This reads almost as a parody of tech entrepreneurship and the modern age. Steve Jobs is more praiseworthy than da Vinci, because he "shipped" products for the consumer market, as compared to da Vinci, who was more interested in artistic and scientific knowledge for its own sake? Is this legitimately what the author thinks?
The post is also wrong/misinformed on a number of things. Da Vinci did intend to build a number of his plans, but was thwarted by the fact that he lived in conflict-ridden Renaissance Italy. For example, his design for a gigantic bronze horse never became a reality as his patron used the bronze for making cannons.
Yeah, it's not like we have Steve Jobs' notebooks to be able to know and compare all of the projects he worked on that never saw the light of day. Apple is notoriously a very secretive company. We often don't find out about canned projects until a decade later.
Nobody ships everything they work on. This is a creators' myth that I don't know why keeps getting perpetuated.
I think the entire argument is absurd. Da Vinci did ship - he created hundreds of artworks and by any measure (other than money) achieved more than Jobs - and I say that as a fan of Steve Jobs.
Agreed completely. The proof is in the pudding. Da Vinci has had a massively lasting impact on human culture. 500 years later, we still talk about him.
I was going to say the same, that this was peak HN to even dare to make such a comparison. Then I saw the author is a kid just graduated from college in engineering and "entrepreneurship". Hopefully there is plenty of time for him to learn and mature.
And he wasn't a nobleman. Much of his letter writing railed about his being abused and belittled by the aristocracy for being a commoner. Hard to get any traction that way.
It seems like a thought piece meant to elicit consideration, and nothing more. People take these things far too seriously and immediately want to have a position.
“ It’s so commonly said that Leonardo was “ahead of his time” but that’s only because he didn’t let the world catch up to his mind. Leonardo never built the future, but we still exaggerate as if he did. Sure, his ideas had significant influence over future inventors, but there’s much more to innovation than sketches on paper.”
It seems a provocative piece looking for attention. We are talking about it because it’s extreme position, not for its insights.
I hope the author reviews his article and does a second take with a more informed and critical opinion.
His drawings only didn't lead to progress because they were hidden in his notebooks for centuries after his death. Had they been more widely distributed, they very well may have jumpstarted motorized machines earlier.
Comparing Steve Jobs to Da Vinci? There is no appropriate comparison here. You think Da Vinci should have 'shipped more'? So often people think they can pick and choose characteristics, why can't you be more like this, or that, or sure Micheal Jordan was good, but he would have been better if he was nice. It's the naive, arrogant picking apart of things that we just don't understand and it stunts our understanding of things. Try and learn from great artists maybe rather than believing we have some insight into how they could have been 'better', more 'productive'. I'm completely baffled at the idea that Da Vinci didn't contribute as much as he should or could have.
He left a lot of inventions in the design phase, but the truth is da Vinci shipped more than most of us ever will.
Some of his inventions couldn't be built during his time either, so it wasn't simply that he always lost interest. Seems a bit unfair to mention design flaws but not point out that he was designing machines that required materials that didn't exist yet.
It reads like a parody to be honest. I'm hoping it is one.
Of particular interest is the author's equivocation of Jobs' Reality Distortion Field. The author makes it seem as if it was Jobs' ability to distort the world to create something unexpected, but most of us use the term to describe how Jobs could make people believe all sorts of dumb things while in his presence (and the effect wore off when not in his presence, when people realized these things were indeed dumb). It's not a positive thing.
A most sacrilegious article by a clueless author :-) This silliness where people just parrot platitudes like "execution", "implementation" without really understanding what it means is the bane of all Creativity.
The mark of a Genius is an insatiable curiosity about a wide variety of subjects and the willingness to jump into every one of them without regard to other people's expectations. Da vinci was unparalleled in that respect. The breadth of his interests is what makes him so great. Execution is always limited by circumstances like political climate, patrons, resources etc. Given the uncertain times that Da vinci lived through, it is an absolute miracle that he was able to do as much as he did. To dismiss it all by using platitudes like "Real artists/engineers" ship" is the height of ignorance and hubris.
