"Jobs" vs. "Steve Jobs": Hollywood Takes Another Stab At Telling the Steve Jobs Story

theodp writes: Didn't like Jobs, the 2013 biopic about the life of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs starring Ashton Kutcher? Maybe you'll prefer Steve Jobs, the 2015 biopic about the life of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs starring Michael Fassbender. "Steve Jobs is a tech visionary, total dick," writes Esquire's Matt Patches in his mini-review of the just-released Steve Jobs trailer. So, is inspiring kids to become the "Next Steve Jobs" a good or bad thing?

Comments

"Musk" "Elon Musk" "Minky Musky Sly Stoaty Stoat"

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait 10-15 years for the Elon Musk story, and accompanying fellation.

We're All Dicks

[thedonger]

We're all dicks. It will inspire some to try to do it without dickness; others are going to be dicks regardless. Seriously, does anyone make it to the top without at least some dickness?

Re:We're All Dicks

[NotDrWho]

All of us may be dicks, but very few of us are so dickish as to fuck over even Woz.

Re:We're All Dicks

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, does anyone make it to the top without at least some dickness?

Well, some pussies make it to the top amongst dicks.

Re:We're All Dicks

[Skylinux]

All of us may be dicks, but very few of us are so dickish as to fuck over even Woz.

And that's why most of us don't create companies like that.
I am not a fan of it but that's how it works and history has shown that even "perfect angels" are never squeaky clean.

Re:We're All Dicks

[ranton]

We're all dicks. It will inspire some to try to do it without dickness; others are going to be dicks regardless. Seriously, does anyone make it to the top without at least some dickness?

People call Steve Jobs a dick not because he was just a pushy businessman (like most other successful people) but because he really was a dick. He abandoned his daughter for years, which by itself is enough to show he was deep down not a good person. He chose financial success over his own child; other than murder or torture I cannot think of a worst act. It could be argued he became a better person later in life, since it appears he tried to rectify the worst thing he ever did. But financially supporting her after he had plenty of money is hardly a grand gesture.

The world is probably a better place because Steve Jobs existed, but that only goes to show even the most deplorable people can have a very positive impact on the world.

Re:We're All Dicks

[bill_mcgonigle]

Seriously, does anyone make it to the top without at least some dickness?

Depends on which "top" you mean. If you mean "wealth and power", then, yeah, those are ends that dicks seek and so the successful there are almost entirely represented by that type.

But it's possible to have a huge amount of money and a stupid ugly yacht and for many sensible people to still consider you a failure, especially if you have failed family relationships and your employees fear you.

"Some people are so poor all they have is money."

Re:We're All Dicks

[NotDrWho]

I'm pretty sure that letting your own daughter grow up in poverty because you're too selfish to admit your paternity and pay child support goes way beyond "not being squeaky clean."

Re:We're All Dicks

[Anonymous Coward]

"It's my estimation that every man ever got a statue made of him was one kind of sumbitch or another." - Malcolm Reynolds

Re:We're All Dicks

[fluffernutter]

"The world is probably a better place because Steve Jobs existed" Someone else would have taken his place. One or more other companies would have taken Apple's place. Technology would have moved on in much the same way. Who knows whether those people would have been dicks or not.

Re:We're All Dicks

[Anonymous Coward]

Dicks, Pussies and Assholes

Re:We're All Dicks

[AmiMoJo]

Sure, but Jobs was a quite unnecessarily big dick to pretty much everyone, including his own daughter and Woz. I mean, is parking in a disabled space and not having plates on your car really required to be successful?

Listen to his famous Stanford speech. "Stay foolish" is terrible advice. He was lucky, until he wasn't and his own advice to trust his gut/fate/karma instead of his doctor killed him. The whole speech is actually a classic example of the reality distortion field. Parts of it are demonstrably false, other bits clearly ridiculous, but his charisma and reputation carries it. So not only is he a dick to people around him, he's also a skilled and habitual bullshitter.

Re:We're All Dicks

[nmb3000]

We're all dicks.

I dislike how this phrase is being used because I think it trivializes the extent to which Jobs was not a good person and introduces an inappropriate levity into the discussion. A much better term would have been acute sociopath.

And another movie about Jobs? Sounds more myopic than biopic. When Hollywood starts making remakes of their failed biographies you know they've scraped through the bottom of the barrel. Most people today only know Jobs as the other Santa who introduced shiny new toys once a year. If you want to read about the interesting stuff, just check out Folklore.org. It's filled with fascinating stories written by the people who created the Macintosh. Steve Jobs even shows up a couple of times.

Re: We're All Dicks

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, Jobs being that petty and cruel to his offspring has nothing to do with Apple's success.

Re:We're All Dicks

[thedonger]

We're all dicks.

I dislike how this phrase is being used because I think it trivializes the extent to which Jobs was not a good person and introduces an inappropriate levity into the discussion. A much better term would have been acute sociopath.

I prefer to inject levity into all situations. And the parts of Jobs that did more than get him to the top of Apple -- e.g., disowning his daughter, as others have pointed out here -- are total asshole moves. There's a difference.

Re:We're All Dicks

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly how did he have a positive impact on the world?

He cut off all charity / donation work while he was there, and never bothered re-instituting them after making truckloads of money (no media outlet has covered this in any substantial way, so nobody cares). He abandoned his child and only started paying when the media started getting whiff of it (a wise business decision)

Are you saying that by being a small, small part of a phone, tablet, and computer that it was a "positive impact"? If that were the case, Mr. Dell has twice the "positive impact" for bringing phones, computers, tablets into the world AND he's not a dick about it to his employees or customers. Bill Gates is 10 times Mr. Dell, considering how much money he donates.

You, sir, have very very low standards as to what a "positive impact" on the world is.

Mother Teresa and the countless number of volunteers helping 3rd world countries is a positive impact. Preventing a war is a positive impact. Donating to various charities and foundations is a positive impact.

Selling an overpriced commodity phone / tablet / laptop while being a dick about it? LOL

Re:We're All Dicks

[TheCastro1689]

That's pretty optimistic, look at cell phones before the iPhone, look at digital music, etc. Steve pushed his people to make things he thought were visionary. Basically you'd have the same boring stuff repeated, like we do now after his death.

Re: We're All Dicks

[Holi]

No, but it probably has a lot to do with what he is doing now.

Re:We're All Dicks

[Holi]

Digital music was well on it's way before apple produced the iPod. And let's not forget the LG Prada which came out almost a year before the iPhone, it was the first phone with a capacitive touchscreen and that form factor.

Re:We're All Dicks

[FilmedInNoir]

Depends, if there were thousands, maybe even millions of Steve Jobs out there being dicks would they all obtain the same level of success as the original?
Is there a maximum dick level or does it just continue on until it reaches super villainy levels like in Kingsman?
Also wasn't it his dickness that ultimately killed him? Instead of seeing a regular doctor he decided that following the rantings of a witch doctor were a better course of action for his cancer treatment.
I'm not sure I want to see this social experiment carried out.

Re:We're All Dicks

[Holi]

Steve Jobs gave 50 million to Stanford Medical (granted they were treating his cancer) and an unsubstantiated amount to Bono's Aid's research charity (probably why you all got U2's album shoved onto your phones).

Re:We're All Dicks

[King_TJ]

From everything I've read, Jobs reeked of immaturity. Denying your kid is your own? That's something I think a lot of younger guys can relate to, if they're scared about becoming a father and everything it involves. Doubly so if you actually have grand plans for something like a business venture and fear that becoming a parent would decimate the free time and dedication you'd have to devote to it, to make it work. Same with a lot of the explosive rants against good employees and the childish "I'm right because I'm always right!" attitude.

The often cited deal with him driving around without license plates, I have to sort of give him a pass on. As I understand it, he was technically within the law to do it because he simply swapped out vehicles so regularly, none of them were owned long enough to require a plate? And parking in a handicapped space? I *think* he was only caught doing that on Apple's own campus --- not out in grocery store lots or anyplace else? I'm not going to pretend to speak for him on it, but I definitely know of places where they have a bunch of pointless handicapped parking spaces thanks to legal requirements, despite not even employing a single handicapped person. It's pure wasted space to comply with regulations that don't take "common sense" into consideration. (In many businesses, you're not going to have much of any "walk up/in" traffic like you do with a retail store.)

Re:We're All Dicks

[ranton]

You, sir, have very very low standards as to what a "positive impact" on the world is.

Mother Teresa and the countless number of volunteers helping 3rd world countries is a positive impact. Preventing a war is a positive impact. Donating to various charities and foundations is a positive impact.

Compared to you I guess I do have a very low standard. I think someone being a good parent has a positive impact on the world. I think someone starting a construction company that builds quality homes for people has a positive impact on the world. I think someone who corrects a cashier when they give them $20 in change instead of $10 has a positive impact on the world.

I also think that in most cases, for profit enterprises have a much greater positive impact on the world than charities. They usually reach far more people and move societal progress further ahead. Charities are usually more involved with helping the people that progress left behind.

It is very arguable which one is more commendable. Is it better to improve a billion people's lives by 0.1% or a hundred peoples lives by 10000%? I don't think the answer to that question is clear cut. I do however think it is clear we want both types of people in this world.

Re:We're All Dicks

[Anonymous Coward]

The often cited deal with him driving around without license plates, I have to sort of give him a pass on. As I understand it, he was technically within the law to do it because he simply swapped out vehicles so regularly, none of them were owned long enough to require a plate?

I don't give him a pass on it just because it was legal. It's called "gaming the system," and it's a prime example of the "me first" attitude and behavior that narcissists engage in.

Re:We're All Dicks

[ranton]

Denying your kid is your own? That's something I think a lot of younger guys can relate to, if they're scared about becoming a father and everything it involves. Doubly so if you actually have grand plans for something like a business venture and fear that becoming a parent would decimate the free time and dedication you'd have to devote to it, to make it work.

I'm just going to assume you don't have kids since you are rationalizing how abandoning your child because it will hurt your career is somehow okay, or simply being immature. If I abandoned my wife and kids I could save up enough money in one year to work full time on my startup idea for two years. Instead I am working on it 15-20 hours a week when everyone is asleep and occasionally on weekends. This doesn't make me a great parent, it just makes me not a sociopath.

Re:We're All Dicks

[Anonymous Coward]

look at cell phones before the iPhone,

You mean the ever evolving feature phones? The iPhone may have been a huge jump when it was released, three years later it would have been barely noteworthy.

Steve pushed his people to make things he thought were visionary

He pushed people to make things that would sell, most of Apples products where not original, merely the technology wouldn't sell earlier ( and Microsoft tried ). Phones needed some minimal battery time and that put limits on the hardware back then. There was even a Joke about the iPhones battery life when it was released, it barely made the line.

Re:We're All Dicks

[Rakarra]

So not only is he a dick to people around him, he's also a skilled and habitual bullshitter.

Indeed, those are two of the most required and valuable CEO skills. The ability to take bold action rather than dither with mediocrity, and the ability to convince others that your products are great. Being a dick is a good executive skill. Lying---I'm sorry, I meant "marketing" is another.

Re:We're All Dicks

[Anonymous Coward]

Digital music was well on it's way before apple produced the iPod. And let's not forget the LG Prada which came out almost a year before the iPhone, it was the first phone with a capacitive touchscreen and that form factor.

The iPod or iPhone weren't the great inventions of apple, it was the itunes store. They were the first company to really start selling mp3's. Prior to that you had illegal options crappy rips from napster and limewire or weird russian MP3 sites that you knew didn't have the copyright. Or you had small stores that had a very poor selection of music. Itunes had nearly every label and almost all popular bands minus a few holdouts.

That more than anything enabled\changed the music industry

Re:We're All Dicks

[Rakarra]

As I understand it, he was technically within the law to do it because he simply swapped out vehicles so regularly, none of them were owned long enough to require a plate? And parking in a handicapped space? I *think* he was only caught doing that on Apple's own campus --- not out in grocery store lots or anyplace else?

And Pixar. Basically, any place that wouldn't have got him towed. Both of those things (required to have license plates, parking in the handicapped spots) were expressions of the same attitude: "Those people can't tell me what to do." If there was a requirement, he would find a way around it because he knew better and the rules didn't apply to him.

Re: We're All Dicks

[DarkOx]

What is Jobs doing now? Oh right he is dead.

Which he probably would still be and quite possibly would have been sooner if he had risked any of his success to tread his daughter better.

So there are two conclusions you can draw (probably others as well).

1) you only live once and death is certain; best live life to the fullest enjoy it as much as you can. If you don't think there is more pleasure to be derived from things like family or other social responsibilities than the alternatives FUCK IT and move on to something more entertaining because you will end up a rotting corpse or pile of ash either way.

2) death is certain, therefore what you leave behind matters because if you don't leave something or someone behind to be remembered for or to remember you than there will be nothing left.

Re:We're All Dicks

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pretty sure that letting your own daughter grow up in poverty because you're too selfish to admit your paternity and pay child support goes way beyond "not being squeaky clean."

Funny how both Woz and Lisa wept at Steve Job's funeral, but you are dancing on his grave. Who's the fucking asshole?

Re:We're All Dicks

[Holi]

I'll definitely agree with that, but if it hadn't been Apple it would have been somebody else. Mp3's were the future regardless of how hard the recording industry tried to kill it with DRM.

