Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

A Look Back At the Career of Steve Jobs

Posted by Unknown on from the remember-when-he-wasn't-evil dept.

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.'"

4 of 324 comments (clear)

  1. Vision by macwhizkid · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  2. 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”.

  3. 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    I believe that the Estate Tax system, even if the Bush cuts are repealed, will not lead to all of an estate's wealth going to the government, at the same time with an Estate Tax, it does not create a noble class of ultra wealthy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.

  4. 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....