Steve Jobs in Exile is a fine profile of Jobs’ years at NeXT
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RickRoyLeonPrisZhoraRacha
Ars Scholae Palatinae
It was an absolute unnecessary loss, to pancreatic cancer. Sure, he was an absolute horror to work under, but its that other part of his personality that drove the genius with results we now really understand. I won't go into his family life, or his falling out with some colleagues. I won't go into that had he sought professional medical care sooner, rather than hollistic, he might be still here.
I grew up with Apple, then Amiga, then my work introduced me to the NeXT Cube. I was just amazed and awed. While I also worked on SGI-O2 workstations, the Cube and the Pizza box that offered a color display, it was a time of form with function.
Imagine having a vision and such outrageous frustration when the technology doesn't exist, yet, to create that vision. And when it does, you market it like a drug to technoaddicts. Steve Jobs at his peak, was the king pin and Apple was the drugstore. And now, we are screenagers, doom scrolling on his legacy.
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While Jobs may have been a visionary, he was a failure as a human being.
Was good friends with a programmer who worked at Apple for a couple of years. His wry reminiscence of Jobs went something like this, 'It was probably a good thing they didn't allow firearms on campus, because I sure wanted to shoot that asshole.'
Was good friends with a programmer who worked at Apple for a couple of years. His wry reminiscence of Jobs went something like this, 'It was probably a good thing they didn't allow firearms on campus, because I sure wanted to shoot that asshole.'
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The hardest part of writing those old tech bios was probably coming up with the metal-as-hell names
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No problem, I will.
Jobs killed himself by refusing actual medical treatment and thinking fruits and veggies could cure his cancer. Like many, he regretted this decision when it was too late. It shows all the money in the world doesn't make you smart.
At the time, he was criticized, but it was ultimately seen as just the last (literally) smelly remnants of 60s hippie culture.
It's hard to not lose even more respect for the man in light of current events where anti-intellectualism reigns supreme, people are getting sick on raw milk, vaccines are "the enemy", and eradicated diseases are making a raging comeback.
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How does this book compare to Steve Jobs and the NeXT Big Thing by Randall Stross, which was written without 2 decades of hindsight?
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(Deleted… Need to remember to completely read the article before posting anything!)
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I’ll order a copy just to get more info on Avie Tevanian’s role. That man’s a genius.
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One thing Jobs kind of learned at NeXT was to temper himself and his vision when needed. One of the biggest things that struck me about Job’s return was getting Bill Gates to the stage. (Okay, just as a giant head) and reminding the crowd Gates was part of the Mac turnaround when they booed Gates. Jobs also worked getting Quicken back on the Mac even giving a board seat to Quicken.
Back then, getting a new compatible version of Microsoft Office and Quicken back on the Mac was key to Apple’s turnaround. Jobs realizing this and working hard to get these two companies to agree into putting resources back into the Mac ecosystem.
Cleaning up the Mac line was important too, but I that was a pretty easy decision for Jobs. The Performas were awful machines and all the parts for all the different systems was money being burned. However, Jobs wanted machines with his designer input, so being mediocre pieces of mediocre junk made that easier.
Back then, getting a new compatible version of Microsoft Office and Quicken back on the Mac was key to Apple’s turnaround. Jobs realizing this and working hard to get these two companies to agree into putting resources back into the Mac ecosystem.
Cleaning up the Mac line was important too, but I that was a pretty easy decision for Jobs. The Performas were awful machines and all the parts for all the different systems was money being burned. However, Jobs wanted machines with his designer input, so being mediocre pieces of mediocre junk made that easier.
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Tangentially, the machine I learned to code on was a Motorola Starmax and I loved that thing the way you love a three legged dog.
