[lutusp]

Wait, what? Jobs didn't create technology, he sold it to people (and did that very well). Before you reply, consider that I was there (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Writer) and I knew Jobs personally. I watched how he operated. He was very good at what he did, but he was a promoter, not a creator, of technology -- technology created by others.

[enraged_camel]

>>Jobs didn't create technology, he sold it to people

I don't understand what you are trying to say. Selling technology is a great way to facilitate its progress. Or do you believe that technology just sells itself?

I know that this is a forum primarily for developers (err, sorry, where are my manners... I meant creators), but the fact is that most developers would not have jobs if salespeople did not sell the products they created. I know that's a difficult thing to grasp for some, but it's true.

[lutusp]

>> Jobs didn't create technology, he sold it to people

> I don't understand what you are trying to say.

Okay, let me spell it out for you -- here's the remark I was replying to:

>>> If you can't acknowledge Steve Jobs massive contributions to technological progress

Really, "massive"? Invention of the transistor massive? Design of the first computer massive? Design of basic computer algorithms and/or languages massive? Or, to be more specific, design anything massive? Well, in point of fact, no -- none of the above.

> ... but the fact is that most developers would not have jobs if salespeople did not sell the products they created.

Yes, and people who actually develop technology wouldn't be comfortable without people to sweep the floors and empty the wastebaskets. The question you need to ask yourself is which role is irreplaceable -- the creator of technology or the person who sells it?

[enraged_camel]

>>Really, "massive"? Invention of the transistor massive? Design of the first computer massive? Design of basic computer algorithms and/or languages massive? Or, to be more specific, design anything massive? Well, in point of fact, no -- none of the above.

Massive in the sense of "co-founded the world's largest and most profitable technology company and later turned it around from the brink of death."

Ask yourself how many technologies we have today because of Apple, and how many innovations those technologies and products drive. Heck, you don't even have to compile a list, because I can prove my case with a single example: if it was not for Steve Jobs, Wozniak would have remained at HP for the rest of his career.

[siglesias]

Creating a collaborative organization to design, engineer, and massively produce this stuff is absolutely nothing to scoff at. Process is essential to modern human enterprise--ask any of the hundreds of endlessly delayed Kickstarter projects that routinely fail to turn a prototype into something that can be shipped. If this were simple, there would be many Apples run by many "promoters." Instead there is only one.

[lutusp]

> Creating a collaborative organization to design, engineer, and massively produce this stuff is absolutely nothing to scoff at.

First, no one is scoffing. Second, which role is essential and which is replaceable? Steve Wozniak created computers and Steve Jobs sold them. There are ten salesmen for each person able to create something worth selling.

> If this were simple, there would be many Apples run by many "promoters." Instead there is only one.

Yes -- only one Apple, and only one Intel, and only one AMD, and only one Blackberry, and only one Tesla, and only one IBM, and only one Android. Shall I go on listing all the things there is only one of?

[siglesias]

What I mean by that is that there is no company in the computer industry that owns so much of the stack as Apple does. And shepherding such an integrated company through one of the biggest tech booms in history is nothing to relegate to mere salesmanship.

[lutusp]

> And shepherding such an integrated company through one of the biggest tech booms in history is nothing to relegate to mere salesmanship.

In fact, that's a perfect place for a salesman. Steve Jobs proves it -- he didn't design the products that Apple sold, he sold them to the public.

Henry Ford didn't invent or design cars, he sold them. Thomas J. Watson didn't invent the computer, he sold computers. James McNerney Jr. (Boeing chairman) isn't an aerodynamic engineer, he sells airplanes to eager customers.

The reason for this reverence for salesmen is because of a peculiarity of American history and because of some deplorable defects in our educational system. It's because Americans think Willy Loman was the hero in "Death of a Salesman".

[siglesias]

With all respect, you're way, way oversimplifying things in an intellectually dishonest way. I work with folks who worked with Jobs and he was a major, active, creative contributor. His role wasn't, as you say, to be handed products defined and designed by other people and figure out how to sell them. Yes, he was a brilliant marketer. But I don't see why people work backwards from that and say he was only a brilliant marketer. What a strange kind of illogic!

[lutusp]

> I work with folks who worked with Jobs and he was a major, active, creative contributor.

He contributed style and color choices to the designs of others. To quote you, "You're way, way oversimplifying things in an intellectually dishonest way."

> His role wasn't, as you say, to be handed products defined and designed by other people and figure out how to sell them.

No, he decided what color and shape the final product would have. But he could not create the technology, he could only change its external appearance.

> But I don't see why people work backwards from that and say he was only a brilliant marketer.

That's easy to answer -- name the product that Jobs designed, that someone else packaged for him.

Don't take my word for this -- read the Jobs biography (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs_(book)), which ultimately agrees with my view, describes Jobs as a clinical narcissist, perpetually insecure about what he didn't know, and always on the creative sidelines trying to exaggerate his role in the final product.

[astrodust]

By that definition nobody creates technology since all they're doing is iterating on work done by other people.

He may not have written code or laid out circuits, but the work he did is extremely important in the process of creating technology. He wasn't just a promoter, he was also a shaper, he would steer the engineering team towards the types of solutions he was looking for and push them to achieve beyond what they would ordinarily do.

Having a vision of some kind of technology and then driving a team towards that goal is, undeniably, "creating technology".

[lutusp]

> By that definition nobody creates technology since all they're doing is iterating on work done by other people.

So learn about science. Einstein wasn't "iterating" when he created the special and general theories of relativity -- these theories were very far afield from the physics of the day, and entirely original.

Charles Darwin wasn't "iterating" when be began to think about the fact that Galapagos finches from different islands had different beak sizes and shapes, and what that might mean.

