[unalone]

Can I jump in and say "It's most likely a mix of the two?"

Steve Jobs was not and is not a huge computer hacker. Not like Bill Gates. But still, he was able to conceive of the idea of a personal computer, before anybody else had the idea. How did he get 10,000 hours working into that? From his own words, he got the idea by dropping acid and deciding that people weren't using this new technology in a way that could change the world. He repeated this again and again with the iPod, the iTunes store, the iPhone, even with how he changed Pixar.

Jobs is unquestionably talented. However, it isn't shown that he's talented solely because he practiced at what he did heavily. I think that part of what makes Jobs as great as he is is his unbridled ego, his belief that he alone is right until proven otherwise. And that's something that you can't entirely pin on the society around you.

[azharcs]

There were way too many people responsible for Steve Jobs success. Steve Woznaik, Jonathan Ive, John Lasseter, Gil Amelio and many many others. Steve Jobs didn't have to put in 10000 hours because someone else did it for him.

[unalone]

But that's too easy an association. Jobs has the ability to get rid of excess. While he doesn't make every single thing by hand, he's usually the final arbiter in most cases. And from most stories, he's the one who usually demands that people remove everything but the essentials. And that's absolutely a talent - not everybody can do it - and it's one that isn't explained by the sorts of work Jobs does.

One of his abilities, absolutely, is the ability to spot which people are incredible at what they do, and to put them in a situation in which they can do it. In Pixar, he created the central hub that got people interacting with one another. (I forget the article that talks about this - anybody have the link?) He has a genius ability to fix things, to make them better.

I argued once that if Jobs hadn't found Woz, he'd have found somebody else capable of doing what he needed done. And I think the end result would be largely the same. Woz was a programmer. Jobs was the visionary and the designer.

[13ren]

I wonder if a factor is that Jobs makes many more attempts than most people, and goes from "failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" - but we remember the successes? He's had failures that would wash up most of us. Meanwhile, he gets better and better, while others give up.

I agree that not everybody can "remove everything but the essentials" - but I think that everybody can try to do it; can practice it. The difficulty is in knowing what the essentials are, which requires knowing what you are really doing, and what it needs. Through practice, we improve.

Could it be as simple as believing in your intuition? I mean: to consider what you believe is essential, and then act on it And find out if you were right or not. Then repeat many times. Without loss of enthusiasm...

[zandorg]

As a friend of the author, I know that people at Apple and Microsoft used Ted Nelson's Computer Lib as a bible on personal computing. Sadly, you can't buy it cheap (I have a signed reprint), but it's an astounding book.

It's likely that Jobs saw this early on.

[13ren]

http://www.xanadu.com.au/ted/TN/WRITINGS/TCOMPARADIGM/tedCom...

http://www.arch.kth.se/unrealstockholm/unreal_web/seminar03_...