Re: We're All Dicks

[Holi]

Hmm, my humor seems to only work on me.

Re:We're All Dicks

[gnasher719]

Digital music was well on it's way before apple produced the iPod. And let's not forget the LG Prada which came out almost a year before the iPhone, it was the first phone with a capacitive touchscreen and that form factor.

Seriously. You are scraping the bottom of the barrel here. And the "almost a year": LG Prada sales started May 2007. iPhone sales started June 29th, 2007. And by the end of the month they had overtaken the LG Prada in number of sales.

Re:We're All Dicks

[Aboroth]

The world instantly became a better place when Steve Jobs died. I don't care who disagrees, they can have fun being wrong.

Re:We're All Dicks

[Anonymous Coward]

Digital music was well on it's way before apple produced the iPod. And let's not forget the LG Prada which came out almost a year before the iPhone, it was the first phone with a capacitive touchscreen and that form factor.

Forget it? I never knew of it in the first place. Which makes it a strong example of the grandparent's point.

Re:We're All Dicks

[Anonymous Coward]

wow, that's awesome, you attributed him with the exact opposite of what he said, Steve is that you?

Re:We're All Dicks

[thegarbz]

That's pretty optimistic, look at cell phones before the iPhone

You mean like the first LG Prada which had no physical buttons and a full touch screen and came out before the iPhone?

Re:We're All Dicks

[Anonymous Coward]

I've never seen people describe the founders of Google as dicks.
Or HP.
Zuckerberg did a questionable thing at university, but after that?

(you may not like what the companies do, but that wasn't the question)

This is an excuse people use. People aren't perfect but you can be better, and succeed.

Re:We're All Dicks

[Anonymous Coward]

Digital music was well on it's way before apple produced the iPod. And let's not forget the LG Prada which came out almost a year before the iPhone, it was the first phone with a capacitive touchscreen and that form factor.

Well, you sure already live in a world where Steve Jobs never existed. The LG Prada came out almost a year before the iPhone? It was officially announced (unless you count mentioning the official product number LG KE850 in December, or some fuzzy leaked pictures a week before) later!

Re:We're All Dicks

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll definitely agree with that, but if it hadn't been Apple it would have been somebody else. Mp3's were the future regardless of how hard the recording industry tried to kill it with DRM.

Problem is: nobody with any clout told the music industry that they need to drop DRM, let alone over and over again - nobody but Steve Jobs.

Re:We're All Dicks

[Anonymous Coward]

Digital music was well on it's way before apple produced the iPod. And let's not forget the LG Prada which came out almost a year before the iPhone, it was the first phone with a capacitive touchscreen and that form factor.

Forget it? I never knew of it in the first place. Which makes it a strong example of the grandparent's point.

Fun fact: the first reports on it already called it "iPhone look-a-like". http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/18/lgs-ke850-prada-official-iphone-says-wha/

Re:We're All Dicks

[Anonymous Coward]

That's pretty optimistic, look at cell phones before the iPhone

You mean like the first LG Prada which had no physical buttons and a full touch screen and came out before the iPhone?

Yeah, look at it: it was pretty craptastic. Oh, and in the US it came out after the iPhone.

Re:We're All Dicks

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, even Hitler brought us VolksWagen, the Autobahn, and rockets. Not too mention all the medical research. Was it worth it?

First Movie

[Anonymous Coward]

Honeslty, he came out as a dick as well in the first movie, screwing his partners all the way so not sure how more evil he could get, he's just the dude who approved design backed by a a super good marketing team

Re:First Movie

[Anonymous Coward]

Well he had enough money to make his vision rather unique in that it aimed at putting style and design in computing. Turns out, Apple has touched something even Microsoft couldn't do until they made their own hardware. Even then, it runs a rather ugly and schizophrenic OS.

Re:First Movie

[invid]

Genius: Having the balls to tell the engineering team "Hmmm . . . it's not quite right. Go change it and bring it back tomorrow" as many times as it takes to get it right.

Re:First Movie

[Anonymous Coward]

Well he had enough money to make his vision rather unique in that it aimed at putting style and design in computing. Turns out, Apple has touched something even Microsoft couldn't do until they made their own hardware. Even then, it runs a rather ugly and schizophrenic OS.

Style - the wanker just copied all his fathers old Revlon products. The closest Steve came to being a designer was when he used a pencil to clear the stem on his bong.

Sales he did rather well - especially himself. Though I hear he flogged a few blue boxes early in his career.

Re:First Movie

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh... that's pretty much every company. LOL

You, sir, have a terrible sense of business.

After the trailer, no wonder they fired him

[Anonymous Coward]

He's clearly Magneto and he's wrecking all the hard drives with his powers.

Mostly bad

[Anonymous Coward]

So, is inspiring kids to become the "Next Steve Jobs" a good or bad thing?

In general I would say it is a bad thing.. or rather not very wise as a parent.
There how many tech companies the size of Apple do you think we can have in the market? 100? 1000? Do you think someone like Jobs could work anywhere else without being thrown out?
I wouldn't say that it is worse than inspiring kids to be the next Tiger Woods. It's just that it is a tad unrealistic and will in 99.99~% of the cases end up leaving the kid worse off than if you had realistic goals. The traditional path is doctor or engineer.

As for society, we have a serious problem with single companies being large enough to influence politics. A new player can't enter the market without having to be concerned about one of the larger players killing them off with patents or by locking in the market to an incompatible product.
We don't need more Apple-sized companies, but we need more of them so that the current ones shrink a bit.

Re:Mostly bad

[tnk1]

Heh, even Jobs couldn't avoid being thrown out of Apple. It's just that he got to come back.

Re:Mostly bad

[Anonymous Coward]

So, is inspiring kids to become the "Next Steve Jobs" a good or bad thing?

In general I would say it is a bad thing.. or rather not very wise as a parent. There how many tech companies the size of Apple do you think we can have in the market? 100? 1000? Do you think someone like Jobs could work anywhere else without being thrown out? I wouldn't say that it is worse than inspiring kids to be the next Tiger Woods. It's just that it is a tad unrealistic and will in 99.99~% of the cases end up leaving the kid worse off than if you had realistic goals.

Given how completely Tiger Woods has fucked up his life trying to inspire kids to be like him is going to end badly 100% of the time.

Inspire kids to be the next Woz, not Jobs

[Mascot]

I hope I won't be disillusioned by someone who has done research into Woz, but what I have heard of Woz has pretty much been all good. Seemingly kind hearted, personal integrity, not all about the money. While Jobs is the guy who lied to his supposed friend about how much he got paid for a project so he could embezzle money from said friend. I know which person I'd rather my children emulate.

Re:Inspire kids to be the next Woz, not Jobs

[tnk1]

Steve Jobs was no saint, but he was an artist in his particular specialty. Woz, God bless him, is a great engineer and a super nice guy, but he'd still be designing hobby projects for fun and maybe have a job as a high level engineer at like HP or IBM or Intel or something today without Jobs. And that's nothing against Woz, but I just think that Woz doesn't care for that kind of success. He's probably happy he can live in some comfort, but he'd rather be an engineer than a corporate leader if he had to choose.

Woz got a little screwed by Jobs perhaps, but are you ever truly screwed if you didn't care to begin with?

Re:Inspire kids to be the next Woz, not Jobs

[Nidi62]

Woz, God bless him, is a great engineer and a super nice guy, but he'd still be designing hobby projects for fun and maybe have a job as a high level engineer at like HP or IBM or Intel or something today without Jobs

And isn't that a better, much more realistic goal a parent should push their kid towards than founding a global tech company? Working a well paying job that allows you to live comfortably and gives you enough free time and means to do something you enjoy at home, what more could you ask for?

Re:Inspire kids to be the next Woz, not Jobs

[NotDrWho]

Agreed. I would much rather see a movie about Woz. Not only was his work much more interesting than anything Jobs did, but he's a character who I could actually root for. When I watch a Jobs bio, I spend most of the time hoping one of the other characters onscreen will just beat the shit out of him.

Re:Inspire kids to be the next Woz, not Jobs

[Anonymous Coward]

I dunno. Wozniak is reportedly a serial prankster. Now pranking friends and relatives and maybe the occasional colleague once in a while can be fun within your group. However, if you've got a reputation for often pranking people who you don't even know, then I'd say there's a bit of a superiority complex and anti-social aspect to your personality which admittedly is not uncommon to tech types. Besides, Wozniak has largely coasted on the early career accomplishment and his proximity to Jobs. If it wasn't for Jobs, he'd just be another engineer. Talented, but not particularly notable.

Re:Inspire kids to be the next Woz, not Jobs

[Anonymous Coward]

Steve's only talent was being in the right place at the right time, the right place being surrounded by smart and talented people, which he was not. He was an idiot, lethally so as he died from it.

Re:Inspire kids to be the next Woz, not Jobs

[tnk1]

Well, you should support your child being who they are. Woz is who he is, and trying to make him into Jobs would only make him unhappy.

However, Lil' Jobs would probably not be as happy if he didn't become Steve Jobs later in life. If his parents pushed him to be Woz-like, would he have been happy? I'm not sure he would have been.

For one thing, it is easy to be super chill when you are a naturally talented engineer who finds happiness in working on projects in your garage. Some people are built with a more driving ambition to affect larger systems (used in the more general sense). They want to be executives so they can bring a grand vision to life, be it a corporation, mass movement, or an empire. Anything less will be frustrating for them.

I agree that you should try and instill values of respect and a healthy sense of perspective vs. worldly ambition in your child, but the world needs leaders too.

Re:Inspire kids to be the next Woz, not Jobs

[Nidi62]

Well, you should support your child being who they are. Woz is who he is, and trying to make him into Jobs would only make him unhappy.

However, Lil' Jobs would probably not be as happy if he didn't become Steve Jobs later in life. If his parents pushed him to be Woz-like, would he have been happy? I'm not sure he would have been.

For one thing, it is easy to be super chill when you are a naturally talented engineer who finds happiness in working on projects in your garage. Some people are built with a more driving ambition to affect larger systems (used in the more general sense). They want to be executives so they can bring a grand vision to life, be it a corporation, mass movement, or an empire. Anything less will be frustrating for them.

I agree that you should try and instill values of respect and a healthy sense of perspective vs. worldly ambition in your child, but the world needs leaders too.

That's true, but realistically no one decides as a child that they will be a world leader or a CEO. Parents who drive and "prep" their kids from an early age to do so are more likely to just burn their kids out before they even get to college. Just like you said, Jobs became Jobs "later in life". Push your children to do what they enjoy, and if they have the talent and the desire to be the next Jobs, they will have the opportunity to do so.

Re: Inspire kids to be the next Woz, not Jobs

[DrLang21]

Given how much of a dick Jobs was, I'm not sure that he's ever been truely happy. That kind of dickishness comes from a place of insecurity.

Re:Inspire kids to be the next Woz, not Jobs

[Anonymous Coward]

Jobs is uninspiring to me. Without Woz, there would have been no innovation to sell, but with those two, they had an actual product to show off first thing.

Now, several years after Jobs's death, what is his real legacy?

First, he might have donated to stuff privately... but history remembers him as donating $0 to charitable causes. What he left behind was a debt-ridden ship that (from what was stated on /.) wasn't even seaworthy.

Then, there are the negative items. The news about the new Mercedes in the handicapped parking spots every six months. His scorched earth battle against Android, where Apple could have just asked for a percentage, and just sit back like Microsoft and make cash regardless of who buys what phone.

I do agree, Jobs is one of the big names from a bygone era where people actually innovated, and being a computer user actually took some thinking. However, virtually every other CEO has done something to better the world... and Jobs's legacy doesn't seem to be one of philanthropy.

Re:Inspire kids to be the next Woz, not Jobs

[srobert]

Nice guys finish last. Woz is only worth about $100 million. That's chicken feed (relatively speaking). You don't want your kid to be a loser like that do you? No, encourage your children to "do what it takes" to get to the absolute top. You don't get there by being nice.

Re:Inspire kids to be the next Woz, not Jobs

[Anonymous Coward]

he was an artist in his particular specialty

His specialty, like all successful businessmen, was the specialty of convincing other people that he was special. In other words, people skills.

Now I'm not going to argue that people skills aren't valuable. In fact, I'd argue that people skills are the single most important component to achieving success -- trumping knowledge, skills, experience, loyalty, and education. But all successful businessmen already know this. If they didn't, they wouldn't be successful. So what made Jobs special was nothing remarkable -- it's the exact same thing that makes every successful businessman special. I don't buy the idea of Steve Jobs having some unique ability or "vision" that put him on a different level than other business leaders. All business leaders have "vision", and will eagerly tell you all about it. Jobs simply hit the vision jackpot, and if it didn't happen that way, somebody else would have hit it and history would have unfolded in a very similar manner.

Re:Inspire kids to be the next Woz, not Jobs

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd rather my kids be billionaires capable of changing the world than pushovers who are practically ignored.

There are over six billion voices out there. Only a handful get to make a real lasting impact. No matter what your opinion is it's going to ruffle some feathers. When it comes to money, 'legal' systems are abused all the time by people legally making hundreds of millions of dollars. It ultimately doesn't matter how you make your money, only that you don't get caught doing something illegal.

