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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.'"
Regardless of what you think of Mr. Jobs' company's products, you must admit the man had an almost unparalleled vision for the future.
In a hyper-connected world of ethics-free corporate drones apathetic about anything past this quarter's profits and stock price, Jobs stood apart by having a 5, 10, perhaps even 20 year plan for Apple that he ruthlessly pursued at the expense of anything standing in the way (be it under-performing employees or products). As a commenter last week put it, he set out to make a dent in the universe, and actually did it.
Enjoy your retirement, Mr. Jobs, you've bloody well earned it.
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.
Perhaps Jobs just prefers to donate anonymously, as many of us do.
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.
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”.
A business leader should be judged by how well he led his business (shocking I know). What other CEO brought a company from the brink of bankruptcy to being the most valuable company in the world (based on market cap)?
Wow, you should really get laid or something.
Are you offering to help? Else it's something like telling a burning man, "You really ought to put that out."
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.
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
http://pinouts.ru/PortableDevices/ipod_pinout.shtml
The dock connector allows a dumb,cheap device to control the iPod (volume, next song, previous song) just by sending the correct electrical signal to the correct pins and has pins for line level sound in/sound out and video. How do you propose you cheaply make accessories that work with the iPod by using USB? It would be a lot more expensive for an accessory maker to implement the functionality through USB.
SMB support has been built in since 10.3
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.
What is a DPort? Do you mean DisplayPort? The mini-DisplayPort that Apple uses was accepted by VESA.
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?
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.
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.
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
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.
Well both my Dell and Sony have firewire. There is also a fee to use USB.
If you want to legally use a DVD Player there is a licensing fee....
You're not exactly batting a hundred....