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Steve Jobs Resigns as Apple CEO
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So, fair to say that "Apple is as bad as Microsoft"?
I'd say far worse. Bill Gates has spent the last part of his life giving away multi-millions to make the world a better place, while Steve Jobs spent the last years of his life trying to kill technologies he didn't personally like, like flash and Blu-ray and optical, and to FORCE his often-flawed "vision" down the screaming throats of his lifelong customers while actively pursuing blind child adherents and acolytes.
VAST difference in personality, temperament, and altruism, and I imagine having a loving wife had a lot to do with it. Tends to keep the megalomania in check.
Hopefully Apple will now be returning to the REAL world. There is a vast difference between running a company and running a cult, as there should be.
Cults, always end badly.
I'd say far worse. Bill Gates has spent the last part of his life giving away multi-millions to make the world a better place, while Steve Jobs spent the last years of his life trying to kill technologies he didn't personally like, like flash and Blu-ray and optical, and to FORCE his often-flawed "vision" down the screaming throats of his lifelong customers while actively pursuing blind child adherents and acolytes.
VAST difference in personality, temperament, and altruism, and I imagine having a loving wife had a lot to do with it. Tends to keep the megalomania in check.
Hopefully Apple will now be returning to the REAL world. There is a vast difference between running a company and running a cult, as there should be.
Let's hope apple gets real and sinks back into the "real" grey mass and risk the same obscurity as all other brands.
Cults, always end badly.
Such wisdom backed by a detailed anaylsis of the arcs in each individual's life. Your conclusion is also very astute since any company producing good product, supported by best of breed marketing, that aggressively defends its interests and that reserves cash in order to react to any opportunity is clearly a cult and not a well run organization.
Do you run an MBA course because I want to attend?
I'd say far worse. Bill Gates has spent the last part of his life giving away multi-millions to make the world a better place, while Steve Jobs spent the last years of his life trying to kill technologies he didn't personally like, like flash and Blu-ray and optical, and to FORCE his often-flawed "vision" down the screaming throats of his lifelong customers while actively pursuing blind child adherents and acolytes.
VAST difference in personality, temperament, and altruism, and I imagine having a loving wife had a lot to do with it. Tends to keep the megalomania in check.
Hopefully Apple will now be returning to the REAL world. There is a vast difference between running a company and running a cult, as there should be.
Cults, always end badly.
If you ever read about Gates you would well know that he had/has a temper that would blow Jobs' out of the water and an ego the size of Texas, Gates is/was the ultimate ego maniac
Didnt want to feed that trolls post thus why I reply to the ones that make sense.
Yep read the first book on him years ago.
Even at his early days he was quite the terror.
Sad to hear about this news, I don't get around to surfing the web much these days. I suppose one could call it the end of an era, but I wonder exactly how much input Steve has had on the big things going on at Apple for the past few years. I was expecting this to come a lot sooner than it did, I kind of wonder why 'ol Steve dragged it out for so long. Of course, knowing Steve, I would guess it was a matter of pride kinda thing.
Whatever the case, he did a great job in leading the company so far, saving it when all seemed lost, and helping to bring about the new era of 21st century technology. No doubt he'll be remembered as one of the greats, and despite his flaws, he does indeed deserve it. I wish him better health, and good luck for whatever he may aspire to do.
Whatever the case, he did a great job in leading the company so far, saving it when all seemed lost, and helping to bring about the new era of 21st century technology. No doubt he'll be remembered as one of the greats, and despite his flaws, he does indeed deserve it. I wish him better health, and good luck for whatever he may aspire to do.
You do not need to take an MBA course, you've obviously become fascist by taking far too many. However, I would suggest several years of study of ethics, morality, and religions of the world.
Which, of course, absolutely negates everything positive he's done in his life. And absolves Steve Jobs of everything fascist he's done in the last five years.
Only in The Job's Cult worshippers' eyes.
Pathetic. I am not critiquing a man as much as I am critiquing his zombies.
Who ALWAYS miss the point.
Conveniently.
With Cook at the helm, already the dynamic is better.
It's a New Day and an even greater upward trajectory is apparent.
Things are really looking good.
It's a New Day and an even greater upward trajectory is apparent.
Things are really looking good.
You do not need to take an MBA course, you've obviously become fascist by taking far too many. However, I would suggest several years of study of ethics, morality, and religions of the world.
Which, of course, absolutely negates everything positive he's done in his life. And absolves Steve Jobs of everything fascist he's done in the last five years.
Only in The Job's Cult worshippers' eyes.
Pathetic. I am not critiquing a man as much as I am critiquing his zombies.
Who ALWAYS miss the point.
Conveniently.
I studied ethics at uni (secular and theological). I have never taken an MBA and was simply pointing out that your analysis was too simple.
You can open the moral debate if you like, but you don't: you simply drew moral conclusions and stated them as fact.
I'll happily discuss the ethics of SJ and Apple and we'll agree on many failures, but I believe that when assessing the output of Apple on a utilitarian principle, they are up.
I support utilitarian ethics (difficult to get definitive answers I admit) and so I am happy to defend SJ and Apple's approach.
You on the other hand simply see a large well marketed organisation, that occassionally attacks, being run by someone that is not as publically philanthropic as some of his contemporaries and conclude that SJ and Apple are bad. Your black and white world is too simple and I'll let others decide why you may make such simple arguments.
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If this has not been all ready linked:
An exellent article in Newsweek: American Genius, Steve Jobs, How He Drove Apple to Victory, How He Changed Our World
Take that Microsoft!
Great article on SJ. Thanks for posting.