Steve jobs might have done shit like park in handicap parking spots but it's not like he went around like an african warlord slaughtering kids. His products might have been built with the equivalent slave labor - but if he didn't someone else would have done it. We all use shit manufactured in china and third world countries still anyway so how are we (or the any number of companies using the absolute lowest human cost) any better?

to the small percentage of people who pay 5-10x for the same things sold by companies as 'premium safe organic fair trade' whatever bullshit; have fun with that. Anybody can make an ad campaign and claim whatever they want about what they sell. Unless you personally follow the chain you'll never know where any of it came from.

Re:Inspire kids to be the next Woz, not Jobs

[Rei]

The irony is that it could be seen as "karma" that Jobs basically committed "suicide by woo", refusing to treat his cancer with any recognized scientific technique for most of a year and instead trying pretty much every technique in the book popular among the sort of person who typically believes in karma.

So perhaps all of the woo stuff actually works, but it plays in with the laws of karma ;)

Re: Inspire kids to be the next Woz, not Jobs

[Anonymous Coward]

People can pay 1.2 times the price and make a difference. Get off your 'everybody does it, there's no point in even working toward anything better' cynicism.

Your points are just apologetic garbage. We can all strive to be better. It happens one act at a time.

Re:Inspire kids to be the next Woz, not Jobs

[unimacs]

No doubt that I would prefer my kids be like Woz.

Ironically, even though Jobs cheated him, Woz ultimately has amassed enough of fortune that he arguably hasn't had a real job in 30 years, - and IMHO that is largely thanks to Steve Jobs who kept working almost right up until his death.

Now, Woz has technically been employed by several companies but it seems his role has largely been limited to being a figure head. He also has many philanthropic pursuits, so I'm not accusing him of sitting on his ass. Just saying that he lives a life of ease, and that has more to do with Jobs than it does his own accomplishments. So while Jobs screwed him financially many years ago, Woz has continued to benefit from Apple's and Steve's work, long after he ceased making any real contributions of his own.

I guess if it were me, I wouldn't be holding a grudge. ;)

Re:Inspire kids to be the next Woz, not Jobs

[Anonymous Coward]

You think making a phone, tablet and computer changes the world?

Sony use to be the king of the world. IBM use to be king of the world. Hell, even Nortel use to be the king.

Ask anyone who or what Nortel does. To a lesser degree, IBM. Sony? It's struggling. Mainstream fashion brands? Coach, AE? They're dying too.

Nobody's going to remember even major corporations that did basically nothing to "change the world" asides from offering a commodity product.

If you really want to "change the world" you'll either have to step up your game and either:
- be a massive self-sacrificing saint like Mother Teresa
- be a massive power dick like Hitler
- be a mega-superstar (not just an A list) and luck out on a major cultural hit.

As popular as the brands I mentioned above were at some point, can you name any one person of that company at this point? No, your children will also be forgotten.

Also, being a pushover does not mean being a dick. Using your own example, you're a proponent of me murdering you and raping you / your family before you / they die (me being a dick) and stealing all your money and valuables (making money)... just as long as I don't get caught. (hence the murders - no evidence = no conviction)

NICE.

Re:Inspire kids to be the next Woz, not Jobs

[Solandri]

I hope I won't be disillusioned by someone who has done research into Woz, but what I have heard of Woz has pretty much been all good. Seemingly kind hearted, personal integrity, not all about the money.

If you've ever run your own company, you'll realize there's a special combination of goodness mixed with hard-assedness which is needed for success. Someone who's all kind-hearted can't bear to lay off people when the chips are down, and ends up sinking the entire company instead of casting off a few employees. You need to be a bit of a dick to make the tough calls, do the hard negotiations, and still be able to sleep at night. At the same time you have to respect and nurture your employees, get them to want to work for you.

If Woz hadn't paired up with Jobs (or someone like Jobs), he would've ended up as a reasonably successful nobody working an upscale programming/engineering job. Likewise of Jobs hadn't met Woz he likely would've ended up a car or vacuum cleaner salesman. The two of them together had that magic combination of technical skill, altruism, and willingness to go with the flow; mixed with selfish drive, ego, and ass-hattery which make a very successful company. The whole was greater than the sum of the parts.

Re:Inspire kids to be the next Woz, not Jobs

[ColdWetDog]

Oh really? To be in an economic bracket only matched by the top 0.1% of every human being on the planet is a loser?

Count me in.

Re:Inspire kids to be the next Woz, not Jobs

[Rakarra]

Oh really? To be in an economic bracket only matched by the top 0.1% of every human being on the planet is a loser?

Count me in.

I think the parent poster needed sarcasm tags!

Re:Inspire kids to be the next Woz, not Jobs

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice guys finish last. Woz is only worth about $100 million.

Not to mention he wouldn't even have anyway near as much without Jobs.

Why does Jobs always steal the limelight?

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Steve Wozniak as an engineer, and as a person in general, is much more of an inspiration to me.

Re:Why does Jobs always steal the limelight?

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember Woz very tastefully saying that when Dennis Ritchie died a few days after Job's that none of what they both were doing at Apple would be possible without DMR.

Re:Why does Jobs always steal the limelight?

[mccalli]

Thing is - there were a lot of talented hardware engineers at the time. Woz owed an awfully large amount to Chuck Peddle, for instance, and the role of MOS and Commodore is massively underplayed these days in a "history is written by the victors"-style approach. Most of the early pure engineering-led eight bit companies died a death, but Apple survived. Why is that? It wasn't due to Woz.

I really don't want to underplay Woz and I agree with the comments, but you can see from his ventures since that the involvement of Woz does not necessarily make for a sustainable company, and Woz alone could not have created Apple.

Re:Why does Jobs always steal the limelight?

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of the early pure engineering-led eight bit companies died a death, but Apple survived. Why is that? It wasn't due to Woz.

You're right. It wasn;t due to Woz, and it also wasn't due to to Jobs. The only thing that kept Apple from meeting a similar end was Gates.

Re:Why does Jobs always steal the limelight?

[BasilBrush]

Well that was a stupid thing to say. The C-language and Unix were just one language and one OS amongst many. If they hadn't been around Apple (and NeXT) would have used something else.

Re:Why does Jobs always steal the limelight?

[BasilBrush]

Absolutely. If Woz wasn't at the Homebrew Computer Club, Jobs would have recruited someone else, with similar results. There were plenty of other engineers who were capable of single-handedly putting together a microprocessor based computer board at the time.

Re:Why does Jobs always steal the limelight?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well that was a stupid thing to say. The C-language and Unix were just one language and one OS amongst many. If they hadn't been around Apple (and NeXT) would have used something else.

Sure, but so is that... I think Woz saw that DMR's death and legacy was being slightly eclipsed by the Job's headline, I would think that C and Unix are bigger contributions than the guy who simply glommed onto them or whatever else he could find that he could glom onto...

Re: Why does Jobs always steal the limelight?

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree, they would have been doing something. You're delusional if you think without C and Unix they'd have Mac OS X. There's a massive difference between Apple 2 and OS X.

Unix set the precedent for modern computing.

Re: Why does Jobs always steal the limelight?

[Bing Tsher E]

And Apple, especially in the early years, was a Pascal shop. With some Smalltalk and other stuff thrown in there. The whole Apple culture was way too baroque and niche-ridden for anything as utilitarian and clean as C. Apple spent hundreds of millions on failed attempts at a new 'elite-unique' OS before giving up and just buying in NeXT Step, which is based in Unix/C legacy code.

Re: Why does Jobs always steal the limelight?

[Bing Tsher E]

People don't want to hear it today, but Microsoft played a big part in the early growth of the Macintosh. It was a threadbare platform without Microsoft Word and Excel. Excel, in particular, was a Macintosh program for quite awhile before Microsoft had a Windows environment good enough to run it on.

Re: Why does Jobs always steal the limelight?

[BasilBrush]

If you want to play the what-if game, Apple would probably have used BeOS. Which was better in many ways than Unix. And to an end user system based on Unix and one based on BeOS needn't look any different. Only the BeOS one would be smoother.

Re: Why does Jobs always steal the limelight?

[BasilBrush]

But this is about Jobs not Apple. Apple's next gen OS quest whilst Jobs wasn't there is irrelevant. Jobs selected Unix as the underpinning for NeXTStep. But had Unix not been around something else would be.

Re:Why does Jobs always steal the limelight?

[ColdWetDog]

And there were probably asshole CEO level people that could have created "Apple" as well. Nobody is irreplaceable.

Maybe Bill Gates would have been famous.

Oh. Wait.

Re:Why does Jobs always steal the limelight?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Most of the early pure engineering-led eight bit companies died a death, but Apple survived. Why is that? It wasn't due to Woz.

He wasn't responsible for managing the company, but the sales growth certainly owed a lot to his designs. I mean, the Apple II had serios legs. It just kept selling and selling. Why? Partly due to it's expandability.

Look at it's competition at the time: TRS-80: no slots. Commodore PET, VIC-20, C=64: no slots. Atari 800 & ST: no slots.

Even Apple's next big hit, the Macintosh, was lame in sales until they added slots in the Mac II.

Re:Why does Jobs always steal the limelight?

[Puff_Of_Hot_Air]

There were plenty of other engineers who were capable of single-handedly putting together a microprocessor based computer board at the time.

Although this is completely true, Woz is special because he had a.. sorry there is no word for it but genius mind for reducing the number of components required to perform a particular function. So Woz was a a very lucky find as he could make a cheap computer. Cheaper than anyone else could for the same functionality. He could do the same thing with code (though there are other examples), but I think the combination was a large contributor to their early success. Sometimes one smart guy really does make a difference.

Re:Why does Jobs always steal the limelight?

[ProzacPatient]

I'd rather see a movie entitled 'Woz' where Steve Jobs is a mere supporting character but I doubt that would make as much money at the box office because at this point Steve Jobs might as well be a god king.

Re:Why does Jobs always steal the limelight?

[BasilBrush]

Although this is completely true, Woz is special because he had a.. sorry there is no word for it but genius mind for reducing the number of components required to perform a particular function.

This is the off told myth, but in reality that was standard practice at the time. Components were simple to understand but expensive. Everyone came up with nifty tricks to minimise components.

Jobs mix of talents were rarer.

Re:Why does Jobs always steal the limelight?

[BasilBrush]

The Gates/Jobs match is over. Gates might have lived longer, but Jobs won the business game. Apple is the biggest tech company in the world and Microsoft is in rapid decline.

Still, yes, Gates had different but comparable business skills. That makes 2.

There were far more engineers that could design a microcomputer.

Re:Why does Jobs always steal the limelight?

[Anonymous Coward]

> This is the off told myth, but in reality that was standard practice at the time.

Common practice, yes, but Woz had a talent for it that even other engineers recognized, and expressed their amazement at the economy of parts in the Apple II disk controller.

It was probably more impressive because Woz was in his mid-twenties at the time, but even then he was gifted. After his plane crash, the ideas flowed a bit more slowly.

Re:Why does Jobs always steal the limelight?

[gnasher719]

And there were probably asshole CEO level people that could have created "Apple" as well. Nobody is irreplaceable.

Fact is that there have been no asshole CEO level people who created Apple. And a reasonably successful software / hardware company. And maybe the most successful computer graphics and animation company in the world.

Re:Why does Jobs always steal the limelight?

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft is in rapid decline.

Still, yes, Gates had different but comparable business skills. That makes 2.

just because you want something to be true, does not make it true

Re:Why does Jobs always steal the limelight?

[Anonymous Coward]

I see you managed to fast forward past the years in which apple was in serious decline and nearing bankruptcy?

"
  less remembered is the $150 million lifeline Microsoft (MSFT) threw Apple (AAPL) in August 1997, when Apple was within weeks of bankruptcy.
"

Re:Why does Jobs always steal the limelight?

[Whiteox]

I think it was called 'Sweet 16" ROM that he wrote that put it all together.

Re: Why does Jobs always steal the limelight?

[Anonymous Coward]

And Apple, especially in the early years, was a Pascal shop. With some Smalltalk and other stuff thrown in there.

Apple was a BASIC shop in the early years. They only brought Pascal on board thanks to Jef Raskin, and it was a dud on the Apple II. The Lisa (and later the Mac) used Pascal and assembly, but no Smalltalk to my knowledge.

Once it became clear that C was what developers wanted, though, Apple started supporting it in MPW around 1987. I don't recall them having any qualms about it.

Re:Why does Jobs always steal the limelight?

[Xest]

How exactly did Jobs win the business game? By the time Jobs finally made something of Apple Gates had been retired for 10 years.

During Gates' tenure Jobs was an also-ran and Microsoft maintained it's position as the biggest tech company in the world.

What you're really saying is that Jobs beat Ballmer, once Gates had been winning for 20 years, and found it so easy he gave up and fucked off.

Gates has no control over how well his succesors do, just as Jobs doesn't. By your logic if Apple falls in another 10 years and Microsoft ends up larger again then Gates changes to the winner even if Jobs is dead and Gates hasn't at that point been active for over 20 years. The only comparison between them is when they were both alive and active and at that point Microsoft under Gates won by just about every conceivable metric - both business and personal from creating the larger more successful company for that period, through to drastically higher personal wealth, through to actually being capable of maintaining a stable relationship and looking after his kids.

Not that it really matters, but I mean come on, are you really that so far stuck in the reality distortion field that even history has to be rewritten to build up St. Jobs into something he wasn't?

