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A Look Back At the Career of Steve Jobs

Zothecula writes with a rather extensive piece in Gizmag about Steve Jobs's various business endeavors. From the article: "Revered by many, hated by some, but respected by most, the indisputable fact remains that Steve Jobs is the most successful business leader of his generation and quite possibly of all time. The numbers are impressive in themselves but the most remarkable aspect of his success is how it was achieved. Though he remains at Apple, the end of his tenure as CEO is the end of an era and an opportunity to try and grasp just exactly what it is he did and what lessons there are for all of us 'trying to make a dent in the universe.'"

9 of 324 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Biggest tight wad of all time by Wyatt+Earp · · Score: 5, Informative

    Inheritance tax is not theft. It is a very progressive tax in that it serves to prevent the perpetuation of wealth, free of tax, in wealthy families and are “a certain corrective against the development of a race of idle rich”.

  2. Re:Biggest tight wad of all time by Wyatt+Earp · · Score: 5, Informative

    I see you failed American History of the 20th century.

    Progressivism as a political movement emerged in reference to a more general response to the vast changes brought by industrialization: an alternative to both the traditional conservative response to social and economic issues and to the various more radical streams of socialism and anarchism which opposed them.

    Theodore Roosevelt, Wilson, FDR and LBJ are noted Progressives.

    I believe that the Estate Tax system, even if the Bush cuts are repealed, will not lead to all of an estate's wealth going to the government, at the same time with an Estate Tax, it does not create a noble class of ultra wealthy land owners. I don't see government spending and welfare as an evil.

    Reasonable tax regimes don't lead to the abolishment of private property, the 1950s saw the highest post-WW2 tax rates in the United States and also the lowest unemployment rates.

    A progressive tax is a tax by which the tax rate increases as the taxable base amount increases. Income taxes are progressive as are Estate Taxes, sales taxes are regressive in that everyone pays the same percentage, leading to the poor paying a greater share of their disposable income.

    So in no way does "progressive", either in politics or tax systems mean theft.

  3. You have no idea what you are talking about. by Brannon · · Score: 1, Informative

    There is no standard connector that could have replaced the iPod dock connector, at least not at the time. Can you name one? (which supports video out, audio both ways, lightweight interface to USB/Firewire)

    Apple has generally been a good corporate citizen in terms of supporting open standards where they have no value-added differentiation--that's about all you could hope for out of a business, frankly. Firewire is a standard, so is Thunderbolt, they have one of the most standards compliant web browsers out there and they put it on every product they make.

    Is it possible you just don't understand technology, but you've adopted some sort of anti-Apple stance out of pure dogma?

  4. Re:Biggest tight wad of all time by geekoid · · Score: 3, Informative

    You call people thieves and hacks, but then tell others THEY won't be polite?
    you Hypocritical ass.

    Government spend has ALWAYS created jobs. It is the only way ever to get us out of any recession.

    "As to lowest unemployment past WWII, well of-course, government finally stopped spending after the war was over and it allowed the depression to stop and since 1947 there was growth helped by USA's virtual monopoly on labor (on production, because USA had intact infrastructure and others didn't)."

    this is factually wrong.. and stupid.

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  5. Re:Biggest tight wad of all time by Wyatt+Earp · · Score: 3, Informative

    "Poverty, AFAIC, is created by government spending (and regulating/taxing/subsidizing) and wealth is created by the private sector investment. Government is not (or shouldn't be) here to invest. It's here with a specific spending function - protect liberties. That's all that all of the government must be concerned with."

    Have you read the United States Constitution?

    http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_transcript.html

    Article 1, Section 8
    The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

    General Welfare means social programs, they aren't theft, and the US began taxation programs during the Washington administration.

    As for the statement that no one paid income tax in the 1950s, that is just ridiculous, there were accountants, there were ledgers and people went to prison for tax evasion.
    http://ntu.org/tax-basics/history-of-federal-individual-1.html
    http://www2.census.gov/prod2/popscan/p60-018.pdf
    1952-53 - 22.2% on income above $4000.
    92% at $400,000.
    Average income was $4011
    And the bulk of US households made more than $4000 a year.

    If welfare is evil, does the US military-industrial complex strike you as evil? Lockheed Martin for example makes the vast majority of it's income from US government contracts, as does Northrop Grumman, General Dynamic Land Systems, TRW and many others.

  6. Re:Biggest tight wad of all time by Wyatt+Earp · · Score: 3, Informative

    The 16th Amendment made Income Tax constitutional, as did Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3 and Article 1, Section 8, Clause 1

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

    If there is a Constitutional Amendment, then it's not unconstitutional.

    As for the "effective taxes", there are not historical documents or data sets to support that claim.

    Income Tax in the US dates to 1861, not 1913.

