back to article Lean in and pivot: Even Steve Jobs didn't work alone, startup boy

In which Damon Hart-Davis talks about life as a tech entrepreneur and tells us about his product. I toiled in banking for circa 20 years, amongst other gigs, including at the much-loved Lehman Brothers (motto: “Where Vision Gets Bilked” or whatever) and RBS, and a previous fintech start-up of mine, though I’m also an …

  1. Dick Pountain

    Twist

    Pivoting while Leaning In is likely to twist your ankle

    1. I sound like Peter Griffin!!

      Re: Twist

      Clearly you've no admiration for the double-jointedness of Startup Superheroes!

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Exactly

    Jobs could have never been able to design and build a working computer himself... only to sell it.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Exactly

      And Woz could have never sold more than a couple hundred computers - without Jobs the Apple I would have been a footnote in history like the Altair and the Apple II never existed - which is why both of them needed each other to create Apple.

      1. Robert Grant

        Re: Exactly

        Yeah, he also needed MS to inject cash before Apple folded, but Woz was the guy.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Exactly

        Yes, but I'm still baffled it's always the marketing guy who becomes very rich and famous. Or maybe it's not so strange, to be able to sell, market and buy successfully things well you need to have little ethics... Jobs, Gates, Ellison...

        1. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge
          Coat

          Re: Exactly

          @LDS

          ...Zuckerberg?

        2. ecofeco Silver badge

          Re: Exactly

          Woz is quite wealthy.

          1. Lars Silver badge
            Happy

            Re: Exactly

            "Woz is quite wealthy.".

            Yes, but that is just because he refused to sell his shares in Apple Computer when Jobs desperately tried to buy them. As far as I have understood Woz was rather pissed off with Jobs efforts then.

            @TheOtherHobbes, please slow down, the stuff you mention, if not already available, would have come later anyway, without any doubt. It's a bit like claiming no cars would exist without Ferdinand Verbiest or Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot and similar guys.

            Innovations mostly build on previous innovations, no light bulbs without electricity, no microcomputers without a microprocessor and so forth. And yes, I did have an Apple II+ and I was impressed and Jobs was an impressive character, still I think I would rather go fishing with Woz than with Jobs if that was possible.

            In a more "joke alert" mode, dear Brits now when you eventually will be able to write your own laws without the EU interfering with you. Be careful, the following law was not written i Brussels.

            "The Locomotive Act (1865), which required many self-propelled vehicles on public roads in the United Kingdom to be preceded by a man on foot waving a red flag and blowing a horn. This effectively halted road auto development in the UK for most of the rest of the 19th century;".

        3. TheOtherHobbes

          Re: Exactly

          >Yes, but I'm still baffled it's always the marketing guy who becomes very rich and famous.

          Because tech on its own is worthless if no one uses it.

          Jobs was more of a project manager than a marketing guy. He didn't just sell stuff, he pushed hard for beautiful products, and he gave everyone reasons to buy them - which is not the same thing.

          Desktop/visual computing wouldn't have happened without Jobs. Nor would DTP and the whole design thing. Nor would mobile music distribution. Nor would apps on phones which tie data and commerce services to touchscreen pocket terminals that can be used almost anywhere.

          He didn't invent any of the above. But he gave the punters good reasons to buy them, when no one else realised the possibilities.

        4. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          @LDS - marketing guy gets rich

          You list Gates in there, but he's a software guy. Yeah, he went on to run a big business but he's more like Zuck than Jobs. Ballmer was the marketing guy. Both got very rich, but Gates was more rich because he had a greater percentage of the shares.

          I think the reason Jobs got richer than Woz was mainly because once Woz was a multi millionaire he was set for life as far as he was concerned. Jobs wanted to do more, but Woz was satisfied that he was then in a position to do whatever he wanted for the rest of his life.

          Jobs wasn't hugely richer than Woz in the Apple II days, but he went on to buy Pixar and later sell it to Disney for billions, then return to Apple and massively increased the value of Apple stock - benefiting both him and Woz (assuming Woz still had Apple shares at that time; maybe he'd sold them at some point)

          1. Tim99 Silver badge
            Windows

            Re: @LDS - marketing guy gets rich

            "You list Gates in there, but he's a software guy." Yes, but not so much as you might think - Paul Allen was the geekier, going back before MS, and before Traf-O-Data (their first company) when they were at Lakeside School. Bill was more the fortunate son of a wealthy and prominent lawyer; and a woman who was on the right not-for-profit boards with the right connections (like IBM's CEO John Opel). If you want to see how the world might have been, look up QDOS and Tim Paterson...

            Bill was a very competitive, bright guy, who was in the right place at the right time, with the right contacts (which is often how successful people get ahead).

            @Lars "Yes, but that is just because he refused to sell his shares in Apple Computer when Jobs desperately tried to buy them. As far as I have understood Woz was rather pissed off with Jobs efforts then." If you want to see a better example of how the business guy wanted to screw over the technical guy, a good summary is here: Business Insider Australia - Paul Allen and Bill Gates.