There's no doubt Jobs was an insanely talented business leader, but he wasn't god no matter how much you try and elevate him to that status.

Re: Why does Jobs always steal the limelight?

[Anonymous Coward]

Unix set the precedent for modern computing.

Unics is just a simplified version of Multics for less capable computers.

Re: Why does Jobs always steal the limelight?

[Anonymous Coward]

And Apple, especially in the early years, was a Pascal shop.

Suuure, Woz wrote the Apple DOS in Pascal.

Re: Why does Jobs always steal the limelight?

[Anonymous Coward]

People don't want to hear it today, but the Mac played a big part in the early growth of the Microsoft.

FTFY

Re:Why does Jobs always steal the limelight?

[Anonymous Coward]

And there were probably asshole CEO level people that could have created "Apple" as well. Nobody is irreplaceable.

Exactly. Jack Tramiel was a huge asshole, and he was hugely successful with Commodore - until they kicked him out because he was such an asshole. Then he took over Atari - and ran it into the ground, because he was an asshole.

Maybe being an asshole isn't enough to be successful after all.

Re:Why does Jobs always steal the limelight?

[Uberbah]

How exactly did Jobs win the business game? By the time Jobs finally made something of Apple Gates had been retired for 10 years.

The iPhone was released a year before Gates handed the CEO position over to Ballmer in 2008 - but Gates was still chairman of Microsoft last year.

You were saying?

Re:Why does Jobs always steal the limelight?

[Uberbah]

less remembered is the $150 million lifeline Microsoft (MSFT) threw Apple (AAPL) in August 1997, when Apple was within weeks of bankruptcy

Repeating an urban legend doesn't make it true. Apple had billions in liquid assets at the time, and even if their fortunes hadn't turned around, they could have sold real estate or lived off of patents. That $150 million was to settle a lawsuit over Microsoft stealing code from Quicktime - nothing more, nothing less.

Re:Why does Jobs always steal the limelight?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ballmer became CEO in 2000, not 2008.

Re:Why does Jobs always steal the limelight?

[Xest]

So this never happened? -

http://www.forbes.com/2000/01/...

Chairmen have no executive power.

You might want to learn at least a little bit about the thing you're talking about before you jump in, top off with a snyde remark and deeply embarrass yourself as a result in future.

Re:Why does Jobs always steal the limelight?

[Uberbah]

So this never happened? You might want to learn at least a little bit about the thing you're talking about before you jump in, top off with a snyde remark and deeply embarrass yourself as a result in future.

You might want to stop drunk blogging, as this was the first sentence in the post you were responding to:

• The iPhone was released a year before Gates handed the CEO position over to Ballmer in 2008

Now, you were saying something about embarrassing yourself by jumping in without knowing what you were talking about? And something about snyde[sic] remarks? Gates retired as CEO, but he did not retire from a powerful position at the company.

Chairmen have no executive power.

Who said they did, Slick? Chairmen do have power over the direction of the company, moreso when said chairman happens to be a co-founder, the largest single stock holder, and the previous CEO.

If you think such a chairman has no influence over how a company is run, let the staff keep your computer when you check out of the drunk tank, as you aren't smart enough to use it.

Re:Why does Jobs always steal the limelight?

[Uberbah]

Balls. First link I went to had the wrong date of his retirement, so there's my crow. He was still chairmen until last spring, so you still have yours, along with the projection.

Re:Why does Jobs always steal the limelight?

[Uberbah]

You are correct, sir. First info I Googled was bad. He was still chairman until spring of 2014, so that part still stands. Gates may have retired as CEO in the Clinton Administration, but he didn't retire from a powerful position at Microsoft until Obama's second term.

Re:Why does Jobs always steal the limelight?

[Xest]

God you just failed so hard. The amount of arrogance you show when you post so aggressively when you do it makes it all the more funny.

If you didn't always post like such an ass then you could at least get away with it just being an honest mistake, we all make them, but the way you post with such arrogant certainty backed by insults just leaves you such a massive laughing stock when you get it so badly wrong as you frequently do.

Please, just stop, I'm actually beginning to feel sorry for you. It can't be good for your mental health. The way you desperately try and salvage with the chairman thing whilst still demonstrating you don't know what powers a chairman has, it's painful to watch. Honestly, do yourself a favour and calm the fuck down over everything before you hurt yourself, you don't need to try and start a fight over every opinion you have, no one thinks "Look at him, he's so tough and awesome because he argues with insults on the internet", they just think "What an insecure dick, he must really be trying to make up for being bullied at school or something", just tell us what you think calmly and most people can respect that. You don't need to make yourself such a laughing stock all the time.

It's just the lazy/untalented employees...

[Anonymous Coward]

Who make Jobs out to be a dick. Same with about every successful startup that exists today. Lazy people don't make it, whine about the work, and complain that their efforts were criticized often. Jobs, Gates, Torvolds, Musk and numerous others simply have expectations that some people cannot deal with.

Shitty developers are everywhere, think their code is good, but to good devs their code looks terrible unoptimized and error prone.

That's life! Deal with it! Walmart is always looking for greeters.

Re:It's just the lazy/untalented employees...

[Anonymous Coward]

Good point. It's possible that for every 1 angry rant, Jobs, Gates, Torvalds and Musk gave 10 positive feedbacks such as "Nice code, you clearly know what you are doing, keep working on it."

Re:It's just the lazy/untalented employees...

[Anonymous Coward]

... and it's just possible that someone will give me a pony!

Re:It's just the lazy/untalented employees...

[ranton]

Someone is lazy and untalented if they think a father who abandoned his child is a dick? There are plenty of other examples of what a horrible person he was, but that alone is enough to damn anyone.

Re: It's just the lazy/untalented employees...

[Anonymous Coward]

Right on 100%. That was a terrible thing for him to do.

Gates, Musk, or Torvolds have done nothing like that. People who whine, suck at their jobs, or lazy will still say their bosses are dicks too.

It is that worker who should look at himself/herself in the mirror and say, "I'm a lazy fuck!"

Re:It's just the lazy/untalented employees...

[gnasher719]

Someone is lazy and untalented if they think a father who abandoned his child is a dick? There are plenty of other examples of what a horrible person he was, but that alone is enough to damn anyone.

You are very quick at condemning. I suppose you condemn Steve Jobs' biological parents as well, who both abandoned him? And I mean totally abandoned him. The reality is that there are millions of parents who treated and treat their children worse.

The legend grows

[rmdingler]

It's essentially a movie script that played out in reality. Poor nobodies made great by genius innovation that began in their garage.

You have intrigue, a second act, and an untimely death to the lead role.

This is likely not even the final rendition.

another way to look at it

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed, you don't want to be dick, but you sure dont want to be dickless either.

-AC

Is there something higher than "total dick"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your asshole neighbor is a "total dick." Jobs was on a dick level all his own.

Perhaps half of us are

[tepples]

We're all dicks.

Half.

Seriously, does anyone make it to the top without at least some dickness?

Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, former Canadian Prime Minister Kim Campbell, consecutive former New Zealand Prime Ministers Jenny Shipley and Helen Clark, former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, and sitting German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Heads of government of major industrialized countries, not a D between them. (Source) In sixteen months, we'll see whether former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will become the next Leader of the [relatively] Free World.

Re:Perhaps half of us are

[I4ko]

Considering how Merkel handled Greece, I say she is more dick than most of the other EU politicians. I don't think you have heard the phrase "A woman with a dick", it is European and does not mean a transgender, but a woman that acts and in most cases succeeds in the man's powerplay

Re:Perhaps half of us are

[gnasher719]

Concerning Merkel and Greece, it is kind of hard to explain to the people of your country why they would have to work more years to get their pension, so that Greeks can enjoy their pensions a bit earlier. And why they have to pay taxes so that Greeks don't have to.

Re:Perhaps half of us are

[ITRambo]

Substitute "asshole" for "dick" to remove gender bias. The story remains the same.

Re: Perhaps half of us are

[Anonymous Coward]

If greeks were like germans they wold have started a war to avoid paying their debt.

Re:Perhaps half of us are

[rodrigoandrade]

+1000 Insightful.

Thank you for summarizing the whole issue so eloquently. Wanna be a commie, GTFO EU.

Re:Perhaps half of us are

[BasilBrush]

The Greek people didn't take out the loans. And the failed austerity programme was forced upon them by the ECB and the IMF.

Now the only sticking point to a deal is that the Greek Government want the rich to pay the debt and ECB and the IMF want the poor to pay. This has now reached a point where the ECB and IMF are attempting regime change by economic bullying, just as the World Ban and the IMF have done in Africa for decades.

If the banks can be bailed out because they are "too big to fail" so can Greece. And if it was a right wing government, it would be.

This is neoliberal warfare.

Re:Perhaps half of us are

[asylumx]

He said "We're all dicks" not "we all have dicks."

Re:Perhaps half of us are

[Totenglocke]

The Greek people didn't take out the loans

No, but they voted for the bad policies that resulted in having to take out loans.

Re:Perhaps half of us are

[Anonymous Coward]

Just like Americans voted for the bad policies that resulting in having to take out loans. If WE were part of the EU, how much would we be requesting?

Re:Perhaps half of us are

[BasilBrush]

So you're responsible for what Obama does then?

Re:Perhaps half of us are

[Rakarra]

Just like Americans voted for the bad policies that resulting in having to take out loans. If WE were part of the EU, how much would we be requesting?

Probably not much because so far, the US is fairly sufficient and is not defaulting on loans. You may recall a year ago certain political careers got deep-sixed over the suggestion of a situation that could let the US default.

Re:Perhaps half of us are

[Rakarra]

Gary Johnson: "We're dicks! We're reckless, arrogant, stupid dicks. And the Film Actors Guild are pussies. And Kim Jong Il is an asshole. Pussies don't like dicks, because pussies get fucked by dicks. But dicks also fuck assholes: assholes that just want to shit on everything. Pussies may think they can deal with assholes their way. But the only thing that can fuck an asshole is a dick, with some balls. The problem with dicks is: they fuck too much or fuck when it isn't appropriate - and it takes a pussy to show them that. But sometimes, pussies can be so full of shit that they become assholes themselves... because pussies are an inch and half away from ass holes. I don't know much about this crazy, crazy world, but I do know this: If you don't let us fuck this asshole, we're going to have our dicks and pussies all covered in shit!"

Re:Perhaps half of us are

[Anonymous Coward]

Now the only sticking point to a deal is that the Greek Government want the GERMANS to pay the debt and ECB and the IMF want the GREEK to pay.

FTFY

Re:Perhaps half of us are

[micahraleigh]

What austerity program?

When was the last year Greece spent LESS money than the previous year.

Re:Perhaps half of us are

[BasilBrush]

Greek government spending has reduced year on year 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014.

Next question.

What austerity? Are you blind? Or are they being rather selective of the news where your chose to get it?

Re:Perhaps half of us are

[jwdb]

And the failed austerity programme was forced upon them by the ECB and the IMF.

Demonstrably false. If Greece had wanted to they could have said no, but then no one would have loaned the money and we'd have gone through what we're going through today 5 years ago instead. The conditions the ECB and IMF attached to their money may have been poorly thought out, but no one forced Greece to take it.

Oh, you want money with no strings attached? Well, I want a pony.

Re:Perhaps half of us are

[AmiMoJo]

Some of them did. The people worst affected, particularly by unemployment, are the young ones who were only children or not even born when that stuff was going on.

The Greek government has a point. The only way out is for the Greek economy to reform and grow. Endless grinding austerity will just cause another revolution. The first one was peaceful, but if it fails the next one won't be. What do young, angry Greeks have to lose?

Re:Perhaps half of us are

[BasilBrush]

Sorry but yes, forced, as a member of the Eurozone.

Theoretically they could have refused like thy have now, but that was a different government then. That government didn't have the best qualified finance minister in Europe. This one does.

They probably would have been better reusing 5 years ago. Iceland did, and they've done better than any of the countries that went down the bailing out of the banks route.

Fuck your childish pony comment. It's not a matter of no strings attached. The ECB and the IMF are attempting regime change. They are insisting that the debt is paid off by punishing the poor, rather than taxing the rich.

Re:Perhaps half of us are

[Jack Griffin]

GP is talking about being a dick, not owning a dick

Re:Perhaps half of us are

[jwdb]

And fuck your low-brow paranoid class warfare. Iceland doesn't use the Euro, so it's a completely different situation: they can devalue their way out of debt and crisis, at significant pain to their import businesses but sparing their local economy. Greece could have done the same if they hadn't been set on hitching themselves to a set of economies far better off than their own. They didn't know what they were doing then, they still don't now what they were doing now, and the Greece people are suffering for it. I'd blame them for electing idiots, but it seems they didn't have much choice.

Re:Perhaps half of us are

[BasilBrush]

They didn't know what they were doing then, they still don't now what they were doing now, and the Greece people are suffering for it. I'd blame them for electing idiots, but it seems they didn't have much choice.

What?! Ha! Yanis Varoufakis is the most economically qualified finance minister in Europe. Probably in the world.

And choice? The Greeks have just given an overwhelming vote of confidence to their government in the referendum, giving an overwhelming no to accepting the creditors offer.

And class warfare? That's what the creditors were attempting by making the poor pay, whilst insisting on keeping tax concessions for the rich. That's both stupid and evil.

