That has got to be one of the most complete treatises on the development of the Switch-mode power supply unit (SMPSU) that I have ever read. Excellent work Ken.
That being said, I don't really resonate with the hating on Steve Jobs because he believed something that wasn't true. C'mon there are a lot of things people believe that aren't true. I expect Holt (or maybe Holt's manager) was selling his work as really really excellent and Jobs, who was not an EE by training, really didn't have a way to know if it was true or not. He chose to believe it, and apparently believed it up until the day the biographer wrote it down.
I've noticed the sometimes person A will do something for person B because they believe something about A that isn't true. That makes them at least partially invested in that thing that isn't true being true, and so convincing them that it isn't true is made quite difficult. The recent article posted here about how Teller tricks people into believing something validated my intuition about people sometimes really want to believe something.
So Steve believed Holt was God's Gift to power supply design, and it turns out he was just another capable engineer who could build a switching power supply. The world isn't changed.
Life goes on, but now you know a bit more about how complex building power supplies has become, so its a win.
The problem is when others start to believe the "untrue" believes of others, especially such charismatic persons as Steve Jobs. You see this very often, people don't getting their facts right and taking believes for facts.
I'd like to know more about your thoughts on this. In this case the error was simply reputational, which is to say Steve had a high opinion of Holt which was in part based on something that wasn't true.
Now if you were a co-worker's of Holt and passed over for promotion I could see how this would bug you.
If you were an engineer (like Ken the author of this point) you might say "I don't think that is true" and quickly discover that the 'boss' was wrong on this particular point. Depending on how much you cared you might share it with your boss you might not.
If this mistaken belief got out of hand and Steve had directed Apple to sue say Delta Electronics for patent infringement. It wouldn't because the lawyers would have done their diligence and they would have realized the outcome would be the invalidation of Holt's patent.
People who are mislead by the charismatic person become disillusioned when they discover the truth is not as it was told to them. That is 'bad' for the charismatic person and potentially embarrassing for the person who didn't check their facts. But I'm still not getting the source of wrath.
Disclaimer I'll be the first to admit I'm a bit clueless when it comes to these sorts of emotional battles, they don't make a lot of sense to me.
That being said, I don't really resonate with the hating on Steve Jobs because he believed something that wasn't true. C'mon there are a lot of things people believe that aren't true. I expect Holt (or maybe Holt's manager) was selling his work as really really excellent and Jobs, who was not an EE by training, really didn't have a way to know if it was true or not. He chose to believe it, and apparently believed it up until the day the biographer wrote it down.
I've noticed the sometimes person A will do something for person B because they believe something about A that isn't true. That makes them at least partially invested in that thing that isn't true being true, and so convincing them that it isn't true is made quite difficult. The recent article posted here about how Teller tricks people into believing something validated my intuition about people sometimes really want to believe something.
So Steve believed Holt was God's Gift to power supply design, and it turns out he was just another capable engineer who could build a switching power supply. The world isn't changed.
Life goes on, but now you know a bit more about how complex building power supplies has become, so its a win.