
Tom Williams: Hired by Apple at 14. His full story. - sivers
http://sivers.org/tom-williams
======
granvillebob
I met this guy in 2004.

He talked about himself for 20 or 30 minutes before I got a word in.

He had a couple of ideas at the time, some about charitable giving, and others
were about fighting spam with the technique of charging strangers to receive
their email. (This is such an oft-repeated idea it's listed in the "You Might
Be An Anti-Spam Kook" page). I told him that there were a few things wrong
with his approach, and he clapped his hand on my shoulder and said that he
could just get someone else to do this.

Overall I felt a bit sorry for him. He was a pretty interesting guy who had
great talents and great ambitions. He wasn't limited by a lack of confidence.
Unfortunately he has had a lot of early validation that he was a genius, and
such overconfidence can be just as crippling.

~~~
quizbiz
I do feel obligated to remind myself that your impression is limited in the
fact that the scope is narrow, just one experience with him seemed to form the
impression.

That being said, this makes me even more curious about his story as it is a
representation of many similar stories, countless young people (my role
models) persisting and working their ass off, being rewarded as a result, but
then after they seem to just feed off of the initial success or seem to fall
short of the "initial promise". ie: Farrah Gray.

What sets those that persist only early on apart from those that continue to
challenge themselves? When I start doing really successful things, I don't
want that to spoil me and turn me lazy.

~~~
torpor
In my experience, the thing that sets true genius apart from the contentious
kind, is the willingness to listen. If you don't have that, then you're not
really as smart as you - or others - think you are.

The capability a person has for listening to other people is a skill that very
rarely gets acknowledged as a particularly genius trait. However, there is
really nothing that can be done in this world if you aren't willing to listen
at least as well as you talk.

~~~
ErrantX
Wholly agree with that.

The guy who blusters about and talks a lot might well be pretty smart. His
charisma opens doors.

But I for one would be keeping an eye on the guy by the door who hasnt spoken
yet. Because usually, just as it is "all decided" he can chime in with the
most insight of the day :)

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travisjeffery
Good story and read, but he blows his role out of proportion at times in
comparison to what it really was. I mean he described himself as: "They just
thought I would be a great guy to have around. We kind of had to figure out
what my role was." And then goes on to talk like he was mini-Steve Jobs.

~~~
torpor
Personality: its infectious. There is such a thing as contagious psychology.
Hang around at Apple long enough and you, too, will start to appear
Guru'ified.

Hell, Apple have made a fortune on this fact alone.

------
ed
> However, I wasn’t the youngest. It was Steve Espinosa, who was actually
> employee number seven at Apple.

I assume the author is thinking of _Chris_ Espinosa, employee number eight,
who also joined the company at the age of 14. Chris was one of the early guys
on the Macintosh team -- pretty fascinating as well.

[http://www.folklore.org/ProjectView.py?project=Macintosh&...](http://www.folklore.org/ProjectView.py?project=Macintosh&characters=Chris%20Espinosa)

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trickjarrett
A great story about a non-conformist who, at a young age, found his way into
one of the most rebel-minded mega-companies ever.

Very cool stuff. I think a major lesson here is that it all began for him
through his networking. That's how he got his shot with the CEO, and he picked
a topical conversation point on which he had some (apparently) insightful
feedback to present himself with.

------
J_McQuade
"Elbow-Grease and Gumption: The Secret That Self-Help Books _Don't Want You To
Know_ "

~~~
zimbabwe
Seriously. As I get older I'm realizing that there are very easy ways to get
smarter, more successful, more in shape, more active, etc., but I still find
it hard to fully admit that a little hard work helps everything. It's made the
"get-X-quick" industry a little irritating to me.

------
jacquesm
I just read this and realized that maybe there is hope for my son after all,
the first 10 paragraphs or so could be about him...

~~~
fogus
You have hopes for your son to be hired by Apple? :)

-m

~~~
jacquesm
hehe, no, I have hope that he's going to find his 'groove' in life, right now
just about everything seems to be against him. Most of the stuff there applies
word-for-word to him.

I'm not hoping for him to get hired by anybody any time soon, but at least it
seems there are alternative paths other than the regular ones.