Re:Perhaps half of us are

[jwdb]

What?! Ha! Yanis Varoufakis is the most economically qualified finance minister in Europe. Probably in the world.

Can't imagine what you base that on. A finance minister who drives away his last and final source of credit isn't the most qualified in my book.

And choice? The Greeks have just given an overwhelming vote of confidence to their government in the referendum, giving an overwhelming no to accepting the creditors offer.

Not the choice I was referring to, but indeed, that they have, and I wish them good luck with the drachma. Hopefully they'll be able to devalue themselves back to stability.

And class warfare? That's what the creditors were attempting by making the poor pay, whilst insisting on keeping tax concessions for the rich. That's both stupid and evil.

Oh stop with that nonsense, please. I'll repeat myself: if the Greek government doesn't want to reform they don't have to - they're a sovereign state, after all - but in that case they shouldn't expect any support from the EU.

Re:Perhaps half of us are

[BasilBrush]

What?! Ha! Yanis Varoufakis is the most economically qualified finance minister in Europe. Probably in the world.

Can't imagine what you base that on.

On economics qualifications of course. From wikipedia:

"In 1982, Varoufakis decided to pursue a MSc in mathematical statistics at the University of Birmingham and a PhD in economics (Essex).[11][12]

"Varoufakis was inspired to study economics after he met Andreas Papandreou, an academic economist who founded PASOK and became Greeceâ(TM)s first socialist prime minister.[7] After training in mathematics and statistics, he received his PhD in economics in 1987 at the University of Essex.

"University of Essex & University of East Anglia[edit]
Before that he had already begun teaching economics and econometrics at the University of Essex and the University of East Anglia. In 1988, he spent a year as a Fellow at the University of Cambridge.

"University of Sydney[edit]
From 1989 until 2000 he taught as senior lecturer in economics at the Department of Economics of the University of Sydney.

"University of Athens[edit]
In 2000, he accepted the offer of Yannis Stournaras to become Professor of Economic Theory at the University of Athens.[7] In 2002, Varoufakis established The University of Athens Doctoral Program in Economics (UADPhilEcon), which he directed until 2008."

Re:Perhaps half of us are

[jwdb]

Well, despite all those credentials, he clearly forgot that theory and practice are not the same. He knew what he was talking about when he talked about the debt load being way too much, but I'm disappointed that someone with so much teaching experience would be completely incapable of communicating with the rest of the EU. Doesn't matter if you're the smartest person on earth, if you can't talk to others without driving them mad then you may as well be a fool, because you won't get anything done either way.

Guess the Greeks will have to muddle along without him.

Re:Perhaps half of us are

[BasilBrush]

You're missing something. By saying how is actually is, rather than how the Germans and French ministers wanted to portray it, Varoufakis won the referendum with a landslide victory. He's more popular with the people of Greece than any finance minister has ever been!

That's given Greece a much stronger hand. They are still going to be arguing for the same, regardless of whether Varoufakis is at the table or not.

Re:Perhaps half of us are

[jwdb]

He's more popular with the people of Greece... That's given Greece a much stronger hand.

Why do you keep bringing up how popular the Greek government is as if that matters? Why would the EU creditors care even one iota about that? The EU is under no obligation to do a deal, nor is it interested in supporting Greece at all costs, so the fact that the Greek government is popular with Greeks is irrelevant. Greece has no leverage, has not had any leverage for a long time, and won't have any leverage for a long time coming.

The Greeks may like Varoufakis, but the rest of the EU doesn't give a rat's ass what the Greeks think. At this point they probably consider all Greeks to be idiots.

Re:Perhaps half of us are

[BasilBrush]

It makes all the difference in the world. The creditors want regime change. They've just been shown they can't have it.

they probably consider all Greeks to be idiots.

I'm afraid you're projecting there.

Re:Perhaps half of us are

[jwdb]

I'm afraid you're projecting there.

Not based on what I hear from other Belgians...

It makes all the difference in the world. The creditors want regime change. They've just been shown they can't have it.

Even if I were to accept that is their goal (and you've given zero arguments for why it would be), why would that strengthen Greece? If they've been shown they definitively can't get what they want from Greece, that therefore ends their relationship, and they're even more likely to kick Greece to the curb rather than if they were just chasing after their money. If you're right, Greece is now in an even weaker position than I've been arguing.

You cannot conclude through any logical process that: 1) the EU is still dealing with Greece because they want to execute a regime change; 2) the EU has now been shown they can't have it; 3) therefore, the current Greek regime is in a stronger negotiating position. But (3) does not follow from (1) and (2), rather what follows is that the EU will now lose interest because they can't get what they want, and Greece will be cut loose.

There's not really much point in debating if you can't even make your chain of thought hang together consistently. Get back to me if and when you figure how to make a substantive argument.

Re:Perhaps half of us are

[BasilBrush]

You're saying that most Belgians are racist?

You cannot conclude through any logical process that: 1) the EU is still dealing with Greece because they want to execute a regime change; 2) the EU has now been shown they can't have it; 3) therefore, the current Greek regime is in a stronger negotiating position. But (3) does not follow from (1) and (2)

I never said 3 follows from 1 and 2. But all three are true. Perhaps the ingredient that you're missing is that the Euro is a German and French plan more than anything. If the Eurozone fails, they lose big time. And if Greece falls out of the Eurozone it may be like toppling dominos. That's why Greece is in a stronger position than you imagine.

Re:Perhaps half of us are

[micahraleigh]

Are you saying the final, literal number of euros spent by the Greek government decreased each year?

Because if you were saying that you'd be wrong.

http://www.cato.org/blog/looki...

Talk to me about "austerity" when any government actually spends less whatevers in a given year.

Everything else is just people agitating about not getting their free stuff, which apparently, somehow, they have a civil right to.

Re:Perhaps half of us are

[BasilBrush]

Are you saying the final, literal number of euros spent by the Greek government decreased each year?

Yes.

http://www.cato.org/blog/looki...

You don't understand the difference between nominal and real. The " final, literal number of euros" is the "nominal" line on your chart. And as you see it started going down in 2009.

Everything else is just people agitating about not getting their free stuff, which apparently, somehow, they have a civil right to.

You don't even understand what the words mean. You're just parroting.

Re:Perhaps half of us are

[micahraleigh]

OK, I admit. I did get the words mixed up.

Thank you for educating me.

Folklore.org

[sarkeizen]

http://www.folklore.org/

Not a bad source for stories about Jobs dickish behavior...and before some /.er wants to point it out I'll do so. There's one story with Knuth where Steve looks like a pretty big doofus. It's been reported that Knuth has denied it - in particular in a talk by Randal Monroe's where he was present - the actual quote from Knuth though could easily be interpreted as avoiding the question rather than denying it.

Re:Folklore.org

[BasilBrush]

The Knuth story is obviously apocryphal. The selection of Knuth for the story and the use of the word "all" is exactly what you would do if writing a gag. The fact that Knuth has denied it has laid it to rest for anyone who's rationality isn't blinded by hatred.

Re:Folklore.org

[gnasher719]

Not a bad source for stories about Jobs dickish behavior...and before some /.er wants to point it out I'll do so. There's one story with Knuth where Steve looks like a pretty big doofus. It's been reported that Knuth has denied it - in particular in a talk by Randal Monroe's where he was present - the actual quote from Knuth though could easily be interpreted as avoiding the question rather than denying it.

Reading the story, it is inconceivable that Knuth would have said what he said. And surely Steve didn't look like a doofus at all, but as being polite, which makes Donald Knuth's purported answer an absolute dick move. And I'm sure that Jobs knew who Knuth is, and that some employees had told him about Knuth's books and how important they are.

Re:Folklore.org

[sarkeizen]

I have yet to see where Knuth clearly denies the story. It is corroborated by the two other living people in the room (although they have differing recollections as to how strong the rebuke was). So it's at least plausible.

Re:Folklore.org

[sarkeizen]

Reading the story, it is inconceivable that Knuth would have said what he said.

If you take a look at the comments. The other person in the room recalled a somewhat softer rebuke. I'm sorry that either are beyond your ability to conceive.

And surely Steve didn't look like a doofus at all

I think someone who says "I've read all your books" to Knuth really didn't know to what he was referring. TAOCPS was at three volumes in 1986 and I doubt Steve Jobs - based on his not-very technical reputation - would have got through them. Not to mention a few books on math, typography as well as the MIX/360 users guide.

Steve Jobs accomplished some great things - with an enormous amount of help from people who actually knew how to do things - but there is absolutely no evidence that he knew anything about coding. So, to me anyway saying you've read all someones work when you clearly have not and could not. Makes you look like a doofus.

Re:Folklore.org

[BasilBrush]

Where is it corroborated by two other people in the room?

Re:Folklore.org

[sarkeizen]

The person writing the story was present Tom Zito and so was Mike Boich (who mentions this in the comments).

Re:Folklore.org

[gnasher719]

Steve Jobs accomplished some great things - with an enormous amount of help from people who actually knew how to do things - but there is absolutely no evidence that he knew anything about coding. So, to me anyway saying you've read all someones work when you clearly have not and could not. Makes you look like a doofus.

It makes you look like a polite host. Jobs knew it wasn't true, Knuth knew it wasn't true. It was just polite. (If Jobs actually said this, since Knuth denies giving the reply he supposedly gave). You know, social interaction.

Re:Folklore.org

[BasilBrush]

You believing this apocryphal tale is reality makes you look like a doofus.

Re:Folklore.org

[sarkeizen]

It makes you look like a polite host

Not really.

You know, social interaction.

Spoken like someone who as only read about such things. See if Jobs had opened with a lie like "I'm interested in your work" *that* would be a fiction which is has a social purpose (Pro Tip: In my experience just admitting ignorance probably works better). It gives the other person permission to talk about themselves. Whereas "I've read all your books" is actually anti-social. Knuth knows he can't talk about his work because he knows Jobs hasn't read it and probably knows it's beyond Job's ability to understand. Not only that but if he picked up on the obvious lead and wanted to talk about a specific work it puts Jobs in the awkward position to continue to lie or catches him in a lie (awkward for most people, for all I know Jobs lied a lot). A statement like that actually shuts social interaction down (It's the "inter" part that's important - in case your books don't cover that). Not unlike the way bragging shuts down social interaction.

So I get that you might not understand that. Social moires can be subtle. But by the time you're out of college I'm sure you'll have these things down. :-)

Re:Folklore.org

[sarkeizen]

Technically, I'm simply saying it's plausible. Knuth is a little cagey about denying it. Two people recollect some kind of rebuke. Steve wasn't exactly Mr. Modest. Knuth wasn't beyond the occasional barb.

Re:"Musk" "Elon Musk" "Minky Musky Sly Stoaty Stoa

[tepples]

I'll wait for the furry retelling.

Re:"Musk" "Elon Musk" "Minky Musky Sly Stoaty Stoa

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a subject line that's going to be entirely lost on US audiences.

Who watches these things?

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

You would have thought the market for this kind of thing would have dried up long ago.

I wonder why they keep making these movies

[DrXym]

Is there really a large audience demand to see a dramatisation about a sociopath whose company made computers and gadgets?

Re:I wonder why they keep making these movies

[Anonymous Coward]

If it weren't for the hype surrounding the iPhone, this movie would not have been produced. Steve Jobs was largely responsible for making smartphones popular.

Re:I wonder why they keep making these movies

[sound vision]

Apparently there is, they made that Facebook movie too. Could be the beginning of a new genre. Or maybe a continuation of an old genre but with tech-oriented characters... I don't watch many movies so I have few points of reference.
These movies are really just one manifestation of the general public all having iPhones and Facebook accounts now.

Re:I wonder why they keep making these movies

[Anonymous Coward]

It's really just the "based on a true story" someone made it big and you didn't formula. Which in turn is just the Underdog with Insurmountable Odds, Wins a the Last Minute, by Some Incredulous Miracle. Just plug in any person or group who made it and folks can be a bit envious of them for that success, loosely use fact, blam-o, high return on your investment with little effort.

Holistic medicine: A cure for cancer

[Anonymous Coward]

Edgy movie for an edgy man!

Doh!

[Anonymous Coward]

Just watch "Pirates of Silicon Valley". It's better than anything else ever produced or will be produced on the subject.

Re:Doh!

[Anonymous Coward]

Pirates is highly inaccurate. It's like the Saturday After School Special version of the birth of the PC industry.

Instead, I recommend Robert X. Cringely's documentary Triumph of the Nerds, where he actually talks to the people involved. You get to hear it from the horses' mouths.

It was based on the research Cringely did for his book Accidental Empires, of which he wrote:

"Not that everyone is happy with me. Certainly Bill Gates doesn’t like to be characterized as a megalomaniac, and Steve Jobs doesn’t like to be described as a sociopath, but that’s what they are. Trust me."

Jobs is admired because greed

[tekrat]

Let's face it; the reason Jobs is so admired is because we live in a "gimme gimme" world. The 1% love him because he actually did "build it" out of nothing (on the backs of thousands of other employees) -- which was their mantra while Mitt Romney was trying to prove that the 1% were the "job creators". The reality of course is that most of the very wealthy inherited their money; but that's the subject of another discussion.

What Jobs did was bully the people below him into creating great work. He knew they could do better if they just put in that 100-hour week and ended up divorced and alcoholics. Only by destroying those below you can achieve greatness by taking credit for all their hard work.

