Does anyone else absolutely love how open and brutally honest Steve Jobs is?

[wikoogle]

I mean I'm sure everyone in the media loves it. It gets them tons of news stories.

But regular folk, apple owners like you and I.

Yeah, it does make apple look bad at times. But I still LOVE it just the same, especially given how secretive they are about their releases, it's so awesome to atleast always know what they're thinking.

For such an incredibly influential and talented guy (No matter what ANYONE says Steve Jobs and his engineers did more to revolutionalize personal computers, operating systems, GUIs, several technology standards, computer graphics, and cellphone operating systems than anyone), It's the coolest thing in the world that anyone can contact him and has a shot at hearing back am honest response (rather than one filtered thru a bunch of PR BS).

What other CEO does that? Anywhere?

I really hope that what happened yesterday does nothing to change how honest and accessible Steve Jobs is.

And before you accuse me of being an Apple fanboy, read this thread or this thread. I'm certainly not what you would classify as an Apple fanboy. When they actually merit criticism (when they refuse to include features many of their customers desperately want and need), I'm more critical of them than anybody.

 

[D1G1T4L]

Don't own any stock in the company so I do enjoy it sometimes but understand how some my really dislike it.

 

[duction]

nah hes being a, C U Next Tuesday

 

[the-oz-man]

Kinda refreshing to me. BP could learn a lesson here.

 

[maddux2005]

I agree 100%, its funny to me.

It makes me feel like I could email him and at least have an outside shot of a personal reply back.

He is the best public speaker I have ever heard, and I love his personality.

bravo steve!

 

[beamer8912]

There's a fine line between brutally honest and smug. Steve is playing with it.

 

[EvanCooper93]

nah hes being a, C U Next Tuesday

HAHA!

But yes, I love how forward/blunt he is! Makes me love even more.

 

[Glideslope]

Don't own any stock in the company so I do enjoy it sometimes but understand how some my really dislike it.

Good. It will be under $200 soon.

 

[EnderTW]

I mean I'm sure everyone in the media loves it. It gets them tons of news stories.

But regular folk, apple owners like you and I.

Yeah, it does make apple look bad at times. But I still LOVE it just the same, especially given how secretive they are about their releases, it's so awesome to atleast always know what they're thinking.

For such an incredibly influential and talented guy (I mean Steve Jobs did revolutionalize personal computers, operating systems, GUIs, inputs, tons of technology standards, computer animation, and cellphones), I personally it's the coolest thing in the world that anyone can contact him and has a shot at hearing back as honest response (rather than one filtered thru a bunch of PR bs).

What other CEO does that? Anywhere?

A CEO that insults his customers?

rofl...

SJ can fling crap at you and you'd be licking it right up.

Gosh sometimes I hate walking with an apple product just because of how obnoxiously immature fanboys ruin the party for all.

 

[cellocello]

I was chillin with the female the other day - she was reading a book and I was watching the Jobs D8 interview.

She commented to me that she likes Steve 'cause everything he says makes sense. There's no waffling around, no weird ambiguous answers, no long-ass run-on sentence type answers. You ask, he talks, and the answer makes sense.

"Boom."

 

[wikoogle]

Don't own any stock in the company so I do enjoy it sometimes but understand how some my really dislike it.

Yeah, I totally see how stock owners would hate it.

Lol, if it was any other CEO in world than Steve Jobs doing this, they would be out of a job so fast it would make your head spin.

But because it's Steve, probably the most influential person as far as technology is concerned in atleast the past several decades, he's untouchable.

 

[EnderTW]

I was chillin with the female the other day - she was reading a book and I was watching the Jobs D8 interview.

She commented to me that she likes Steve 'cause everything he says makes sense. There's no waffling around, no weird ambiguous answers, no long-ass run-on sentence type answers. You ask, he talks, and the answer makes sense.

"Boom."

This I agree with. SJ has a really great ability to "seem" like an ordinary person.

However, SJ shouldn't be responding to customers who buy his product the way he does.

