Behind every Steve Jobs are thousands of very intelligent and hard-working employees and millions of smart people who have created a larger ecosystem. If one only pays attention to Steve Jobs they will leave out most of the work. They will praise Steve Jobs far too highly and disregard the importance of unglamorous labor.
I think that Steve Jobs is a bad example here, since his specific genius is not in designing things himself but in wringing as much productive work as possible out of intelligent and hard-working employees doing unglamorous labor. (Consider Edison, whose primary invention was the modern R&D lab, vs. Tesla, who was a good inventor but terrible businessman or manager.)
I used Steve Jobs because he’s about the most popular person in the Valley now, and I used him in the beginning of the essay.
Edison’s R&D lab itself relied on lots of other skilled engineers (Tesla included at one time).
Tesla, out of all the engineers I know, does stand out as someone who did work solo. Even he though needed Westinghouse to manufacture and sell much of his work, and many funders to fund it all. Plus, I think in some ways Tesla may be a mediocre role model given how supremely intelligent he was (it seemed like more than the other two). This has meant that I personally have found it difficult to emulate him.
I think that Steve Jobs is a bad example here, since his specific genius is not in designing things himself but in wringing as much productive work as possible out of intelligent and hard-working employees doing unglamorous labor. (Consider Edison, whose primary invention was the modern R&D lab, vs. Tesla, who was a good inventor but terrible businessman or manager.)
I used Steve Jobs because he’s about the most popular person in the Valley now, and I used him in the beginning of the essay.
Edison’s R&D lab itself relied on lots of other skilled engineers (Tesla included at one time).
Tesla, out of all the engineers I know, does stand out as someone who did work solo. Even he though needed Westinghouse to manufacture and sell much of his work, and many funders to fund it all. Plus, I think in some ways Tesla may be a mediocre role model given how supremely intelligent he was (it seemed like more than the other two). This has meant that I personally have found it difficult to emulate him.