

Steve Jobs: Thank you for disobeying me - twidlit
http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Hide_Under_This_Desk.txt

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ghshephard
Skunkworks, underground, and off-the-radar initiatives are a lot more common
in large technology organizations than people might imagine. While you may
have "Product Action Committee's" and "Executive Commits" and "Roadmaps" that
theoretically set the mandate/budget and resourcing for the company, many of
the best projects occur because a few (sometimes only one) smart engineer or
manager gets it in their mind to do their own thing.

I will admit, it takes a little gall to hide an entire T&E budget to Japan on
a skunkworks project though. Great Story.

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vault_
It kind of reminds me of the story of the development of the Graphic
Calculator application. <http://www.pacifict.com/Story/>

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kabdib
Hee. We used to find Twiggy drives in various places (typically in the back of
labs when we moved, or when some older cow-orker quit and left boxes of crap
behind). We'd send the drives via inter-office mail to one of the original
hardware guys responsible for the Twiggy.

We were still finding the damned things and shipping them off to him in 1993.
The H/W guy had a pretty good sense of humor about it.

What future albatrosses are /you/ working on? :-)

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brisance
This is a great story. Not only were the engineers brave enough to defy Jobs,
but also Jobs being able to admit his own mistake and not fire the entire team
upon finding out. Signs of true leadership all round.

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wnoise
You know what would have been better leadership? Not making the wrong decision
in the first place. Yeah, obviously, backing down gracefully when proved wrong
is quite important, but so is not betting the product on being able to make a
new component...

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danilocampos
"Never make mistakes" isn't exactly a workable business plan.

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wnoise
I never claimed it was. But all other things being equal, it's better to be
wrong less often, to make fewer mistakes. And when you do make mistakes, it's
better to gracefully correct. But in any given case, it really is better to
not make the mistake at all.

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michaelcampbell
Of course it's better to be perfect than not. You've stated a tautology.

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wnoise
A tautology means it's always true. That a curious criterion to use as a
criticism. All statements are either tautologies, or sometimes false (or are
not meant to have truth values, of course).

It is what should be an obvious tautology. Criticizing it for its obviousness
makes sense -- if it were that obvious it would add nothing to the discussion.
Yet for some reason I did feel the need to remind people of this.

Acknowledging that one was wrong when at last forced to by circumstances is
not a particular trait of great leaders. It is a bare minimum. Acknowledging
and correcting as circumstances suggest better options, but before
circumstances thus force one is a sign of great leadership. Having backup
plans ready in case your first choice doesn't work out is another. (It's true
that many leaders do none of these. Leaders that do only the first are better
than leaders that do none. But it's still not a sign of great leadership.)

~~~
michaelcampbell
> Criticizing it for its obviousness makes sense

That was my intention. I was perhaps unclear.

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abdulhaq
Anyone who wants to read a fascinating insight into the early days of personal
computer development should read this entire site - it evokes wonderful
memories for me of how exciting it all was in those days, and how a few guys
can develop a historical product all on their own.

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wazoox
Alternatively, it exists in a nice, convenient and well-illustrated dead tree
version, "Revolution in the Valley".

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damncabbage
Do you mean "Fire in the Valley", or is it a different book?

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wazoox
No the title is "Revolution in the valley", subtitled "the insanely great
story of how the Mac was made": [http://www.amazon.com/Revolution-Valley-
Insanely-Great-Story...](http://www.amazon.com/Revolution-Valley-Insanely-
Great-Story/dp/0596007191)

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6ren
The poor guy's name couldn't really be Hide Kamoto?

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jrockway
Why not? Although Hide was asked to hide in a closet, those words are not
pronounced the same way and Hide is a common Japanese given name.

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EGreg
Brave enough to defy Steve Jobs! And y'all said it was suicide. Refreshing!

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misterbee
So, Steve Jobs wasn't always above secretly copying another company's product
the way he claims to be now.

"Cupertino, start your photocopiers." ([http://www.macnews.com/content/wwdc-
apple-blasts-microsofts-...](http://www.macnews.com/content/wwdc-apple-blasts-
microsofts-longhorn))