    In order to help pay for its war effort in the American Civil War, the United States government imposed its first personal income tax, on August 5, 1861, as part of the Revenue Act of 1861.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenue_Act_of_1861

  7. Re:iPod was a side project by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 2, Informative

    Not only is it a proprietary cable at the iPod end, they also actively and intentionally break 'non-approved' third-party video out adapters. I have one that worked fine when I first got my iPod but which was 'killed' in a subsequent firmware 'update.'

    The connector doesn't 'HAVE' to support video out. A second connector could have been added for that. The USB connector could be one of the tiny standard connectors. But then... oh my, there would be an identifiable video out port on my iPod that they would have disabled with a firmware upgrade. It's always better to push all the connections into their own proprietary fog-zone so they can do with it as they wish.

    Proprietary is as proprietary does, and if Steve Jobs will be remembered for anything, outside his circle of worshiping zealots, it will be for always putting that shiny proprietary 'twist' in anything apple produced.

  8. Re:You really have no idea what you are talking ab by Karlt1 · · Score: 5, Informative

    For years they pushed AppleTalk over TCP/IP, even after OS X. Apple supported Windows networking and Samba

    SMB support has been built in since 10.3

    Firewire over USB.

    I have firewire ports on both my Dell and Sony. Firewire is not "Apple's" standard, it is an IEEE standard and Apple is part of the licensing pool. Just as there is a licensing pool for USB.

    They have a custom Dport connector (proprietary connector on open standard)

    What is a DPort? Do you mean DisplayPort? The mini-DisplayPort that Apple uses was accepted by VESA.

    iWhatever has a proprietary USB connector.

    So what "standard" is there that is able to duplicate this functionality cheaply?

    http://pinouts.ru/PortableDevices/ipod_pinout.shtml

    Or do you expect a $20 boom box to implement a USB host controller?

    Apple's been actively rejecting the standards other people use, open or otherwise. There is no HDMI on Mac products,

    The Mac Mini has an HDMI port. All other Macs have DisplayPort. DisplayPort is not an Apple proprietary connector. Dell and other manufacturrers have been selling monitors with DisplayPorts for years.

    No VGA ports (every projector has a VGA port, mac users just couldn't connect to them without headaches),

    You mean "headaches" such as using a DVI to VGA connector? In fact it has just been recently that at least Mac Minis didn't come bundled with DVI to DisplayPort adapters.

    tried forcing ZipDisks when everyone was using floppy disks,

    Only a few Macs had optional Zip Disk support. All Macs came with 3.5" disk drives up until the iMacs.

    2007 Macs still did not have +/- DVD writers (they choked on -R blank DVD's)

    According to this site:
    http://apple-history.com/

    Every Mac introduced in 2007 had built in DVD +/- drives

    Firewire and Thunderbolt are not open standards, they are proprietary and Apple charge a fee for their use.

    Apple is part of the licensing pool for Firewire. The licensing pool and operates under FRAND. Just like most other standards (mpeg, mp3, H.264, etc,).

    Thunderbolt was created by Intel.

    That's why everyone uses USB and the laptop I just bought does not have a IEEE 1394 connector.

    Well both my Dell and Sony have firewire. There is also a fee to use USB.

    If you want to legally sell something with an Ipod connector (I.E. a car stereo or Ipod dock), you need to pay Apple a licensing fee. So not open, in fact, that's almost as far from open as you can get.

    If you want to legally use a DVD Player there is a licensing fee....

    I think you need to start taking your medication again, you're clearly seeing things that aren't there.

    You're not exactly batting a hundred....

  9. Re:You really have no idea what you are talking ab by BasilBrush · · Score: 3, Informative

    For years they pushed AppleTalk over TCP/IP, even after OS X.

    No, the primary networking for OS X always was TCP/IP. AppleTalk was there for compatibility.

    Firewire is an open standard, developed by a few companies, but mainly Apple.

    Apple contributed their mini-display port connector to the display port standard, and it was adopted. That's contributing to a standard, not proprietary.

    iWhatever doesn't have a proprietary USB connector. It has a proprietary dock connector which carries USB signals along with other signals that USB, and no other connector of the time supported. If USB supported video signals, then they would have used it. Apple quite rightly creates their own thing when there isn't anything currently out there that provides the features they want in their products. That's one of the reasons they stay ahead of the rest of the industry.

    MacBooks don't need HDMI and VGA ports when they have a DisplayPort connector. Having multiple obsolete ports is a PC laptop thing. It's one of the reasons PCs are bigger and heavier. But that's nothing to do with rejecting open standards. HDMI is supported on the Mac Mini. And of course DisplayPort itself is an open standard.

    You mention ZipDisks as if bundling some third party large removable storage is a crime. Again there was no open standard with high capacity at the time. You say "when everyone else was using floppy disks", neglecting to mention the fact that Apple pioneered the use of 3.5" disks and the rest of the industry followed. And they were the first to dispense with floppies as standard, which again the rest of the industry followed. Apple tends to lead with technologies, others often follow.

    If you check out definitions of "open standard", you'll discover that there is no consensus that there must be no cost for licensing. Only that such costs should be reasonable and non-discriminatory.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_standard