
Isaacson: The Genius of Jobs - robg
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/30/opinion/sunday/steve-jobss-genius.html?gwh=4A17CD86FC321622C9786BC1BCD5EE19
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espeed
Genius isn't really a measure of IQ (although a high IQ helps) — genius is an
extreme form of insight. I like to think of it in terms of perspective and
thus measure it by how rare and valuable a perspective is.

The thing Jobs and Einstein had in common was an insatiable curiosity that
helped them get to a place where they could see the world in a way that few
others do. Jobs saw the connections between technology and humanities and
relentlessly worked toward making his vision reality.

Einstein became a genius because he would relentlessly explore a problem,
following it out farther than anyone had taken it before. This allowed him to
see how the universe connects in a way that no one had seen before, and his
discoveries were valuable to humanity.

Getting to these rare perspectives is usually a product of building up a
mental framework and then seeing patterns in- and making associations or
connections among seemingly unrelated phenomena. True genius is seeing
associations among things previously unseen. A high IQ gives you more ability
to build the mental framework needed to see these associations, and a genius
has actually applied it.

~~~
tempaccount10
Steve is a great business man. He knows how to manage,manipulate and bring out
the best from his designers and engineers. He didn't design and he didn't
code. He didn't invent ipods or iphones or ipads. Sure he approves it and
demands it.But he didn't create any of those things. He is not an inventor. He
is a great CEO. Comparing him with Einstein just disgust me. I'd feel better
if he was compared to Jesus.(not an inventor either but knows how to influence
people). And Bill Gates would be much closer to Einstein since both of them
have high IQ.

~~~
espeed
Would you say that Warren Buffet is a financial genius? And would you say the
thing that separates Buffett from the rest of us is that he has a high IQ, or
is because he sees all of the dynamics and intricacies of the financial world
in a way that few others do?

You can control your environment if you see and understand its connections.
Whatever Jobs saw and understood enabled him to create Apple, NeXT, and Pixar,
and ultimately build Apple back to the most valuable technology company in the
world.

------
js2
_I thought about how Bill Gates would have gone click-click-click and
logically nailed the answer in 15 seconds_

Apropos Bill Gates and puzzle solving,
<http://www.borrett.id.au/computing/petals-bg.htm>

~~~
akavi
This is very difficult to phrase without sounding like I'm attempting to
insinuate my intelligence.

But I don't believe that many very intelligent men took more than 10 minutes
to solve this problem, unless it was presented to them in some dramatically
different way (eg, the name was not emphasized as much as it was here).

~~~
defen
Maybe it's due to all the brain-puzzler job interviews I've done (which
weren't very common in 70s when this incident purportedly took place) ... but
yea. I figured this one out immediately based on the name and the first
example.

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endlessvoid94
I really, really, really dislike the word "genius". It is a barrier, and
exists solely to provide an excuse for us to point to when we compare
ourselves to other, more successful people.

~~~
bluekeybox
A related problem caused by this is that the word "genius" usually gets
ascribed only to people working in some specific domains (obviously ones where
other "geniuses" have worked). So we end up with a world where if you do
things A, B, and C amazingly well, you get called a genius, but if you do D,
E, and F equally well, you are either ignored or called greedy or something
else. As a consequence, a ton of young naive people who were told they were
smart in school flock to fields A, B, and C, while fields D, E, and F stagnate
causing all sorts of economic problems.

~~~
potatolicious
I wish you were right, but unfortunately I disagree.

The fields where we toss around the word "genius" like it's lettuce are all,
IMO, severely undermanned and under-appreciated. Fields like physics,
engineering, mathematics, atronomy, biology, music, etc. When we think
"genius" names like Mozart, Einstein, Hawking, et al come to mind. I wouldn't
mind if people flocked towards said fields.

Instead, we have a giant talent drain into fields where we _do_ call people
"greedy" for their participation. Investment banking, for example. The
labeling of people as "greedy" hasn't stopped the deluge of people pouring
into said fields, and the label of "genius" hasn't really helped the ranks of
academics and artists.