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once it has spread outside the pancreas, there is no cure for pancreatic cancer. none. before it has spread, the hope is that surgery gets it all. once it has spread, surgery is off the table.
the absolute best outcome you can hope for is that chemo can stop it from spreading further indefinitely. not a lot of people get that outcome.
even the breakthrough drugs announced recently don't cure it. they just hold it back a bit better. and they are only available to some people (depends on specific mutations in the cells)
so people look for other options.
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Right but he had the special unicorn kind that IS slower and more treatable. He delayed treatment by 9 months 7 or so years before he died, so it's hard to say how much the 9 months mattered, but at least some doctors think that it mattered a whole lot.
Edit: the surgery he did get seemed to be a complete success for years so it seems very possible doing it 9 months earlier it may actually have fully succeeded.
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Oh I’m going to read this. I am really interested in the whole BeOS vs NextStep storyline because similar to the Berbers Lee anecdote, Apple buying Be instead of Next would have made for a completely different trajectory (not necessarily a good one even though I was a fan of BeOS).
If you’re weird like me, Gil Amelio’s book On the Firing Line goes into detail about that, but I don’t think it references the voicemail.
If you’re weird like me, Gil Amelio’s book On the Firing Line goes into detail about that, but I don’t think it references the voicemail.
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Everyone is rightly critical of jobs not getting proper treatment for pancreatic cancer sooner, but I also wonder if the same personality quirk that influenced that poor decision was what helped him succeed in so many other areas.
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I worked at the corporate Hq of Revco D.S. Inc (huge drug store chain) from '88 through the mid 90's. The company was struggling that whole period. The powers that be wanted to replace their mainframe based pharmacy system. They took a long and hard look at NeXT. A team and test lab was set up and they started down that path. A guy that worked for me started to develop Revco's first web site on a NeXT machine.
To make a short story long I think the end result was that the cost of putting NeXT machine's in a couple thousand pharmacies was cost prohibitive. I left the company around that time, they were subsequently bought out by CVS and the rest is history. We did have some fun times though.
To make a short story long I think the end result was that the cost of putting NeXT machine's in a couple thousand pharmacies was cost prohibitive. I left the company around that time, they were subsequently bought out by CVS and the rest is history. We did have some fun times though.
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As I was partway through, I wondered if it was the United States-based band or the Japan-based one.
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To your book list, I'd add Steve Jobs: The Journey Is the Reward by Jeffrey S. Young, which is a not uncritical look at Jobs' life up through his starting NeXT.
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Look, I'm not the smartest man in the world, but I appreciate learning, science, critical thinking etc, etc, and as a person with stage 4 cancer..... treatments really do suck, they feel like its not worth the side effects and is the most barbaric way to combat a disease short of lobotomy and bloodletting.Also, there are thousands of oncologists who are the gatekeepers or quarterbacks to this problem and there is not much critical thinking that comes across with the average oncology appointment. I take all the chemo junk, get parts butchered off me and just stopped trying to have rational discussions with my oncologist. So yea, I completely understand how some very smart people look for alternatives
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I think Dealers is the only one of those I don't have. Infinite Loop remains one of my favourite Apple histories.
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Go look up “Canyon software QuickTime suit” and you’ll find the actual reason Microsoft said yes to that deal.
Edit: in retrospect it was one of the best quiet settlements there ever was. Apple got a huge boost in the eyes of the market and customers. Microsoft was spared from losing a for-real “we stole your code” lawsuit.
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Be engineer Dominic Giampolo is also a freaking genius. He built BFS back in the day and also landed at Apple. ...And built APFS for them. Its crazy how much of an amalgamation of Be and Next folks ended up working on OS X
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to give you some perspective, when Gill came into Apple, most of us were very optimistic after the Spindler disaster.
Gil didn’t have any idea what he was doing at Apple, despite his reasonably good business chops. Ellen Hancock had no idea how to work with developers, and once everybody at the top realized what a mess Copeland was some panic started to set in.
I remember the day my buddies ran out of the house as I got home and and told me that we had just bought next. At that point, everybody was in quiet desperation mode, and this turned a lot of that around.
