Steve Jobs described as 'real person' in recount of chance meeting - Page 2

Quote:

Originally Posted by mdriftmeyer 

Working at NeXT was always a privilege in my eyes. So many comments on here about people of authority, now at NeXT, are so far off the mark it truly reminds me how bad people are at both portraying these people and perceiving what they are like in real life.
Steve and Laurene both were and are down to earth people. If you saw Steve and never took the time to say hello then you're probably the type who'd rather vilify or enshrine him, but if you did you'd see a normal guy with a wry wit.

I've heard the same from many ex-NeXTers, certainly only found him as willing to spend some time on some Atari-days stories when I had the privilege to chat with him for a few minutes one time in the NeXT days as well, and it always just ticks me off when *(&&@*#^$()*&*!s who didn't ever work for/with him, know him at all, or even meet him, can take the time to just call him an egomaniac and a-hole. So far from the guy I met, doesn't sound like this story or your experience either.

Pleasant to work for at all times? Haha... No, I've heard wonderful dressing-down stories, but even the people who were part of those had a deep respect for him and thought he was an incredible guy. Hell, he really made a difference.

Anyways, nice to hear actual everyday tales. Not the things books are made of, but good stuff.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mstone 

I agree the story has a few questionable scenes, however, I don't recall reading any statement that Jobs hated charity, he just wasn't known to contribute to organized charitable causes. Being charitable doesn't always mean donating money. Just lending a helping hand is charitable. But Laurene, on the other, hand is very involved in social programs.

 

Perhaps I'm unusual but I have never had any desire to meet anyone just because they are famous.

And I can't recall anyone famous ever wanting to meet you, so it's a push. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tallest Skil 

 

Are these tied to cancer?

not going to the doctor, and pursuing weird holistic cures are tied to cancer.

Originally Posted by Conrail 
not going to the doctor, and pursuing weird holistic cures are tied to cancer.

Not only is this not the case whatsoever, it has nothing to do with the question I asked.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mdriftmeyer 

Working at NeXT was always a privilege in my eyes. So many comments on here about people of authority, now at NeXT, are so far off the mark it truly reminds me how bad people are at both portraying these people and perceiving what they are like in real life.
Steve and Laurene both were and are down to earth people. If you saw Steve and never took the time to say hello then you're probably the type who'd rather vilify or enshrine him, but if you did you'd see a normal guy with a wry wit.

agreed.  I spent parts of 2 days (about 6 hours) with Steve and maybe 12 industry people discussing medical applications on NeXT in the early 90's.  He was both engaged and engaging, honestly trying to 'learn' the problems of medicine.   Not once did he tell any of us we had 'stupid ideas,' and while he bopped in and out, it was more along the lines of a CEO who was running a startup, where these visitors were his main marketing focus (high end industry that hadn't yet adopted High Tech).  He had his opinion, which was Medicine was being practiced from 'rote memory,' instead of using the power of computers to pattern match symptoms and history to potential diagnostic pathways... but what was cool was he was 'steering' us away from an electronic medical record being an end, but really driving to overhauling medical decision making ('Medical Intelligence').

In short, I liked him a heck of a lot more than Bud Tribble;-)

And, almost everything i see in the iPad (small, tactile, always connected) were discussed during those days.   And Steve was very much about moving from 'spreadsheets'  of health data to graphical presentation, as people work best with in identifying outliers using pattern (anti-)matching, and having highly mobile devices that travel with the MD.