I would be _very_ delighted if indeed people flocked to a field known for
"geniuses".

~~~
bluekeybox
Ah, I was actually thinking about art and literature, not math and science.
Perhaps I'm wrong (and no disrespect to artists who genuinely know their
process and value hard work), but I've felt for a while that art/literature
are assumed to be fields of endeavor where you can get to the point of being
called a creative genius without doing all the work required for being called
such in math/science and without having to detach yourself socially. I've
simply seen too many bright young people take that path without quite knowing
where it leads (I myself almost took it).

Regarding math and science, I do observe that academic pursuit in those fields
is undervalued in social terms (in my opinion at least). Being a logical
person, I conclude that it must be due to the law of supply and demand and,
and that the supply (the number of average-quality science grad students)
outweighs the demand. Now you can disagree with me all you want, but a lot of
middle-of-the-road grad schools I've seen are depressing places filled with
kids who have no idea what to do with their lives (if they did, they probably
would not be in grad school at this day and age). They would probably be much
better off working for a company yet seventy percent of them can't get a U.S.
visa. Now most American students in their turn aren't that interested in
spending six years of their young lives in classes and labs filled with people
who speak mostly Mandarin, for example, so they don't go into STEM fields
either.

I really think that the practice of U.S. graduate schools to make money off
foreign students without offering them visas that allow for U.S. employment is
something downright awful. Either give the graduates U.S. employment/visas or
don't let them into the country in the first place. I'm leaning towards the
first option.

It's all supply and demand. More people joining a particular field does not
mean higher prestige to people who are already there -- often it's quite the
opposite.

------
sriramk
This might be silly but I was thrilled that Jobs couldn't nail the monkey
banana brain teaser. I was asked that at my first MSFT interview 6 years ago
and struggled with it (I hated those brain teasers they did)

~~~
potatolicious
I _despise_ brain teaser interview questions - are you interviewing me as a
Sunday Puzzles columnist or do you want me to program/design/manage?

To me they reek of pop-psych bullshittery - as if somehow my responses to "why
are manhole covers round" would represent some divine introspection to my
inner personality and capabilities... or that my ability to gauge the
temperatures of three light bulbs is in any way connected to my engineering
ability.

------
powertower
> Trained in Zen Buddhism, Mr. Jobs came to value experiential wisdom over
> empirical analysis. He didn’t study data or crunch numbers but like a
> pathfinder, he could sniff the winds and sense what lay ahead.

A choice quote from a man known as Osho...

> Intellect takes things apart to see how they work; intelligence puts things
> together to see the functioning of the whole.

(note that the above is greatly simplified, both are needed, neither is
better, and there is overlap between the two)

One is analytic and clinical, it can be put in a book and taught to people. It
has a limit that's set by your neuron connections.

The other is more spontaneous, exploratory, and creative.

~~~
davidw
Perhaps "Osho" said some nice things, but he was also a grade-A crazy in some
ways - some of them decidedly not 'good' ways - and had some followers who
were outright dangerous:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_Rajneeshee_bioterror_attac...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_Rajneeshee_bioterror_attack)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985_Rajneeshee_assassination_p...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985_Rajneeshee_assassination_plot)

~~~
powertower
Separate the man from the media image and the actions of the organization and
people that grew around him.

Osho was not all seeing and knowing. The events that took place did so due to
power hungry people that were attracted to him.

Would you blame Christ for the sins of the Church?

If you read any of Osho's material you'll find more insight on a single page,
then you've received in your entire k12 education.

He might have made some mistakes but I doubt he was actively poisoning people
and herding children like they were cattle.

~~~
davidw
I'm not much into religions in general, even less so cults. And you can't
claim that that lot were anything less than a cult. A picture is worth a
thousand words:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Osho_Drive_By.jpg>

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osho_%28Bhagwan_Shree_Rajneesh%...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osho_%28Bhagwan_Shree_Rajneesh%29#USA_and_the_Oregon_commune:_1981.E2.80.931985)

~~~
powertower
A following or a cult ... it does not really matter what you call it.

Osho was all about de-programming. Not having a belief system.

Every time someone asked him a question, he would give an answer which always
showed how misguided the question was, that, and an incredible amount of
insight.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQFUpOOINd8>

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8gtLtaNTwo>

Imagine a Buddha with 99 Rolls-Royces and a collection of diamond encrusted
watches. Thats Osho! A contradiction.

~~~
davidw
People who are "de-programmed" do not stand around in orange robes in the
middle of the eastern Oregon desert, miles away from anything else (I've
driven through the former site of their ranch, and it is _extremely_ remote),
waiting for The Leader to drive by in one of the 90 some odd Rolls Royces that
they have given up all their money to purchase for him.

