MMIP Steve Jobs

[smackdaddy]

Make Millions In Peace Steve Jobs.

He just resigned today as CEO of Apple - and is now the Chairman and an "employee".

Jobs is the most brilliant man of the 21st Century - bar none. He had the vision to create the 22nd.

Have some fun dude. You deserve it.

[johnnyandjebus]

With all due respect SD, the man created electronic gadgets that "needed" to be replaced every 3 years if for no other reason than their, non-replaceable, batteries had died. Not greatest man of the century materiel, in IMHO. His company was best at marketing not innovation, most of what it produced will be in a land fill/recycled within 5 years of purchase, not to mention already invented by someone else.
IPOD
ITUNES
IPHONE
All invented by others, just not marketed as well.

One could argue that he represents exactly what is wrong with society today, shop now and to h*#ll with the future.

Don't get me wrong, from a pure business/making $ sense, he is close to the top. For future generations I can only hope this is not how we define great, for their sake's.

John

p.s
Have some fun dude. You deserve it.
Agreed, his accomplishments are/were great, I am just not sure that two hundred years from now his company will not be studied as a prime example as to what was wrong with society from 2000-20??

[smackdaddy]

Well let me put it his way: if you you are an investor (which I am), which vision of business would you rather invest in...his (which you lay out above), or yours (where you kill your own revenue stream for some Utopian vision)?

He is brilliant precisely because people STILL buy Apple because it's so damn well-designed and cool...even though it's expensive and a pain in the butt in many ways.

[BentSailor]

I develop for the Apple devices as a daily part of my job. They're not bad but they are not revolutionary in any sense of the word. What Steve was good at was marketing, in fact I think the man was brilliant for it.

Take the recent iPhone4 debacle. Steve wanted the form factor to include a brushed metal rim look and told his engineers to build the WiFi & mobile aerials as part of the casing (as opposed to being inside the casing like other devices, including the previous iPhone series). Now the metal rim does look cool, you see it in most the iPhone4 advertising, but it suffered a fatal flaw uncovered very quickly in the real world - people's hands are conductive and touching the rim in the wrong locations shorted the antenna causing loss of signal.

This is where Steve Jobs came into his own. He was able to twist around the entire discussion from "iPhone's drop signal if a left-handed person holds it" (the most likely coincidental method of causing signal loss on the devices) to "Look, if you wrap your hand around the entire top half of other phones and squeeze real tightly, they lose some signal too". From iPhone4's having a critical flaw to it being a "standard feature" of all phones.

Most people couldn't pull that diversion off, it required suspending alot of belief to compare "just place the tip of your finger here" to "wrap your hand really tightly around the whole top part of the phone"... but Steve did it. And that is where his expertise and skill was focused, building a cult of personality big enough that people wanted to believe in him.

I think the man deserves a break and is good at what he did, but "most brilliant man of the 21st century - bar none"? Very far from it. Even focused on your investor angle mentioned above, old Billy Gates outshone Jobs easily. Compare their net worth, compare the entrenchment of Microsoft compared to Apple, and then look at how Microsoft bailed out Apple to keep a competitor around. And I don't like Bill Gates

[smackdaddy]

Bent, sorry dude, you're looking back, not at the present or future. Sure Apple had its serious bumps in the road, and sure Microsoft lent a helping hand but that was years ago. And here's what Jobs did with it (2011 market value):



Apple's value is more than Microsoft and Intel combined | TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

Sure, Apple's all about brilliant marketing. But that alone doesn't create astronomical value like you see above above. It's the design and appeal of the products and the brilliant use of technology-as-fashion that makes people want to throw money at Apple regardless of the smaller flaws and inconveniences.

So, I don't know how you define "revolutionary" (which iPod/iPhone/iTunes absolutely were/are). Maybe you think it's someone more like Torvalds? Look, invention is only step one. Marketization is what counts. Just ask Dean Kamen.

Personally, I define "revolutionary" as creating/supplying something that not only becomes huge business, but changes the core of global culture along with it. This is Apple.

I stand by my assessment. And the numbers back me up.

[SloopJonB]

Jobs is obviously an exceptional human being but look at it this way; if he had never lived, what real effect would it have had on the world?

Not a whit IMHO.

[PaulfromNWOnt]

Originally Posted by SloopJonB

Jobs is obviously an exceptional human being but look at it this way; if he had never lived, what real effect would it have had on the world?

Not a whit IMHO.

Not true. There are Mac snobs that would be having a hard time feeling superior.

