The trouble with Steve Jobs

This line worries me:

"...chafe at his insistence on setting uniform prices for their songs and videos on iTunes..."

because it ignores keen business insight by presenting it as another example of Jobs's mercurial nature.

Joel does a good job of explaining why this is important. It is about the way that the music industry uses pricing as a signal. And Jobs wants to own that signal:

"And Apple? Apple wants the signaling to come from what they promote on the front page of the iTunes Music Store. In the battle between Apple and the recording industry over who gets to manipulate what songs you buy, Apple (like movie theaters) is going to be in favor of fixed prices, while the recording industry is going to want variable prices."

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2005/11/18.html

Not when it is material to the operations of a public company.

They chose to write a story "Steve Jobs is a loose cannon putting investors at risk". The problem is that he's just so damn good at what he does the article comes across as really awkward and forced. Too funny.

This article is really gross and creepy.

It's a stretch, but a defensible one, to report that Jobs concealed a dangerous treatable illness for 9 months.

But what possibly justification can Fortune have for reporting about Jobs' children "out of wedlock", the antics of his absent biological parents after he was given up for adoption, the lack of license plates on his car, or the contents of his secret address book?

It's hard to feel sorry for a billionaire public figure subjected to takedown pieces like this. So I don't feel sorry for him. But this reporter embarassed himself and his publication. This stuff wouldn't even pass muster on Wikipedia.

I think you meant FreeBSD.