsons) than even the worst products Apple has come up with.

bitL2• 12 years ago

It's probably common in technology area that due to Dunning-Kruger effect many super talented engineers have low self-esteem and real-life skills, and are attracted by "magical" personalities, forming narcissist-codependent pairs. I see it all around, it's sad, but unless engineers fix their broken "insides", it's going to happen. It's then pretty logical that the narcissistic part of the pair gets all the fame, spotlight, power, and the co-dependent part gets used, squeezed, depleted and thrown away once not useful.

MarkTee• 12 years ago

Dunning-Kruger is the opposite (when unskilled individuals think of themselves as being much more talented than they actually are).

michaelochurch• 12 years ago

Nailed it. Most of the Silicon Valley hotshots are those who've become extremely adept at exploiting talented people with low self-esteem.

kelvin0• 12 years ago

It`s almost a covalent bond. The same that diamonds are made of.

snowwrestler• 12 years ago

Many engineers spend their lives struggling to do great work within seemingly arbitrary constraints on budget, timeline, vision, or internal politics. Part of the power of Steve Jobs was that he removed many of those constraints, but in return demanded a very high level of innovation and quality.

RivieraKid• 12 years ago

Why is the DK effect mentioned in every second thread here?

mark_integerdsv• 12 years ago

Is it not possible that what you describe as a two-way parasitic relationship is in fact one of symbiosis?

qq66• 12 years ago

Judging by the number of high level departures from Apple after Jobs' death, it seems like that devotion to Jobs was the main glue holding those personalities together.

chris_wot6• 12 years ago

"But how many of us can get these guys be terrified of us, make them change their lives for our vision and make them give us their complete attention"

I'll list a few:

* Stalin

* Pol Pot

* Shoko Ashara

* David Koresh

mmariani3• 12 years ago

Did you struggle too much to come up with that list? You only missed Hitler by an inch.

Ad hominem attack on a dead man is so low I can't even describe it.

Sadly, this is HN. So long HN.

salgernon2• 12 years ago

Back in 1999 or 2000, shortly after Steve had rejiggered the cafeteria staff, I was walking back to my office in another building with an "afternoon doughnut" - that is, one that hadn't sold in the morning at the coffee place in the main lobby, and probably sold at a discount.

I passed Steve in the hall and he glared at me as I walked with my doughnut. Steve was in great health in those days while I was pasty and obese. (Still am, sad to say.).

But I was happy with my doughnut. Steve glared at me but didn't say anything. I slunk away.

The next day, there were no more doughnuts at any of the cafés on the main campus. I don't think it's a coincidence.

donmelton3• 12 years ago

That's a great damn story. And I'm certain it wasn't a coincidence.

salgernon2• 12 years ago

My only other story would be walking around a pillar in the cafeteria and smacking him face to face as he came around the other side. He said excuse me and moved aside!

trevelyan• 12 years ago

I'm confused. You suspect he stopped donut service for staff fitness reasons, or because there was no point to subsidizing them on-campus if people preferred to buy them elsewhere.

beaner• 12 years ago

I don't get it either and I have no idea why you're being downvoted.

thejosh• 12 years ago

Do you think 14 years later is a safe time to admit it was you who causes the donuts to disappear?

Tarang• 12 years ago

I really had a great laugh at this, Thank you for that.

grogenaut• 12 years ago

and yet you're still alive and (I guess) obese... and he died of not paying attention to cancer. Donuts ftw I guess.

lkd2• 12 years ago

He paid attention, just the wrong kind of attention -- crackpot cuckoo crazy alternative medicine attention. If he had received the recommended surgery immediately upon the initial diagnosis, he very likely would still have been alive.

_pmf_• 12 years ago

That's fucking hilarious!

galaktor• 12 years ago

This little story is great. It's anecdotes like this (and on the linked URL) that I would have liked to see in that Jobs movie. Paint a very interesting picture of Jobs, with fresh perspectives.

ianamartin• 12 years ago

Oh man. I haven't eaten a donut in years. I'm going to go get one now.

sscalia2• 12 years ago

salgernon, Please check out the Four Hour Body by Tim Ferriss. You can change your life, get in shape, get healthy. It's so important.

sscalia2• 12 years ago

Really HN, you down vote this fucking comment? Unbelievable.

CalRobert• 12 years ago

If he's already aware of the idea that being fat and pasty is bad for him, he probably doesn't need people on HN telling him that.