[BentSailor]

Originally Posted by smackdaddy

Bent, sorry dude, you're looking back, not at the present or future. Sure Apple had its serious bumps in the road, and sure Microsoft lent a helping hand but that was years ago. And here's what Jobs did with it (2011 market value):

See, you are focusing purely on the companies Microsoft & Apple, after it's bail-outs and only in recent years. I asked you to compare the net worth of Gates & Jobs, not MSFT & AAPL. Go on, do that - then come back to me about which one is more brilliant on the investment angle

And, if Jobs was the brilliance that kept the company going, why hasn't their stock tanked completely (it went down, as they all do when a decent CEO quits, but it hasn't "tanked")? Perhaps because the market realises that while a good man, Jobs isn't "the most brilliant man of the 21st century - bar none"?

Sure, Apple's all about brilliant marketing. But that alone doesn't create astronomical value like you see above above. It's the design and appeal of the products and the brilliant use of technology-as-fashion that makes people want to throw money at Apple regardless of the smaller flaws and inconveniences.

Oh yes, there is good design and appeal... but that has been shared with others. Apple didn't invent the touch-screen phone, they didn't invent the electronic MP3 player, and they didn't invent the laptop. They simply made them stylish and a status symbol.

So, I don't know how you define "revolutionary" (which iPod/iPhone/iTunes absolutely were/are). Maybe you think it's someone more like Torvalds? Look, invention is only step one. Marketization is what counts. Just ask Dean Kamen.

Marketization is what counts in becoming rich, which I never argued Jobs was not. It is not crucial in being counted "the most brilliant man of the 21st century - bar none". I might not agree with, but would have let slide "the most brilliant salesman of the 21st century", but being able to sell stuff does not make you brilliant. I've dealt with my fair share of good, but dim, salespeople in my time

And for what it is worth, I disagree with the assessment of iPod/iPhone/iTunes being revolutionary. All of them had been done before (handheld MP3 players, touch-screen phones, music sold online). The difference between them and their competition was marketing and third-party deals. Some of the deals were resisted by your man of brilliance, as he didn't want to give up control (Jobs is a renown control freak). If he maintained the level of control he wanted over iPhone development, for example, it would have died as others built up the requisite third-party support that keep it alive. He released the SDK after it was made clear to him, by the company, that his desired level of control was going to tank the product.

Another interesting way to look at it, if Apple completely pulled out of the market tomorrow - would someone be able to step in? I would say yes. There would be upset people and some nasty feelings all round, but the world would buy their next touch-screen phone from a competitor, burn their iTunes collection to CD, and move on.

If Microsoft were to pull out of the market tomorrow, it would require companies (& governments) to completely reimplement their IT infrastructures. Microsoft is so central to the operations of most large companies, they cannot afford to leave them. Microsoft makes money from every CPU sold in most computer manufacturers, even if their software is never used.

Which comes across as a more brilliant sales technique, requiring something new to wow the masses every year or just existing because companies cannot afford to get rid of you?

Note, I don't like Microsoft's methods but you seem to equate brilliance in sales with the CEO's brilliance. I am simply pointing out that Job's "brilliance" requires alot more hard work than Gates'... and I'm a fan of lazy

Personally, I define "revolutionary" as creating/supplying something that not only becomes huge business, but changes the core of global culture along with it. This is Apple.

Again, assuming you are correct, it is Apple. It is not Jobs. It is also "revolutionary", but not "brilliant". And as I've noted, some of that success was against the man's personal desires.

I stand by my assessment. And the numbers back me up.

I stand by mine and the numbers back me up. Gates is worth far more than Jobs, so your angle regarding investment still only stacks up Microsoft vs Apple - not Gates vs Jobs

And I'm done now. I got over the whole Microsoft vs Apple thing years ago. They are both interesting companies, once led by men of vision and salesmanship, but neither of them are the most brilliant companies or men of the 21st century. If you're not convinced by now, I'm going to deal with it the way I do most Mac/Linux/Windows fanboys - just nod and back away slowly

[smackdaddy]

Originally Posted by BentSailor

I stand by mine and the numbers back me up. Gates is worth far more than Jobs, so your angle regarding investment still only stacks up Microsoft vs Apple - not Gates vs Jobs

Okay, you go ahead and invest in Bill Gates. I'll keep my money on Apple.

[BentSailor]

Apple != Jobs. We're talking about a man not a company

If you want to discuss the relative merits of the companies, that's a different discussion than "most brilliant man in the 21st century - bar none".