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I cannot begin to understand the suffering of a cancer patient and I acknowledge I'm throwing shade on a long dead man.
Also, there are thousands of oncologists who are the gatekeepers or quarterbacks to this problem and there is not much critical thinking that comes across with the average oncology appointment. I take all the chemo junk, get parts butchered off me and just stopped trying to have rational discussions with my oncologist. So yea, I completely understand how some very smart people look for alternatives
But this same man didn't believe in baths and walked around stinky and barefoot. He talked about not wanting his body cut open for the surgery. The man had a rare form of the cancer that was slow growing and more easily treatable, the best care money could afford, and he threw it all away. In the context of the American health care system, it is just frustrating to hear about such an experience. Even though it was his decision to make, how many others never even had the opportunity to throw it away like he did?
Jobs absolutely blazed his own trail in life. It led him to many great successes that changed the world and also potentially an early demise.
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Internally, and among engineers, the BeOS idea was great, but it was clear the runway would be much longer than what was needed.
By mid-1998 we were netbooting Rhapsody on big iron. Shipped previews a few months later, building on Workspace Manager’s weird Finder-ish features and behind the scenes, Bluebox, NewWorld, and other pieces needed to actually boot BSD/Mach on a Mac moved in place around the time the Bondi machine shipped; Power Mac G3 Blue and White was right behind it - new world machines built for the OS that was coming.
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I do miss the years that we had actual operating system competition. As a college student I was an employee of NeXT at a time they was aggressively pushing for new business. I recall being in discussions with the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center to deploy NeXT workstations there when that facility had a pretty sizable installation of both Amigas and Sun workstations. They did end up deploying NeXT in some capacity but they were seen as fantastically expensive, even for UNIX workstations. But the great personal benefit to that job was that I had a NeXT Cube and printer on my desk as a college student. That paid dividends; that system was far ahead of its time. (Side note: that printer was interesting. Because NeXT used Display Postscript, the black NeXT-branded printer itself was "dumb" and couldn't be used unless it had a NeXT doing the processing. I think it was 400dpi, a bit better than most laser printers of the time).
It was a time when the OS you had on your desk could be a choice you made as a developer, and not necessarily mandated-- as long as it got the job done.
It was a time when the OS you had on your desk could be a choice you made as a developer, and not necessarily mandated-- as long as it got the job done.
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Wait until I tell you about the guys who did all the PowerBook 5300/1400/3400/2400 firmware landing at a little startup down the street named Pixo.
Look that name up and see where their project landed.
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Considering you're not getting upvotes, you probably should have added /s to be clear to those who don't know him.
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I used to work with some ex-NeXT staff, and the stories from the early days of the company are as much about the staff who surrounded Jobs – people such as Rich, Susan (x2), Joanna, George, Bud and Randy as they are about of Steve himself. It was not a one-man show.
In fact, many of the most interesting stories have a common theme. Steve comes up with an outlandish and self-defeating demand, the staff work together to "manage" him, and the crisis is averted. There is no doubt that he was brilliant, but it was brilliance of the most mercurial and temperamental kind, particularly in the early days of NeXT. Without that precise group of people around him, the "evolution" alluded to here likely wouldn't have happened.
I haven't read this book, but I certainly hope it reflects the reality of NeXT as a groundbreaking company, with a whole host of interesting and talented people. I also hope it draws on the wealth of entertaining anecdotes that those other players have to provide – everything from the legal dramas in the early days, to Steve's grandiose plans for the factory (which the staff worked hard to mitigate), to the random CIA requests (CNN in a window!), to the the impacts of Ross Perot's election campaign, to the strategic use of Pixar to "hide" staff that Steve had unjustifiably targeted. The last thing we need is another Jobs hagiography, divorced from the extremely talented people who surrounded, supported and saved him.
