Steve Wozniak was not an entrepreneur; he was an inventor and a great engineer. He didn't even want to leave HP to start Apple. Steve Jobs was an entrepreneur but I would argue that he was also an inventor and a great engineer (great product engineer). Obviously the two Steve's are different. Not being one doesn't automatically make you the other one. And that's what I mean by false choice. You are who are you are and all of us are a little of both if not a little of everything. Entrepreneurs by definition do not fit nicely into slotted description. That's why we decide to be entrepreneurs.
Jobs has done enough to be a personality of mythological proportions, but I don't really see him as an engineer or hacker without really stretching the definition of either term.
I understand "hacker" to be a self-created definition for a computer programmer with an altitude. If this is true, then I think there are few of us who would fit this description, including Steve Jobs. But an engineer is a much boarder term and if the definition of an engineer is someone who has a four-year degree from an accredited University, then you are right again, Steve Jobs is not an engineer. My apology.
With an altitude? There are a lot of good ones outside of places like Colorado:-)
Joking aside, I am going to respectfully say that I'm not sure you have fully digested the meaning of 'hacker' as we use it here. This comes fairly close:
(watch out for the mangled parens), although of course many people aren't working on open source projects. An 'attitude' isn't really part of the picture, IMO, as some of the best hackers I've met are also extremely nice (and well adjusted) individuals. When you're that good, you don't need an attitude to communicate how good you are.
To keep using PG as a useful specimen for examination, the reason I think he's more hacker than entrepreneur is that an "entrepreneur" (in my mind) is less likely to go out and build something that is (once again in my mind) completely useless in terms of making money, like, say, Arc. It's just a fun thing to build that scratches his itch.
With an altitude (to succeed), with an altitude (to create), with an altitude (to make a difference in our World), with an altitude (to ensure fair play and to be a good citizen), and finally, with an altitude (to fight the good fight in spite of all odds and adversities). That's what I had in mind. Thanks.