Further reading:
* The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Vols I & II (Dover publications)
* Leonardo on the Human Body (Dover publications)
* Leonardo, The Complete Paintings and Drawings by Frank Zollner (Taschen Publications). This is a huge book but worth every penny. I believe it was later republished in multiple volumes due to its size.
I read the post and appreciate the perspective but disagree so strongly with this that cannot pass without leaving a comment.
Claiming da Vinci is overrated to Jobs because Jobs shipped more is on the same bar as saying Beethoven is overrated because his music is not suitable for a disco club and is less profitable.
I am regularly seeing Steve Jobs described as a genius both in posts and comments on HN. I am always genuinely wondering: what is this based on? From my perspective, Jobs had an amazing talent for motivating people, and for selling both himself and his product in a cult-like way. But a genius?
> Leonardo had no trouble distorting reality either, the only difference is that Jobs could actually make these ideas happen.
What ideas exactly? Selling computers Steve Wozniak designed? Releasing an MP3 player that looked better than previous ones? Removing smartphone keyboards?
What I always learned about Da Vinci was that he was a pacifist. He was employed as a "military engineer" but he saw himself more as a scientist [1]. It's also debatable if those "errors" were left on purpose to prevent his work for being copied or it where real errors.
I agree with others who disagree with the post. It's true that both Leonardo and Jobs were visionaries and it's true that Leonardo lost interest quickly (I guess that's because he was curious about so many different things) but there's a very big difference between the two: Leonardo was inventing, designing and eventually building his own things, Steve Jobs had hundreds of highly talented engineers for that.
Years ago, alone of my consulting customers sent me a 40 pound giant book of Da Vinci’s notes, art, inventions, etc. Amazing corpus of intellectual curiosity and exploration, not to mention all the great art.
I gave the book away three years ago (after enjoying it for years), so I am not 100% sure of the title, but I think it was the hardcover edition of "Leonardo da Vinci: The Complete Paintings"
I think the idea of "shipping" in this context is misplaced. "Shipping", as used colloquially, means to send a product to market, which is not the point of art. Artists create. Businesses ship.
I regretfully clicked on this click bait... Are non-advertising interstitials on mobile becoming a thing? It feel unnatural to have the page loaded but locked for a few seconds.
Many don't believe that the rather unimpressive 'Salvator Mundi' was painted by Leonardo. Nevertheless, it sold for 450 million bucks. His most famous paintings such as the Mona Lisa might bring hundreds of billions if they were on the market. Probably more than what Steve Jobs ever owned. So much for 'shipping products to the consumer market.'
How many businessmen do you know that have been summoned by very powerful people to help fix their country's problems?
To Da Vinci it happened several times, he spoke and had relations with some of the most powerful people of his time: Medici, Sforza, Borgia, Francis I (king of France) and for each one of them he designed and often built infrastructures for their cities.
Even the Sultan of the ottoman empire Bayezid II asked Leonardo to design a bridge for him, in 1502
It would have been the longest bridge in the world at the times, MIT tests proved his project was solid and centuries ahead of times, in 2011 Norway built a bridge based on that design and Instanbul Is thinking about it as well.
So, all in all, he wasn't so bad at doing business.
It would have been better had I said his performance isn't as impressive.
Whether he had business acumen wasn't really my point. But it's obvious his business acumen isn't his legacy. His amazing art, brilliant ideas, and diversity of ideas is his legacy.
First, the article at the link is comparing Leonardo da Vinci and Steve Jobs. My comment was made considering that context.
Second, I'm sure there were people in Leonardo's lifetime who recognized the differences between those with exceptional artistic talent and those with exceptional business acumen. I can't imagine any reason why such distinctions would not exist then.
The post is also wrong/misinformed on a number of things. Da Vinci did intend to build a number of his plans, but was thwarted by the fact that he lived in conflict-ridden Renaissance Italy. For example, his design for a gigantic bronze horse never became a reality as his patron used the bronze for making cannons.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonardo%27s_horse