Comment by talmand
8 years ago
Woz had the ideal of giving everything away for free. Of course he had no business sense.
Pixar wanted to be a studio, Jobs wanted it to be a hardware/software company. The people of Pixar forced Jobs into letting it be what it is today.
Jobs recognized Ive for what he is and then Apple became what it is today.
Like I said, Jobs was good at latching on to people with vision and genius to make what him what he is.
> The people of Pixar forced Jobs
Jobs had a controlling interest in Pixar. Nobody forced him. Pixar would have gone bankrupt without Jobs. Apple would have gone bankrupt without Jobs. Apple would never have existed and we'd have never heard of Woz without Jobs.
Nobody is that lucky. It's like winning the lottery 3 times. Once is luck. 3 times means there's a guiding finger on the roulette wheel.
Latching on is an odd way to describe something that happened repeatedly. You're dismissing Jobs singular talent: assembling groups of skilled people and giving them an environment that let them create incredible things. He was genius level at this.
I think Woz is down on Jobs, but Lasseter, Catmull, Ive, Cook, Fred Anderson and others all spoke highly of him.
I'm not dismissing that talent, I'm pointing it out.
It was his vision that made him such a joy to be "latched onto." It's too easy to dismiss building collaborative environments with extreme talent underneath you. People aren't just cattle you can find and latch onto. It's often a reciprocal relationship.