Steve Jobs on Failure
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN commenters return to it as a motivational reminder to not fear failure and to just ask for what you want.
What it is
A two-minute clip from a 1994 interview with Steve Jobs by the Santa Clara Valley Historical Association. Jobs talks about failure and about how most people never ask for help, recalling that he simply called people to ask.
Recommended by 4 HN commenters across 4 different months, 2012 to 2021.
What Hacker News said
Recommends NhanH · 2013-09 · on “You Can Meet Your Heroes”
I saw a small clip of Steve Jobs talking about the same thing [1]. One of the advices that surprised me most the first time I've heard it. [1] [this video]
Recommends bayer_rggb · 2016-12 · on “Ask HN: What are inspirational talks you watched which motivates you?”
Came here to post this Larry Smith link :) Even though Jobs gets some hate on HN, these interviews/speeches have never failed to inspire me. If you don't ask, you don't get - [this video] On a very formulaic life - [LINK] (I couldn't find one without the bad bg music) Stay hungry, stay foolish - [LINK] I do realise, on some levels, he was not a good person, or atleast came off as an ass, but listening to these interviews and speeches, I feel I can relate to him and his struggles.
Recommends johndavid9991 · 2020-04 · on “Ask HN: Mid-life career crisis, need your help”
You know the core fundamentals of programming, and you simply need to be retrained. You may start with this basic JavaScript course to refresh your skills. If you are interested in learning more about training opportunities that could eventually land you to a better job, I will be happy to guide you. Whenever I feel fear of failure, I watch this video, and it might help you too. [this video]
Recommends pettycashstash2 · 2021-01 · on “Steve Jobs Secrets of Life”
what i find amazing is his thoughts on failure and asking for help from same series i believe Steve Jobs on Failure [this video] now I've actually always found something that to be very true which is most people don't get those experiences because they'd never asked I've never found anybody that didn't want to help me if I asked them for help I always call him up I called up this will date me but I called up Bill Hewlett when I was 12 years old and he lived in Palo Alto his number was still in a phonebook and he answered the phone himself you know yes hi I'm Steve Jobs I'm 12 years old I'm a student in high school and I want to build a frequency counter and I was wondering if you had any spare pa
Cites unimpressive · 2012-07 · on “A Different Road To Work, Bypassing College Dreams”
>People want to do the easy stuff, the hard stuff is putting yourself out there and picking up a phone. "Most people don't get those experiences because they never ask." - Steve Jobs [this video]
Cites DanielRibeiro · 2013-10 · on “Most people won't”
Steve Jobs started a personal story with [1]: "Most people don't get those experiences because they never ask..." And he ends with "you gotta be willing to fail ... if you are afraid of failing, you won't get very far" Which seems to be a surprisingly common theme among successful people: Mark Suster has a famous mantra: "You don't ask, you don't get" [2] Phil Libin, CEO of Evernote, told a story of how he got Steve Balmer advise him once[3] [1] [this video] [2] [LINK] [3] [LINK]