From a famous Steve Jobs Stanford graduation address: Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle. (
Why would you assume that just because he doesn't agree with "never settle" that me must support the polar opposite -- as though there's no middle ground to be inhabited?
Late to the party here but couldn't help myself. I take it that your advice would be, rather than "dont settle", "Settle and dont take a chance and be content with moderate security and dissatisfaction, if you dont believe that you are a truly capable person?" In other words - if you dont believe in yourself, you are probably right, so you wont make it anyways so dont try too hard to be extraordinarily happy. Wow. I hope whoever wrote this 4 years ago doesn't still think this way.
My father was what I'd call a "striver." He was the only one of five kids in his family to get a college degree and move up and out of his working class background. He was a dedicated professional who did his job well, went above and beyond the call, accepted leadership roles in professional organizations. Along the way: ulcers, heart disease, diabetes, stroke. He dropped dead at 56. That taught me all I needed to know about the world of work.
I think you are taking it the wrong way, because all Jobs meant is that you should never settle for something you don't like to do. The world is not going to stop just because people follow this advice. Gosh, tell that to Jobs, or any entrepreneur for that matter. If you wanna be an employe for the rest of your life, living on a salary, then yours is great advice; if not, then you should not settle. I'm currently an employee and a pretty good one, but I don't see myself doing what I'm doing for the rest of my life. I'm still hungry for more. My dreams keep me going! Nothing else! Cheers!
I've read through half the comments here and how "work" is perceived here is frightening."It's called work because it's not fun". Yeah, that's the spirit that keeps young people from enjoying what they do. They learn it from the very start. The very first time one of their parents comes home, exhausted from work and totally not a functioning human anymore, they learn that work is to be despised and only to be done because it's necessary.I think this attitude is much more damaging then the words "don't settle".
I went through your bio etc. to understand the reasons for such argument. For someone like you to advocate such views, I'm sure you wrote this piece either half-awake of inebriated.
I had a job I loved, for 10 years, but it did not include any health-insurance coverage; I was responsible for my own. Entrepreneur! The American ideal! but during that period, my monthly premiums went from very good coverage for $311 a month, to practically non-existent coverage (catastrophic) for $759 a month. During that period I had to change my coverage at least once every two years. So now I have a job I am not too wild about, all because of the cost of health care.
Robin is missing the entire point. Jobs' point is to not settle for doing what someone else wants you do to on their terms, it is to do what you want to do on your own terms. The point is not to figure out what “signal” will get you what you want/need from someone else. If I needed a ditch dug to accomplish what ever I wanted to accomplish, and no one would dig the ditch for me, I would dig it myself. The quote that better characterizes Job's advice is:
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”
Robin is a perpetual status seeker. All he cares about is what other people think. The only thing of value to him is status, and the only way of getting status is by either sucking up to people with more status, or denigrating people with less status. The only kind of status that Robin can think of or aspire to achieve is zero-sum status. For everyone who gains status, someone else has to lose status. Ditch digging is beneath Robin's self-image, so he would never do it. If Steve Jobs needed a ditch dug and he couldn't find someone else to dig it for him, he would have dug it himself.
Steve Jobs made his own status. He didn't take it away from anyone else, his status was Pareto efficient. Yes, the Chinese workers who built his stuff were overworked, but compared to their other options they did better than other Chinese workers, and the degree of exploitation was not key to Jobs' success. I suspect the exploitation had more to do with the Apple board being populated by people like Robin (and who fired Jobs from Apple) and not with people like Jobs.
The message was don't settle for doing less than what you can accomplish, don't settle for meeting someone else's minimum expectations, not hold out for an unrealistic fantasy.
Of course going beyond someone else's minimum expectations and not caring what other people think is anathema to a zero-sum economist focused on status because that represents money left on the table, rent not collected, profit not extracted, status not achieved. Trashing high status dead people is not.
I'd have more respect for Steve Jobs if he had given that speech to a shop floor full of the Foxconn employees building his gadgets.
If they followed their dreams, there would be no iPhone. They work in near-slavery conditions in order to keep profit margins up.
The fact is that for ever visionary dreamer, it takes thousand of slaves and hundreds of paper-shufflers recently graduated from Stanford to make his or her dreams real. This speech is a giant middle finger to all of them.
Even later to the party....
Why would you assume that just because he doesn't agree with "never settle" that me must support the polar opposite -- as though there's no middle ground to be inhabited?