 

[wikoogle]

A CEO that insults his customers?

rofl...

SJ can fling crap at you and you'd be licking it right up.

Gosh sometimes I hate walking with an apple product just because of how obnoxiously immature fanboys ruin the party for all.

Lol, seriously, you think I'm a fanboy?

I give you Exibit A and Exibit B. When they actually merit criticism (when they refuse to include features many of their customers desperately want and need), I'm more critical of them than anybody.

 

[marksman]

The world has warped into a place where people feel like because they pay money for something they can unreasonably demand things. For a while companies just rolled over, but more and more people continue to exploit this, things are changing and thus people who might have real issue or complaints might get a bit of a short shrift.

However we all have nobody to blame but ourselves. I appreciate Steve's honesty. People make complaints and protests about things always with their hand out, always trying to get something else.

Steve is a pretty straight shooter who has essentially looked death in the eye and already fallen out of the business world once. He has nothing to do lose and no reason to lie. I think he has a unique perspective and no time for spin doctoring as most might feel beholden to do.

The old adage that the customer is always right has been dead for quite a while now, as the customer is not always right and in a lot of cases is most often wrong.

 

[cellocello]

This I agree with. SJ has a really great ability to "seem" like an ordinary person.

However, SJ shouldn't be responding to customers who buy his product the way he does.

Ya, he does seem to be a little more "active/brash" than usual.

I suspect it's because Steve (subconsciously) knows he probably only has another couple years at Apple left in him, and he's just really making his presence felt.

 

[Winni]

(I mean Steve Jobs did revolutionalize personal computers, operating systems, GUIs, inputs, tons of technology standards, computer animation, and cellphones)

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that the thousands of people working at Apple have nothing to do with the success. Geez, the guy does not even know how to write code, so I have a very hard time to give him credit for "revolutionizing operating systems and tons of technology standards".

Give credit to Apple and Pixar as a whole but stop idolizing one single man.

Besides that, Jonathan Schwartz, the former SUN CEO, is at least as accessible as Jobs and even more communicative.

 

[fru]

No, in a word.

His reply was clearly impulsive and ill thought out. Not to mention hugely patronising. People have spent a lot of cash on this product, and then when there is a serious fault he tells them that they are more or less fussing over nothing when it's clear that the reception has degraded from the 3GS for a lot of users.

I'm not the sort of person who needs to feel like Apple value me personally as a customer. But I would like the CEO of the company that has just taxed my credit card for £600 to at least show respect to the community and maybe a little restraint in his correspondance with customers. It's the professional and courteous thing to do.

I'm not bothered either way, and I don't feel as though Im owed one, but I would expect to see some form of apology from Steve in the next week or so when they eventually have to acknowledge and act on the problem. Simply for his hastiness if nothing else.

 

[wikoogle]

I suspect it's because Steve (subconsciously) knows he probably only has another couple years at Apple left in him, and he's just really making his presence felt.

God I hope not. That would be a sad day in the tech world.

Apple will no doubt continue to make great products, but it just won't be anywhere near as interesting without Steve their to put a real human face on the company.

 

[fru]

The world has warped into a place where people feel like because they pay money for something they can unreasonably demand things. For a while companies just rolled over, but more and more people continue to exploit this, things are changing and thus people who might have real issue or complaints might get a bit of a short shrift.

However we all have nobody to blame but ourselves. I appreciate Steve's honesty. People make complaints and protests about things always with their hand out, always trying to get something else.

Steve is a pretty straight shooter who has essentially looked death in the eye and already fallen out of the business world once. He has nothing to do lose and no reason to lie. I think he has a unique perspective and no time for spin doctoring as most might feel beholden to do.

The old adage that the customer is always right has been dead for quite a while now, as the customer is not always right and in a lot of cases is most often wrong.

Yes, the customer is often wrong. The more recent adage 'the community is always right' stands up far better.

 

[cellocello]

God I hope not. That would be a sad day in the tech world.

Apple will no doubt continue to make great products, but it just won't be anywhere near as interesting without Steve their to put a real human face on the company.

