I understand where you're coming from, but I stand by my previous posts.

Full disclosure, I never got professionally employed as a programmer / coder / software engineer. However, my Bachelors Degree was in CS, and I have many friends working in the field.

In the show Silicon Valley, Richard Hendriks is working for a large corporate entity but has an idea / personal project that he ends up spinning into a new company. He is trained as a software engineer (CS), NOT with any business or management background (MIS), yet he becomes sort of the de-facto boss / CEO (at least early in the show). He hires a small team to help him develop his product.

Given that scenario, I think the show portrays things very accurately or at least completely plausibly. He's a coder, not a manager. Programmers may understand the importance of formatting and style standards, but at least tend to not have the correct personality type to be comfortable with formally dictating those standards to a team (an activity which would generally be more in line with an MIS background).

Also, his company is small -- just a few other programmers. They are all specializing on different components of the product. So they generally aren't working on each other's code. Standards for function arguments / helper functions / etc. would have to be agreed upon to get their individual components to interact, but that is a separate issue from tabs vs spaces. It would be wise to set a style and naming convention standard and have everyone conform to it, I agree completely. But Richard isn't built for the manager / CEO position, so he either fails to recognize that or doesn't feel comfortable dictating standards to his team.

One more thing to consider is that he (Richard) essentially is the product. He's the keystone piece, the central figure. He's John Carmack, Linus Torvalds, or Steve Wozniak. Even in a very large team / corporate environment, I'd wager that more often than not the style standards that end up getting set tend to fall in line with whatever those key guys want them to be. Don't touch an id Software graphics engine without conforming to Carmack's way, or the Linux kernel without conforming to Torvald's standards. Especially if they are building something new from scratch -- which is again true in the Silicon Valley show scenario.

The show isn't a documentary on how to properly run a startup company in the real Silicon Valley, but it is generally accurate enough that it has a lot of nuances that people with a programming background can pick up on and be entertained by (even people that don't actually work professionally in the field like me). And more important, the general feel of the show can be entertaining even for people that know absolutely nothing about programming.

Your video, Steve Wozniak on the early days of Apple, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

>> ^messenger:

Jobs was a businessman and a marketer. He wasn't all that good with computers, relatively. Steve Wozniak was the scientific genius, but had no interest in business or the limelight.


He's also scientifically obese. I love nerds but for the sake of your health take a walk or something.

Jobs was a businessman and a marketer. He wasn't all that good with computers, relatively. Steve Wozniak was the scientific genius, but had no interest in business or the limelight.

Reading this blog made me remember reading this Wired story from way back when I thought Wired was a good magazine (GO Maximum PC!) and the quote that really caught my eye was "Everyone has their Steve-Jobs-the-asshole story." I think it stood out because, on TV at least, he seemed nice enough, but mostly I wanted ammunition for arguments with my Mac fanboy friends.

More recently I remember reading about Apple pulling an entire e-book collection from one publisher after said publisher produced an unauthorized biography with the double entendre title "iCon: Steve Jobs" which is a move that I consider a far cry from "Do no evil."

Even Steve Wozniak openly said: "I couldn't treat people the way he does"

But do geniuses need to be assholes?

I would say that there is a fine line between tough love and devaluing the people around you. That fence dance can make a C feel like an A; but it makes the kid who fails feel all the more hopeless.

WHERE IS EVERYONE? I AM THERE/HERE! OH RIGHT...


>> ^darkrowan:

Sorry or the last minute ditch but I'm feeling a bit ill and am forced to stay in. Have fun without me


My allergies were kicking my butt/abdomen yesterday with itchy eyes running nose.

VS needs a live cam for to do it online for us! I should had built a remote robot like Sheldon Coopers did: http://videosift.com/video/Steve-Wozniak-Woz-on-The-Big-Bang-Theory ...

>> ^Rawhead:
GOOD LORD!!!!!! That man could pick his nose with his fist!!


At least he cannot pick his own ass with his fist, like so many can.

>> ^osama1234:

Personally, I find it amusing that the next generation of Steve Wozniaks are much harder to create given the crippling level of (some form or another of) proprietary/IP/DRM/hardware locks implemented by companies like Apple.


Bingo sir, bingo.

Personally, I find it amusing that the next generation of Steve Wozniaks are much harder to create given the crippling level of (some form or another of) proprietary/IP/DRM/hardware locks implemented by companies like Apple.

>> ^BoneRemake:

mine was blocked I had to click and go to yewtube to watch it.



Damnit. I don't know what's up with these YouTube videos getting its embedded removed!

I couldn't find a good embeddable replacement!

http://extratv.warnerbros.com/2010/10/extra_raw_big_bang_theory_cast.php for "'Extra' Raw: 'Big Bang Theory' Cast Takes Woz Quiz...".

Haha, my video of Steve Wozniak on Dancing with the Stars is shown below in the "Related Videos" because I called both Thiel and Woz heroes of nerddom

Tags for this video have been changed from 'the woz, steve, wozniack, efron, kimmel, footloose' to 'the woz, steve wozniak, efron, kimmel, footloose' - edited by my15minutes

This is too much. We shouldn't put up every clip of the Colbert report or The Daily Show. I watched this on TV last night and thought Steve Wozniak made a fool of himself.