Late to the party here but couldn't help myself. I take it that your advice would be, rather than "dont settle", "Settle and dont take a chance and be content with moderate security and dissatisfaction, if you dont believe that you are a truly capable person?" In other words - if you dont believe in yourself, you are probably right, so you wont make it anyways so dont try too hard to be extraordinarily happy. Wow. I hope whoever wrote this 4 years ago doesn't still think this way.
Indeed, you yourself must know when to stop and stop on time consciously. I can not think of worse things if you do not know the proper destination.
My father was what I'd call a "striver." He was the only one of five kids in his family to get a college degree and move up and out of his working class background. He was a dedicated professional who did his job well, went above and beyond the call, accepted leadership roles in professional organizations. Along the way: ulcers, heart disease, diabetes, stroke. He dropped dead at 56. That taught me all I needed to know about the world of work.
I think you are taking it the wrong way, because all Jobs meant is that you should never settle for something you don't like to do. The world is not going to stop just because people follow this advice. Gosh, tell that to Jobs, or any entrepreneur for that matter. If you wanna be an employe for the rest of your life, living on a salary, then yours is great advice; if not, then you should not settle. I'm currently an employee and a pretty good one, but I don't see myself doing what I'm doing for the rest of my life. I'm still hungry for more. My dreams keep me going! Nothing else! Cheers!
I've read through half the comments here and how "work" is perceived here is frightening."It's called work because it's not fun". Yeah, that's the spirit that keeps young people from enjoying what they do. They learn it from the very start. The very first time one of their parents comes home, exhausted from work and totally not a functioning human anymore, they learn that work is to be despised and only to be done because it's necessary.I think this attitude is much more damaging then the words "don't settle".
I went through your bio etc. to understand the reasons for such argument. For someone like you to advocate such views, I'm sure you wrote this piece either half-awake of inebriated.
I had a job I loved, for 10 years, but it did not include any health-insurance coverage; I was responsible for my own. Entrepreneur! The American ideal! but during that period, my monthly premiums went from very good coverage for $311 a month, to practically non-existent coverage (catastrophic) for $759 a month. During that period I had to change my coverage at least once every two years. So now I have a job I am not too wild about, all because of the cost of health care.
Wow, now you've saved me the work of making you look stupid! That's a big load off my shoulders.
Robin is missing the entire point. Jobs' point is to not settle for doing what someone else wants you do to on their terms, it is to do what you want to do on your own terms. The point is not to figure out what “signal” will get you what you want/need from someone else. If I needed a ditch dug to accomplish what ever I wanted to accomplish, and no one would dig the ditch for me, I would dig it myself. The quote that better characterizes Job's advice is:
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”
Robin is a perpetual status seeker. All he cares about is what other people think. The only thing of value to him is status, and the only way of getting status is by either sucking up to people with more status, or denigrating people with less status. The only kind of status that Robin can think of or aspire to achieve is zero-sum status. For everyone who gains status, someone else has to lose status. Ditch digging is beneath Robin's self-image, so he would never do it. If Steve Jobs needed a ditch dug and he couldn't find someone else to dig it for him, he would have dug it himself.
Steve Jobs made his own status. He didn't take it away from anyone else, his status was Pareto efficient. Yes, the Chinese workers who built his stuff were overworked, but compared to their other options they did better than other Chinese workers, and the degree of exploitation was not key to Jobs' success. I suspect the exploitation had more to do with the Apple board being populated by people like Robin (and who fired Jobs from Apple) and not with people like Jobs.
The message was don't settle for doing less than what you can accomplish, don't settle for meeting someone else's minimum expectations, not hold out for an unrealistic fantasy.
Of course going beyond someone else's minimum expectations and not caring what other people think is anathema to a zero-sum economist focused on status because that represents money left on the table, rent not collected, profit not extracted, status not achieved. Trashing high status dead people is not.
"When humanity throttles its supply of new 20 year olds because us old folks have learned how to live forever"
Such optimism - the idea that anyone will ever learn how to live forever, that is. Rejuvenation is not immortality!
NOBODY is more anti-life than you death avoidance people.
I'd have more respect for Steve Jobs if he had given that speech to a shop floor full of the Foxconn employees building his gadgets.
If they followed their dreams, there would be no iPhone. They work in near-slavery conditions in order to keep profit margins up.
The fact is that for ever visionary dreamer, it takes thousand of slaves and hundreds of paper-shufflers recently graduated from Stanford to make his or her dreams real. This speech is a giant middle finger to all of them.
They're just Stanford graduates. I think your point would hold better if his audience was a more select group.
But is your post Envy? Also, I'm reminded of Will Sonnett: No Brag, Just Fact.
I for one and glad to see contrarian articles like this. The MSM's over the top deification is sickening.