Offtopic 2

I briefly imagined a world without Steve Jobs. I had a panic attack.

Comments

[Piquo Pie]

So you imagined a world without overpriced mediocre products labeled "I-" in front of it. You need to get out more. Nothing apple did was original and in many cases multiple companies already had similar products. He did a good job with Pixar though.

[AppleTank]

2180408
He did start the whole personal computer thing. And gave Microsoft a competitor. And popularized smart phones and music players. Don't really care much for music players, but it did change the music industry.

[Piquo Pie]

2180632

Your thinking of Dennis Ritchie who made the programming that built the computer industry from the ground up including Apple. Nothing Steve Jobs was involved with would have been possible without Dennis Ritchie who died a week after Steve Jobs and was ignored by the media in favor of a man who disowned his child as not being his despite DNA testing. Incidentally Steve grew up fatherless so WTF. But that's okay because he made shiny things.

In 1997, while Steve Jobs was CEO, things were going so bad for Apple that Microsoft had to invest $150 million and provide Microsoft software for Apple to keep them afloat. Much of the design aspects of the software are still used in apple designs today.

After that Apple was only able to return to profitability by acquiring other smaller companies and dumping millions into replicating and 'improving' products created by other companies, and often suing other companies in the process because they couldn't afford lawyers. That's the thing about big business. You can be an utter failure and if you spend you money wisely you can be the one profiting off of others hard work. Steve Jobs was a genius when it came to business and marketing but if that is the measure of a person then many a slaver would have been considered great men.

Steve Jobs had been minimized in Apple's early years due to his conflicting nature and if you look at the pattern of development those within Apple you will see that the biggest failures were derived from either Jobs or those that jobs had near daily conflicts with. He was a toxic employee.

But he was charismatic which is why the model for Apple became high markup values and lots of advertising. It's why even after his death Apple's philosophy is marketing, not innovation. I-stores recently acquired beats by Dre which sell for some $300+ when they cost an estimated $18-20 to make.

The iTunes store has also come under fire periodically over the years for not providing profits to small artists. It's one of the reasons why many small artists now use other means of propagating their work, they don't know if they will get paid. Additionally some countries have had to take legal precedent against iTunes for the parasitic nature of their business model to the point that iTunes contracts aren't recognized in some countries.

His managing skills were also terrible. He is known for firing employees as jokes and pitting two groups of employees against each other and firing the group that had what he saw as an inferior product.

Incidentally he is listed on many patents for his contributions but these contributions aren't listed but he was also the boss at the time.

He is credited in several movies along others with similar roles, but again he was always the boss. It is listed that he adapted his own version of Pong and was given a job at Atari based on the board he presented but Atari thought he had made the board, when he had only adapted the programing.

All in all he was smart, but also a toxic individual who piggybacked off of the inventions of others and used money as a weapon. He even banned an entire publishers library from the iTunes store because they published a somewhat unfavorable portrayal of him in a biography.

Sorry if it's harsh, but I abhor bad people being displayed as good people and being given credit for something that they did not do.

[AppleTank]

2183099
So basically, be super charismatic and nobody would remember/believe that he was a massive dick to his employees and that most of the time he was much better at marketing inventions than the inventors themselves?

[Piquo Pie]

2183467

He was a genius at marketing and charisma but if it didn't get the results he was looking for he didn't know how to cope.

Also, people did remember. And to be fair he had a lot of fing stress and getting in fights with coworkers probably effected him too.

As for charisma, if Hitler had won people would have had a different view. Heck, early on in Germany with Hitler, Jewish reporters would secretly go to his rallies and then find themselves rallying again Jews. I want to say that there have been a few people with that kind of charismatic power, especially when it's with a crowd that feed off of himself.

I recommend looking up a movie called the wave http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083316/ It's based on a real life series of events where a teacher was trying to show his students why people fell into Naziism. They created a rigid class structure as an experiment. The experiment spiraled out of control and kids both in and out of the school started getting beat to shit if they didn't join. The teacher was terrified of his own students who saw him as some sort of prophet figure. He managed to trick them into... Well, you should go watch it for yourselves. It's a terrifying example of how charisma, rigid organization, and group minds can interact.

Now, I might dislike Mr Jobs, but make no mistake, he was no Hitler, not even close. I was just making a point about charisma and the extreme effect it can have on people.

[AppleTank]

2183559
Huh. I'll check it out when I find the time.