The 1% love Jobs because that's what they want to do; abuse everyone below them and in so doing, whip them into making something they'll be admired for.

But they are forgetting that Steve actually did have some out-of-the-box thinking; he wasn't a total idiot, and he could sell ice-boxes to eskimos. He actually had some skill and talent and a fuckload of charisma, and that's also why people were willing to kill themselves for him.

But the average borg-drone MBA only sees Steve being a dick, and assumes that's how he's supposed to treat his employees, and that's why America is so fucked up.

Apple made nice things, but America can't have nice things. Unless of course, you're already fabulously wealthy.

Re: Jobs is admired because greed

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know what hole your crawling around in because building empires of the backs of others is how civilization works.

Name any time in world history where that has not occurred.

Re:Jobs is admired because greed

[BasilBrush]

I admire Jobs because he made design, quality and user experience the overriding factors in creating products. And he had the confidence to know that approach would win out in the end. And the taste to be able to personally ensure the company kept on track.

The people who hate jobs are invariably people who don't appreciate design, and think it's just decoration.

Re:Jobs is admired because greed

[Anonymous Coward]

I have yet to see one photo of Jobs building, engineering, or designing ANYTHING. People seem to lump this great credit upon him, but there is no evidence of it. He rubber stamped other people's hard work, and used his sales skills to sell it to the rubes.

Re: Jobs is admired because greed

[Anonymous Coward]

Since you know so much, you must also know that all empires have fallen eventually. So does that mean they ran out of backs?

Re:Jobs is admired because greed

[jammz]

This!!!!!!!!!!

What everyone on Slashdot who hates Jobs forgets, is how critical he was in one of the most massive transformations in technology of the past forty years: It's about the user stupid! Prior to his near manic obsession with his "perfect experiences," most technology companies, run by engineers, focused on the cool technology. Jobs helped to make technology a tool for the masses. Now, in a post-Jobs world and thanks to very smart people at companies like IDEO, which exists in large part because of Apple's impact, some tech companies focus on customer experiences.

Regardless of your feelings about Jobs, our world would be a VERY different place if "human centric" and "customer experience" concepts didn't exist or were introduced later by other people. There was no one in tech at the time who, like Jobs, understood how to sell and how to push people to care about customer's wants and needs. That's why Apple is one of the largest and most successful companies in American history.

Re:Jobs is admired because greed

[Anonymous Coward]

He designed the calculator desk accessory interface on the original Mac:

http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Calculator_Construction_Set.txt

Re:Jobs is admired because greed

[Anonymous Coward]

Those people must just be holding it wrong...

I don't care how good the design is if the product does not work

Re:Jobs is admired because greed

[Uberbah]

Those people must just be holding it wrong...

As opposed to all those other cell phone companies? Enjoying your Galaxy 6 with the screen that breaks (as opposed to only bending)?

And you all thought that Bill Gates was bad...

[alexjplant]

The Jobs hagiography and cult-like behavior surrounding Apple products from my generation ("millennials") is disturbing. If I had a nickel for the number of times that I asked somebody to click the Start button only to be met with the response "Where's that? Oh, sorry... I use a Mac at home" I'd be a billionaire. Which is more believable: that you don't know the location of a UI element that's been an institution SINCE THE DAY YOU POPPED OUT OF YOUR MOTHER THAT EXISTS ON A PLATFORM WITH GREATER THAN 90% MARKET PENETRATION or that you're not-so-subtly objecting to the hyperbolic pain and anguish that is the necessity of using Windows NT in a corporate environment? Apple's shit is just as uniquely stinky as every other tech vendor's. Their error messages are even more garbage and cryptic than Windows (ever try connecting to a CIFS-shared printer on OS X?). OS X apps crash with the same degree of regularity as Windows. And on top of all of this their UI is downright abhorrent and unapologetically dedicated to what some focus group leader perceives to be the LCD of computer users. OS X is the only desktop environment I've struggled to grok after having used at least a dozen different ones with some degree of regularity in my lifetime. Nothing about Apple at this point distinguishes it from the myriad of other offerings in the consumer IT world except for their Flavor-Aid, "Genius Bars," and pricing model. Jobs created a monster that's far greater of a threat to our freedom than M$. I can't help but think that we'd have been better off had NeXT succeeded and he hadn't had the smug satisfaction of returning to Apple and riding it up from its lowest point in history.

Re:And you all thought that Bill Gates was bad...

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you care to cite any of your claims? It seems to me that you're an anti-Apple cultist which still makes you a cultist. Pot meet kettle.
 
I thought your ilk had finally left Slashdot and migrated to Facebook where you post endless Apple bashing memes but still ask your local IT guy what the which microSD card will work with your Samsung Galaxy Note phablet.

Re:And you all thought that Bill Gates was bad...

[Dog-Cow]

If you really can't get the OS X UI, you are too stupid for words. Kill yourself for the IQ boost.

Re:And you all thought that Bill Gates was bad...

[alexjplant]

Yes, that must be it. Either that or the fact that they assume that everybody thinks in the same narrow paradigms and shoehorn everything into them under the guise of 'usability.' The fact that Apple keyboards eschew Home and End buttons is more than enough to frustrate me to the point of aneurysm, let alone the "Dock," network share navigation... the list goes on and on. Give me *box and Thunar any day of the week. I stopped having to have mommy hold my hand in public I was 5 years old; I don't deserve to have a computer do the same to me so many years later.

Re:And you all thought that Bill Gates was bad...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you really can't get the Metro UI, you are too stupid for words. Kill yourself for the IQ boost.
If you really can't get the Android UI, you are too stupid for words. Kill yourself for the IQ boost.
If you really can't get the Nokia pre-MS, you are too stupid for words. Kill yourself for the IQ boost.
If you really can't get the Windows pre-Metro UI, you are too stupid for words. Kill yourself for the IQ boost.

Re:And you all thought that Bill Gates was bad...

[ColdWetDog]

As you pointed out, OS X has a single digit market share in most places. So who in the hell are you talking to all of the time? Besides, if you are exposed to this weirdo OS all the time and you have an IQ higher than my Labrador Retriever, you should have been able to figure most of this stuff out.

It's for the 'rest of us' after all.

Snowflake.

Re:And you all thought that Bill Gates was bad...

[Anonymous Coward]

To be fair, I haven't used Windows since "winxp" (Linux user, never used Apple), and recently tried to launch Notepad at Staples on Win8, and couldn't figure out how... So the GUI stuff is crewed up all over (except obviously on Linux---where something equivalent to a "start" button still exists).

I'll wait for "Steven Paul Jobs.."

[Anonymous Coward]

Or maybe "S.J."?

People

[msobkow]

People will put up with a lot of shit if you're brilliant.

If you're just average, they're just going to call you "Asshole!" and walk away.

Teaching people to emulate Jobs is teaching them to be dicks, not to be brilliant.

Re:People

[gnasher719]

If you look at Jobs' positives, there are very few people who come close. I mean how many people are there in the world who started a company that is worth just $10 billion today? Very, very few.

If you look at Jobs' negatives, I _know_ people personally who were much worse in their personal life, without any redeeming features. And there are plenty of bosses who behave as bad or worse, again without the redeeming features.

Because Jobs IS the interesting one

[Anonymous Coward]

Because to certain types of people, the Jobs story isn't about the 1970s, it's about 2007-. They are thinking about iPhone, not Apple II.

And the irony there is that the modern Apple is just totally evil; they forced the old IBM mainframe and videogame console "market" back into the PC, undoing the 1970s revolution.

Talking about Woz would undermine the story. That'd be like making a movie about Hitler's art teacher, and "never mind that irrelevant holocaust nonsense, which supposedly happened later assuming you believe the Jewish propaganda."

Woz is good, but the world is actually full of good people. It's the worthless pieces of shit, which happen to "make it" to fame (rather than infame) in spite of their social handicap, that are so fascinating. You gotta realize, most evil people get caught, noticed, shunned, etc. (Society is actually pretty good at this and not nearly so impotent as cynics often suggest. But it's not perfect.) The lucky exceptions are always going to be fascinating cases. They are where The Story is and they really are worth pointing out, discussing, etc.

The limelight is a separate issue from inspiration. Inspiration hasn't ever needed a limelight anyway. Anyone can trivially see the value in goodness. Evil is what always needs study and highlighting.

What story would you tell about Woz? What would be so interesting? Where's the drama? Where's the chink in society's armor that he "exploited?" I think there isn't one. People like Woz are supposed to do what they do. It's people like Jobs that we often assume we're safe from. And we usually are, except when we're not. ;-)

Re:"Musk" "Elon Musk" "Minky Musky Sly Stoaty Stoa

[pushing-robot]

I'm hoping it opens with a young Elon watching as his parents are brutally hunted for their scent glands.

Not everyone wants a simple life

[sjbe]

And isn't that a better, much more realistic goal a parent should push their kid towards than founding a global tech company?

Depends on the kid. I don't think you can realistically push anyone to be a global tech icon. That has to come from within and requires more than a tiny bit of luck. What you can do though is help provide opportunity and structure and see what happens.

Working a well paying job that allows you to live comfortably and gives you enough free time and means to do something you enjoy at home, what more could you ask for?

Nothing wrong with what you describe but it won't change the world either. Some people want more out of their career than a comfortable life. Speaking for myself I've founded several companies, have run several others and I very much enjoy what I do for a living. I don't just want a basic 9-5 job with a few weeks vacation and a 401K. I want something more than that. I want to create successful companies. You aren't going to do that playing it safe or doing the comfortable easy thing.

Re:Not everyone wants a simple life

[Nidi62]

Nothing wrong with what you describe but it won't change the world either. Some people want more out of their career than a comfortable life. Speaking for myself I've founded several companies, have run several others and I very much enjoy what I do for a living. I don't just want a basic 9-5 job with a few weeks vacation and a 401K. I want something more than that. I want to create successful companies. You aren't going to do that playing it safe or doing the comfortable easy thing.

I never said something like this was a bad thing, just that you don't push children into wanting to do something like that. Like you said, it comes from within.

Hopefully you can't teach that anyway

[ArhcAngel]

It is believed that being a sociopath is a genetic condition so I don't think it can be taught.

Too Late

[Anonymous Coward]

"So, is inspiring kids to become the "Next Steve Jobs" a good or bad thing?"

So you're asking if making a society filled with self absorbed millenials is bad thing?

Woz is a nice guy but nice is boring to watch

[sjbe]

Agreed. I would much rather see a movie about Woz.

I think you are firmly in the minority there. I have huge respect for Woz but he's just not all that interesting of a guy. I've read his autobiography and honestly it was pretty dull and I'm firmly in the group that should be the target audience. Furthermore without Jobs you'd have never heard of Woz. Possibly the reverse is true as well but I have a strong suspicious Jobs would have been more likely of the two to succeed without the other. I say that meaning no disrespect to Woz at all. Great guy, great engineer, but he is a perfect example of catching lighting in a bottle.

Not only was his work much more interesting than anything Jobs did, but he's a character who I could actually root for.

The only people who think that Woz's work is more interesting are the sort of people (like us) who read slashdot. Jobs is a FAR more complex and challenging and intriguing character. The fact that you may not like him doesn't make him less interesting - quite the opposite. Flawed characters make for interesting stories. Nice guys doing the right thing is pretty boring most of the time. Nice but not a compelling story.

When I watch a Jobs bio, I spend most of the time hoping one of the other characters onscreen will just beat the shit out of him.

Which is a more interesting take than watching Woz and just thinking "what a nice guy" all the time.

Hmm...

[__aaclcg7560]

I keep watching the Sony trailer but I don't see Steve Jobs anywhere. Just a clean shaven, German-looking egomaniac moving back and forth across the screen.

Re:Hmm...

[Neo-Rio-101]

I saw Christian Bale in "American Psycho II" from the trailer.

Re:Hmm...

[__aaclcg7560]

Strange... I didn't see anyone say, "I'M STEVE JOBS!"

Testing a man's character

[sjbe]

All of us may be dicks, but very few of us are so dickish as to fuck over even Woz.

That's because very few of us will ever have such an opportunity. While I think most people are generally good and decent, experience has taught me that an awful lot of those same good and decent people are not above temptation. There are a lot of people (including some reading this most likely) who would screw over a friend for financial gain. People will steal if they think they can get away with it. I think Abraham Lincoln said it best - "Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."

Re:Testing a man's character

[rockout]

What you think is of little consequence, as Lincoln never said that pithy quote. http://www.greatamericanhistor...

Re:Testing a man's character

[NotDrWho]

You have a pretty weak sense of morality if you can be tempted to screw over one of your best friends for a mere $2,200.

He was a liar and craptastic 'parent'

[Morpeth]

The whole thing with his daughter (lying about paternity, even lying in open court saying he was infertile -- it's on record), so he didn't have to take responsibility for her, that alone to me put him high on the raging asshole list. Meanwhile he was already a millionaire, and the mother had to go onto public assistance to get by.

Sure, he eventually reconnected with his daughter, once she was like 18 and after he was now a billionaire -- but those early years without a father, can never, ever be replaced not matter what you do.

I'm NOT getting into the MS vs. Apple thing, but I'm much more impressed by what Gates has done with his life & fortunes that Jobs.

Re:He was a liar and craptastic 'parent'

[gnasher719]

The whole thing with his daughter ...

