Author Topic: Why do the big "guns" get more credits for their technical skills?  (Read 12623 times)

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Offline pcprogrammerTopic starter

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Why do the big "guns" get more credits for their technical skills?
« on: September 21, 2022, 06:46:51 am »
Why do the big "guns" get more credits for their technical skills then they might deserve?

What is this title about you think?

Well it is about the praise we give to the likes of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates for their technical abilities they might not have.

Sure they build successful companies which in it self is impressive, but do they have the actual technical skills that we think they have.

Take Steve Jobs, where would he have been without Steve Wozniak. What did Jobs bring to the table in making the first Apple. Furthermore we praise him for the GUI he brought with the newer Apples, but the fact is that it was people at Xerox PARC who developed the idea. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_graphical_user_interface

And without a lot of good people in the company to develop all the products they sell he would most likely be nothing.

Also take a look at what Steve Wozniak did. Was he brilliant? I don't know, making a computer like the Apple II could have been done by many of us. Take a standard processor, slap some memory on to it, a display system, keyboard interface and you have a computer.  And basic was not invented by either of the two so nothing to brilliant there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BASIC

The same applies to Bill Gates. What did he actually invent? Not MS-DOS, because that was made by Timothy Paterson. https://www.britannica.com/technology/MS-DOS

There are many engineers out there with possibly better technical skills that actually brought a lot to the success of the big "guns" without getting any credit for it. And where would the big "guns" be without them.

Sure making a lot of money like they did is impressive, but making idols out of them just for that. I don't know.

This is not an attack on their personalities, just a simple question about whether they deserve the hail for their technical skills.

Offline Brumby

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Re: Why do the big "guns" get more credits for their technical skills?
« Reply #1 on: September 21, 2022, 06:56:07 am »
There is far more than technical ability required to bring innovation to the world.
 
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Offline magic

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Re: Why do the big "guns" get more credits for their technical skills?
« Reply #2 on: September 21, 2022, 07:44:28 am »
Because in the world as it exists today their marketing skills are more valuable than your technical skills, of which they had next to none by the way ;)
 
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Online CatalinaWOW

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Re: Why do the big "guns" get more credits for their technical skills?
« Reply #3 on: September 21, 2022, 08:18:38 am »
The answer varies.  Jobs was never touted as a technical whiz.  But he did excel at marketing and also styling/understanding the market.  Wozniak was very good technically.  His floppy disk interface was very clever, not something that most engineers would come up with.  Sure, much of the Apple II was vanilla stuff, but the clever bits gave it an edge over the many other competitors at the time.  That and the recognition that to reach a broader market than the elx/comp sci geeks who were buying Altair and many similar products at the time.

Gates was a coder whose initial claim to fame wasn't inventing Basic, but coding a version that was usable and fit in the 16 or 32 kbyte memory space available at the time.  Not spectacular, but he beat others to the task.

I don't know which other big names you feel get more respect than they deserve, but in all the cases I am aware of they did one or more of three things that not every technical person can do at the drop of a hat.  One, they created a unique function by using things in a way not obvious and different than others had done.  Wozniak, Tesla and Armstrong (FM radio) are examples of this.  Two, they recognized a market that wasn't obvious to others and used average or better technical skills to create a product for that market Musk (Paypal). And finally, three they had the organization and persistence to develop and polish an idea until it is actually marketable.  The Wright brothers are perhaps the best example of this.  They weren't doing much of anything that others couldn't do or in fact weren't doing.  But they kept at it until their combination of minor improvements on existing ideas worked well enough to be useful.  Many of Musk's enterprises are examples of this.  The Falcon 9 rocket being an example of, as you say, strapping some rocket engines, fuel tanks and some guidance electronics together.
 
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Offline tom66

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Re: Why do the big "guns" get more credits for their technical skills?
« Reply #4 on: September 21, 2022, 09:45:18 am »
In a great number of cases, the particular individual was just lucky.  Right place, right time, right connections, right skill set.  There's nothing in life that says someone has to succeed just because they are a good programmer.  And they need to be driven.  I know engineers/programmers who are quite comfortable taking a salary without risk every month, if you want to do something as crazy as start a company like Apple, you need to be prepared to live in a shoebox for a few years, and throw all of your time and effort into it, for maybe a 1% chance of success.
 
