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Employment Questionnaire and Two Signatures From Steve Jobs Going Up for Auction

Hmmm...which is worse....fetishing a signature on a worthless piece of paper, or creepily pestering someone until they sign it...

Thinking...thinking...

Ahh. Got it.

Paying money for said worthless signature on said worthless paper.
 
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And the fact that people are auctioning off these signatures is probably the only reason that I was refused a signature when I was a teenager.

Years ago, I made an effort to collect signatures from political, social and economic leaders from around the world, not with the intent of ever selling any of them - just the novelty of it. I got plenty of politicians, I got Bill Gates' signature (on his business card, no less), but Steve Jobs' executive secretary sent me a letter saying he doesn't sign anything.

Still have the letter!
 
I see, right away, why he didn't want to sign the manual. That first OS X font was lifted from Pixar's Lasseter.
 
Creepy, just plain creepy. I'm in the middle of dealing with the aftermath and estate of a hoarder. The kind of thinking that places monetary value on signatures is to me, revolting, and speaks more of mental illness than admiration or fame.
 
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AngerDanger said:
Hmm, maybe I should put my rare Steve Jobs strand of hair up for auction. $100k doesn't seem too low a starting price, yeah?
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Apple itself could auction off a bunch of Steve’s old junk and further increase their cash pile.
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Naraxus said:
Jobs > Cook and it's not even close
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Tim Cook is not even trying to be the next Steve Jobs, and never claimed to be.
It’s like team sports - often you will have a star player who you build the team around (e.g. Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo). When they leave/retire, you can’t just swap them out with someone else. You might find another exceptional player for that position, but the team will also need adjustment and the style of play will change.
 
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michaelant said:
I read this and you know, my main take away is the people badgering for autographs.. are kinda cruddy people.

If somebody said sorry, no thanks, I don't want to sign, I'd drop it immediately. But then, I think I've asked for an autograph just once in my life.
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I've never asked anyone for an autograph. Then again, the only famous person I've ever met is Hacksaw Jim Duggan.

I probably should have asked for his autograph...:(
 
Steve Jobs was a genius and if he hadn’t died the world would look a whole lot different, however let’s not idolize him and pretend that he was a good person. He really wasn’t. He denied to pay child support for his daughter, even though at that point he was worth 700 million dollars. He hired almost exclusively middle-aged white men. He famously badgered and bullied his employees. He was much more of a risk taker unconcerned with profits. Whilst we realize that, even though Tim Cook is far more concerned with profits, he’s a much better person. It may not matter to you, the personal life of the CEO, but let’s stop fettishising Steve Jobs.
 
WBRacing said:
I wonder how many other massively influential business people in decades to come would leave a legacy so many treasure that meant that a relatively nondescript job app form of theirs would command the equivalent of $50k (and likely more)?

Bill Gates, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Mark "Please, call me the messiah" Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, even Elon Musk...

None of them come close to earning the levels of adoration and admiration that so many people have for Steve Jobs. That in itself is a quite remarkable achievement.
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Elon Musk is so young still. Wait a few years/decades, and he will go down in history books as one of the truly great entrepreneurs and innovators. I adore Steve Jobs, and I'm so happy that Musk is here to keep inspiring others, like Jobs also had the ability to do.
 
Indeed, Steve is missed.

Does anyone know what happened to his office @ Apple Park? In the beginning / after Steve’s death it was planned that there would be an office for him. Since then, they have named the theater after him. I'm wondering if they did away with his office.
 
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Seriously, people pay $$$ for a signature? Are they loons? Can't think of a damned thing else to spend one's money on, eh? Poverty is a global epidemic, but yeah, lets spend $50k on a signature....seems legit.
 
mysticbluebmw said:
Seriously, people pay $$$ for a signature? Are they loons? Can't think of a damned thing else to spend one's money on, eh? Poverty is a global epidemic, but yeah, lets spend $50k on a signature....seems legit.
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There's many reasons to pay for a piece of history. I'm sure it's also worthwhile to museums.
 
