Ashton Kutcher To Play Steve Jobs In Upcoming Film

An anonymous reader writes "Variety is reporting that Ashton Kutcher – who you likely recognize from That 70s Show, Punked, and Two and a Half Men – has been tapped to play Apple co-founder Steve Jobs in an indie film titled 'Jobs', based on a script from Matt Whiteley. The film will chronicle Steve Jobs from wayward hippie to co-founder of Apple, where he became one of the most revered creative entrepreneurs of our time."

Comments

Pointless, likely

[Stormwatch]

Will this movie offer anything that "Pirates of Silicon Valley" didn't? I doubt it.

What's the hype?

[Anonymous Coward]

I still don't get why Steve Jobs is revered. To me he was just another guy who wanted to make a lot of money at the expense of loyal fans of products that were not even designed by him.

Re:What's the hype?

[Morty]

Engineers design to specs and requirements. Jobs tended to specify the high-level requirements. The engineers who worked for him are very clear on this -- Jobs was a micromanager who pushed hard for certain elements of design and usability. The Jobs approach was unique, and resulted in the distinctive Apple products of the 70s, 80, and 2000s. Unlike most CEOs, Steve Jobs had a close personal hand in the the successes and failures of Apple.

NB: I'm not a big fan of either Jobs or Apple. But his contributions are pretty clear.

Re:What's the hype?

[Morty]

Sure, Steve Jobs made big mistakes, too. Not just the NeXT, either. During his original stint at Apple, the Apple Lisa was a total faillure. And he did some pretty nasty things in his personal life. He certainly wasn't perfect, and he made some pretty collosal mistakes. All that said -- Apple's major succcesses have come to significantly outweigh their failures, as evidenced by the current market for iPhones, iPads, etc. A lot of that success can be attributed almost directly to the vision and ideals of Steve Jobs. I'm not an Apple fan myself, but I can understand why the Apple fans revere him.

Re:What's the hype?

[thesandtiger]

I think the problem is the idea of "revered" - I mean, maybe some people do "revere" him, though to me that seems a bit silly.

Jobs was an amazing businessman and had a genius for marketing, no doubt. He's certainly comparable to other legendary business types on those notes, and may be the best in history in those areas.

One thing I note on slashdot is that a lot of people get pissy when the business people who make things happen get any credit, and instead they want to focus on the geeks who invented stuff. And that makes a certain kind of sense, to be sure - I mean, what Woz did was impressive, and it's hard to be a good businessman without a good product.

The problem is this:

What would have become of things if it were just Woz? I sincerely doubt that Apple would have been anything but one of those things that barely anyone outside of a handful of people remember, kind of like some people nowadays remember some really neat but obscure BBS software from back in the day.

Woz made things that Jobs was able to work with to make Apple huge. Without Woz and his kit, I think Jobs would have almost certainly found some other opportunity to get involved with and turn into something huge.

I don't think Woz, by himself, would have done much but make really neat stuff to give away. Which is really nice of him, but he would be completely obscure by this point in time unless someone like Jobs came along and brought his stuff to the masses.

Personally, I have a lot more respect for the Woz than I do for Jobs, but even so I cannot deny that without a Jobs-type Woz would just be some bearded nerd who makes cool shit that nobody outside of certain very small circles ever heard of.