You know, one of these things that happened in the '60s and '70s was this confluence of, sort of, a counter-culture with computer culture.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the intersection between counter-culture movements and the rise of computer technology in the 1960s and 70s.
Walter Isaacson reflects on a significant period in history where the counter-culture of the 1960s and 70s intersected with the burgeoning computer culture. This confluence suggests that the technological advancements were influenced by the revolutionary ideas and social movements of the time, demonstrating how societal shifts can shape technological progress and vice versa.
In practice
During a tech conference, quoting this to illustrate the historical roots of today’s tech industry.
I visited Jobs for the last time in his Palo Alto, Calif., home. He had moved to a downstairs bedroom because he was too weak to go up and down stairs. He was curled up in some pain, but his mind was still sharp and his humor vibrant
I've always had an abundance of material about the subjects of my biographies.
Polite and velvety leaders, who take care to avoid bruising others, are generally not as effective at forcing change.
for Steve, less is always more, simpler is always better. Therefore, if you can build a glass box with fewer elements, it’s better, it’s simpler, and it’s at the forefront of technology. That’s where Steve likes to be, in both his products and his stores.
What are the five products you want to focus on? Get rid of the rest, because they’re dragging you down. They’re turning you into Microsoft. They’re causing you to turn out products that are adequate but not great.
When there are multiple versions of a story, you really have three ways to go. You can pick the most sensational version. You can try to balance things in your gut to get to what you think is the honest truth. Or you can err on the side of kindness.
What matters is 'Have you done a better job of making our experiences feel like home on Windows?' That's our real goal, and that's what we're going to stay focused on.
People often say that videogames made by Western developers are somehow different in terms of taste for the players, in comparison with Japanese games. I think that means that the Western developers and Japanese developers, they are good at different fields.
The Senior Moment has become the Google moment, and it has a much nicer, hipper, younger, more contemporary sound, doesn't it? By handling the obligations of the search mechanism, you almost prove you can keep up.
If there is technological advance without social advance, there is, almost automatically, an increase in human misery.
I am much less concerned with whatever it is technology may be doing to people that what people are choosing to do to one another through technology. Facebook's reduction of people to predictively modeled profiles and investment banking's convolution of the marketplace into an algorithmic battleground were not the choices of machines.
There is people who make stuff with words. There is people who make stuff with programs. And I really believe that that whole creative culture, people didn't realize how creative programming is. And anybody who's done it of course knows that not only is it creative, but it's incredibly absorbing.
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