Funny that I was just watching Bill Burr on Conan say the same thing about Steve Jobs like 15 years ago. People treat him like he’s Nikola Tesla level inventor, but he’s really just ordering around the nameless/faceless engineers who do the actual invention.
I think collectively we’re getting burned out on hero worship or the lone genius myth. Every advancement is a collective effort.
Except Jobs was fired in the 80s and the company did go to shit without him. They were weeks away from insolvency when they hired him back. He threw out most of the companies products and pivoted to the likes of the iMac, iPod, iPhone, and iPad. And while people like Jonny Ive were hired during Jobs absence, he’s not known for any of the work prior to Jobs returning. He also hired Tim Cook.
Also his blackmail deal with Microsoft for $150M helped finance Apple’s recovery.
Let’s not forget that his own company didn’t go into any particularly great direction while he was away from Apple.
He had many merits but I think turning Apple around depended on many factors, including luck. Which is exactly the point OP was making about attributing too much of the success to a single person.
But Pixar was not a movie maker in 1986 when Jobs invested in it, it was a computer maker. Jobs was interested in the PIC (Pixar Image Computer), a graphics computer used in medicine, geophysics and meteo. He offered to invest $5M on a whim, which Lucas found ridiculously low but eventually accepted after he was refused by 35 other investors.
Between 1986-1994 Pixar’s computer did fairly poorly, ousting most of its original employees and continously losing money. Jobs had been maneuvering until he ended up the major stockholder, but he was constantly thinking about selling it.
Pixar was saved by $26M from Disney, for whom they’d produced CGI scenes over the years, who ordered 3 computer-generated movies. The first of them was Toy Story, which made Pixar’s IPO skyrocket and their stock price to double overnight. By 2006 when Disney finally bought Pixar they had to pay $7.4B, about half of which went to Jobs (and it was paid in Disney shares, which continued to grow after that).
Jobs does deserve credit after Toy Story for becoming CEO, getting involved and driving some hard bargains with Disney, but during the early ears it was mostly dumb luck. If instead of investing in 1995 Disney had offered to buy Pixar from him he would have sold it. He offered it to Hallmark, Paul Allen and Larry Ellison but nobody wanted it.
We’ve seen it time and time again where the 100s of engineers that make things happen get completely ignored for the one guy that says good things in public.
Likely because he’s a CEO being treated like they do all the work personally and the company is doomed without them.
Very similar to how many people viewed Musk years ago.
Funny that I was just watching Bill Burr on Conan say the same thing about Steve Jobs like 15 years ago. People treat him like he’s Nikola Tesla level inventor, but he’s really just ordering around the nameless/faceless engineers who do the actual invention.
I think collectively we’re getting burned out on hero worship or the lone genius myth. Every advancement is a collective effort.
Except Jobs was fired in the 80s and the company did go to shit without him. They were weeks away from insolvency when they hired him back. He threw out most of the companies products and pivoted to the likes of the iMac, iPod, iPhone, and iPad. And while people like Jonny Ive were hired during Jobs absence, he’s not known for any of the work prior to Jobs returning. He also hired Tim Cook.
He said 90 days but it was never verified.
Also his blackmail deal with Microsoft for $150M helped finance Apple’s recovery.
Let’s not forget that his own company didn’t go into any particularly great direction while he was away from Apple.
He had many merits but I think turning Apple around depended on many factors, including luck. Which is exactly the point OP was making about attributing too much of the success to a single person.
NeXT didn’t go anywhere, but the other company he funded and helped spin off certainly did. Pixar.
But Pixar was not a movie maker in 1986 when Jobs invested in it, it was a computer maker. Jobs was interested in the PIC (Pixar Image Computer), a graphics computer used in medicine, geophysics and meteo. He offered to invest $5M on a whim, which Lucas found ridiculously low but eventually accepted after he was refused by 35 other investors.
Between 1986-1994 Pixar’s computer did fairly poorly, ousting most of its original employees and continously losing money. Jobs had been maneuvering until he ended up the major stockholder, but he was constantly thinking about selling it.
Pixar was saved by $26M from Disney, for whom they’d produced CGI scenes over the years, who ordered 3 computer-generated movies. The first of them was Toy Story, which made Pixar’s IPO skyrocket and their stock price to double overnight. By 2006 when Disney finally bought Pixar they had to pay $7.4B, about half of which went to Jobs (and it was paid in Disney shares, which continued to grow after that).
Jobs does deserve credit after Toy Story for becoming CEO, getting involved and driving some hard bargains with Disney, but during the early ears it was mostly dumb luck. If instead of investing in 1995 Disney had offered to buy Pixar from him he would have sold it. He offered it to Hallmark, Paul Allen and Larry Ellison but nobody wanted it.
Yeah. I agree with the assessment from a superficial level.
We’ve seen it time and time again where the 100s of engineers that make things happen get completely ignored for the one guy that says good things in public.