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Offline pcprogrammerTopic starter

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Re: Why do the big "guns" get more credits for their technical skills?
« Reply #5 on: September 21, 2022, 11:41:26 am »
There is far more than technical ability required to bring innovation to the world.

Yes, and elaborate on that please, with more then a one liner that does not really add to the discussion.

Offline pcprogrammerTopic starter

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Re: Why do the big "guns" get more credits for their technical skills?
« Reply #6 on: September 21, 2022, 11:59:14 am »
I brought this up, because in some other threads it shows some people idolize the two I mentioned but also others with a youtube presence that worked for the companies of the two mentioned.

A couple of links to recent ones.
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/software-guys-please-no/
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/programming/the-next-generation-of-programmers/

And being down to earth and level headed I just don't feel the need to idolize people, and certainly not for the wrong reasons.

One argument in the thread about Dave Plummer, was that he wrote software, that might be on your computer still today. Is that a reason to idolize him? I wrote software for some company, and it might be that you still receive statements in your letter box that were printed with the aid of that software. No need to idolize me over it.

And sure there are others that can go on the list. CatalinaWOW named Musk. Some say he is brilliant, others think he is a charlatan. I certainly don't agree with a lot of his visions.

My view on it, is that the world as is today is made by a lot of clever people who don't receive credit for it, but more so by people with a huge craving for money and that it also had a big negative effect on the world we live in today. And it is those people that we seem to idolize.

Online themadhippy

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Re: Why do the big "guns" get more credits for their technical skills?
« Reply #7 on: September 21, 2022, 12:06:41 pm »
history just repeating itself,ask 100 people who built the first computer and i'd bet 99 would say turing and have never even heard of tommy flowers
 

Offline tom66

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Re: Why do the big "guns" get more credits for their technical skills?
« Reply #8 on: September 21, 2022, 12:16:38 pm »
history just repeating itself,ask 100 people who built the first computer and i'd bet 99 would say turing and have never even heard of tommy flowers

...except arguably Babbage made the first "computer", and various other mechanical and electromechanical computers predated Flowers' ideas, and his weren't even that unique: use tubes, and hope they don't burn out so quickly that the maintenance can't be kept up.
 

Offline pcprogrammerTopic starter

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Re: Why do the big "guns" get more credits for their technical skills?
« Reply #9 on: September 21, 2022, 12:23:32 pm »
history just repeating itself,ask 100 people who built the first computer and i'd bet 99 would say turing and have never even heard of tommy flowers

It might be even worse then that, lots might say it was Wozniak. :)

But that is exactly the point. The ones that did the actual inventing are just mere small notes in history. Only a few get proper credit. I know a bit over stated, because there is a long list of names in several fields, like Newton, Pythagoras, Bell, Tesla, Volta, van Leeuwenhoek, etc.

Online themadhippy

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Re: Why do the big "guns" get more credits for their technical skills?
« Reply #10 on: September 21, 2022, 12:36:20 pm »
Id argue many early  inventors were no more than patent thiefs who had enough cash to pay off the original inventors,marconi didnt invent radio,bell didnt invent the telephone and edision didnt invent anything but all get credited for others work
 
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Offline Brumby

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Re: Why do the big "guns" get more credits for their technical skills?
« Reply #11 on: September 21, 2022, 01:08:05 pm »
There is far more than technical ability required to bring innovation to the world.

Yes, and elaborate on that please, with more then a one liner that does not really add to the discussion.
Since you were clearly focussed on the technical aspects, I wanted to make you aware that there is more to consider than that alone.  By making this simple statement, it was an invitation for you to reflect on the narrowness of your question and think about the broader picture so you could work out some ideas for yourself.

Some of them are rather obvious - such as marketing - and others a little less obvious - such as building a product specifically aimed at a target market ... as other members have said above.
 
