Professor Nerdster

Jaron Lanier – You Are Not A Gadget

Professor Nerdster — Sat, 18 May 2013 06:49:04 +0000

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Professional Philanthropists – 80000 hours.org

Professor Nerdster — Wed, 15 May 2013 06:10:55 +0000

Steve Jobs: Art Reflects Reality [52]

Professor Nerdster — Tue, 14 May 2013 06:52:54 +0000

Art Reflects Reality: Jobs bought Pixar from Lucas films and became a majority stakeholder in 1986. Pixar was technology meeting art which was perfect for Jobs who wanted to live on the intersection of the humanities and technology. He looked into the finance, and strategy in the late 80s to familiarize himself more with the bean counting elements of business. Jobs spewed out all kinds of crazy and good ideas at Pixar meetings. He even tried to sell hardware, and software design via a digital animation product called Renderman but this did not sell well. In the early 1990s, John Lasseter came up with Toy Story. Originally, Woody was a nasty character (who acted like Steve Jobs) but finally they decided to change the story so that Woody was no longer a mean character, and the film was very successful after much difficulty with Disney. A Bug’s Life tells the story of an Ant with all kinds of crazy and good ideas, but he gets in trouble with the colony and he is then expelled from the colony. He goes out to find a solution to the colony’s grasshopper problem, and ends up saving the colony. It basically follows the same life pattern as of Jobs who was fired from Apple, only to triumphantly return.

This is an analysis based on Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson and other sources of research. Enjoy.

Mark Twain Hated Alexander Graham Bell

Professor Nerdster — Mon, 13 May 2013 06:51:14 +0000

“It is my heart-warm and world-embracing Christmas hope and aspiration that all of us, the high, the low, the rich, the poor, the admired, the despised, the loved, the hated, the civilized, the savage (every man and brother of us all throughout the whole earth), may eventually be gathered together in a heaven of everlasting rest and peace and bliss, except the inventor of the telephone.”
- A version of this quote was published in “Christmas Greetings,” Boston Daily Globe, December 25, 1890, p. 3. The Globe printing eliminated the phrase in the above parenthesis and changed the word “except” to “escape.” The version here is from Caroline Harnsberger’s Mark Twain at Your Fingertips. (Related resource: Letter from Mark Twain to Gardiner Hubbard, father-in-law of Alexander Graham Bell from the Library of Congress site. )

Ross Smith Microsoft, Games & Engagement

Professor Nerdster — Sat, 11 May 2013 12:21:19 +0000

http://42projects.org/

Steve Jobs: Avoid The Small Stuff [51]

Professor Nerdster — Wed, 08 May 2013 06:49:42 +0000

Avoid The Problem Of Focusing On The Small Battles & Not Seeing The Big Picture: October 1988, the NeXT launch was an amazing event. After 3 years of consulting with universities across the country, Jobs was betting the company on new technology. Every minor detail was analysed and reworked as the release windows passed for the NeXT computer. In an effort to seek out the best quality technology, Jobs built a highly advanced product but NeXT did not have a floppy disk which was rare for the era. NeXT was risked on the lavish use of Steve Job’s finances to set up his company, and he targeted the higher education industry. The problem was that the features were great but the price of the product was $6,500. At the launch, the applause was scattered when Jobs announced the price tag, the academics were extremely disappointed at the launch event for NeXT because the machine was too expensive. Apparently, the education sector representatives of his NeXT launch were shocked at the cost given the feedback that NeXT had no doubt received. The price has to be low enough to scale the product into universities, other wise the sales pitch has to be extremely aggressive. This price shock was reflected in the sales.

Instead of focusing on price, Jobs’ team focused on features and other details…universities didn’t buy the product. Pricing a product is essential. Most of the features were trivial for the NeXT. In addition, there were too few people interested in building software for the NeXT, and the price was a massive deterrent. In addition, the NeXT was incompatible because few developers were designing the software needed to use the product. Jobs’ strategy was to target the workstations industry where Sun was dominant. It failed, and in 1991, NeXT stopped making hardware much like Jobs had given hardware up at Pixar. By the mid-1990s, NeXT was working in the Operating System market exclusively.

This is an analysis based on Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson and other sources of research. Enjoy.

Next Stop The Moon

Professor Nerdster — Tue, 07 May 2013 06:36:49 +0000

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Mark Zuckerberg – Startups

Professor Nerdster — Sun, 05 May 2013 06:46:33 +0000

An impressive discussion panel with Mark Zuckerberg. Very candid.

Tech Entrepreneurship – Worth Watching

Professor Nerdster — Fri, 03 May 2013 06:39:05 +0000

http://www.somethingventuredthemovie.com/

Collaboration & Community

Professor Nerdster — Thu, 02 May 2013 06:20:01 +0000

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