I think I understand your larger point, but whatever corrections or amendments need to be made to the myth of Jobs, the idea that he was in any way average shouldn’t be one.

The dude basically chose to die of treatable cancer in his 50s because he just didn't like the idea of getting medical treatment. That's one of the most odd behaviors I've ever heard of.

Plenty of incredibly smart people think and do incredibly stupid things.

Isaac Newton was one of the greatest mathematicians and physicists of history, inventor of the telescope, father of Newtonian mechanics, and a key figure of the Enlightenment. Yet he considered that scientific work of lesser importance, spending much of his effort studying the occult, biblical interpretation, and alchemy.

“Stupid” isn’t the word I would use for following your interests rather than what others would like you to do

Stupid is the word I would use for discovering that you have pancreatic cancer and then believing the best course of action is to reject effective medical treatment and "cure" it with an all-carrot diet.

Stupid is the word I would use to posthumously describe the interests of Isaac Newton. I admit that it would have been difficult to recognise the stupidity of occult studies in 18th century England, but we can certainly apply that label with the benefit of a modern perspective.

>Stupid is the word I would use to posthumously describe the interests of Isaac Newton. I admit that it would have been difficult to recognise the stupidity of occult studies in 18th century England, but we can certainly apply that label with the benefit of a modern perspective.

It seemed to work for Jack Parsons. And many other very creative people.

Correlation is not causation. There are many very creative people and uncreative people with many diverse quantities and qualities of stupidity.

Or maybe our conscious and unconscious brains don't work in linear fashion like factories. Inspiration matters. It doesn't matter if what it takes to inspire one, consciously or subconsciously, is weird and doesn't make logical sense but is more poetic.

Maybe. Maybe not. Regardless, correlation is not causation.

Elon Musk bought Twitter for 44B

I would agree that it was stupid for Musk to buy Twitter at any price.

But 44 billion wasn't an unreasonable price at the time the amount was offered, which was immediately prior to the stock market collapse of early 2022. And most of the TSLA stock he sold to acquire Twitter was sold at near to its market peak. Effectively he swapped some overpriced TSLA for some overpriced TWTR.

> Plenty of incredibly smart people think and do incredibly stupid things.

I mentioned this on an Elon thread and an SBF thread, and it fits here also. When people are so rich and powerful, it's often their own hubris that takes them down.

Odd, maybe, but the past few years of events in the US demonstrates that behavior isn’t too uncommon.

That’s one of the most human and common behaviors I can think of, and one of the ones I find most humanizing about him as a person who’s so caricatured. He was this giant, right? Saw the future of so many things others couldn’t see, yeah? And his own health suffered because he couldn’t meet the present facts of it with any kind of realistic acceptance. That’s just… some guy, could be any one of my family or someone you know. He was a flawed, normal, person, with… a story which is why we’re discussing it.

In terms of him being a bully? He was pretty average a person. That’s the only point. Just a normal run of the mill jerk, maybe a bit eccentric about it, but could’ve been dozens of people I knew growing up. Whatever other life accomplishments don’t make him a remarkable jerk. Just a well known one.

> He was an average person.

Average people tend to at least care about their own children. Jobs treated his own appallingly badly.

You'd be surprised

50+% of parents are bad? I don’t believe that.

I do

Depends how you define "bad". High-functioning people with abusive childhoods tend to perform quite well under capitalism. Low-functioning victims of childhood abuse end up in prison.

Just sit in public and you'll see parents threaten and humiliate children for the smallest things. It's baffling. The effects of these actions add up and we call it "mental illness".

Not to mention how many parents think assault (smacking) is a "just punishment". It actually achieves the opposite of what it purports, i.e. more violence and disobedience as soon as the children grow large enough to hit back.

And then there is the peculiar acceptance in the USA of male genital mutilation for many non-Jewish children.

We are still in our infancy with parenting.

It’s amazing to me what is being read into “average” here. I mean he was mere mortal, flaws and all. No better than John Lennon, who was also historically remarkable, and similarly a shitty dad.

What disappoints me the most is that people treat him as an inventor, when he invented nothing, his engineers did.

Dennis Ritchie as an example deserves way more respect than Jobs the buffoon.

But if you make "pop" devices to be sold to the layman, you are great in the public eye.

Yes, because you gave the people what they wanted.

It turns out that's all it takes to be popular (and unfortunately, for all their wisdom in other areas, so many tech folks fail to grasp that nuance).

Ritchie did excellent work, but a world filled with nothing but computers that worked like C and UNIX do would be a harsh and inhuman place.