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Offline m k

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Re: Why do the big "guns" get more credits for their technical skills?
« Reply #12 on: September 21, 2022, 01:13:37 pm »
Id argue many early  inventors were no more than patent thiefs who had enough cash to pay off the original inventors,marconi didnt invent radio,bell didnt invent the telephone and edision didnt invent anything but all get credited for others work

Nobel invented something.
(1/4)
Advance-Aneng-Appa-AVO-Beckman-Danbridge-Data Tech-Fluke-General Radio-H. W. Sullivan-Heathkit-HP-Kaise-Kyoritsu-Leeds & Northrup-Mastech-OR-X-REO-Simpson-Sinclair-Tektronix-Tokyo Rikosha-Topward-Triplett-Tritron-YFE
(plus lesser brands from the work shop of the world)
 

Offline pcprogrammerTopic starter

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Re: Why do the big "guns" get more credits for their technical skills?
« Reply #13 on: September 21, 2022, 01:18:27 pm »
As you can see in an earlier post, the focus was set on the technical aspect due to the "admiration" basically shown just based on that aspect.

But for the other aspects it is still the question if it is a proper reason to idolize them. And also is it really them that brought these aspects to the table? Or are they just the figureheads in the spotlights?

Musk for one seems to enjoy the spotlights and make some theater but often fails to deliver on his promises. And still lots put him on a pedestal.

Online wraper

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Re: Why do the big "guns" get more credits for their technical skills?
« Reply #14 on: September 21, 2022, 01:25:15 pm »
Musk for one seems to enjoy the spotlights and make some theater but often fails to deliver on his promises. And still lots put him on a pedestal.
He delivers the vast majority of what he talks about but on Elon time https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Elon_time
 

Offline m k

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Re: Why do the big "guns" get more credits for their technical skills?
« Reply #15 on: September 21, 2022, 01:28:52 pm »
Id argue many early  inventors were no more than patent thiefs who had enough cash to pay off the original inventors,marconi didnt invent radio,bell didnt invent the telephone and edision didnt invent anything but all get credited for others work

Nobel invented something.
(1/4)

Tesla also.

Is Lavoisier a big name?
At least he kicked flogiston out.
(3/6)

It's publicity and herds that want to be with winners.
Advance-Aneng-Appa-AVO-Beckman-Danbridge-Data Tech-Fluke-General Radio-H. W. Sullivan-Heathkit-HP-Kaise-Kyoritsu-Leeds & Northrup-Mastech-OR-X-REO-Simpson-Sinclair-Tektronix-Tokyo Rikosha-Topward-Triplett-Tritron-YFE
(plus lesser brands from the work shop of the world)
 

Online CatalinaWOW

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Re: Why do the big "guns" get more credits for their technical skills?
« Reply #16 on: September 21, 2022, 01:39:30 pm »
Many of the arguments here talk about "who invented something".  And the answer is rarely singular, and heavily dependent on your definition of the thing.

Who invented the computer?  Was it the unknown asian who invented the abacus?  Pascal who invented an adding machine?  Jacquard who invented the idea of programming?  Babbage who combined those ideas into a single machine?  One of the several who implemented the concepts with vacuum tubes and/or relays?

All who contributed to the magic machines that we embed in everything else added part of that.  I think we all agree that some contributed more than others.  That met the standard supposedly set for patents "something not obvious to a practitioner in the field"

I don't adulate those key contributors, but they have earned my respect.  I do agree that the cult like following some of these people have is silly.  Edison and Tesla being obvious examples.

But will also state that Edison and Musk are prime examples of people who are victims of another kind of cult, those deriding them as mere thief's of others work.  Obviously their products depend on the creative work of a great many people.  While I don't personally know, I doubt if Musk is the actual creator of most of the innovations in the Falcon 9 or the Tesla car.  But he is the one with the product vision, and the one with the commitment to carrying it through.  Same with Edison.  People of that sort deserve respect.

The earth might be better off without these kinds of people, but it would be an earth without people able to discuss the problem with others worldwide, and time to have the discussion while sitting in a comfortable climate controlled space.
 
