There is no doubt he left his mark on the world.
However, I'd bet that > 90% of people who are praising him now would never have enjoyed working for him in any capacity.
In Praise of Bad Steve
11–20 of 86 posts
Re: In Praise of Bad Steve
#12This idea of people as heroes or villains strikes me as being myopic. The very idea that people can be either good or bad shows that we're all just mushrooms growing out of a much larger mycelium. Ever notice that so many of the most popular American tourist destinations are places like machu picchu, the great wall of china, the pyramids, etc? The fact that these places exist says far less about their creators than i…
Contrary to popular belief, the pyramids weren't built by slaves. They needed precision and skill.
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/pyramids/pyramids.html#who
Re: In Praise of Bad Steve
#13There is no doubt he left his mark on the world. However, I'd bet that > 90% of people who are praising him now would never have enjoyed working for him in any capacity.
I'll bet some of the people who willingly did so for years didn't really like "working for Steve". If you get enough satisfaction out of the results, though, that doesn't really matter as much.
People sometimes stay in otherwise intolerably boring jobs for years because they really like their bosses and/or coworkers, and sometimes they stay in incredibly exciting and fulfilling jobs for years despite loathing same.
Re: In Praise of Bad Steve
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
Couldn't this mean a number of things? 1. The device isn't fully sealed. 2. Isn't there always going to be air unless you cover each area of the device and seal it off?
I think you missed the point by a couple light years. Air escaping means there's room in the case for air to be in the first place. Air molecules aren't magic, and can't occupy the same space as other objects.
So what would happen if I dropped an Iphone 5 in water?
Re: In Praise of Bad Steve
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you missed the point by a couple light years. Air escaping means there's room in the case for air to be in the first place. Air molecules aren't magic, and can't occupy the same space as other objects.
So what would happen if I dropped an Iphone 5 in water?
No air bubbles -- it doesn't exist.
Re: In Praise of Bad Steve
#16The talk about "Bad Steve" reminds me about Gundotra telling the "Icon Ambulance" story the day that Steve stepped down, in which Steve calls him up on a Sunday because "we have an urgent issue" involving the color gradient on the Google iphone icon. https://plus.google.com/107117483540235115863/posts/gcSStkKx... For many people, that kind of anal attention to detail (and describing it as an "urgent" matter) would be…
I don't think that's really justified. Jobs had a long career, and only two real industry-dominating hits: the Apple II (most of which was Woz's work) and the iPhone. A lot of the hyperbole we're seeing right now is because Jobs had the mis/fortune to die at the very peak of his hit.
Had we all been doing the same analysis in the mid-90's when NeXT was failing and Pixar a mostly academic curiosity, I doubt anyone would be talking about how great a judge of the "cost-benefit analysis of perfection" he was.
Re: In Praise of Bad Steve
#17The talk about "Bad Steve" reminds me about Gundotra telling the "Icon Ambulance" story the day that Steve stepped down, in which Steve calls him up on a Sunday because "we have an urgent issue" involving the color gradient on the Google iphone icon. https://plus.google.com/107117483540235115863/posts/gcSStkKx... For many people, that kind of anal attention to detail (and describing it as an "urgent" matter) would be…
I don't think that's really justified. Jobs had a long career, and only two real industry-dominating hits: the Apple II (most of which was Woz's work) and the iPhone. A lot of the hyperbole we're seeing right now is because Jobs had the mis/fortune to die at the very peak of his hit. Had we all been doing the same analysis in the mid-90's when NeXT was failing and Pixar a mostly academic curiosity, I doubt anyone wou…
Wouldn't Pixar count as "industry-dominating"? It may be too early to tell, but I'd bet money the iPad will also end up in that category.
The man took a company that was going out of business and turned it into the largest company in the world. I don't think this talk is "hyperbole" in the least.
Re: In Praise of Bad Steve
#18The talk about "Bad Steve" reminds me about Gundotra telling the "Icon Ambulance" story the day that Steve stepped down, in which Steve calls him up on a Sunday because "we have an urgent issue" involving the color gradient on the Google iphone icon. https://plus.google.com/107117483540235115863/posts/gcSStkKx... For many people, that kind of anal attention to detail (and describing it as an "urgent" matter) would be…
I don't think that's really justified. Jobs had a long career, and only two real industry-dominating hits: the Apple II (most of which was Woz's work) and the iPhone. A lot of the hyperbole we're seeing right now is because Jobs had the mis/fortune to die at the very peak of his hit. Had we all been doing the same analysis in the mid-90's when NeXT was failing and Pixar a mostly academic curiosity, I doubt anyone wou…
I think it's more than the just the Apple II and the iPhone. The way I see it, the man's main hobby was disruption. He disrupted the PC industry with the Apple II and later the Mac line. He disrupted the music industry with the iPod and iTunes, and the phone industry with the iPhone. He changed the animation industry with Pixar one of the most successful, both financially, and critically acclaimed movie company. He revived an industry which most considered a dead horse with the iPad and where most companies are still playing catch-up.
I agree if this was to happen back in the 90s, he wouldn't be as praised as he is today, but what does that have to do with anything? If I was to judge anyone before their greatest moments, they wouldn't pass the bar. And yeah, he was kind of an ass in his early days, but by most accounts he became a lot more mellow when returning to Apple.
Re: In Praise of Bad Steve
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you missed the point by a couple light years. Air escaping means there's room in the case for air to be in the first place. Air molecules aren't magic, and can't occupy the same space as other objects.
So what would happen if I dropped an Iphone 5 in water?
Air bubbles would escape and you would have to make it smaller. That was a really stupid question.
Yes, sometimes I wish I could be Steve and herd the Geek community. I could make a shippable Linux that consumers would pay for. Gnome, KDE, Unity... Hey, let's call it LibreOffice... get it?
Geeks should try to think like normal humans... All that effort could actually change the world.
Re: In Praise of Bad Steve
#20The talk about "Bad Steve" reminds me about Gundotra telling the "Icon Ambulance" story the day that Steve stepped down, in which Steve calls him up on a Sunday because "we have an urgent issue" involving the color gradient on the Google iphone icon. https://plus.google.com/107117483540235115863/posts/gcSStkKx... For many people, that kind of anal attention to detail (and describing it as an "urgent" matter) would be…
I don't think that's really justified. Jobs had a long career, and only two real industry-dominating hits: the Apple II (most of which was Woz's work) and the iPhone. A lot of the hyperbole we're seeing right now is because Jobs had the mis/fortune to die at the very peak of his hit. Had we all been doing the same analysis in the mid-90's when NeXT was failing and Pixar a mostly academic curiosity, I doubt anyone wou…
I'd say at least five. The Macintosh was also an industry-dominating hit. While the Mac itself never dominated in terms of market share, it so dominated the market that almost all PCs shipped in the last 20 years are imitations of it. The iPod pretty much took over the portable music player market and remains the dominant player today. And finally the iPad pretty much created the tablet market and everybody else is still trying to catch up to it there.
I think you have a good point about the timing of all of this. However, Steve was consistently and shockingly successful for the past decade and a half, which I think is more than enough time to say that these qualities aren't just an artifact of timing.