Wozniak is a very technically brilliant guy, and I have the utmost level of respect for him. But the sentence I quoted above just shows that he's also a stereotypical "nerd" in a lot of ways [1], in the sense that he has a very poor understanding of how humans operate, both at the individual level and the organizational level.
Specifically, just worrying about your own skills is not enough most of the time, especially if you work in any kind of team setting where success requires every team member to pull their own weight. If someone is fucking up constantly and ruining your team's objectives and deliverables, you need to let them know. You can be nice about it if you want, but if you actually care about your work then you absolutely cannot "just worry about your own skills."
Heck, this isn't true for just companies. I think every one of us has had group assignments in college where one person just didn't do the work or did it incorrectly. Someone like Woz might have let it go, because people who are taught by their parents to be "nice" tend to avoid confrontation due to the unpleasant feelings it brings. But the right thing to do - both morally and otherwise - is to criticize the person for slacking off and file a formal complaint if they don't start performing.
In fact, now that I think about it, that's probably why he didn't call out Jobs on it when he found out that Jobs screwed him out of $5,000 back in the day. He just didn't have the confidence to fight wrongdoings, even when he was directly hurt by them (granted, Jobs was Woz's polar opposite in the sense that he had an extremely strong personality, one that would have crushed Woz's). Also remember that when he built the first Apple computer, he wanted to give it away for free because he was just a nice guy. It was Jobs who was a lot more grounded in reality and convinced Woz that they needed to sell it for money.
[1]I put it in quotes because I'm not using it as a pejorative.
Woz is not dumb. His point was that he chose to adopt this mindset on purpose. He'd rather be the "average person joking all the time than a powerful businessman stressing over work everyday".
By not calling out Jobs for screwing him out of $5,000, you can easily say Woz was just avoiding confrontation. But I really think his whole mindset transcends that. It just wasn't important to him. And that's how Woz lived his whole life, simply focusing on the things that really mattered to him.
I have always been so impressed with how true to himself Woz was.
Exactly. Wozniak and Jobs weren't just opposites. Wozniak is the anti-Jobs.
And it makes me wonder if the deliberate personal philosophy Wozniak assumed ever got under Jobs' skin. Obviously it would have been unintentional but could have bothered Jobs more than we can imagine.
If you are a manager, while it is your job to occasionally criticize performance, it is never your job to criticize people. Further, if someone is "fucking up constantly," it's your fault. Do they understand the requirements? Do they have the training to handle those requirements? Is that the right role for them? Your job as manager is to make sure that everyone feels comfortable in their role and is able to further grow in that role or into other roles. If they're not doing that, it's your mistake.
In all cases, Wozniak is right. The only person you can criticize is yourself.
Nonsense. If you work in a particular role with others at a company, you are able to measure yourself against them and others - not just output, but in lots of different ways. If someone is doing a particularly sloppy job or "fucking up constantly" it's your responsibility as a professional and as a decent human being to raise them up. You can do this by taking them aside and critiquing their work.
This is not confidence -- this is insecurity and arrogance.
A lot of "nerd bullying" is unintended and seem to happen through brutally harsh technical criticism that we often don't realize can affect others really badly.
I used to work with a now well known blogger who is reasonably technical, but not a developer, and I used to fall prey to this with him.
In one meeting, we were chatting while waiting for someone to bring some documents, and he told me "when I first met you, I thought you were a total jerk, because it seemed like in every meeting when I opened my mouth, you'd shoot me down". After a while he realised it wasn't personal, but he still didn't quite understand why I was seemingly picking on him.
And it was true. I did shoot him down a lot. But I was flabbergasted. To me, my criticism was essential technical discussion. What's more, as I told him, the only reason I often criticised his ideas was because they were often good. Good ideas deserve thorough attention. Good ideas deserve criticism, because it is by fixing the rough edges we turn a good idea into something great. I had, and have, a huge amount of respect for his ideas.
The reason I kept my mouth shut when a lot of the rest of the management team came up with suggestions was because I often didn't believe they were interesting enough to be worth it, and I had a good idea for when any of those ideas might get traction enough to be worth shooting down, but mostly the bad ideas just got me to pull back and think about something else.
Sometimes we do bring out the heavy guns for really bad ideas too, but even then there is often a tacit admission of respect on some level, though influence rather than technical proficiency: Only the really insecure or clueless wastes lots of time criticising someone with no influence. We criticise bad ideas incredibly harshly when they come from people who have the influence to push their ideas through regardless.
But that is rarely aimed at someone who would be all that phased. And at least in my environment, the less technical members of the team would often easily recognise and kill those bad ideas without any need for me to pick them apart. More often for me at least, it was people I respected with ideas I respected that got the tough responses, because they got my attention.
Back then, I didn't understand that this kind of harsh language was not taken as impersonal technical discussion aimed at helping to improve their ideas by "normal" people, but as intense personal criticism.
I hope I've improved in that respect, but I still far too often cringe at when I see my "old self" reflected in overly harsh responses that still seem to be well intended.
There's a difference between criticizing someone and helping them. The former can lead to the latter, but they don't always (or even often!) go hand-in-hand.
If that makes him a "nerd", then I wish HN had more nerds!
