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The Man Behind Apple And Pixar
Ant writes "Steve Jobs is the chief executive of two of the most powerful technology brands in the world: Apple and Pixar. But what motivates him? And how does he choose a new washing machine? An article in the Independent explores this much loved and much hated man." From the article: "Alan Deutschmann, a journalist who researched Jobs's middle years for a biography called The Second Coming of Steve Jobs, believes he displays two personalities in his dealings with people: Good Steve and Bad Steve. The Good side is charming, and can make people believe almost anything; that's the side on public view at the rock-star product launches. He's been said to have a 'reality distortion field' - by a mixture of charm and exaggeration, he can make you believe pretty much anything."
...he can make you believe pretty much anything...
He can make Apple's zealots believe pretty much anything, not me. The fact the Linux share on the desktop now accedes Apple's pretty much confirms that I am not alone in this regard. Apple's slogan really should be "Suckers wanted!"
HAIL STEVE!
Damn fanboys won't shut up about how charismatic their billionaire of choice is. Hey, if I had a billion dollars, people would kiss my ass too, and I'm not half the self-righteous asshole that Jobs is. Now THINK before moderating. No, don't think different, think for yourself.
Yeah. They couldn't possibly just be more tasteful than you, or more appreciative of aesthetic beauty. You're the smart one, after all, Linux boy.
I usually like the independent, but it is unfortunate that in this occasion they lost their better judgement and got swept up in the whole ridiculous Jobs worhip fest.
... It is really nice that he gave an interview in 96 sayying that the internet was going to be huge, but then again by '96 every single college kid had an internet connection, and would have said the same thing. Even gates had amended his "road ahead" book to include a chapter about the internet by that time.
... they could easily have been Microsoft+Dell+HP(personal computing) all rolled into one, but Jobs f***ed it all up. Sorry he is no visionary.
Just in order to preserve history I must repeat some things for the thousandth time:
Apple did not invent the windowing system
Apple did not invent the mouse
(the article was quite misleading in saying apple "introduced" those things giving the suggestion that they invented them, which is not true. Of course apple may take some credit for popularizing them, but then again Microsoft did a much better job at popularizing the mouse and the windowing environment)
Jobs was not a visionary
And the biggest reason why Jobs is not a visionary is that Apple had the opportunity to win the PC market
Jobs is just a guy that has a decent eye for design (according to many people) who also quite fortuitously happened to be rich. As a result he runs a company that pays a lot of attention to design (which is rare in the US, for some reason). This is all very nice, but do not expect the next new thing in technology to come from him.
dear steve,
We apreciate the glitzy UI. It beats the heck out of windows for that. I think you forgot something though: The developers. Now not to sound to winey but could you explain to me what the hell posesed you to forget about Java, C, and C++? And I am sure somewhere their is a great explination about your networking, and in 15-20 years when your umm might say -well ageged-, that your eathernet and wifi controllers choices will make a hillarious laugh.
-Disgruntled apple user
psh to say Steve Jobs has anything to do with Pixar's true success is a joke. Those boys would be succesfull no matter who was pulling the strings. Dont give wack-job Jobs (lolz) so much credit
'reality distortion field' - by a mixture of charm and exaggeration
This is one of the best descriptions of a Democrat that I have heard in quite a while. Many Democrats are just blind followers that don't check into what their leaders say. In contrast, those that lead the party politically and with new ideas are the ones that fit the above description. Steve Jobs is a Democrat and like many Democratic leaders, their ideas sound really good because of the way they present them (charm) and by their subtle alteration of or their blatant disregard for the truth (exaggeration). Examples include tax increases for the rich (Democrats) versus supply-side economics (Republicans), a woman's right to privacy/safe health care (Democrats) versus abortion/killing babies (Republicans), and a diverse American workforce (Democrats) versus a skilled American workforce (Republicans).
Steve Jobs is worse than Bill Gates. Everyone goes off on How microsoft is evil, yet no one gives a fuck when Apple ran all the clone-makers out of business, giving THEM a monopoly with their arch. (Fuck you mods, I dont need karma on this commie-board.)
Viral software licensing is not freedom, it is in fact GNU/Socialism.