~~~
zimbabwe
I wish kids were taught this at a young age. I learned it at seventeen; two
years later, I'm still struggling with a lot of the things I've needed to
unlearn. I have friends my age who still don't believe this, who are forcing
themselves on generic career paths because they don't think anything else is
an option. I worry for them pretty often.

~~~
jacquesm
Well, the funny thing here is my own career path was not exactly textbook
either, and still I worry about my son.

As for yourself keep an open mind, definitely not everything about 'regular'
education is bad, but some people have a hard time adapting to the system and
the system definitely won't adapt to them, if you are one of these then go
ahead and carve your own path, I'm sure we'll be hearing great things about
you one of these days.

~~~
zimbabwe
I'd love to hear your story when you've got time. WW isn't a site we hear a
lot about on HN, and I've always been a little curious.

~~~
jacquesm
here you go:

[http://jacquesmattheij.com/content/story-behind-wwcom-
camara...](http://jacquesmattheij.com/content/story-behind-wwcom-camaradescom)

------
yan
Derek, I love your blog and book reviews. Don't usually come across such
consistently high quality of content.

~~~
zimbabwe
Agreed. I don't know who you are, but I've seen this blog four or five times
in the last week and I've liked almost everything I read.

~~~
rrival
"1997: Founded CD Baby as a favor to friends ... "

<http://sivers.org/about>

Whee.

~~~
zimbabwe
Holy fucking shit, the guy who made _CD Baby_ wrote this? That blows my mind.
Just today I was looking into CD Baby as a means of music publication - never
thought the guy who made that would keep a blog, or read Hacker News.

I love this community a little bit.

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the_negotiator
A long but rewarding read. Thanks.

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electronslave
I'll chime in. I won't say how I'm involved with Tom, but we've been
associated in the past. Let's just say that the impression I had upon meeting
him was that he's basically a tax-dodging former child star with an ongoing
microfinance scandal (covered by apparent nemesis David Baines):

[http://www2.canada.com/vancouversun/columnists/story.html?id...](http://www2.canada.com/vancouversun/columnists/story.html?id=b76ff000-c8e8-4789-9ed8-806df2c2945a)
[http://www2.canada.com/vancouversun/news/business/story.html...](http://www2.canada.com/vancouversun/news/business/story.html?id=7c506725-ef5d-429f-a6ae-8a4cb8b60dc4)
[http://www2.canada.com/vancouversun/news/business/story.html...](http://www2.canada.com/vancouversun/news/business/story.html?id=70700a18-9a1f-4949-ac63-83d208c75b7e)
[http://www2.canada.com/vancouversun/columnists/story.html?id...](http://www2.canada.com/vancouversun/columnists/story.html?id=8802e811-b642-4d3b-bd0a-090046c60f20)

I wouldn't go as far as Baines (he gets petty and tedious after a while) but I
do think he's got some validity to his arguments about accountability and
trust. Specifically the lack thereof as regards Tom.

Let's recap the story: a 14 year old kid's paid summer internship was deemed
to be good PR for Apple. That paid off in mediocre terms (as you can see via
his QuickTime/Kid story, Apple divested itself of its drudgeons after
PepsiCo's frontman took the hit for Apple almost dying) but, in the process,
it created the modern Tom Williams who, after imagining that 50 year old men
were being anything other than patronizing toward a teen, had no incentive to
grow up.

Youthfully ignorant entrepreneurial drive win, personal growth and development
fail. His wife's hot, though.

~~~
allenbrunson
looks like tom decided to respond on his own blog:

<http://givemeaning.blogspot.com/search/label/david%20baines>

man, this is ugly.

~~~
ErrantX
It is indeed. I took a look into David Baines and have to say, Im not seeing
him as a bad guy here..

Yeh he's a bulldog and yaps about a hell of a lot - but when he calls Bullshit
hye usually appears to be correct (though sometimes takes it a bit far by
extension).

(edit: some background -> [http://www.bcbusinessonline.ca/bcb/top-
stories/2005/07/01/mo...](http://www.bcbusinessonline.ca/bcb/top-
stories/2005/07/01/most-hated-man-business))

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stuffthatmatter
so...what did he create? I didn't see anything about him actually creating
anything.

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weegee
some really great advice at the end of the article, if people like you at
work, you'll get supported when you're down and lifted up when you're up. very
nice. thanks for the link.

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zackattack
Great story. Thanks, sivers. Love the content that's coming from your blog;
please keep it coming!

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emontero1
Amazing, uplifting story! Thanks for sharing.