In fact, many of the most interesting stories have a common theme. Steve comes up with an outlandish and self-defeating demand, the staff work together to "manage" him, and the crisis is averted. There is no doubt that he was brilliant, but it was brilliance of the most mercurial and temperamental kind, particularly in the early days of NeXT. Without that precise group of people around him, the "evolution" alluded to here likely wouldn't have happened.
I haven't read this book, but I certainly hope it reflects the reality of NeXT as a groundbreaking company, with a whole host of interesting and talented people. I also hope it draws on the wealth of entertaining anecdotes that those other players have to provide – everything from the legal dramas in the early days, to Steve's grandiose plans for the factory (which the staff worked hard to mitigate), to the random CIA requests (CNN in a window!), to the the impacts of Ross Perot's election campaign, to the strategic use of Pixar to "hide" staff that Steve had unjustifiably targeted. The last thing we need is another Jobs hagiography, divorced from the extremely talented people who surrounded, supported and saved him.
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WHAT! Hadn't heard the Pixo story! That's a cool piece of lore!Wait until I tell you about the guys who did all the PowerBook 5300/1400/3400/2400 firmware landing at a little startup down the street named Pixo.
Look that name up and see where their project landed.
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You’re right - all those things were already in the pipeline across multiple companies.
However, Jobs aced the implementation. Would competitors’ products be as good without Apple’s ideas and competition?
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walmart is incredible. I don't like them, and think the Waltons suck, but they are a logistics machine. in much the same way that the genius behind mcdonald's isn't crappy burgers for a few bucks, but the insane global system that drives to such efficiency that The Economist has had an informal Big Mac Index for years to assess relative currency valuations.
This tells me you actually don't know what you're talking about. Apple HID under Jobs is/was l e g e n d a r y, all the way from the very early days of where to put the app window (at the top of screen so you can just toss your mouse up to the top and arrive there without having to have fine motor control, particularly relevant in an era when most people had never seen a mouse before). Plain design language and minimal design is physical usability when it gives users clarity of how to operate a product. Just because other companies have copied the style and failed to do it properly is not Apple's failing.
In fact, Apple after Steve Jobs and Jony Ive is the problematic one, with increasingly illegible UX patterns and inconsistent interactions and designs. edit: i'm sure they still got a lot of great UI/UX/UXR folks there, but they clearly don't have the same high-up advocate keeping standards high and driving everyone to excellence. You can clearly see this in how negative Apple-booster Gruber over at daringfireball has become about macOS/iOS design over the past few years.
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In the 90s, I worked for a printing company that used NeXT work stations running Aldus Pagemaker. The owner's view was those computers didn't crash (unlike Macs and PCs or the era) and the increased productivity paid for the machines. They were ahead of their time.
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Yep, we’re almost two decades into the iPhone era and there are scores of devices for consumers to choose from.
And yet, iPhone is still —STILL— the unequivocal champion.
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Jobs' cancer was detected at stage 1. His executive grade insurance paid for full body scans that detected it before it had spread out of the initial organ. No lymph nodes, no mets. They could have simply removed it the day he got the scan and he'd still be alive today.
He refused treatment for 9 months, then got the surgery after it was no longer stage 1. Still took years to kill him, but it was the initial 9 months of treatment refusal that led directly to his demise.
The insanity of treating cancer with sugar is an entirely different point.
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We already had music players, but they sucked. We already had smartphones, but they were mediocre and on a trajectory of minor improvements rather than major shakeup. Pinch-to-zoom and smooth scrolling were revolutionary at the time.
I guess Henry Ford, in your estimation, also wasn't an innovator since we already had automobiles. All that "stuff" about standardized interchangeable parts, moving assembly lines, etc, that dramatically lowered the cost of cars were "going to happen anyway", right? /s
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Yeah, doctors, hospitals, etc. suck.
...
But it's still a weird move to find out that you have cancer, and there's a pretty established surgery that has a high likelihood of completely removing it and thus curing you, and your move is "nah, let's see what happens."
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