In every video of Steve Jobs he comes across as one with incredible confidence. I learnt that he dropped out of college and it amazes me to see him exude such confidence. I grew up in India and was constantly told to "shut up and sit down" because I am not qualified yet. I got my bachelor's degree and still feel like I am nothing. Did Steve Jobs get his amazing confidence because of the cultural difference in USA where people are careful not to insult someone. Due to the number of times I have been told to shut up and sit down, I have not gained confidence to speak against power and to lead. I always look at confident people like Steve Jobs with jealousy. May be some of the members of HN can help me here.
Yes. Culture plays a big role. The media you consume, the cultural leaders you hear speak, will affect your view of the world. Will you see the world as something malleable that you can change, or accept that you were destined for a low place in an hierarchy and there's nothing you can do to change it.
Ego - narcissism - a desire to prove oneself because of feeling less than others while young - these are the dark and necessary motivators to feeling invincible and confident and that you can make your ideas reality. How arrogant must an entrepreneur be to believe that he can defeat and conquer multibillion industries?
Here's the secret though. There is no secret- there is only your fear of being laughed at and ridiculed and failing. People like Steve Jobs aren't confident because they try to be confident - confidence is a side effect of being stubborn and desperate. You are desperate to succeed because of the dark motivators I described above. You are stubborn because you desire success desperately, and will keep knocking your head against the wall until you achieve it. If you push your stubborn-ness and desperation to the extremes, eventually one day people will look at you speak, and think you were always confident and always powerfully-centered and in control. But they are just seeing the symptoms of a lifetime of failure and desperation and stubbornness that has finally begun to turn around.
What I am saying is - to be confident - be honest with yourself. If you want to be great, expose yourself, look ugly and feel insecure, but be stubborn in pursuing your honest desire to be great and do great things. Confidence will be gained by trying to do exceptional and weird things long enough until you realize you can achieve them.
There is a cultural difference, but not insulting isn't the key thing. The key thing is that in the US qualifications aren't sacred. You may be dismissed if you share your opinion and you have little experience; however, if you share facts and results, those will be (generally/ideally) judged on their own merits, not on yours. So instead of shut up and sit down, it's put up or shut up.
You can see this in school culture: is the goal of school to get the stamp at the end, and you might get some knowledge in the process; or is it to get knowledge and you might get a stamp at the end.
You can see it in interviews: do you hire someone with ten years experience, or do you hire someone who can solve your whiteboard problems.
This culture of results mattering more than experience may come from the US history of being very spread out with a lot of people moving around. If some out of town person comes in looking for work and says they've been doing something for 10 years, it may or may not be true -- you ask them to show you how they can do whatever it is, and decide based on that; the truth of the background doesn't really matter.
This doesn't hold true completely. It's harder to get a programming job without a degree, but it's not impossible. It is impossible (or darn near) to get a job as a medical surgeon without an appropriate degree and supervised training, though.
Jobs didn't get respect because shared facts and results. He got respect because he had extreme confidence and bluster, and no problems lying to people and bullying people, taking credit for their work, AND having good taste.
There’s likely some cultural difference, but can’t read too much into these videos. There’s always going to be a feeling of “imposter syndrome” when comparing yourself to folks in videos or ted talks. And then when you meet them in person you realize they have fears, days where they have no confidence.
Steve’s confidence can come at a cost too though. Steve was part of imposing work anti-poaching agreements so employees couldn’t easily switch jobs to certain tech companies. There’s also plenty of untold stories of Steve yelling at employees and making them cry. While I overall like Apple and would love to work there, it’s worth asking...
What else is behind the video? Are there people who’ve been hurt by Steve? Do you want to be that personality?
As far as handling your own confidence, it comes with time. I’d recommend learning to take some impromptu debate, a dance class, etc. to be around people more. Particularly outside circles of friends that belittle you.
Steve Jobs spent his entire life working on, and talking about, personal computing technology. How many world class experts lack confidence in their area of expertise? It almost doesn't make sense to ask.
Very few people will ever put in the kind of effort and time that Steve Jobs put into his work, and so they shouldn't ever expect anything like his level of expertise or confidence.
There are no used-car sales folks in India? The father of Mac, Jef Raskin, had this to say about Jobs:
"While Mr. Jobs's stated positions on management techniques are all quite noble and worthy, in practice he is a dreadful manager ... He is a prime example of a manager who takes the credit for his optimistic schedules and then blames the workers when deadlines are not met," he wrote, adding that Steve "misses appointments ... does not give credit ... has favorites ... and doesn't keep promises."
I think Jobs was incredibly lucky that he was always surrounded by smart, humble people, such as Woz. Raskin was less tolerant. You say confidence; some say arrogance. Some admired him for that; others just didn't care; it seems.
what smart, humble people did he personally pick? Jobs and Woz were high school buddies and what bonded them together was their knack for pranks. Later in early Apple days, Jobs hired Sculley who eventually recognized Jobs's immaturity and fired him later on. Most important members of Mac projects were also hired by Raskin, not Jobs. Further Raskin approached Jobs and Woz when they were operating out of garbage and Jobs tried to terminate Raskin's Mac projects multiple times and fire him. Jon Ive has been with Apple since 1992 and Jobs had nothing to do with his hiring.
Steve probably had a strong inclination towards narcisism. There's not much you can do there. If you read about his behaviour at this time and at later times from the Isaacson biography, he was clearly not a great person to be around a lot of the time.
He was lucky enough to rope in a genius - Woz - to make a computer he could sell brilliant - thanks to his narcisism, maybe - and make 100 million out of it. From then on he almost destroyed two companies - Pixar and Next - until he learnt how to run one properly at Apple 2.0