This was largely right-place, right-time. I suspect he would have been widely-loved and an inventor regardless of whether he became a billionaire, though ;)
Steve Wozniak was employed and making a good salary as a programmer when Jobs screwed him over. Wozniak has said that he knew that Jobs was in a tough spot, and needed the money badly. He forgave him, that's what friends do.
If Wozniak had chosen the path you would have, Apple wouldn't exist and Steve Wozniak wouldn't be rich enough to spend the last few decades doing whatever the fuck he wants to do.
As a stereotypical nerd, who is socially retarded yet still manages to be a cynical asshole on a regular basis, I'll leave you with this.
The world needs nice guys like Steve Wozniak far more than it needs more assholes.
The floppy drive story is priceless.
I should write him a note...
Hearing that sort of thing doesn't get old. I'll bet he would appreciate it.
Reading from inspiring people like Wozniak makes me wonder how to adopt such advice.
I am wondering about that almost every time I review a pull request. How do you deal with bad code, poor comments or over-engineering when you see it? Of course you can be nice, but then code and product quality would end up affected. How do you balance this thing?? The person being reviewed knows it's not personal, but it too often becomes a battle of egos. I would be really interested to find ways to become a better programmer by being nicer without bending over or compromising on professional integrity. Any suggestions?
Why? This attitude baffles me. You don't have to be a dick when reviewing someone's code, terrible or not.
> The person being reviewed knows it's not personal
It absolutely is personal if you make it personal, i.e. start personally insulting the author.
"How could you be so stupid to write this this way?"
"This is really idiotic code."
"Sorry, this dumb way of doing things is dumb, and I don't approve of dumb things in my project."
All of the above are personally insulting comments. You should not make comments like them if you value being civil.
There are plenty of ways to reject code without being a complete dick. For example:
"This is pretty neat, but I don't think it fits in here because _________"
"I really appreciate the commit, but _________ doesn't quite work with _______ idea."
"This is a great start. Could you change _____________ to meld better with ________?"
All non-confrontational ways to say "sorry, this isn't good enough" while also offering positive feedback.
Obviously being called dumb is insulting, but being treated like a baby is too.
What's so wrong with just saying
"This should be changed because ___"
"You should avoid doing something like this because __" ?
I never make rude and inappropriate comments or call people names. I do try to highlight mistakes or what I consider to be a wrong approach. Some of those well-articulated comments still some times get misinterpreted, and egos get involved in the discussion.
Wozniak is talking about not criticizing people, and in that respect, even a nicely put, well articulated comment is a form of criticism.
Assertive communication is about expressing a contrary position in such a way that you are totally firm, but not aggressive. Your interlocutor must understand that your stance is strong, but that you are a person who listens and is not just trying to impose mindless authority on them.
A basic template for assertive communication is something like:
1. "I understand that [description of your interlocutor's position and why it's understandable that he holds it]",
2. "BUT [description of your position and firm arguments to support it]",
3. "THEREFORE, [conclusion, which will typically match your position but make some concessions to theirs if you can]".
It sounds like something pretty trivial, but believe me, it makes a load of difference. People will be way more likely to accept your arguments if you explicitly show them that you have carefully listened to theirs and respect them. I have had people coming into my office to complain about something, and going out almost thanking me for that very thing!
Of course, this is a personal informal explanation and you'll be able to find much better explanations of this principle on Google.
Does that sound like the sort of thing Woz would say?
\tangent I know what he's talking about (spinning the truth), so the following is not addressing what he meant, it's just that the bald statement irks me so: when explaining something to somebody, it can be very helpful to express it in familiar terms and concepts that they already understand. You might need to customise the story for each person, and the change might be much more than just a few words, but premised on entirely different concepts.
It's more like: you have a map and you know their intended destination. It's not helpful to just tell them where they should be; nor even to just explain one way to get there (one story). Better to find out where they are, and then give them directions in terms of that. (from my stint as an ugrad tutor/demonstrator).
"The best things I did in my young years leading up to the early Apple computers were done because I had little money and had to think deeply to achieve the impossible."
On a side note, I think this is why more (and arguably better) hackers come out of Eastern Europe/Asia.
And what an amazing and thoughtful reply it was, especially considering how lately Woz has become known more for being a loose cannon criticizing Apple in the press, than for his (amazing) previous accomplishments. Not to mention his portrayal in Steve Jobs' biography was less than glowing.
Kudos sir.
He talks about not learning from books, not caring about what others think about you, choosing a company based on how they treat you and not how "hot" they are - These are all the complete opposite of what Korea values and the way most Koreans live (book-learning, image-conscious, brand names over personal satisfaction).
I wonder if MIT knew about students sharing information with the outside world 40 years ago. If this copyright violation would have not happened, we'd be in a world without Apple computer, or at least Apple BASIC.
This statement makes me sad... but I cannot articulate exactly why.
Edit: I like the essay in general. It's very motivating. It would have been great advice when in highschool.
I find that many technical people actually find that while they keep solving technical problems, the people problem never goes away with their software.
We treat people as idiots and act in condescending manners because we think they are too dumb to use our software or computers in general, but the truth is our software is dumb and a lot of us dont want to change it.
...did the transcriber double negate this by mistake or is my head spinning the wrong way?