And I know people who have been worse. A lot worse. Fathers where the problem was not that they weren't there, but that they were there.

And comparing to Gates, Gates got involved with a woman whom he then married much, much later in his life. Jobs also got married much, much later in his life and I haven't heard anything bad about that marriage, and about his children from this marriage. And who says there aren't one or two little Gates' around somewhere in the world who never knew who their father is?

Re:He was a liar and craptastic 'parent'

[Anonymous Coward]

A lot of asshole fathers know they can get away with it.

Just because one asshole father decides that it's starting to become too big in the public's eye and then concedes doesn't make him an asshole. It just makes him a bigger asshole for lying that he cares. Considering everything else he's done, there's no way he reconnected with them because of the kindness of his own heart.

Too badd about Patches

[pubwvj]

Too bad Matt Patches can't learn to communicate elegantly rather than using foul language. He has no credibility as a result. Ignored.

Paths to success

[sjbe]

Jobs is uninspiring to me. Without Woz, there would have been no innovation to sell, but with those two, they had an actual product to show off first thing.

No company of any consequence is built by just one person. The error in your argument is you are presuming that Jobs couldn't have found another path or partner to success without Woz. Given that Jobs built three companies (Apple, NeXT and Pixar) it seems somewhat reasonable that chances of Jobs succeeding without Woz would be fairly high. We wouldn't have Apple but perhaps we would have had something else.

Whether Jobs is inspiring to you or not is a matter of personal choice and I don't disagree. Clearly he was very inspiring to a lot of people. It's ok if you aren't one of them. Personally I respect what he accomplished professionally (hard not to) but he's not someone I idolize or care to emulate personally. I doubt I would have liked to work with/for the man.

virtually every other CEO has done something to better the world... and Jobs's legacy doesn't seem to be one of philanthropy.

There are more ways to improve the world than through philanthropy. As just one small example: the iPhone I have sitting on my desk allows me to easily Facetime with my mother in Texas who is in a nursing home in hospice. I assure you that I regard that as an improvement to the world and Mr. Jobs is in no small way responsible for that being possible. Yes the guy was a major dick in some very tangible ways but to claim he's done nothing positive really isn't fair or accurate.

Re:Paths to success

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL, you think FT is a revolution? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.... Get off Slashdot, seriously... This is a place for nerds that have a technical background.

There's like a million other video conferencing software or even built in to most 3G capable phones a decade before your mom was in a nursing home. If your mom is able to dial a phone, she could have video called by pressing the button next to "dial" on most flip phones.

Also, you think he "built" Pixar? Read the wiki - he was just moneybags and was going to sell the company BECAUSE IT WAS LOSING MONEY until they blundered on to Toy Story -- and mostly because of John Lassiter -- another failing company until they lucked out on something he likely had no part of and wasn't expecting saved by the skills of someone else in the company.

Next being a success? Just 50,000 units sold? A hardware unit that was eventually killed off laying off 80% of it's workforce? A web server technology that was barely used and at this point used by just one company?

If that's the best you can do as an example of positive contribution, then you deserve to be laughed at.

WHY??

[Anonymous Coward]

We don't CARE#!!!!!!!!

Never be the "next" of anything.

[Anonymous Coward]

If one aspires to be the "next" anything or anyone, they have the wrong dream. Trying to be someone else or even just be like them is a sure path to misery.

Now being inspired by kindness, diligence, and other character traits is quite OK and I would suggest that one tries finding someone like that you know. Famous people are the worst for inspiration - most of their life is smoke and mirrors exaggerated by publicists and their failings exaggerated by muckrakers.

Trailer left me unimpressed

[bfwebster]

I didn't know Jobs well, but I did have a number of direct conversations with him, sat in on meetings at NeXT with him, spent five years developing software for NeXTstep, and had many talks with people who worked closely him (again, mostly at NeXT); our last conversation was him calling me up to yell at me for an op-ed piece of mine in BYTE (Nov 94) called "Whither Nextstep?"

With that tee-up, I'll say that Fassbender's portrayal of Jobs in this trailer pretty much falls flat. Fassbender looks too professional and lacks that burning gaze that Jobs used to such great effect, even while using up the people around him. Frankly, Fassbender comes across more like John Scully trying to act like Steve Jobs than like Jobs himself. Also, it took me a bit to realize that Seth Rogan was supposed to be playing Woz; again, the wrong vibes and aura. Frankly, I think that Jack Black with a beard would have been a better choice for Woz. ..bruce..

Re:Trailer left me unimpressed

[jammz]

Agreed! I never had direct conversations with Jobs, but I saw interactions at Apple with others and I agree, Fassbender's portrayal is too soft and unfocused. There's none of the laser like intensity that seemed to radiate from Jobs.

Re:Trailer left me unimpressed

[Anonymous Coward]

> Also, it took me a bit to realize that Seth Rogan was supposed to be playing Woz; again, the wrong vibes and aura.

Me too, it's just too unlike Woz to be harping at Jobs like that.

It's pretty bad

[Anonymous Coward]

But not as bad as the 24th re-telling of the Spider-Man story.

I think there's something to be said...

[spads]

...for doing him justice as a "dick weasel".

2 criticisms

[sribe]

1) Of course they're going for drama, thus will focus on and magnify anything they can find that makes Jobs look "mercurial".

2) Is it true, what I read a couple of weeks ago, that in the movie the team that built the Mac is depicted as 8 men? If that is actually the case, the director and producer should dragged onto the back lot and shot. The team that built the Mac was 8 men and 4 women. Why on earth would they, in the year 2015, write the women out of the story???

Where is pirates of the Silicon Valley 2?

[Tighe_L]

Just wondering as it seems like I would like to see how they would do it.

Re:"Musk" "Elon Musk" "Minky Musky Sly Stoaty Stoa

[Totenglocke]

At least Elon Musk has done some original things, as opposed to Steve Jobs who just took someone else's idea, gave it a spit-shine, then sold it for three times as much.

Zen and the Art of Creating Computers

[Art3x]

"I'm gonna see it! I want it to be as beautiful as possible, even if it's inside the box. A great carpenter isn't going to use lousy wood for the back of a cabinet, even though nobody's going to see it." This is Steve Jobs pushing the Macintosh team to redesign the circuit board because some of the spacing was ugly.

Steve Jobs also pushed them to make it boot as fast as possible, rejected computer fans because of noise, and said a multibutton mouse would be inelegant. He went to great pains to make the Apple Store out of glass. Even his slides were Zen.

He was a complex character. He certainly wasn't your typical businessman:

"My passion has been to build an enduring company where people were motivated to make great products . . . the products, not the profits, were the motivation. Sculley flipped these priorities to where the goal was to make money. It's a subtle difference, but it ends up meaning everything."

Name one original thing that Elon Musk has done.

[Brannon]

Or anybody else for that matter. Everything under the sun has prior art. Every "new" invention involves combining some prior technology with a spit-shine and then reselling it.

Apple is held to a standard that noone else in technology has ever been held to.

Really?

[hduff]

He was an asshat who accomplished some interesting things.

Let's just leave it at that.

Re: Name one original thing that Elon Musk has don

[gmiller123456]

The point he was trying to make was the Jobs didn't invent anything, not even an improvement over an old invention. He was just a charasmatic guy who got other people to do the work for him.

you havent read his bio carefully

[peter303]

Musk didnt start paypal but merged into it.
Musk bought Tesla from a couple of creative engineers. He didnt start it.
However he great job of making both prominent companies.

Nope, you misunderstood, I guess ...

[King_TJ]

I actually have 3 kids and I wasn't trying to say what he did was "simply ok" at all!

I'm just saying it's definitely a thought that runs through the heads of immature guys when they find themselves in those kinds of situations. I watched it happen with people I knew through the crazy "dot com" era.

I think Steve J. managed to turn his personal life around considerably as he got older but there's no doubt it took him a long time to address his issues. (On the flip side? At least he finally did.... More than I can say for most Hollywood actors/actresses and celebs out there.)

Re:Nope, you misunderstood, I guess ...

[Xest]

"I'm just saying it's definitely a thought that runs through the heads of immature guys when they find themselves in those kinds of situations. I watched it happen with people I knew through the crazy "dot com" era."

It's not all immature guys though that's the problem, most guys making it to adulthood without getting a girl pregnant. The only ones who do are frankly, the ones that are dicks, and I think that's kind of the point being made here.

I know the point you're trying to make, that we make more stupid decisions when we're younger, but there are some decisions that can't just be put down to immaturity, some are just down to pure dickishness. Even some dicks that get their teenage girlfriends pregnant are more than capable of sticking with their girlfriend and raising their kid with her. The only ones that don't are dicks regardless as to whether they're immature or not and I think that's the point the GP is making - immaturity isn't an excuse for some things, some things you just know are wrong no matter how old you are - things like murder, and getting a girl pregnant and then refusing to support the kid.

As such I think the point is that his immaturity just doesn't matter. It's not an excuse for that particular thing. If we were talking about driving fast and writing a car off or something, or getting high on weed and so on then sure, fair enough, but getting a girl pregnant and refusing to support her? that's not immaturity, that's just raw dickishness.

The real question:

[ceoyoyo]

Is encouraging kids to grow up to be a trailer reviewer a good thing?

Steve jobs...

[Anonymous Coward]

...deserved to die in total agony. He was a king sized cunt that did more to hurt this world than help it. Fuck that slimy piece of shit. I hope he has his own personal hell to rot in.

Re:"Musk" "Elon Musk" "Minky Musky Sly Stoaty Stoa

[vought]

Yeah, you're right. Engineers would be so much better off if we just let them develop their ideas, market them, and fail in peace.

Re: Name one original thing that Elon Musk has don

[vought]

For all his faults, he was terrific at determining what people actually wanted to buy and directing engineers to create that.

Your invention is worthless if no one uses it.

Re: Name one original thing that Elon Musk has don

[vought]

"not even an improvement over an old invention."

Right. Because the Macintosh was exactly like the Xerox Star, right down to the three-button Mouse and Smalltalk commands. Which Jobs licensed for a very agreeable amount - and he then directed the improvements that led to the popular GUI-driven personal computer.

The iMac - a minimalist, low-cost, laptop-derived machine with a CRT that was extremely easy to set up and which was design-forward - good-looking enough to put it in the center of your living area and not hide under a desk. Yeah, that was totally already done.

I wonder sometimes if Slashdot has gotten any better, then I come over and read stuff like this in the 'discussion' and realize it's just the same old, same old.

Inspiration to Salesmen, Con Men & Politicians

[Anonymous Coward]

Steve Jobs wasn't a tech visionary, and only became a stellar businessman later in life. What he was is a marketer, and a marketer nonpareil at that. He could sell anything. That reality distortion field? That much lauded charisma? That's pure marketing muscle right there. That was his superpower.

You can thank Steve Wozniak (and the army of Apple engineers to come after him) for the actual technology, Dieter Rams for supplying all of the great iconic designs that Apple's 'designers' shamelessly rip off for a living, and Mike Markkula for actually getting the damned business of the ground. What was Steve Jobs good for? He pitched the products, he rallied the troops, he got people to follow his lead and toe the company line, but that was really all he was good for. Granted, those are immensely important duties in a large organization such as Apple, but when Steve started doing the other thing he did best - muscling his friends out of the company, taking credit for other peoples' work, stabbing his allies in the back, and pretending that he was the real genius of the company when he was at best the captain of the Apple cheer squad - the company floundered, and eventually he got his lousy ass thrown out. (A fat lot of good it did 'em at the time.) It was only after going out and actually learning how to do a bunch of the shit he deluded himself and others into thinking he was actually doing (such as running a business and wisely investing in good technology) that he became valuable enough for Apple to willingly bring him back on board. Surely without him Apple probably wouldn't have been but a shadow of itself during its glory days in the 1980's and again in the early 2000's, but let's be frank here: Steve Jobs was a marketing visionary and a deal-maker, not a technology visionary, and his cult of personality, not his knowledge of consumer electronics, is why he was effective.

People like Steve Jobs are dangerous. Ignoring his myriad personality flaws and the plain fact that he was an enormous asshole, I'm not sure I'd want to inspire anyone to be like him without a big fat disclaimer at the very least that with great power comes great responsibility, and that just because you sell the product doesn't mean you're the one who gets to be in charge. There are plenty of people out there like him, people with leadership skills who coast on cults of personality. Occasionally we call them salesmen, other times con men, and frequently, politicians.

Re: Name one original thing that Elon Musk has don

[Rakarra]

The iMac - a minimalist, low-cost, laptop-derived machine with a CRT that was extremely easy to set up and which was design-forward - good-looking enough to put it in the center of your living area and not hide under a desk. Yeah, that was totally already done.

Are we talking about these things? The only time something like that was good enough looking to put in the living room was a short period in the 60s (if they came out in the 70s, they would have been uglier shades of orange and earthen brown). I'd rather have a beige mini-tower in comparison.

It was not exactly a stunning debut for Ive's design; he got a lot better when he discovered the joys of barely-translucent white. Most of the rest of his designs have been home runs.

Steve Jobs - Poster Child for Adoptions Problems

[Anonymous Coward]

Teach kids to be visionary, smart, and not assholes.

I kind of feel sorry for Jobs, as his life shows many symptoms of what damage can happen when a child is "abandoned" and then adopted. But that does not excuse his being an asshole.

