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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.'"
Bill Gates, was never fired, Microsoft has better market, more value and far more in people's lives. Now that Bill doesn't direct MS we all known what happened. I like Jobs but the phrase "the most successful business leader of his generation and quite possibly of all time." is a fallacy. Thomas Edison, Henry Ford come first easily.
He did what he wanted and he had good ideas. He didn't compromise. He was kind of a dick at times but he was generally right and he knew it, and stuck to his ideals.
He had the luxury of being in a position to do that. It was only when he lost that ability that he got fired. He left. Apple sank. When he went back it was on his terms.
I think he was in the right place at the right time with some damn good ideas about how to build computers and products. But without the initial products to launch everything, courtesy of Steve Wozniak, Jobs would have been all dressed up with nowhere to go without getting even luckier.
I will always remember Jobs as the greatest hypocrite technology has ever known. Yet somehow worshiped as an innovation loving, creativity coddling, God among artists. For some odd reason all of these people think the i in i products stands for them.
1984 commercial, iPhone.
"We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas."
"They are shamelessly copying us." (Re: Microsoft)
"Good Artists Copy, Great Artists Steal"
Perhaps Jobs just prefers to donate anonymously, as many of us do.
I feel kind of uncomfortable judging anyone about what they may have/have not done for charity. Jobs is a relatively private person when it comes to his personal life and a pretty deep thinker. Yes, he has no public record of philanthropy. Who's to say he doesn't do it privately or hasn't set up his will for postmortem charitable contributions?
Bill Gates and Warren Buffet bank on their reputations as front men for their charitable organizations. That's their right and they do a lot of good work. But that's not the only way to do it.
That's right â" Steve Jobs, worth $5.1 billion, has no public record of philanthropy.
I am all for encouraging charitable giving, but this is not a respectful way to do it. This is attempting to impose a value judgment ("People should have a public record of philanthropy") rather than talking about why charitable giving is a good idea and why the potential donor might be interested.
Regardless of whether he has given or not, Steve Jobs has served the public admirably. He has created wonderful products that people are willing to pay for, so obviously his service must have been valuable to some people. We live in a Jetsons age thanks to Steve Jobs. I haven't even bought an Apple product in eight years, but I'm still benefiting from the impact his company's designs have had on the industry.
I think it would be spectacular if Steve's billions were now spent looking for a cure for the medical conditions that are plaguing him. Doing so might seem "selfish," but would in fact serve the public yet again. Extending Jobs' lifespan would be a wonderfully fitting reward for the valuable service he has already provided for the world.
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
This.
Steve Jobs has a publicity problem. It's basically at the point where the news goes wild everytime he breathes. His every action is scrutinized and criticized and commented and such 10 times over.
Now imagine how it applies should he not give anonymously. If he gave to a pro-gay-rights group, he'd have half the US population cheering him, half the population jeering him (and death threats). Ditto if it was a religious organization. Or minority group. Or whatever he honestly believes in. The act of donation would basically bring on such a wrath of coverage and commentary that really, I doubt even the charity itself would want that sort of scrutiny (especially since it often takes away from whatever goal they want to accomplish).
He gives anonymously, the charities respect that (and thankful the media doesn't go over their charity) and life goes on.
Hell, given his Spartan lifestyle (does he have a couch yet?), he may be giving a ton away - he certainly doesn't have a need for money.
Personally I don't believe in charity. You can't just throw money on social problems and have them magically disappear. History has shown that time and time again. It's feels more like an American cultural phenomenon where people expects celebrities to make shallow statements on how "world peace is great" and donate some money "to the cause". I'm not a big fan of Steve Jobs but the fact that he hasn't thrown away his money on some temporary Africa projects and rather invested them in the economy (the real eradicator of poverty) doesn't affect my view on him negatively the slightest bit.
The best thing he could do with the money (if he is not going to leave it to his heirs, and BTW, inheritance tax is real theft) is "donate" it to somebody who already has a lot of money and is running a successful company or to set up an investment fund to have the money invested into various start up businesses.
OTOH he could just burn it, wouldn't have to pay any inheritance tax at all and it would be something different for a change.
I'd rather see inheritance taxes than people gaining wealth due to nothing more than an accident of birth. Especially since money = political power^w speech, why should some people inherit a greater say in the political process than others. Seems the founding fathers fought a revolution against inherited political standing.
I don't understand, what would you rather do? You are talking about actual investment capital, that is made from work of an individual, this is definitely the most moral way of saving money - working for it, as opposed to how gov't creates it - printing/borrowing (inflating and stealing from you now or borrowing - forcing deferred taxes upon those, who will pay them in the future for the spending done now.)
What do you mean "no moral advantage to more business"?
