
That time I had Steve Jobs keynote at Unix Expo - jeffbarr
https://www.cake.co/conversations/rZXhqtP/that-time-i-had-steve-jobs-keynote-at-unix-expo
======
gozzoo
_I wasn 't lucky enough to ever meet or work with Steve, but one thing I've
seen during my time in the tech industry is that there are a lot of people who
try to emulate him. Unfortunately it's a lot easier to emulate Steve's
weaknesses than his strengths, so the result is that some people are just
whiny entitled jerks without much else to offer._

So true and so pity.

~~~
gozzoo
This reminds me of superstar CEOs like Elizabeth Holmes, Jack Dorsey and
especially Travis Kalanick.

~~~
hectorr1
Kalanick is a giant asshole, but also built an incredible company. He then
proceeded to nearly destroy it out of arrogance. So did Jobs during his first
stint as CEO.

Look at the heat Musk and Zuckerberg are taking these days. We would probably
have a much different view of Jobs if he was in his prime in the social media
era.

~~~
MR4D
Kalanick built an incredible _idea_. His company still loses billions of
dollars per year.

I've listed a ton of references, but my favorite quote is from [3] :

    
    
         The firm actually lost nearly $1.1 billion (GAAP net income) against just $2.22 billion in net revenue in the fourth quarter.
         
         It works out to a -49 percent GAAP net margin.
    

Also, the graphs on [5] are pretty damning.

So in my opinion, the idea is great (actually, truly freaking fantastic to
me), but the company is burning through cash at an incredible (and often
growing) rate.

To me, that is not the making of an incredible company.

[0] [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-25/uber-
lose...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-25/uber-loses-at-
least-1-2-billion-in-first-half-of-2016)

[1] [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-06/uber-
spen...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-06/uber-
spent-10-7-billion-in-nine-years-does-it-have-enough-to-show-for-it)

[2] [https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/13/ubers-loss-
jumped-61-percent...](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/13/ubers-loss-
jumped-61-percent-to-4-point-5-billion-in-2017.html)

[3] [https://news.crunchbase.com/news/understanding-uber-loses-
mo...](https://news.crunchbase.com/news/understanding-uber-loses-money/)

[4] [http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/growth-vs-
profits...](http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/growth-vs-profits-
ubers-cash-burn-dilemma/)

[5] [https://www.forbes.com/sites/lensherman/2017/12/14/why-
cant-...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/lensherman/2017/12/14/why-cant-uber-
make-money/#39032bd210ec)

~~~
socceroos
How much is going to CapEx? I thought they burnt at such a high rate because
of their autonomous R&D.

------
joncrane
I know that unflattering depictions of Steve Jobs are the big hits these days,
but this one seemed more like an attempt to flatter that left me flat. He
sounds incredibly annoying to work with and the people working with him have
that hands-on-hips "oh, him!" attitude at some massively dickish moves.
Blowing off peoples' ideas so glibly and pointing to the door imperiously to
indicate they should leave? Threatening to ditch a demo and terrifying your
employee? Ordering 300 custom made white italian dress shirts just so he could
wear a brand new one each time?

I know he accomplished some cool stuff but geez.

~~~
cmacaskill
Hi, I'm the author. :-) You're very right, he could be incredibly frustrating
to work with. I've always thought it was strange that we have so many
incredible stories about working with him, but few people tell them. Or if we
do, we talk about the good things he did. I was trying to do that too because
I liked him and deeply miss him, but wow could he be annoying.

~~~
scj
Hello! I have to admit that I have yet to read the article (work firewall),
but I was wondering if you knew the answer to a question I've had for a while:
Did Steve Jobs know how to use a UNIX CLI shell?

~~~
murukesh_s
I don't know it personally, but having seen his technical abilities from demo
videos, he definitely is capable of using UNIX CLI, in fact I do believe he
can write programs if he wanted to. He is not a genius like woz, but a person
with an average tech skill like most of us regular programmers, but with an
additional marketing genius.

~~~
scj
I have no doubt he was capable of learning how. But I'm more interested in his
perspective... Consider a contemporary-ish reference from Andy Hertzfeld:

"... was running a character-based text editor that I viewed with the typical
pious disdain of a Macintosh purist." (
[https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&stor...](https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Switcher.txt)
)

Did Jobs share a similar bias? Did he understand why a small % of the
population would want to have access to the command line (The inverse of his
"mere mortals" references)? Did he take advantage of the tools provided by
using a shell?

~~~
coldtea
> _Did he take advantage of the tools provided by using a shell?_

For doing what? Filtering log files and running services? He wasn't a sysadmin
(and even programmers, aside for their IDE and debugger, mostly use the shell
when they wear a sysadmin hat for their own computer).

That said, the first computer Apple built was the Apple I, and II -- which
only had a command line interface.

------
ksec
> Steve and I both showed up at the show in dark suits and white shirts.

I thought Steve always wear his turtleneck. Even going with investment banks.
My guess is that those days it was way more formal then what we have now.

>He loved hanging out in art museums. My memory could well be off, but I
remembered it as 300 new white shirts. He wanted a new one each time he
dressed up.

So he doesn't do any clothes washing? Would the old one be recycled? Throw
away?

Fascinating Story, I miss Steve. I miss the old Apple. Where they are
relentlessly innovating. It is not that they have stopped now, but it has
definitely slowed.

And I think with this story, Cake will now get lots of invitation to its site.

~~~
projectramo
I have often wondered why I am not as successful as Steve, and this was
particularly perplexing since I was wearing black turtlenecks almost every
day.

Now it turns out that that is wrong, I should have been wearing dark suits
with custom made Italian shirts! Duh!

Looking forward to the great work that is to emerge now that I have course
corrected.

~~~
jhpankow
Feynman's cargo cult science in action.

------
santiagobasulto
This is a great "growth hack" to introduce that service Cake. The story is
really good too, but what immediately caught my attention was: "what is this
cake thing?". It looks good btw, did anybody else know about it?

~~~
thinkingemote
It's co-founded by the author of the featured article. I was also impressed by
it.

------
Jenz
Damn this is great.

I used to be an Apple-guy, although I've moved away from it recently,

I wonder, if Steve was still there, would I have stayed with Apple?

------
ericls
Wow. Cake is good! Story is also good! EDIT: how do I get an invite?

~~~
vilen
Just click on any button on Cake (like post or follow) and you'll see a pop-up
so you can put your email on the list and you'll get an invite shortly.

------
therealmarv
heck what is this WorldWideWeb ... Word with blue links

~~~
macns
_Ironically, a guy named Tim Berners-Lee at Cern had developed something he
called WorldWideWeb on NeXT machines. I was trying to figure out what it was
good for. It was kind of like Microsoft Word, except some sentences were blue
and underlined and if you clicked on them you got a new document that came
from a different computer.

Steve asked intensely the first time he saw it, “Is this cool?” I think that
was his way of saying he didn’t get what it’s good for. I said I wasn’t sure._