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Marsontherocks said:
Elon Musk is so young still. Wait a few years/decades, and he will go down in history books as one of the truly great entrepreneurs and innovators. I adore Steve Jobs, and I'm so happy that Musk is here to keep inspiring others, like Jobs also had the ability to do.
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I was thinking this morning about the present ubiquity of Musk being described in terms of Jobs.

It's kind of an odd comparison given Steve's lack of a hardcore STEM background (remember Bill Gates trashtalking his inability to program?) and I don't think he ever learned all too much higher math (though neither did Michael Faraday.) Musk could probably go ahead and work an advanced engineering job in virtually any industry; Jobs resolved to be stubbornly ignorant to a lot of the nitty-gritty of Apple's products, to which some attribute the success of Apple in achieving the impossible, as he instead played to his strengths in PR, marketing, and design.

So I'd say ultimately, the real kindred spirit between these two is an awareness of how absurdly precious of a miracle our time under the sun on Earth is, and, in light of that fact, an infuriated and vicious impatience with people who can't see the same urgency in the matter at hand.

The timing of Steve's death relative to the iPhone's success reminds me of the 1984 ad - once the hammer left the hand, precisely imparted with momentum by a flick of the wrist, there was no power in the world that could have altered its trajectory. Same goes for Elon flinging that Tesla, but he'll probably live to be 120 and eventually wear out his welcome as a magnanimously Draconian & entrenched asteroid baron.
 
outskirtsofinfinity said:
For purposes of appraisal, here's the email in its entirety: "Maybe you need to do a clean install." I'd say that's a $7,500 email, when the raw header data is included,... at the very least? It's almost priceless, actually.
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I have an email apparently from him defending Apple getting into social debates. "Just focus on products," I said, and he responded with "These issues matter to our employees."

Any of these emails are of zero value. They are stored on an Apple server somewhere and are therefore not unique at all. Even autographs are for the simple of heart and mind. They are meaningless.
 
I can't believe the nerve people have to pester Steve Jobs and press him even after he said "No!". And a woman, too.

"But it's OK because he's famous".

No, it isn't.
 
WBRacing said:
I wonder how many other massively influential business people in decades to come would leave a legacy so many treasure that meant that a relatively nondescript job app form of theirs would command the equivalent of $50k (and likely more)?

Bill Gates, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Mark "Please, call me the messiah" Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, even Elon Musk...

None of them come close to earning the levels of adoration and admiration that so many people have for Steve Jobs. That in itself is a quite remarkable achievement.
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Tell that to the millions of people who lives Bill and Melinda Gates have saved, or immeasurably changed for the better, through their philanthropic Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_&_Melinda_Gates_Foundation).

I don't get the deification of Jobs. From everything I've read he was a brilliant entrepreneur and lousy human being.
 
MNJohn said:
Tell that to the millions of people who lives Bill and Melinda Gates have saved, or immeasurably changed for the better, through their philanthropic Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_&_Melinda_Gates_Foundation).

I don't get the deification of Jobs. From everything I've read he was a brilliant entrepreneur and lousy human being.
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I know quite a bit about the foundation and that by 2013 alone Bill had donated $28bn to it, whilst Jobs preferred to spend his money on things like a yacht costing €100m, with no public record of him giving to charity. Obviously that doesn't mean he didn't, but lets be honest, few would believe that he did do more than perhaps lob a few coins into a bucket. Some people really need to stop and just let that one sink in a bit.

That all said, I can't think of another single business person held in such high regard, by so many, as he is. Rightly or wrongly. That is telling of the impact/influence people believe he had in some way on their lives that a scrappy bit of paper is worth likely in excess of $50k. That is the achievement I was referring to.

I don't disagree with what you have said, I think you have misread / misunderstood my post.

Marsontherocks said:
Elon Musk is so young still. Wait a few years/decades, and he will go down in history books as one of the truly great entrepreneurs and innovators.
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I agree, and hope so. I mentioned him based on his current work which has already been tremendous and yet only a fraction of people seem to know his name, by comparison.
 
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