I can actually turn this right around and say that it is the most moral thing that can be done - investment into more business. Do you know what investment (deferred consumption) got for people? Everything you have and you use in your life is done from one form of investment or another. All products and services that market demands and market wants to buy and to pay for (when I say market, I mean individuals, who also have to work to exchange their work for yours), all of those products and services need to be produced.
The more competition there is in every sector the better. Would Steve Jobs benefit from less government involvement into health care and insurance in terms of regulations, taxes and subsidies? Of-course he would. Who can say what the state of medical advancements would have been by now if it was not for government regulations that destroy competition? Maybe his (and other people's) problem could be actually fixed for real if government was not allowed to interfere with the medical field. Government interference with the electronics and other technology fields is less than with medical, and look what happened in 40 years with computers. Computers are more powerful than ever and cheaper than ever.
Same applies to all technologies, as technology improves, it frees up more of the human time and reduces costs as well as it creates better, quicker, safer ways of delivering whatever the need is, so in case of cancers for example, it is possible to fight many cancers without surgery, with just certain types of drugs, which is a clear advancement in everything - from technology itself, to the difficulty of recovery, to amount of work that needs to be done, etc.
Without government interference and with more private investment that is the outcome - more competition, more choice, better choices, lower prices.
So I don't know what you would do with money, but the best way to spend money is to generate more business opportunities via investment AFAIC, I think it actually is the most moral thing that can be done. You cannot raise standard of living with hand outs, but if you create a business and a product, you do in fact increase standard of living for many.
You can't handle the truth.
Our society it predicated on making a mark on the universe. We are obsessed with painting the scenery with our big fat egos. Its kind of sad and pathetic.
I don't see your concern here. Humans are, among other things, capable of changing the universe profoundly, not merely making a mark on it. It's not magical. Any intelligent, self-reproducing machine could do the same.
You don't see astronomers with ego issues for the most part, because they have a fair sense of man's importance in the big picture.
They don't. Ask them where humanity will be in a billion years. The question is unanswerable.
Until we get over ourselves (as individual selves), our focus won't be contributing to a future worth living in for human beings, and with 7,000,000,000 on the planet now, perhaps its a good time to make this shift while there still is a future left for human beings.
What shift? To a humbler, unambitious useless creature which will die off in time, leaving no trace? What reason is there for you to issue this call to seven billion people, if you're intent on being so humble? Maybe you should practice what you preach? Or maybe you should eat your words.
Being "slow" is one thing. How long has Apple been making iPods and other handheld devices now?
I think after a decade of stubbornly sticking with proprietary connections, you stop saying that they're just being "rather slow on picking up the open standards stuff".
Or maybe I'm wrong. When do you see Apple adopting "the open standards stuff"? 2013? 2018?
I'll tell you one thing: a certain person is going to have to be safely scattered over the Pacific Ocean near Cupertino before that day ever comes.
I would be surprised if the words, "We'll adopt open standards over my dead body" have not been uttered at least a few times in Apple HQ since 1997.
You are welcome on my lawn.
You could turn around and say this, and you'd still be a running dog lackey libertarian fool. Investment strategies are understood very well, and the power of cogent capitalism. It needs oversight because there are assholes out there that think nothing of the lives of others and what their product methodologies can do to fuck them up. You need oversight because you're not trustworthy, and the greed motive makes quote unquote "moral" decisions for many abberant capitalists, just like it does for abberant socialists.
So, be careful of that high horse there, fella. We need conscience and scrutiny to prevent the assholes from taking over.
Oh, wait....
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Do you really think Jobs has some sort of moral code? He's a narcissist; everything he does is for his own self-aggrandizement.
Asking whether Jobs is a rock star CEO or just another self-aggrandizing sociopath is like asking whether Coke is a beverage or just another soft drink.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
If you use a smartphone or tablet with anything better than PalmOS5, then yes, Apple HAS made your life better....indirectly, at least. Competition with Apple's progress spurred other manufacturers to up the ante in the products you probably enjoy today.
A sentence you'll never see on an Internet discussion board: "You know what? You're right."
Astronomers sent a probe out into the universe with a gold disk because they feel aliens would want to know about are species. How is that not a big fat ego?
And you know what? it's that big fat ego that builds huge bridge, building covered in glass that touch the sky., It's that ego that put us on the moon, and sent rovers to mars, it's that ego that allows us to make better vaccines, and better cars.
Ar ego is awesome, inspiring and makes us the greatest species on this rock.
The problem is the few psychopaths that run large corporation, or any large body of people.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Well, this is the web we are talking about, invented by Tim Berners-Lee on a NeXT machine...
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
You seem to think charities exist only to help the poor. With that in mind, many, many people will fall upon hard times at some point in their life and need assistance from others. Apparently you would rather they die off than help them out for a while until they get back on their feet.
Aside from helping the poor, charities also exist to: