Do You Respect Steve Jobs?

[zerogear]

As a marketing sales genius (through blatant lying)? Yes. As a tech inventor/innovator? No.

 

[ultimatebob]

If you can name one person to credit the advent of the Information Age, who would it be?

Steve Jobs is up there, no?

Information Age? I'd give that to Microsoft or Intel. Apple equipment is pretty, but the world's infrastructure runs on Wintel systems.

I will give Apple credit for making computers, tablets, and smartphones easy to use, though.

 

[LumbergTech]

Not particularly.....Not gonna spit on a dead man's grave, but never really cared for apples products.

 

[Locut0s]

Information Age? I'd give that to Microsoft or Intel. Apple equipment is pretty, but the world's infrastructure runs on Wintel systems.

I will give Apple credit for making computers, tablets, and smartphones easy to use, though.

I wouldn't give it to MS either. Intel and others yes. Like I was saying above the ones who deserve this credit were mostly working at corporate think tanks like Xerox Parc, Bell labs, and universities.

 

[abba]

This week, a very rich man died. Now we seem to be bombarded with testimonials of the Apple founder. Many of the left seem to be painting him as the progressive business man of the century.

There is no question he was a great business man. If you had a great idea, he'd steal it, patent it, manufacture it with slave labor and send an army of lawyers after you, if you offended his company.

He did all of this with an artistic marketing message against conformity. He sold anarchy in box complete with a built in licensing agreement.

Maybe you're reading this on a sleek device Mr Jobs sold you. If you are happy with your product, that's great. But please don't believe that smug message of individuality built into your cleverly molded plastic.

Something is seriously wrong, when the products we're sold come complete with personal philosophies. Especially when those philosophies aren't held by the companies selling the products.

I'm no fan of Microsoft, but they are no better or worse than Apple. Both companies rose to power with a complete disregard for ethics. Both were ruthless. Both used market influence to prevent competitive market behavior.

Don't make heroes of these people.

 

[dwell]

Apple equipment is pretty, but the world's infrastructure runs on Wintel systems.

You spelled Unix wrong.

 

[Locut0s]

This week, a very rich man died. Now we seem to be bombarded with testimonials of the Apple founder. Many of the left seem to be painting him as the progressive business man of the century.

There is no question he was a great business man. If you had a great idea, he'd steal it, patent it, manufacture it with slave labor and send an army of lawyers after you, if you offended his company.

He did all of this with an artistic marketing message against conformity. He sold anarchy in box complete with a built in licensing agreement.

Maybe you're reading this on a sleek device Mr Jobs sold you. If you are happy with your product, that's great. But please don't believe that smug message of individuality built into your cleverly molded plastic.

Something is seriously wrong, when the products we're sold come complete with personal philosophies. Especially when those philosophies aren't held by the companies selling the products.

I'm no fan of Microsoft, but they are no better or worse than Apple. Both companies rose to power with a complete disregard for ethics. Both were ruthless. Both used market influence to prevent competitive market behavior.

Don't make heroes of these people.

Agreed :thumbsup: Though I still respect what he managed to accomplish, this above is why I don't like him or the company, not why I do or don't respect them.

 

[Locut0s]

You spelled Unix wrong.

LOL this is very true and little understood by the masses. Unix/Linux is the invisible 800lb gorilla in the room.

 

[ultimatebob]

You spelled Unix wrong.

Sure... a lot of the back-office servers run UNIX, but Windows still rules the corporate desktop, for better or worse.

 

[Locut0s]

Sure... a lot of the back-office servers run UNIX, but Windows still rules the corporate desktop, for better or worse.

But it's the back office servers that make the world go round.

 

[0roo0roo]

Everything a company does it does with your money. You gave it to them cause you liked their products. I still respect a company/person more if it/he does at least some philanthropy with their billions.

Its still doing charity with your money, better to spend it on the products and making sure the share holders are well cared for.

Plus if you give anonymously no one knows. You see how that works...

 

[Locut0s]

Its still doing charity with your money, better to spend it on the products and making sure the share holders are well cared for.

Plus if you give anonymously no one knows. You see how that works...

We are talking about a companies/persons public image so giving anonymously doesn't factor into this at all. If jobs did give anonymously then that's great but like you said we will never know. This is a question or morals and how you would like to see companies act. There are plenty of companies out there that DO give generously that are extremely profitable.

 

[Sonikku]

its really not the job of corporations to do charity.

Obviously. But the thread was not called "Should corporations be FORCED to donate to charity?". It was "do you respect Steve Jobs?". And as far as respect for Jobs is concerned, I don't respect him. Not because he did away with the charity Apple used to do when it fell under hard times, but that he never did a thing to bring any of it back when he and his company was making gangbusters profit hand over fist. OP asked for our opinion of the man. I merely provided mine and gave my reason for thinking as such. :\

 

[zinfamous]

Absolutely. who wouldn't?

this doesn't change the fact that he was a spiteful prick with no redeeming human qualities, and nothing he did actually "changed the world" in a meaningful, useful way.

Even the things he did, would have been done by someone else.



Bill Gates is tackling Malaria, education, AIDs, starvation, all around the world.

 

[ChaoZ]

No, why would I?

 

[0roo0roo]

We are talking about a companies/persons public image so giving anonymously doesn't factor into this at all. If jobs did give anonymously then that's great but like you said we will never know. This is a question or morals and how you would like to see companies act. There are plenty of companies out there that DO give generously that are extremely profitable.

Well it does factor, woz was on newsnight the other day and did mention he gave to amnesty international. Morals? I don't want companies giving away shareholders money, it isn't their job, and the motivations of such giving are always suspect as it is essentially self promotion no different from marketing, so there is no morality behind such a thing.

 

[n7]

As a marketing sales genius (through blatant lying)? Yes. As a tech inventor/innovator? No.

This about sums it up.