            Writing this, I realized that I was around computing before most of this happened. So:-

            An appropriate icon for an old fart with many Microsoft scars >>========> ^

      3. John Smith 19 Gold badge
        Unhappy

        "which is why both of them needed each other to create Apple."

        And I think that's the author's point.

        The tech in a tech company is (sadly) just the start.

        A lot of s**t has to line up just right to make a successful tech company in the UK with its financial culture of "If it's not making a profit in 18 months (and ready for IP in 2 years) we're not interested."

  3. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

    "... save the world through IoT ..."

    Let"s just say I'm somewhat sceptical.

    Also, Batman doesn't work alone. At the very least, there is always Alfred.

    1. bombastic bob Silver badge

      "Batman doesn't work alone. At the very least, there is always Alfred."

      Alfred = "the hired help"

      not ready to go into the 'you did not build that' extreme, but HIRING PEOPLE is an effective way of getting things done, when you specifically lack those skills [or can't afford to waste time doing it all yourself].

      Also Bruce Wayne's company and all of the employees there, especially the one played by Morgan Freeman [who invents all of the cool schtuff].

      yeah, humans have been gathering in teams for cohesive strength to accomplish major things, since, like, forever.

  4. Mage Silver badge
    Devil

    Money, Personality and Marketing

    I discovered later that the tech or other product/service is just something for those to purvey.

    Also like novels (Harry Potter) or pop groups maybe a lot of luck. Talent doesn't result in a success with music or writing.

    It's true it's 90% perspiration and 10% inspiration, or something like it.

    Some get money by successful lying to investors or grant agencies. (Recently T******* and in 1980s D********). Personality!

    Also Steve Jobs and many other US startups in a Garage ... Not a UK type garage, but rich families and luxurious workshop man cave garages. Also many exploited other people shamelessly and lied. It was almost never about the Tech. Far better stuff than the Apple I / II at the time. I fell for hype and bought an Apple II when an S100 based CP/M machine would have been better for my 1980 startup.

    1. Kristian Walsh Silver badge

      Re: Money, Personality and Marketing

      Can't remember who said this, but:

      "Successful garage startups are mainly notable because they happen in garage-sized industries"

      The mid-70's personal computing business, the early 1980s application software business, the mid-1990s Internet business, the mid-2000s social media business - these were all tiny industries at those times, and any one of the companies launching product could have made a go at it without having to spend millions.

  5. Hemostat80

    Lone Wolves...

    attract other Lone Wolves. Once they are in the same room the stars align, the magic happens, and we put out kick ass products or whatever.

    Then we split, so as not to tear each other's heads off cause of too much alphaness in the room. Or when it seems it is all getting to "corporate", and therefore uninteresting.

    Woz and Jobs were never meant to last forever, just as iterations of Justice League and Avengers will never last forever. We may fade into obscurity or the void or [insert here], but at least we did it our way under our rules and had a freakin awesome time breaking the mold.

  6. Captain DaFt

    So, um...

    Did Steve (¡Bong!) Bong change his name to Damon Hart-Davis, or wut?

  7. Notas Badoff
    Terminator

    Startups: People + Idea + Timing + Reality = WTF happened?!?

    First startup: guy with an astonishing insight plus guy with an astonishing checkbook get together with visions of multiple astonishing checkbooks. One drawback is the insight has a limited shelf life of about 18 months. I come in and find that project step 2 is really steps 2 thru 7, with step 5 being find the magic data transform that 'corrects' the 'minor' hardware signal distortion introduced between encoding and decoding. Wavelets! smart guy says. Great, I says, we have a first tier university nearby full of Math/EE/CS genius wannabe students that would really chew through this 'minor' problem for nearly no money! No, let's bring in an "industry expert" they say. Months later I quit with much denario unpaid to me.

    They never understood the biggest problem was timing and execution. The incorrect kind of hurry is fatal.

    Second startup: called in to help out a friend with their software demo for prospective investors. Later find out they'd spent lots on two other 'friends' that simply disappeared after a month and a half, thus emergency call to me. (Yah, thanks) Much work, time, and repeated demos later, number two decides he can't take the heat with no fuel coming in. A group conference finds number two never put in any money, number one has been funding the whole deal, and - ya'know - nobody wants to fund development of a porn blocker. For some reason, no upstanding citizens or organizations (who are most vocally against porn) want to be materially associated with the subject. They're a'gin it, but don't want it to go away??

    Some technologies are nerd-perfect, and fly smack into the brick wall of reality. Make sure your startup idea will fly in the *real* world.

  8. Bob Rocket

    Next steps

    Read this sort of stuff and act on it.

    https://medium.com/the-mission/the-greatest-sales-deck-ive-ever-seen-4f4ef3391ba0#.8pp0rewul

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