~~~
powertower
I have no idea what someone that's becoming "de-programmed" should wear.
Neither do you.

Those where mere students waiting to get close to someone they considered to
be a rock-star. They're just going the distance.

~~~
davidw
Part of the difference between a religion and a cult is that 'normal'
religions are a part of people's lives, but coexist with the other things they
have going on. Cults, like the Rashneesh group, are all-consuming. Those
people lived out there in the middle of the desert, and "Rashneesh" was their
entire life. They weren't just lining up at the Apple store for fun, or going
to see the pope come to town or something.

~~~
powertower
Don't know where you're getting all that non-sense.

They had a community building-out there on a ranch, which they wanted to turn
into a city.

Osho was the center peace.

------
Tichy
It's probably just too late in the day for me, but that article seemed like
90% gibberish to me. I hope the book is better...

------
dbbo
"So was Mr. Jobs smart? Not conventionally. Instead, he was a genius."

To me, this is just an abusive twisting of the word "genius". I know it has
different meanings to different people, but I think being smart, or having
some kind of intellectual capacity, is probably the best common ground between
definitions.

It seems like Isaacson thinks being a genius just means being really good at
something. Dan Marino and JFK are geniuses based on their prowess in their
respective fields.

~~~
mhb
The classic quote about Feyman by Mark Kac

 _In science, as well as in other fields of human endeavor, there are two
kinds of geniuses: the “ordinary” and the “magicians.” An ordinary genius is a
fellow that you and I would be just as good as, if we were only many times
better. There is no mystery as to how his mind works. Once we understand what
he has done, we feel certain that we, too, could have done it. It is different
with the magicians. They are, to use mathematical jargon, in the orthogonal
complement of where we are and the working of their minds is for all intents
and purposes incomprehensible. Even after we understand what they have done,
the process by which they have done it is completely dark. They seldom, if
ever, have students because they cannot be emulated and it must be terribly
frustrating for a brilliant young mind to cope with the mysterious ways in
which the magician’s mind works. Richard Feynman is a magician of the highest
caliber._

~~~
anothermachine
> They seldom, if ever, have students because they cannot be emulated and it
> must be terribly frustrating for a brilliant young mind to cope with the
> mysterious ways in which the magician’s mind works. Richard Feynman is a
> magician of the highest caliber.

That's a strange statement, because Feynman was perhaps the most revered
physics teacher of the 20th century.

------
hooande
tl;dr: "Steve Jobs was very successful, so he must have been a genius."

~~~
Tichy
But also, Einstein was a genius, and he thought about light beams, and Jobs
about foam models, so they must be kind of the same. And also Einstein said
that God doesn't play dice, so he must be religious, except that he wasn't
particularly religious.

OK sorry, my brain hurts, probably that means I am not a genius.

------
dr_
With the ongoing rhetoric that America is on the decline and China and India
are the superpowers of the future, I think the important takeaway paragraph is
this:

"China and India are likely to produce many rigorous analytical thinkers and
knowledgeable technologists. But smart and educated people don’t always spawn
innovation. America’s advantage, if it continues to have one, will be that it
can produce people who are also more creative and imaginative, those who know
how to stand at the intersection of the humanities and the sciences. That is
the formula for true innovation, as Steve Jobs’s career showed."

It is for this reason, short term economic maladies aside, in the longer run
the United States will remain the strongest nation in the world.

~~~
dyc
You assume that ways of thinking and doing are rigid. I don't know about that.

Moreover, when we do look at the "humanities," the wisdom gained from China's
five-thousand year history trumps that of this country.

~~~
stretchwithme
hmm, 5000 years passed in the west as well and presumably people were also
learning in the west.

in the end, it is not how long knowledge has accumulated in a place but how
open people are to learning from others.

And how open is often a crap shoot accident of history. The US forced Japan
open when Admiral Perry paid Tokyo a visit. Had he only gone to North Korea
instead, history would have been completely different.