I used to be fat. I knew it was unhealthy. It was incredibly obnoxious and, frankly, unhealthy, to hear people tell me that I needed to get healthy like I didn't know better. What I needed was to get away from poisonous relationships (I eat to cope with sadness) and hellhole suburbs that make it impossible to walk or cycle anywhere. Moving to the city and going out more instead of keeping a freezer full of crap made a world of difference. The assumption that a stranger on HN knows more about health than he does is insulting and counterproductive.

xpop2027• 12 years ago

My favorite Steve story.

throwaway75482• 12 years ago

According to Wozniak, Jobs told him that Atari gave them only $700 (instead of the offered $5,000), and that Wozniak's share was thus $350.[65] Wozniak did not learn about the actual bonus until ten years later, but said that if Jobs had told him about it and had said he needed the money, Wozniak would have given it to him.[66] ---

End of story. Before continuing celebrating Jobs, ask yourself a question, do you want to promote that kind of behavior in the Valley?

lightyrs2• 12 years ago

I agree with you on principle, however, the story does not end here. Woz himself said the following:

"What Steve does on the good side — like the music scenario [in which] we didn't bring just a music device called the iPod, we brought a whole music system: a store that sells it, a computer that manages and organizes it. And an iPod is just a satellite to your computer. Plug it in and it works. You don't have to do anything. You've got to admire Steve for that kind of thinking. Nobody's perfect. [Everybody is] going to have cases where they did something bad to somebody, said something nasty to them and maybe regret it later."

Specifically:

"[Everybody is] going to have cases where they did something bad to somebody, said something nasty to them and maybe regret it later."

I think that's a more enlightened point of view.

Source: http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/steve-wozniak-on-...

throwaway75482• 12 years ago

I agree with you absolutely. If you are yourself encountering lies and nastiness from your partners, an enlightened way would be trying to understand them. And forgive.

But my point was different. We just can't afford to celebrate lies. It is very very very harmful.

collyw• 12 years ago

Fair point, but I generally seem to hear a lot of negative stuff about Steves personality. Sure give someone a second chance, but by the time they are on their tenth chance you have to start thinking differently.

Dewie6• 12 years ago

I still don't see the big deal with iTunes and iPod's. ipod is a great product, but there is no real killer feature; "plug it in and it just works", yes, if you have iTunes. Meanwhile, plug in any decent mp3 player of that time\* and it Just Works, assuming you just have a file system - drog and drop the files you want into the mp3 player.

Maybe you could say that ipods with itunes is simpler than dragging and dropping like that. Though I don't see much of a diffrerence; drag and drop is a common action in Windows and the like. In order to selectively add files to your ipod you'd need to learn to drag and drop... in iTunes.

iTunes is an okay-to-annoying program, at least on Windows. I've bought music on itunes that I have to "enable" on every new PC I might use. The last time I tried it dodn't even work. I ve bought an audio book that I have never been allowed to even play! iTunes can't (or couldn't) even compete with pirated media, not by a long shot.

\* let's say when mp3 players had a capacity that actually made them worthile, maybe as small a capacity as 256MB, or 512 and more.

Dewie6• 12 years ago

"[Everybody is] going to have cases where they did something bad to somebody, said something nasty to them and maybe regret it later."
I think that's a more enlightened point of view.

This kind of argument is weak. It's just a bland kind of truism that everyone can agree with that is unrelated to the original argument - when someone says that some one is a bad person, there is an implicit comparison to most people, ie the "badness" of a person is a relative one. Then bringing up some kind of absolute quality - perfection - is just trying to distract from the original argument.

pessimizer• 12 years ago

Not everyone is going to have regrets about stealing from friends. Wozniak is just being generous.

melling• 12 years ago

Hasn't this story been told on HN many times?

https://hn.algolia.com/?q=Wozniak+jobs#!/all/forever/0/Wozni...

Maybe we can find a better way rather than create a throwaway account and rehashing the same thread?

nnq3• 12 years ago

It's good to remember this story too, because it shows that he was also a ruthless businessman, no matter how much effort he put into convincing everyone that this part was not "the real him".

And it's not a bad thing, it's part of the "whole truth" about someone and about how you need to be in order to succeed. And the fact that you need to be like that is not something that one should "sweep under the rug" or present as a "minor part of an otherwise great personality", because it does show you something: that at some level something is very wrong with the system and as much as we like to believe otherwise, fairness and success are a bit like having the cake and eating it too ...something that rarely happens.

72deluxe4• 12 years ago

Does "ruthless businessman" ===== "liar"?

So to be a great businessman, I just have to lie to people that help me, right?