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Offline pcprogrammerTopic starter

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Re: Why do the big "guns" get more credits for their technical skills?
« Reply #17 on: September 21, 2022, 01:54:37 pm »
The earth might be better off without these kinds of people, but it would be an earth without people able to discuss the problem with others worldwide, and time to have the discussion while sitting in a comfortable climate controlled space.

Unfortunately that is something we will never know to be true or not. Because it is not like an experiment that can be done over and over with different sets of parameters.

Would be interesting if it could be done though.

There might well have been others with some vision about communication between computers and we might still have ended up where we are today, and maybe in a better world, but most likely not due to human nature as it is. Competitive, need to rule over others, greed, etc.

Offline pcprogrammerTopic starter

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Re: Why do the big "guns" get more credits for their technical skills?
« Reply #18 on: September 21, 2022, 01:58:08 pm »
But will also state that Edison and Musk are prime examples of people who are victims of another kind of cult, those deriding them as mere thief's of others work.  Obviously their products depend on the creative work of a great many people.  While I don't personally know, I doubt if Musk is the actual creator of most of the innovations in the Falcon 9 or the Tesla car.  But he is the one with the product vision, and the one with the commitment to carrying it through.  Same with Edison.  People of that sort deserve respect.

Yes, it works both ways when you are in the spotlights. I would not want to walk in their shoes. That kind of being known and having money also brings a lot of problems.

Offline m k

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Re: Why do the big "guns" get more credits for their technical skills?
« Reply #19 on: September 21, 2022, 01:59:15 pm »
While I don't personally know, I doubt if Musk is the actual creator of most of the innovations in the Falcon 9 or the Tesla car.  But he is the one with the product vision, and the one with the commitment to carrying it through.  Same with Edison.  People of that sort deserve respect.

That is exceptionally exactly that.

Some have said that people like Musk appears only few times in a century, the one right way not so level headed with an opportunity and assets.
Gates and Jobbs were not that, they surfed on the wave that was there no matter what and won, when Edison and Must made the wave, or forced it.
Advance-Aneng-Appa-AVO-Beckman-Danbridge-Data Tech-Fluke-General Radio-H. W. Sullivan-Heathkit-HP-Kaise-Kyoritsu-Leeds & Northrup-Mastech-OR-X-REO-Simpson-Sinclair-Tektronix-Tokyo Rikosha-Topward-Triplett-Tritron-YFE
(plus lesser brands from the work shop of the world)
 
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Online wraper

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Re: Why do the big "guns" get more credits for their technical skills?
« Reply #20 on: September 21, 2022, 02:27:53 pm »
But will also state that Edison and Musk are prime examples of people who are victims of another kind of cult, those deriding them as mere thief's of others work.  Obviously their products depend on the creative work of a great many people.  While I don't personally know, I doubt if Musk is the actual creator of most of the innovations in the Falcon 9 or the Tesla car.  But he is the one with the product vision, and the one with the commitment to carrying it through.  Same with Edison.  People of that sort deserve respect.

Yes, it works both ways when you are in the spotlights. I would not want to walk in their shoes. That kind of being known and having money also brings a lot of problems.
 

Offline Stray Electron

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Re: Why do the big "guns" get more credits for their technical skills?
« Reply #21 on: September 21, 2022, 02:31:15 pm »
Because in the world as it exists today their marketing skills are more valuable than your technical skills, of which they had next to none by the way ;)


   EXACTLY.  This is why Westinghouse is a giant company today and Nick Tesla died a pauper.  Also why Winchester is a giant company company and Benjamin T Henry is almost unknown.  Colt firearms is another large company but their fundamental breakthrough was developed by Elisha Root. 

  Oliver Winchester (originally a shirt manufacturer), George Westinghouse and others had the vision to see the potential of the inventions made by other people such as N. Tesla.   The only inventor that I can readily think of that was able to commercially develop their own invention and profit from it was Edison. 

   Like him or hate him, Elon Musk is in the same position today.  He is leveraging the work of others. 
 

Offline Stray Electron

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Re: Why do the big "guns" get more credits for their technical skills?
« Reply #22 on: September 21, 2022, 03:03:00 pm »


Unfortunately that is something we will never know to be true or not. Because it is not like an experiment that can be done over and over with different sets of parameters.


