Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by brandall10 5073 days ago
Who said anything about money? He changed the game multiple times in multiple industries, and had his greatest successes as he was fighting death. If you compare his net impact vs. actual wealth he was a pauper... and esp if you look at his stake in Apple, as the majority of his wealth was from Pixar/Disney.

There are too many 'responsible adults' wallowing in mediocrity who more than anything else actually drag the system down. Maybe you can look up to them as role models on how to raise a family (although I personally would disagree as the majority fail at that anyway)... but how to leave a mark on this world and push for excellence, I will look to people like Steve, Musk, Frank Lloyd Wright, Edison/Tesla, etc. Please don't conflate the two.

2 comments

To put it bluntly, Google is happy-clappy hippie wonderland in comparison to Apple, yet there are no stories of the top echelon being absolute cunts to each other. Success is not reliant on dictatorship. You don't have to be a horrible person to be honest, you don't have to be a tyrant to demand and foster excellence.
Exactly because the dictatorial aspect can as much backfire as it can succeed. Remember Jobs had his fair share of successes and failures, its that the successes were mostly accumulated up towards the recent part of his life thus making him look more successful than he probably was.
Ah the American conquer, might is right arguement. No wonder your country ranks pretty high on the misery scale... There's more to life than "dominating" industries.

Edit: I should qualify this a bit more. If it does make you happy to basically have no life outside of a career, then go for it. Everyone's happiness is something only they can answer for themselves. Some people can tolerate being lonely, and I'm pretty sure Steve Jobs was a lonely person (after reading the Isaacson book), despite having people around him.

As a Canadian, I can say that Americans have more fun in life than just about anyone. Sure, we canucks and the rest of the world like to call them out on their shortcomings all the time, but they brought us disneyland and superman, etc.
You forget that Superman was an American-Canadian co-creation.
>* You forget that Superman was an American-Canadian co-creation.*

You forget that even the "Canadian" one, Shuster, spent his life from the age 9 on in America and both were US citizens and did all their work in the US.

According to the book, he used to take quite a few vacations with his family and be at home with them a lot... Why did you conclude he was a lonely person?