I suppose it would revolve around what people think "success" is - if it means lying to others and abandonment of morals for personal gain, then that's a very sad definition of "success".

marknutter• 12 years ago

The freaking Atari anecdote. If there ever is a thread about Jobs on Hacker News where someone doesn't mention it I will shit my pants.

rbanffy2• 12 years ago

You can admire Jobs for the good things he did while acknowledging the bad things. We are all human, all fallible, even our heroes. Sometimes, it's our bad deeds of the past that propel us towards the good deeds of later. Does that moment fully describe Jobs' life? Does his initial denial of his daughter Lisa describe his later relationship with her? I am sure not. Humans are not simple creatures.

jmnicolas• 12 years ago

Am I the only one fed-up with Steve Jobs stories ?

jholman• 12 years ago

I am absolutely bored of Steve Jobs stories in general, and I'm quite surprised at myself that I bothered to read this one.

This one in particular, though, was a human enough perspective that it would have been interesting to read if every single mention of the particular terrifying-and-respected-CEO were redacted. So I'm glad I read it.

arnold_palmur• 12 years ago

I can completely understand your sentiment, but for some reason I continue to find the man to be more and more fascinating.

pskittle• 12 years ago

Thanks for posting this!

ksec• 12 years ago

I was reading and hoping there was an explanation why Safari for Windows discontinued. It is the only popular WebKit browser ( after Chrome fork to Blink ) on Windows.

Otherwise another great piece.

72deluxe4• 12 years ago

I always found it odd how Apple didn't follow windows user interface guidelines on Windows, forcing the Appleness on Windows. Weirdly, they don't follow their guidelines on Mac OS either, unless the crazy window design of iTunes is meant to be normal?

dilap• 12 years ago

Just speculating, but probably Safari on Windows was a strategic play, to try to increase the adoption of WebKit and lessen the death-grip IE had on the internet then (and to encourage/give an easy way for web devs to target+test on more than just IE).

Much different landscape now. Most devs are running macs now anyway, Chrome exists and is very popular, etc.

archgrove• 12 years ago

Back in the iOS 1.0 days, the iPhone development platform was web apps. These were pushed by Apple as the "right way", which negated the need for an App Store. As the browser engine on iOS is basically identical to the desktop WebKit, I always assumed Safari for Windows was a push to enable iOS development on Windows.

With the release and success of the App Store, that became unnecessary. I guess killing it was a function of its relative lack of popularity; Apple in the Jobs 2.0+ era justifiably don't like keeping dead-weight projects around.

gdonelli• 12 years ago

Don has always been such a positive person to be around. Great memories. Thanks for sharing.

adrianoconnor• 12 years ago

I always love to read Don's stories, they're always pretty great, and this post is no exception. The last few paragraphs are poignant, and not because it's about Steve, but because the emotion is real and you can relate to it.

Anyway, if you enjoyed this, you should read the history of Safari posts he did a while back, also a podcast he was a guest on one time, though I forget who it was with -- ah, Debug I think -- that was really excellent and well worth listening to.

vdm• 12 years ago

http://www.imore.com/debug-11-don-melton-and-safari

baldfat• 12 years ago

I had to stop reading. I also worked for a micro managing CEO/President and I HATED EVERY MINUTE. Knowing that if you did the slightest misstep or were falsely accused you were fired and there was a morning meeting the next day to tell everyone that so and so was no longer with the company. NO THANK YOU!!!

rbanffy2• 12 years ago

Slow down. Breathe. It's over. You no longer work there. You are safe now.

luser2• 12 years ago

Alternative title: Hagiography of a Dead Psychopath CEO

luser2• 12 years ago

Hilarious! Every comment critical of Steve Jobs has been downvoted. Groupthink methinks!

noir_lord2• 12 years ago

I suspect a lot of it has to do with Self identification with Steve Jobs and people like him, so an attack on Jobs is an indirect attack on them.

Personally I think Jobs was an over hyped marketing manager (with perhaps a true gift for getting talented people to do the work).

There are dozens of people in the computer industry that I respect far more who will never get 1/100th of the adulation (and I'm not sure most of them would want it).

Look at the contributions of people like John Backus, Edgar Codd or Maurice Wilkes and of course Kernighan and Ritchie, those people (to me) are worth far more respect.

theRhino• 12 years ago

this is hilarious

ZeroGravitas• 12 years ago

If after working with him for a decade you have to take a deep breath before you can give him your honest opinion on something, then he's not a busy executive who prioritizes efficient information exchange, he's an asshole.

noir_lord2• 12 years ago

I honestly can't think of anything I've ever read about the guy that doesn't make me think that.

I also don't get the hero worship on HN for the guy, there are other actual hackers for worthier (in my opinion of course) of respect (as an aside I think Wozniak is worth far more respect than someone like Jobs).