  Actually that's not true.  There are a large number of inventions or discoveries that have been made by more than one person sometimes almost simultaneously and other times centuries apart, but for various reasons that person or that country failed to develop that idea.  The "Connections" TV series featuring James Burke went into the history of many of those and often talked about why one failed and the other succeeded.  A couple of things that I recall, Charles Babbages' Analytical Engine failed as a commercial product because it was too complex to be built in quantity by the mechanical production methods of it's day.  2nd The Chinese invented a large number of items long before the west but they remained novelties in China whereas the west produced them in large quantities and it became an everyday item that was available to enough people so that it often changed history.  Paper, books, and mass printing and magnetic compasses are a good examples of that.  You could even argue that the simplicity of written characters in European languages was a great advancement over the complex characters of Egypt, mid-eastern, China and Japan and that beginning in about the 14th century that lead to many more books become available and more readership and all of that in turn lead to more rapid technical, social, religious and economic  development of the west over the east.

  The social history of gunpowder and the development of effective rockets, cannon and hand guns is a great example of being invented in the east but developed in the west. 
 

Online wraper

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Re: Why do the big "guns" get more credits for their technical skills?
« Reply #23 on: September 21, 2022, 03:15:19 pm »
I see a lot marketing vs technical skills talk. Which is false dichotomy. What are you supposed to market if you have nothing to sell? You need way more skills than that to get breakthrough things done, especially if you are not some rich inheritor but need to start from zero. You need vision, will to take the risk (most startups fail), skill to attract investors, skill to make/manage a functional team that gets the job done, persistence and much much more. And what Musk have chosen to pursue after Paypal are some of the hardest industries, and certainly not not a way how to make an easy money. For example compare SpaceX and Blue Origin. Latter was funded a two years earlier, had way much richer funder (Jeff Bezos), received way larger investment. SpaceX was funded with money that could be considered a joke in the industry, while Bezos invests $1 billion into Blue Origin each year. SpaceX was on brink of failure, the same as Tesla, while Musk could become bankrupt together with them since he invested all of his remaining money for a chance to save them. So what these two companies have achieved? SpaceX lifts astronauts to ISS, F9 lifts more mass to the orbit than all other rockets combined. Made first reusable orbital class rocket boosters, most used of which has flown 14 times already, has largest satellite constellation by far and actually more that the rest of satellites combined. So what was achieved by Blue origin after all of those years and funding... A small penis rocket https://www.google.com/search?q=penis+rocket which cannot reach the orbit and is only good as a few minute microgravity attraction.
« Last Edit: September 21, 2022, 04:04:46 pm by wraper »
 

Offline pcprogrammerTopic starter

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Re: Why do the big "guns" get more credits for their technical skills?
« Reply #24 on: September 21, 2022, 03:17:06 pm »
There are a large number of inventions or discoveries that have been made by more than one person sometimes almost simultaneously and other times centuries apart, but for various reasons that person or that country failed to develop that idea.  The "Connections" TV series featuring James Burke went into the history of many of those and often talked about why one failed and the other succeeded.  A couple of things that I recall, Charles Babbages' Analytical Engine failed as a commercial product because it was too complex to be built in quantity by the mechanical production methods of it's day.  2nd The Chinese invented a large number of items long before the west but they remained novelties in China whereas the west produced them in large quantities and it became an everyday item that was available to enough people so that it often changed history.  Paper, books, and mass printing and magnetic compasses are a good examples of that.  You could even argue that the simplicity of written characters in European languages was a great advancement over the complex characters of Egypt, mid-eastern, China and Japan and that beginning in about the 14th century that lead to many more books become available and more readership and all of that in turn lead to more rapid technical, social, religious and economic  development of the west over the east.

You somewhat stretched what I wrote, and at the same time proofed the rest of my post.

I was referring to it being impossible to repeat the exact same time frame/location setup, with a different set of parameters as to see if it would bring a different outcome or not.

Your history lesson shows that computers and the software for them would still have evolved to what they are today with or without a Bill Gates or a Steve Jobs, and that is what I also think. Because it is not a single person who determines the path taken.


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