NOTHING excuses anyone inflicting their problems and pain on others.

eye of the beholder

[micahraleigh]

Ashton Kutcher found something inspiring (both in his film portrayal but moreso at the Nickelodeon awards) about someone who might not have seemed that way to those in his life.

Re:Inspiration to Salesmen, Con Men & Politici

[Anonymous Coward]

> Steve Jobs wasn't a tech visionary

He saw what technology could be, and immediately grasped the potential of personal computers.

> and only became a stellar businessman later in life.

If by "later in life" you mean after he returned to Apple, I would argue that building a multi-million dollar company before you're 30 qualifies as "stellar business," even if you fuck up after the initial growth period.

> What he was is a marketer, and a marketer nonpareil at that. He could sell anything. That reality distortion field? That much lauded charisma?
> That's pure marketing muscle right there.

Yes, he immediately saw that Woz's computer was something people would want to buy. I don't know what you have against marketing, but it's how you find out about products you want and how to buy them.

Still, he got very lucky that the Apple II was the right product in the right place at the right time. People who succeed in business often attribute it to their own skill, and discount the role that luck plays. Just statistically speaking, some are bound to win and some to lose.

Given the market circumstances at the time, Apple almost couldn't help but sell millions of units. That doesn't mean it wasn't a good product, though.

somethig good might just come out this time

[creebhills]

well well well, i see, lets just keep our fingers crossed... CREEBHILLS BLOG REVIEW|FORBES RELEASES LIST OF THE 2015 WORLD'S HIGHEST-PAID SUPERSTARS

Awesome!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Steve Jobs was a total dick in real life! Just ask the real creator of the Apple computer, Woz.

Re:Awesome!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Woz's own words:

"We never had a fight or an argument - we were always friends."

"I judge people by how nice they are, and I was brought up to be nice. I just don’t make (enemies); I’m a non-conflict person. Steve Jobs had a lot of these questionable things, like some of my very best friends in Apple... almost all of them said they would never, ever work for Steve Jobs again. It was that bad."

"When you judge Steve as a person - the great things he brings to the world versus, maybe, these encroachments on personal decency or personal honesty with other people or disrespect of people when they've worked very hard and do a great job and he'll say, "Oh, that's just shitty," that sort of thing - those are probably outweighed by the good that he does for the world."

Re:Inspiration to Salesmen, Con Men & Politici

[Anonymous Coward]

I think what the GP is trying to say (and if so it's something I agree with) is this:

A lot of people think Steve Jobs invented the personal computer. No kidding, and you probably know this too. Even if they don't, they think he invented Apple's product line, which he didn't, and that he built the first Apple computers, which he also didn't. It's also arguable that he didn't build the company since, as the GP also pointed out, Markkula was doing the real heavy lifting there especially early on. (We know precisely what happened when Jobs finally took the wheel, as further proof that he had no idea what he was doing at the time.)

Jobs was to Apple what Jack Benny was to Jell-O. He was a salesman, someone who got people really interested in the company, made the brand a household name, and so on; But the difference here is that nobody's going around saying that Jack Benny invented Jell-O. A combination of his own ego, his personality cult, and skewed public perceptions that persist to this day lead people to believe that Steve Jobs did it all himself, which seemed at times to even be something he might have believed as well. That's a huge lie.

Being a marketer's fine, it's not even the problem. The problem is that the one thing Steve Jobs could sell better than an appliance is himself, which has lead to him having a (in my sincere opinion) completely undeserved reputation as this techno-capitalist wunderkind that created Apple from thin air without any help at all. The legend and the man don't line up, and that's a prickly issue.

On the other hand, legends can be perfectly useful, I guess. Want to inspire people to study STEM? Tell 'em that's what Steve Jobs did. If lying bothers you, just remember that nobody proved better that belief is the greater part of action than that guy.

Re: Name one original thing that Elon Musk has don

[Anonymous Coward]

If you are claiming that there's no original inventions, I would advise you to stop drinking Apple kool-aid and sucking Apple dicks.

Go play with your round corners.

Re: Name one original thing that Elon Musk has do

[Anonymous Coward]

What are you smoking?
Apple took our school board for millions on shitty iMac's. they were ugly, slow and crashed often. We would have had about 50% more PCâ(TM)S for the price with longer usability period.

You lost all credibility saying iMac's are original. That is fucking silly.

Soon on a cinema near you!

[qrwe]

"The Amazing Jobs"

Re:Inspiration to Salesmen, Con Men & Politici

[Anonymous Coward]

True, Jobs sucked as a manager at Apple, but he learned his lesson after being forced out and having to run NeXT basically by himself. He at least learned the value of putting good people in charge.

He hired Markkula, and he hired Scully, so if they were the ones who built Apple's business, it's indirectly due to Jobs.

Jobs wasn't that brilliant a marketer, anyway, judging by his misfires with the Lisa, the original Mac (128k and a single floppy?) and the NeXT Cube (no color in 1988?). He had a passion for creating products that were beautiful and that people would want, but he never listened when users told him what they didn't want.

Re:Inspiration to Salesmen, Con Men & Politici

[Anonymous Coward]

It's kind of fascinating to see in retrospect where his blind spots were, on that subject.

Like, where he was strong, the aesthetic stuff. He knew the importance of image, helped turn a gadget into a fashion statement and then a status symbol, he knew about that. Back in the 80's and the early 90's though, it was like he was selling polished dog droppings after the Apple II craze came and went. The tech equivalent of lemon cars. (The NeXTcube was released in 1990, by the way. It was still grayscale, and still cost an absolute fortune. You're thinking of the original NeXT, which... same story.)

He definitely came into his own after he went and did his own thing, but not a second before.

Re:"Musk" "Elon Musk" "Minky Musky Sly Stoaty Stoa

[Whiteox]

Can we have some BBWs in there as well?

The next Jobs? Nah.

[Anonymous Coward]

We have enough greed people in the world.

Re:Inspiration to Salesmen, Con Men & Politici

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, I did mean the original NeXT machine (which was a cube) from 1988, not the revised one actually named NeXTcube. I wasn't aware of that renaming.

When I first saw a NeXT, I was stunned that a full 3 years after the Amiga showed what could be done with custom hardware (4096 colors!) Jobs was still pushing monochrome. Yes, the resolution was higher and the display crystal clear, but at that price point they should have set the bar for hi-res color video.

Jobs...

[stolidobserver]

If it doesn't involve butt-seks, then it isn't Hollywood. The agenda cannot be forgotten!

it's obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

Jobs was a MARKETING genius.

Jobs was one part traditional American entrepreneur (bombastic marketing, confidence in his product, keen insight about his customers) and one part traditional evil international business executive (fire all your middle class workers, use slave labor wherever possible, take credit for the work of others, pretend you'd be forced out of business if you had to behave in a civilized manner, lobby politicians to let you move money work and resources across international boundaries without taxes or tariffs (which should be shifted onto those middle class workers you fired) and so forth...)

Steve jobs brilliantly sold average unimportant and slightly stupid people the idea that they needed to pay far too much for a computerized phone with an unlimited bandwidth internet connection (which does not actually exist, but he left the phone companies to take the blame for that) so they could feel important (as though they were famous or powerful people the entire world needed to be able to reach on a moment's notice) while in reality they were mostly facebooking and tweeting, playing games and reading horoscopes..... while he himself was smart enough NOT to waste all his time that way and not to raise a kid that way. Snake oil. Before the smartphone, the entire world worked fine without one. I'm NOT a luddite, just making a point that the particular item he most successfully marketed has become, thanks to his marketing, something an entire generation now thinks it cannot LIVE without even though everybody was fine without it only a few years ago - a stunning success for a marketing guy.

In short, if you want your kid to have a sliver of a chance of being fabulously wealthy (more slim than the chances of success as a rock star or pro athlete) and having a big impact on the shiny baubles average people think they MUST buy and own, then Steve Jobs is a great role model. If you want to raise a kid to be a great person with a happy life and/or somebody who does things that actually make the actual lives of others better, or civilization better, etc there are numerous far better role models. There are brilliant doctors like Ben Carson (Politics aside), excellent professors (like the late Feynman), scientists, engineers (Woz is a spectacular example), soldiers, sailors, astronauts (ignoring diaper lady), Artists, Musicians, ..... there are excellent and truly remarkable people in most areas of life who are far better role models for 99.99% of kids

If you are old enough to remember the "Integrated Woz Machine", you probably remember which guy made Apple (the business) work, and which guy made Apple (the machine) work and which guy treated people like machines and which guy treated people like people..... 'nuff said.

Re:it's obvious

[Uberbah]

Jobs was a MARKETING genius.

Did Jobs place mines around Madison Avenue and snipers on roof tops to keep everyone else out? Apple is coming up on 40, but no other technology company has been able to craft an ad campaign in all that time?

Hatebois gonna hate.

Re: Name one original thing that Elon Musk has don

[Anonymous Coward]

Right. Because the Macintosh was exactly like the Xerox Star, right down to the three-button Mouse and Smalltalk commands. Which Jobs licensed for a very agreeable amount

Apple didn't license anything from Xerox. In fact, Xerox sued Apple over the Lisa (and lost) for Apple's use of "their" technology, despite the fact that the mouse and windowing were created much earlier by Doug Engelbart.

Jobs gave Xerox a stock deal in exchange for a couple demos - that's all.

jobs (2013)

[sad_]

That first Jobs movie wasn't bad, it gets a lot of bad comments, but i didn't notice anything really bad about it.
And to make another one, so soon after the first, why? Said trailer doesn't really blow me away.

Re: Name one original thing that Elon Musk has don

[Plumpaquatsch]

Right. Because the Macintosh was exactly like the Xerox Star, right down to the three-button Mouse and Smalltalk commands. Which Jobs licensed for a very agreeable amount

Apple didn't license anything from Xerox. In fact, Xerox sued Apple over the Lisa (and lost) for Apple's use of "their" technology, despite the fact that the mouse and windowing were created much earlier by Doug Engelbart.

Even if your whole narrative about Apple wasn't bunk, the fact that Douglas Engelbart's only relation with Xerox is that some co-workers basically took his work and moved over there is the icing on the dumb-cake that is your claim.

Re: Name one original thing that Elon Musk has don

[Anonymous Coward]

Everything I said is true. Apple did create their GUI based on what Xerox showed them, but they built it from scratch.

Alan Kay came up with Smalltalk, but he never worked with Engelbart at Stanford, and the Stanford people who worked at PARC basically took the ideas with them in the same way Apple took them from Xerox.

Xerox never made a penny from Apple other than via a business transaction. Apple sold Xerox some pre-IPO stock shares in exchange for getting its peek at PARC technology, but it never received a license for it. In 1989, Xerox filed a $150 million suit against Apple, alleging that the Lisa and Macintosh misrepresented Xerox copyrights, but the company was unsuccessful in winning a favorable decision.

The idea [of windows] was developed at the Stanford Research Institute (led by Douglas Engelbart). Their earliest systems supported multiple windows, but there was no obvious way to indicate boundaries between them (such as window borders, title bars, etc.)

Steve did see Smalltalk when he visited PARC. He saw the Smalltalk integrated programming environment, with the mouse selecting text, pop-up menus, windows, and so on. The Lisa group at Apple built a system based on their own ideas combined with what they could remember from the Smalltalk demo, and the Mac folks built yet another system. There is a significant difference between using the Mac and Smalltalk.

We created Jobs

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, I was there in the early days of Apple. Jobs could be a 'dick' or could be completely charming. Depended on the day of the week or what he was trying to get. A key point however..... people needed a 'dick' then. Money came from either 'super dick' VCs or 'little dick' Angels.

People LOVED having someone who didn't care about anything other than winning. Jobs was the prototype for Obama and Hillary. Do whatever it takes to win, the 'sheep' will ignore the trail of wreckage.

He DID create something special by figuring out who were the best people and pushing them past the limits. Mac would have never existed if the patent holders at Xerox were left to their own devices. Jobs didn't have the same hangup about colleges, degrees, or pedigree that the industry did then. He simple tried to get the best people.

In my opinion, he was a sick man. Had little empathy for others, and little tact. Why? Well, I have met several like him in my career. The common thread was LSD use. Ok, Ok, I know it makes some people 'enlightened' and other 'creative', but it also makes some sociopaths.

Either something in Jobs was broken, or the LSD broke it. Only explanation I can come up with.

Re: Name one original thing that Elon Musk has don

[Anonymous Coward]

Everything I said is true.

Yeah. Like Doug Engelbart having anything to do with Xerox. And all the fucking rest. You fucking lying moronic asshole. Ladies and Gentlemen, this happens when you botch up an abortion.

imitation fails every time

[r-diddly]

Inspire your kids to be the best [name of your kid here] they can be, not any kind of Steve Jobs.

Re: Name one original thing that Elon Musk has don

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't say Engelbart had anything to do with Xerox, work on your reading comprehension.

I said Engelbart came up with windows and mice, NOT Xerox, so they can't exactly claim Apple took "their" ideas.

If you have anything constructive to add to the story, please do. Otherwise you're just another Slashdot blowhard who doesn't have a clue.

And other upcoming versions...

[Anonymous Coward]

...including the one starring Pinocchio where Jobs mistakenly gets done for sexual harassment during one of his releases?