Hey, I agree - Steve is to Apple what Willy Wonka was to his Chocolate factory.

But really, think about it. Bill Gates and Jobs are the same age and Bill already bounced a couple years ago. AND he didn't have the health problems Steve has had. I also suspect Steve carries around a bit more stress than Bill did.

I'm not saying Steve's stepping down tomorrow, but I'd be surprised if he's still at Apple in 4 or 5 years.

 

[wikoogle]

The old adage that the customer is always right has been dead for quite a while now, as the customer is not always right and in a lot of cases is most often wrong.

I couldn't disagree with you more. When customers complain, companies absolutely should listen.

You can learn a lot from what your customers are asking of you. No, that doesn't mean that you always give them exactly what they want. But you absolutely should address the source of their dissastisfaction with your product some how.

By hearing their complaints, you can learn a ton about where critical weaknesses in your products exist, weaknesses that you should find some way to address (even if it's not the same way your customers want you to address them).

 

[alee]

Do you actually believe that sjobs@apple.com is manned by Steve Jobs alone?

There must be a whole marketing and public relations team that monitors that email address. Some replies are sure to be penned by him, but I'd guess most of them are ghost written by someone else.

Steve Jobs isn't curled up in a corner with his iPhone trying to run a multi-billion dollar business and answering random emails when he can.

It's good PR for that email address to exist and for replies to be written from it, and I think Apple is playing a good game with it.

 

[fru]

Do you actually believe that sjobs@apple.com is manned by Steve Jobs alone?

There must be a whole marketing and public relations team that monitors that email address. Some replies are sure to be penned by him, but I'd guess most of them are ghost written by someone else.

Steve Jobs isn't curled up in a corner with his iPhone trying to run a multi-billion dollar business and answering random emails when he can.

It's good PR for that email address to exist and for replies to be written from it, and I think Apple is playing a good game with it.

He will still tell whoever mans his e-mail what the 'party line' is. He won't just let people make things up in his name.

 

[wikoogle]

Hey, I agree - Steve is to Apple what Willy Wonka was to his Chocolate factory.

But really, think about it. Bill Gates and Jobs are the same age and Bill already bounced a couple years ago. AND he didn't have the health problems Steve has had. I also suspect Steve carries around a bit more stress than Bill did.

I'm not saying Steve's stepping down tomorrow, but I'd be surprised if he's still at Apple in 4 or 5 years.

Yeah, but Bill Gates never struck me as a true innovator. Given the RIDICULOUS sums of money that Microsoft had by the end of the 1990s, look at how little Microsoft has actually accomplished with it.

There is absolutely no excuse why Windows Mobile 6.5 was such horse crap and it took Apple to revolutionize mobile operating systems. There is no excuse why Internet Explorer, MSN Search, Hotmail were such garbage given how much cash Microsoft had on hand to revamp them.

It's not as if Microsoft didn't have the resources to make a kickass mobile operating system, a kickass search engine, a kickass web browser and a kickass email client. Their management just simply didn't care to innovate, even the markets they were already in (much less to enter brand new markets). Gates was perfectly happy to sit on his laurels and just let money from Windows and Office flow into their coffers. That doesn't strike me as someone who is there doing his dream job. Zune and Xbox were the two things that I actually do respect Microsoft for, because they actually stepped out of their comfort zone and innovate a bit, but neither were Bill Gate's projects, and even then, they were just following in the footsteps of Apple and Sony after they the iPod and Playstation proved so profitable.

People like Steve Jobs are rare in the tech world. He's clearly in it to make a difference, to do things far better than anyone else has, to revolutionize and move the way people interact with technology forward as much as he can.

That's why I don't see Steve Jobs retiring until he either truly feels like he has nothing left that he wants to make an impact on, or his health deteriorates (god I hope not).

 

[ryanwarsaw]

i made a poll a long time ago on the subject if anybody personally dislikes Jobs. I am too lazy to find if it is still open or not but at the time I took a lot of flack. I bet results would be different these days.