

The Man Who Inspired Jobs - wallflower
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/07/opinion/the-man-who-inspired-jobs.html?hp

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kloncks
Great article. Cult of Mac had a story where Sculley remembered a meeting
between Steve/Land:

 _Dr Land was saying: “I could see what the Polaroid camera should be. It was
just as real to me as if it was sitting in front of me before I had ever built
one.”

And Steve said: “Yeah, that’s exactly the way I saw the Macintosh.” He said if
I asked someone who had only used a personal calculator what a Macintosh
should be like they couldn’t have told me. There was no way to do consumer
research on it so I had to go and create it and then show it to people and say
now what do you think?”

Both of them had this ability to not invent products, but discover products.
Both of them said these products have always existed — it’s just that no one
has ever seen them before. We were the ones who discovered them. The Polaroid
camera always existed and the Macintosh always existed — it’s a matter of
discovery. Steve had huge admiration for Dr. Land. He was fascinated by that
trip._

[http://www.cultofmac.com/63295/john-sculley-on-steve-jobs-
th...](http://www.cultofmac.com/63295/john-sculley-on-steve-jobs-the-full-
interview-transcript/)

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dporan
From Tom Hughes, who was design director for the Macintosh project, here's
more about the meeting between Land and Jobs:

 _[A]ll serendipity for Sculley who was just along for the ride. He just
happened to luck out. And, there was no pilgrimage… no planned meeting with
Dr. Land. I was working for Steve as Design Director for the Macintosh project
and we were in Boston and I asked Steve if he’d like to meet Dr. Land, whom I
had worked with before Apple. I called Dr. Land and he agreed to meet Steve.
We arrived to find a BBC documentary film crew there. Dr. Land excused them
and we began a 3 hour visit which included a glimpse into color experiments
that were in his lab, to his personal office and an amazing review of some of
his personal collection of photographs. The memorable part of this was that
Steve was meeting someone who legitimately could be, almost uniquely, a mentor
for him. And, clearly, they shared an awareness of the importance of good
design as it contributed not only to their products, but to their corporate
culture as well._

[http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2666-the-story-of-polaroid-
in...](http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2666-the-story-of-polaroid-inventor-
edwin-land-one-of-steve-jobs-biggest-heroes#comment_61920)

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mortenjorck
This is a good overview of the Land story and some of the parallels with Jobs,
but if you're interested and have a bit more time, I highly recommend this
long-form piece at Technologizer:

<http://technologizer.com/2011/06/08/polaroid/>

The odds Land faced in conceiving, building, and shipping not only an instant
camera but the chemical and manufacturing processes required for such a
product are staggering – and not far off at all from the feat of the first
Macintosh. It's a riveting story.

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michaelpinto
If you want a real treasure look at the Charles and Ray Eames film for the
Polaroid SX 70: <http://youtu.be/4EdwmaQltHc>

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officemonkey
That's a gorgeous bit of video there. Thanks for sharing.

"Since 1947, Edwin Land and Polaroid have pursued a central concept, one
single thread: the removal of the barriers between a photographer and a
subject."

The ubiquity of the cell phone camera has delivered on Land's goal in a way
unguessed at when the SX-70 came out.

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justincormack
Oh but the SX70 is much more fun to use. Creating an object like that, with
the picture slowly appearing is much more magical...

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officemonkey
Funny thing is, the Polaroid existed to quickly give you the image. No sending
the film off to a Kodak lab for processing.

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jianshen
It'll be interesting to look forward another 30 years and see "The man who
inspired ###" talking about Steve Jobs. I wonder who that ### will be.

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listic
Many people, I hope.

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fondue
Interesting subtext beneath the article - with Jobs gone once again Apple is
going to slow down and eventually die. I'm sure I'm not the only one that read
that in the article; there will definately be a lot of, "Can Apple continue to
innovate now that Jobs is gone?" articles in the coming year.

Unless he passed on to someone his vision for what he sees as the future of
the iPhone or communications in general, I think Apple will begin to flounder
again and eventually fade off into history.

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fizx
I think apple has the potential to be Disney, which reached its peak well
after Walt's death. The key is to have everyone be in awe of the founder's
legacy. Apple's failures in the 90's were because they went the opposite
direction of asking "What would Steve do?" It seems likely that for the next
50 years, everyone at Apple will ask this question.

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orionlogic
More in-depth story of Steve's interaction with Polaroid can be found on Jay
Elliot's book "Steve Jobs Way": [http://www.amazon.com/Steve-Jobs-Way-
iLeadership-Generation/...](http://www.amazon.com/Steve-Jobs-Way-iLeadership-
Generation/dp/1593156391/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1318067733&sr=8-1)

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known
[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Neem_Karoli_B...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Neem_Karoli_Baba)
influenced Steve Jobs life a great deal.

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humanfromearth
Niccolo Machiavelli?

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georgieporgie
_Dr. Land was saying: ‘I could see what the Polaroid camera should be. It was
just as real to me as if it was sitting in front of me, before I had ever
built one.’_

This reminds me a bit of Nikola Tesla's autobiography. He had an unbelievable
ability to build mental models of mechanical and electrical things, and he
said that they always worked in real life exactly the way he had envisioned
them. His mental models were so intense that he would sometimes forget that
other people couldn't see them. It's a fascinating, brief read.

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salemh
[http://www.amazon.com/My-Inventions-Autobiography-Nikola-
Tes...](http://www.amazon.com/My-Inventions-Autobiography-Nikola-
Tesla/dp/0910077002) (no affiliate link, weirdly I always had trouble finding
Nikola Tesla related books / documentaries (I believe documentaries are still
only on youtube / amateur)).

