You are recognized by your own skills and good work, and you don‘t have to criticize others for not doing good work. Just worry about your own skills.
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.
I'm sure Woz has a fine understanding of "how humans operate", perhaps even better than you or I. He has worked with some of the most important individuals and companies in this industry.
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.
His point was that he chose to adopt this mindset on purpose.
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're not a manager, it's not your job to criticize others. You can privately let the manager know why you think there was a failure, but that's just your opinion, the manager may see it differently.
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.
> If you're not a manager, it's not your job to criticize others.
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.
You missed david's point. You're not supposed to criticize the person (ex. "You are sloppy!"). You're supposed to criticize the person's work (ex. "Your work is sloppy!").
In my experience, criticizing the person just drags down their morale and usually doesn't motivate them, whereas criticizing their work sometimes motivates them to improve their work (it can also sometimes drag down morale as well, depending on how you go about it).
Depending on the organization, this is either acceptable or not, encouraged or not. And usually in every organization, if you're going to do the talking, you need to be one that everyone respects. Otherwise (again, depending on the organization), it can be a moment when everyone turns against you.
In especially toxic cultures, you need to be careful. It's unfortunate but true if you ever find yourself in one. Get out, get out fast if you are.
I think you are correct. Let me add two points: 1) Even though presenting constructive criticism may be uncomfortable for both parties, getting "blindsided" by the boss can really wreck a working relationship. 2) The reception one receives depends upon the prior relationship - a good one raises the probability of getting a "listening ear."
Wow, that sounds like a terrible work environment. I much prefer a self-regulating team. It is much less stressful in my opinion to be called out on problems quickly, and by your peers, than to have to have a "talk" with your manager, perhaps weeks or months after there was a problem that you could easily have fixed. I've seen more dysfunctional teams from this type of attitude than I've seen functional ones. If a team member is having a problem, they often know it, but don't know why they are rubbing everyone wrong and then they get worse from stress and trying to fix the wrong things. By the time the manager steps in, it is often too late, and a problem that should have been nipped in the bud has spiralled out of control.
I think saying 'a terrible work environment' is a bit of a stretch. The important part of criticism is that it's taken constructively - often it's best done between peers, but sometimes it's best done with (good) managers.
I think a key issue is that coworkers can be awesome workers, but HORRIBLE at critique. It's a skill that people aren't always good at. I know I could be better. A good manager will be great at this, and it's often best to let the best person at this do the talking. Managers can also be great as go betweens, and councillors for both sides, so that hatchets don't get buried directly into coworker skulls.
From my experience most "nerds" are actually way too quick to criticize others. They lack confidence in their social skills so they form an identity around their supposed technical abilities. Then they use that identity to justify bullying, but instead of beating up someone with a diminutive stature they'll post a tweet about how someone is a moron for not using the correct design pattern on some code they posted on github.
This is not confidence -- this is insecurity and arrogance.
A lot of the time it is also just lack of understanding of how others will respond.
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.
It worked out well for him. He's a widely loved billionaire who got to invent a long list of things that changed the world. Woz was true to himself while good to others and I love that.
If that makes him a "nerd", then I wish HN had more nerds!
> It worked out well for him. He's a widely loved billionaire who got to invent a long list of things that changed the world.
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 ;)
Most people are assholes. I don't know why anyone would ever advocate being like most people, I simply can't comprehend it.
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.
If you take it by the numbers (which is a bad way, but still) then Woz definitely came out ahead by avoiding a confrontation over the $5000. I'd say he played it pretty smart if that was his intention, but I think it is obvious that it wasn't, he just isn't that kind of person. It speaks volumes about Jobs though.
You're probably righ on Woz being a bit too soft, but just to play the devil's advocate: maybe he was just thinking of the stereotypical "nerd supremacy" type of criticism, which I think we can agree on is a damaging sort of criticism.
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.