Justin Ireland

I can’t remember the last time I was so eager to read an autobiography. When the Steve Jobs book came out I could not wait to start it and once I did I couldn’t put it down.

Its a very well written story about a fascinating person who led an extraordinary life. By now most everyone has learned the juicy bits from the book but what I found most surprising were the character traits that Jobs exhibited throughout his entire life.

His appreciation for design goes back at least to his early college days where he audited a calligraphy class. Design was such an important part of the entire product, not just the outward presentation. Jobs even insisted that the circuits be laid out in a way that was aesthetically pleasing. This level of detail is proof that Jobs commitment to design was more than what was visible on the surface.

But for all the great things he did, he was also quite an ass. He regularly derided people and their work. He screwed over many people that were nothing but loyal to him, including Wozniak. He practically denied the existence of his first daughter while at the same time building a product named after her. If you take away all his accomplishments (that he achieved with some help of course) you get a picture of a master manipulator who was loyal to nobody but himself.

The thing that worries me is that Jobs will go down in history as one of the greatest revolutionaries/visionaries of all time. And while I think he deserves credit for his visions and the quality of the products he produced, I’m not sure that the end justified the means. There is an entire generation that idolize Jobs for what he has done but I hope they realize some of the choices he made were probably no the best ones.

If only there were a historical revolutionary figure whose legacy had such a major impact on the world without the trail of devastation and broken relationships – that would be someone to idolize.

This past weekend I participated in the most demanding endurance event I have ever done. CrossFit South County hosted its first ever 24 in 24 on Friday Oct 7 2011. Starting at 7pm we performed 1 girl WOD every hour for 24 hours.

Here’s the full workout schedule:

I really had no idea how I would hold up coming into the event. I’m only a few months recovered from a shoulder impingement that pretty much made it impossible for me to train for about 6 months. I wasn’t sure if that would come back to haunt me halfway through the competition. And I had never done more than 2 WODs in the same day, let alone 24 so I had no idea what my endurance level was for this kind of thing. I’ve only done a few of the official WODs so most of these were my first attempt. My goal was simply to come out the other end alive. Finishing was all that mattered so in an effort to conserve energy I scaled everything down as much as I could. Plus I’m not yet able to do all the movements so I had to substitute some things. For example, we could substitute 2.5 pull-ups and push-ups for every muscle-up.

But I made it. And it really wasn’t as tough as I thought it would be. Maybe I just psyched myself up too much beforehand. I expected the worst so anything less was a relief. There wasn’t any particular point where it got tough or I considered quitting. As time progressed our stamina decreased but we were ever closer to the end so there was an even trade off of energy and optimism. I just concentrated on getting through each WOD one at a time. After having completed it all and knowing what I know now I probably could have gone harder. Next time I will definitely try to Rx as much as possible.

We weren’t going for stellar times or PRs but we did keep track of our performance. My final tally for all the reps and work performed is:

Not bad for a days work.

A society that values sports and games over science and technology will accel at one at the expense of the other.

Dean Kamen on A Culture of Distraction

I just finished reading Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas From the Computer Age by Paul Graham. Paul Graham started Y Combinator, a well known startup Incubator. Y Combinator also hosts the Hacker News feed where like-minded hackers submit links to interesting things. I read Hacker News daily and have known about Paul Graham for a while. He occasionally posts essays or blogs. Hackers & Painters is a collection of his essays over the last several years.

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Just Finished reading Startups Open Sourced by Jared Tame. Its a fantastic book for anyone that has ever thought about entrepreneurship, especially when it comes to tech startups. The book is a collection of interviews with startup founders of some of the hottest startups in Silicon Valley. Jared asks the same general questions in each interview which is great because you get to hear multiple answers to the same questions and you can really see what the common characteristics are and where some founders differ.

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