Steve is like the Wayne Gretzky of technology. iCloud is another example of Steve's uncanny ability to skate where the puck is going while his competitors continue to skate where the puck has been. The desktop is dying (like physical media) and Steve has already put in place the foundation for the next era of computing. The VMWare CEO also recently predicted the end of the desktop.
"Within five years, less than 20 percent of computing clients will be running Microsoft Windows, he predicted."
VMware CEO: Cloud to End Computer Desktop Era
http://www.cio.com/article/688787/VMware_CEO_Cloud_to_End_Computer_Desktop_Era
What I see, is a man and his company, much like the country that hosts it, as having started out as one thing and ending up another thing entirely different, if not the exact opposite.
And once people, companies, and countries go down that road, they do not often ever return. That is history. Sadly.
And yes, it is that simple, and that black and white, and that tragic. And a fate that could have been avoided by listening to their harshest critics many points along the fall instead of their rabid cheerleaders, and, in your case, mild apologists.
There is something inherently wrong with the entire idea and nature of corporations, entities that are only beholden to themselves for achieving profit at any and all costs, up to and including obliteration of one country of consumers in quest of others. Such entities will inevitably destroy themselves and each other, whether they are headed by one human being or many. And governments unfortunately are not up to the task of controlling what is, essentially, an unethical thing with no other motivation other than greed. Because governments are far too easily bought.
And even that concept, is that simple. Much like the tired old precept that never ONCE was listened to by Steve Jobs and Apple, "The [current] customer is always right."
Instead, you have the corporate epitaph: "The FUTURE customer is always right."
Good points, and a nice subtle distinction between "avoidance" and "evasion".
So, fair to say that "Apple is as bad as Microsoft"?
Legally from my understanding, it is significant.
It would be like me buying a product from California, so I don't have to pay Minnesota Sales tax. V.S. using my friends Tax Exempt ## here in Minnesota to skip paying the same tax.
The first is 100% legal, while the 2nd is not.
If you buy a product out of state and have it shipped to your state, you're supposed to declare it on your state income tax form and pay a use tax on it.
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What I see, is a man and his company, much like the country that hosts it, as having started out as one thing and ending up another thing entirely different, if not the exact opposite.
And once people, companies, and countries go down that road, they do not often ever return. That is history. Sadly.
And yes, it is that simple, and that black and white, and that tragic. And a fate that could have been avoided by listening to their harshest critics many points along the fall instead of their rabid cheerleaders, and, in your case, mild apologists.
There is something inherently wrong with the entire idea and nature of corporations, entities that are only beholden to themselves for achieving profit at any and all costs, up to and including obliteration of one country of consumers in quest of others. Such entities will inevitably destroy themselves and each other, whether they are headed by one human being or many. And governments unfortunately are not up to the task of controlling what is, essentially, an unethical thing with no other motivation other than greed. Because governments are far too easily bought.
And even that concept, is that simple. Much like the tired old precept that never ONCE was listened to by Steve Jobs and Apple, "The [current] customer is always right."
Instead, you have the corporate epitaph: "The FUTURE customer is always right."
Nation-states founded in a protestant ethics usually fall in an utilitarian society. Steve Jobs was a supporter of Ayn Rand (Google it, Steve Woz talked about that in an interview), a russian woman whose writings were more concerned in exposing kind of anti-comunist vendetta than a consistent theory. She developed an ideology called "objectivism" which was basically a revamped utilitarianism more focused in the actor rather than the overall society. Moreover, utilitarianism may have been always a Rand's objectivism in practice.
In the end, I really think that self-concerned objectivist moral tends leading us to a better society. Organizations have been increasingly dettached from their national foundations. At the current time, Apple is very identified with USA, but if we look how it is leading its business it's easy to see Apple as an nationless company. The overall result is good because companies are leading world to break national frontiers. No green cards, no country will be better to live than other. It will be just an individual preference choosing USA or China to live.
As companies become bigger than nation-states, they tend to be the main players in a universal (globalized) democracy. So, maybe Steve Jobs' actions will reveal themselves altruist in the end. Maybe he'll not be still alive to see the way he changed the world, but maybe he's more concerned with chinese workers and less with capitalism than it looks like.
Competition has an end. Maybe the ultimate monopoly is the universal democracy.
Fair enough.
Gotta love how simple and uniform Tax law is across the US
.This is news to me. I may have to fire my Tax lady if that is the case!
::EDIT::
Figured out why now.
http://taxes.state.mn.us/sales/Documents/instructions_st_bk_rev0709.pdf
For 2010 I didn't have enough out of state purchases to exceed that total. This year I believe I am still under that number.
Whew
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This is news to me. I may have to fire my Tax lady if that is the case!
California law, YMMV.
It appears it applies for my state too. (I Edited my post above) Depends on how much total you have spent though. Thankfully there is a grace amount you can buy out of state without having to pay in.
Since I buy most of my Computer and camera gear in state, I don't run into this that often, and likely why my Tax prep lady never said anything to me.
You are far more optimistic than I. I'm with Orwell. The ultimate monopoly of "Democracy" will be a corporate dictatorship, probably with a board of directors behind the scenes and a mere revolving puppet head of state.
As far as Rand, decent writing for fostering individuality, while at the same time worshiping smoking as "proof" of that individuality and books almost impossible to get through from reading like highly dated choking 30's screenplays. Not to mention dubious politics at odds with dubious atheism. Somewhat confused and probably from being not unfamiliar with creativity born of too much alcohol. In the end, very much a product of her time and not a lot to say to anyone who doesn't want America and the world to revisit the "wonderful" 1930's. By force.
Back to Jobs/Apple. My problem with them is refusing to listen to a well-established base of pro consumers who've paid highly over the years.
I welcome the change. It's a great opportunity for Mr. Cook & he's very well prepared. A refreshing & encouraging dynamic.