Hagiography: why digital product people should know what it means?
Tips from historians for reading historical case studies
According to the Merriam-webster definition, hagiography means:
- Biography of saints or venerated persons;
- Idealizing or idolizing biography.
In the more strict use of the term, hagiography is the biography of monks, priests, saints, etc. This meaning is useless in the startup world. There are few startups engaged in real religious practices. I mean, web or mobile applications for cults, rites, and rituals are far from the hegemonic titans in Silicon Valley.
However, Silicon Valley - and the media surrounding it - frequently engage in other adulatory practices. Cults of startup founders are abundant. The Apple cult venerates its beloved saint, Steve Jobs, for his godly design skills. Elon Musk is seen as the only living being capable of taking humans to another planet. Jeff Bezos's letters to investors are shared like sacred documents full of holly wisdom. Bill Gates's emails circulate in social media like whispers from heaven.
Ok, I might be exaggerating here. But, you get the point. Founders and big names of startups are often elevated to canonical status whether they like it or not.
This trend is common not only in Silicon Valley. Sports, science, and music stories are narrowed down to unique individuals as well as many other narratives. That is why historians came gradually to use the term hagiography in a derogatory manner. When historians use the term, they are not referring to nuns or preachers. The adjective, hagiographical, means for historians that the story was perfunctory.
Among historians, hagiography is not taken lightly. It is an insult. No self-respecting historian would like to have its history characterized as hagiography. In between the lines, hagiography means the historian did not research well enough and could not go further than the adulatory tales of a single individual.
This is why biographies, although common on most bookshelves, face difficulties to be well-received among historians. It is hard to focus on a single individual without praising them. You have to uncover his flaws and discover all his influences just to begin with. Good biographies take a lot of work and dedication from researchers.
But why do historians believe that narrowing stories is a lousy practice?
I’ll not go into details about the philosophy of history and try to discuss whether hagiography is capable of finding truth or not. I palpitate with the idea of reliving academic discussions about the truth in the past. I’ll keep the discussion in the practical realm.
For most laypeople and historians, history — beyond documenting the passage of time — is a source of lessons. Past events are good-enough surrogates for the undisclosable future. We rely on them to avoid making the same mistakes and to make future choices.
Thus, when we read that Steve Jobs was an excellent designer who barely talked to users, we block our calendars in the expectation of achieving the same results he did. When we read that Gates was a prodigious coder, we enroll in programming courses hoping to build an empire.
Everyone knows that this is a careless approach. Nevertheless, it happened to all of us at least once. The difference is that historians have reasons for not trusting these adulatory stories and are probably less prone to follow lessons from them.
When they read hagiographical narratives, their spider sense tickles. It starts small, like an itch inside the historian's brain. They first think as everyone else:
“This sounds strange. Everyone has flaws. I wonder what hers might be.”
The itch aggravates and turns into a bothering beep quite quickly:
“Where did the action take place? When did it happen? Does her magical action occured in a void?”
It grows stronger while the historian flows through the words.
“He did all of these by himself? Was he alone? I doubt that! There’s always someone else involved.”
Not only historians, but anyone who reads case studies and stories from the past can apply these sets of reflections to realize a trust check to their materials. They are quick fixes that help to unblur hagiographical narratives. Let’s see three Apple cases in which a little more historical research can lead to different lessons.
First, start as anyone and doubt the story being told.
Steve Jobs was an amazing designer but he had his flaws, like anyone else. And I’m not talking about his moral flaws as a father, I’m talking about his design skills. He was known for being intransigent about simplicity. So much that he would not make any trade-offs with his developers. This wear out his relationships which ended up in his removal from Apple in 1985
Yes, if you didn't know yet, Jobs was dismissed from his own company and called back in 1997. That’s not the point. The point is that his almighty design skills came with a downside to him.
Second, wonder about who else might be involved in the stories.
It has now become a Cliché to say that Jobs was complemented by Steve Wozniak, but have you ever heard of Mike Markkula? He retired at the age of 33 as a millionaire from stock options he had sold from Fairchild Semiconductors and Intel. Oh, and Markkula was Apple’s first angel investor owning a total of 26% of Apple in 1977. He was Apple’s employee number 3 and the New York Times described him as Jobs’ “adult supervision” in the early years of Apple. He was responsible for bringing money and the managerial mindset to Jobs and Wozniak.
Lesson? Jobs was not a magical entrepreneur in the sense of creating a good management system. For that, he had help from very experienced names in Silicon Valley and access to an impressive network. He might, though, have been a charismatic figure capable of making those connections.
Last, always think about context.
Apple’s first relevant feat is known to be the introduction of the personal computer with a graphical user interface (GUI), the Apple II. However, Apple’s innovation did not come out of the blue. 1970s Silicon Valley was a blooming place. Atari, IBM, and Intel had already paved the way for innovative companies. Xerox had an uncommercialized personal computer with a mouse and GUI in 1973. Stanford had one of the first computer science degrees in America. And much more.
All these transformations in northern California contributed to the emergence of Apple’s innovations. But minor contextual facts might have helped too. Silicon Valley was building a computer community in the 1970s. Starting in 1975, individuals (and not only companies) were building their own personal computers at Homebrew Computer Club. Wozniak and Jobs frequented the club and honed their skills there.
Lesson? 1970s Silicon Valley mattered a lot for Apple’s history. We will never have access to the counterfactual, but one can wonder whether Apple would ever have existed if Jobs and Wozniak have lived somewhere else.
Overarching lesson
Obsess over context. If you want to learn from the best, do not focus on their feats but on the surroundings. When, who, why, and where may be more important than why to learn how they achieved their canonical status. Replicate context and not actions.