Galileo wasn't "iterating" when he saw those four little stars that seemed to follow Jupiter around in the sky, and what they might teach us about Jupiter, and about earth.

Michelson and Morley tested the ether theory in their eponymous experiment, and their test failed. At the time, no one understood why. Decades later, Einstein explained why and replaced the prior theory without any help.

> Having a vision of some kind of technology and then driving a team towards that goal is, undeniably, "creating technology".

You just tried to equate a bus driver with a scientist.

Steve Wozniak created technology, Steve Jobs sold it to people. Please learn the difference between creators and promoters -- Wozniak didn't need Jobs to create a computer, but Jobs needed Wozniak (and many other similar people over the years, many of whom I knew personally) in order to have something to promote.

[astrodust]

Einstein was iterating, that's the thing. Without the massive foundational work done by others, their efforts large and small, he would never have been able to prove anything. Where would he have been without Newton? Without the people who created the math he employed? Without those who made important contributions to his theories, without which he might've floundered endlessly?

His insight was powerful, but like Steve Jobs, having an idea is one thing, proving it mathematically and experimentally takes considerably more work than one individual can possibly do in a lifetime.

While the achievement of individuals of that sort is significant, it's very easy to ignore the less visible people that were hugely significant in the formulation of these ideas.

Your own argument is working against you here. Was Steve Jobs "iterating" when he created NeXT? The iMac? When he defined what the iPod was? Or the iPhone?

I think you seriously under-estimate how difficult it is to have a vision for a type of technology and work relentlessly towards that goal over a span of decades. That's not a bus-driver following a pre-defined route, that's someone charting their own course, one that, in the case of Steve Jobs, broke tons of rules and challenged convention every step of the way.

Just as relativity is "obvious" now, to be taken for granted, so is the iPhone, yet both of those things completely transformed their respective worlds.

[coldtea]

>Wait, what? Jobs didn't create technology, he sold it to people

Technology has many levels. A cpu is a technology as is a touch sensitive panel -- but a specific arrangment of cpu and touch sensitive panel etc, is also technology. The one who makes decisions about how it should be made, also creates technology.

Apple also wrote their own software, and even designed their own chips and parts a lot of the time. And of course they also found lots of ingenious solutions to lots of engineering problems in creating smaller/more efficient/more battery power/etc devices.

So, what does "Jobs didn't create technology, he sold it to people" mean? Isn't iWork techology for example? Or you mean, he wasn't a coder or engineer, he was the head of the company making it? Well, that's true, but duh!

[lutusp]

> Technology has many levels. A cpu is a technology as is a touch sensitive panel -- but a specific arrangment of cpu and touch sensitive panel etc, is also technology.

We're not discussing the existence of technology, we're discussing the creation of technology. If this distinction were not important, anyone who acquired a computer could claim to be its creator. If this distinction were not important, someone who put a computer in a box would be equal to someone who invented binary arithmetic.

> So, what does "Jobs didn't create technology, he sold it to people" mean?

It means someone else had the education and creativity to invent something for Steve Jobs to sell, to call "fantastic" to crowds of eager consumers, to import into his reality distortion field. The same reality distortion field that makes you think selling equals creating.

> Or you mean, he wasn't a coder or engineer, he was the head of the company making it? Well, that's true, but duh!

So that's your argument? Now I understand why you have the views you do.

[coldtea]

>We're not discussing the existence of technology, we're discussing the creation of technology.

Which is exactly what I discussed. Again, you seem to think that only lower component parts are technology (e.g the CPU itself). And you think that building a product that utilises disparate component parts (and needs tons of other engineering decisions besides) is not "creation of technology". I believe this is wrong.

>If this distinction were not important, anyone who acquired a computer could claim to be its creator. If this distinction were not important, someone who put a computer in a box would be equal to someone who invented binary arithmetic.

Apple is not a company who "acquires computers". It designs and builds them, including solving tons of engineering problems in the process. That it doesn't (usually) build the low level component parts its beside the point. Technology is modular.

I also pointed out, which you conventiently sidestepped, that Apple also creates their very own products, from designing logic boards and dedicated processsing units, to software such as Logic, FCPX, iWork etc. They don't just buy some Intel cpus, some Samsung disks and some X brand memory, slap it together and call it a day.

>It means someone else had the education and creativity to invent something for Steve Jobs to sell, to call "fantastic" to crowds of eager consumers, to import into his reality distortion field. The same reality distortion field that makes you think selling equals creating.

You continue to use the word selling, as if the products appeared by magic or trucks, and Jobs just had to sell them. You forgot the part were Apple, the company he run, isn't Best Buy (a seller), but the actual creator of the products it sells.

Jobs didn't just sell stuff. That would be Jeff Bezos, or the Walmart guy. He was the CEO, and quite the micromanaging product manager in the company (actually, companies) that also designed and build those products.

He was the CEO of a tech company. Not the CEO of a reseller chain. And, yes, he wasn't an engineer himself. Technology, as available to the people, is not created by engineers alone, especially in the form of final products.

And engineers don't just work in isolation and deliver their stuff ready for manufacture to some sales guy. They take directions, advice, suggested changes to how stuff works, etc, from a product manager guy -- and Jobs was very much hands on with such things. For the mere selling of stuff, Apple had Cook and top level retail managers on board.

After all, you sure know that Steve Jobs had got the "Vollum Award for Distinguished Accomplishment in Science and Technology, Oregon's most prestigious academic honor"? How come they didn't just give him the "sales" award? Perhaps they see the bigger picture and understand that accomplishing stuff in technology is not just about the guy in the lab?

I know what you're painting the "those non-engineering higher-ups take the praise for our engineering work" angle, but I don't consider it accurate. It belittles the contribution of higher level execs to see them as mere "sales" guys. Of course, it's all to common a point of view in lab guys.