Pretty trinkets combined with aspirational marketing and a form always beats function attitude and somehow this guy is a hero, never could figure it out.

edanm• 12 years ago

Well, many people who actually worked with him disagree with you. I'm not sure what that means, there are definitely a few possibilities, but I think it's worth at least acknowledging that maybe you're wrong.

normloman• 12 years ago

Why are we still talking about this guy. I'll bet my life savings that when Woz dies, we'll talk about it for around 2 months.

jotm• 12 years ago

Or not at all. "Jobs' sidekick died. The end of an era. That's it"

mildtrepidation• 12 years ago

It's certainly interesting to read this sort of reflection. The author discusses Jobs' mannerisms without either worshiping or demonizing him, which is refreshing.

tareqak• 12 years ago

I enjoyed the recollections. I probably would have been afraid of his shadow if I was there.

On another note, it would be interesting to see if a website containing all these memories of Steve Jobs ever comes about. A crowdsourced biography if you will: storiesabout/stevejobs .

Uhhrrr• 12 years ago

http://www.folklore.org/ProjectView.py?project=Macintosh&cha...

coldpie• 12 years ago

Have you seen folklore.org?

jayvanguard• 12 years ago

Sounds like you have to be a sycophant to work for him.

xcntktn• 12 years ago

Stories like this one and Glenn Reid's essay[1] about working with Steve on iMovie seem to be vastly more informative than any movie or book on SJ.[2] One of the biggest takeaways from both of these essays is that working with Steve was an iterative process. Pop culture always highlights "eureka" moments where a problem is solved all at once in a brilliant flash of insight, yet when you read these first-hand accounts, the story is the opposite: that making something great is a slow and repetitive process, with lots of follow-up meetings and gradual improvement towards the final product. Eureka moments look good on TV, but in the real world, great things are built by long-term focus and hard work from highly talented people with uncompromisingly high standards. I have no idea how or even if that could be shown in a movie, but I'm very thankful we have these accounts. I hope more people who worked with Steve during his second tenure eventually put their thoughts down in writing and share them so that we can all gain more of these types of insights.

[1]http://inventor-labs.com/blog/2011/10/12/what-its-really-lik...

[2]There's also Andy Hertzfeld's folklore.org, however that is focused on Steve's original tenure at Apple, not the "comeback" from the late-90s on.

SimHacker• 12 years ago

At the National Air and Space Museum reception during Washington DC EduCom in 1988, I took a big bite out of one lobe at the bottom of a three lobed red bell pepper so it looked like an alien's face, and held it up to Steve Jobs, and said "Earthman, give me your seed!"

He looked at me funny, but I couldn't tell if he got the reference to Bizarre Sex #10: http://silezukuk.tumblr.com/post/3151672333 [NSFW]

mathattack• 12 years ago

Great stories. It says a lot about Apple that time, in addition to Steve. The personal side is good too.

Yes, Steve could be intense at times. But he was also a real person. He had to deal with the ordinary and mundane aspects of life like everyone else. Maybe even enjoy them.

hubtree2• 12 years ago

This part sums up why I quit using OS X for my personal projects: "And if your software crashed, you didn’t make excuses. You just made damn sure that particular scenario didn’t happen again. Ever."

In making sure nothing ever crashes, Apple has moved more and more to an OS that is too restrictive for my taste.

morbius• 12 years ago

Although I too switched away from OS X, this is irrelevant. The point of the story is not about Apple's idiosyncracies. It's about a man whose story is fragmented. It's about a man who was intriguing, cryptic, and unpredictable. It's another story in a bucket of stories of about him.

And it's important. OS X is not.

hubtree2• 12 years ago

Actually, I don't see how it is an important story, though it was interesting to read, and I enjoyed it. As you said, it's one more story in a long list of stories.

jryle70• 12 years ago

I fail to see how making sure your code doesn't crash is related to OS X being restrictive. We've just experienced Heartbleed, a prime example of a poorly-reviewed piece of software, in one of the most entrenched OSS libraries. I'd certainly appreciate a stricter process of code review and testing, considering the cost of patching it.

You being not a fan of OS X apparently clouds your judgement in this case.

exodust• 12 years ago

This story says more about the insecurity of the Safari guy than it does about Jobs.

Sounds like people at Apple spent too much time worrying about what Steve thought of them, whether he'd remember their names or invite them to meetings.

While everyone is worried about what one man thinks, the man himself was thinking about design and business issues, trying to solve problems.

Funny how bookmarks was never really solved in Safari. On my iPad, I hate the bookmarks functionality, it confuses me pretty much every time. When I try to find a bookmark, or add a bookmark, every time it seems I have to "figure out" and remember how to do that. It's not intuitive or snappy. And now with iOS7 flat design, all your bookmarks and history appears as one big list - black text on white background. The lack of interface delineation mean elements bleed into other elements and make it harder to mentally remember where things are found.

If Steve were still around, he'd be kicking someone's ass over the half-baked iOS7 flat design.

Memories of Steve

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