Take
Study greatness like a rhinoceros — fascination, not a how-to
Shaan argues that greatness comes at a heavy cost to family and relationships, so the goal isn't to become Steve Jobs. He studies extreme people the way he'd study a rhinoceros: fascinated by an extreme creature without wanting to be one.
“I just kind of am fascinated by it. In the same way that like I'm fascinated about how, you know, a rhinoceros moves and eats. And I don't necessarily want to be a rhinoceros. I just find it interesting that it's an extreme creature.”
Story
The Steve Jobs hire: an hour later the world rearranged to make his wish true
Shaan retells a (possibly apocryphal) Quora story of an MIT recruit who didn't want to work at Apple. Steve Jobs scoffed at the interview questions, asked only 'Who are you?', took him on a walk, and within an hour had him hired, apartment keys in hand, and his belongings being moved cross-country.
“And Steve Jobs is like, give me a month. It'll be the best month of your life. I will, you know, I'll pay you 3 times what your normal rate would be for the month. You know, for one month, I'll make you pay triple. We'll get you a car or an apartment or whatever else. Just say yes and like, say yes and it's done.”
Framework
Inflections: technology, belief, and platform openings create opportunity
Sam shares the inflection framework from a Gagan course: opportunities spike at technology inflections (internet enters every home), belief inflections (people stop trusting media), or platform inflections. He cites Pandora languishing for 3 years until Steve Jobs invited it onto the App Store.
“There's technology inflections, which is like basically like, oh my God, the internet is now in everyone's house. That is an inflection. There's an opportunity there. Or a belief inflection is like, wow, people really don't trust the media. What can we build to help? Or people are afraid to be in groups of thousands of people. How can we fix that? What we are seeing right now is a technology inflection.”
Steal thisWatch for technology, belief, and platform inflections, and build into the opening before others notice.
Fact
The 'tribe of maniacs': frontier telegraph operators were the original Silicon Valley
Wilson argues the tramp telegraph operators were a textbook 'tribe of maniacs' that mirrors early Silicon Valley: both on America's frontier a generation after settlement, both run by tinkering 20-somethings with access to the most advanced tech of the day.
“I've talked before about the tribe of maniacs phenomenon, and it was in full effect here. In fact, this is sort of a textbook example, and it's crazy how much it resembles Silicon Valley in its heyday. Both are on the frontiers of America, born a generation or two after it was settled, and during a time of really rapid population growth. Both had access to the most advanced technology at the time— silicon chips in the case of California, telegraphs in the case of Edison and his contemporaries. Both scenes were started and run by men in their 20s who were obsessed with tinkering”
Story
Why Wilkinson stopped worshiping the Steve Jobs CEO archetype
Wilkinson grew up reading Steve Jobs biographies wanting to be that kind of creative-genius CEO, but realized those people who 'blow their brains out working' often have bad lives or are unhappy. He found he only enjoyed managing 5-10 people max, and anything beyond that forced him into the CEO role he hated.
“I grew up reading biographies of Steve Jobs and worshiping him and thinking I wanted to be that kind of person. And then as I read more and more biographies, I realized that often those kind of creative genius CEOs who blow their brains out working have kind of bad lives or bad dads. Are somewhat unhappy people day to day.”
Story
Why Wilkinson stopped worshiping the Steve Jobs CEO archetype
Wilkinson grew up reading Steve Jobs biographies wanting to be that kind of creative-genius CEO, but realized those people who 'blow their brains out working' often have bad lives or are unhappy. He found he only enjoyed managing 5-10 people max, and anything beyond that forced him into the CEO role he hated.
“I grew up reading biographies of Steve Jobs and worshiping him and thinking I wanted to be that kind of person. And then as I read more and more biographies, I realized that often those kind of creative genius CEOs who blow their brains out working have kind of bad lives or bad dads. Are somewhat unhappy people day to day.”
Framework
Rate inventions by how many years they pull the future forward
Ben Wilson's heuristic for greatness: judge an invention by how far it pulls the future forward. The iPhone pulled the smartphone forward maybe 5-10 years; the phonograph and recorded sound, he argues, pulled the future forward about 50 years.
“I like to think of inventions in terms of how far forward does it pull the future, right? So like if you think about Steve Jobs and the iPhone, the smartphone, he probably pulled the future forward like 5, 10 years, right? If Steve Jobs had never existed, the smartphone was still gonna happen at some point, right? I think with the phonograph, with recorded sound, he pulled the future forward like 50 years.”
Steal thisMeasure an innovation's true greatness by how many years sooner it made the future arrive than it otherwise would have.
Take
Passion as the rational filter: without it, you'd quit
Steve Jobs argues passion isn't motivational fluff — it's what lets you persevere through work so hard that any rational person would give up. The ones who succeed loved what they did; the ones who didn't, quit.
“People say you have to have a lot of passion for what you're doing, and it's totally true. And the reason is, is because it's so hard that if you don't, any rational person would give up. It's really hard and you have to do it over a sustained period of time.”
Take
Edison's genius: plan less, do more
Wilson's core takeaway from Edison's tinkering: as a self-taught non-theorist, Edison brute-forced inventions by trying every material rather than reasoning from first principles. The lesson is to spend less time planning and more time running reps and failing.
“He just dove in and started trying stuff, and he was just unbelievably persistent. He tried and he tried until he brute-forced his way into a solution, into an answer.”
Steal thisPlan less, do more: stop debating the optimal approach and start running reps, failing, and adapting on the fly.