I have not. I don't know him personally. What about him repulses so many people? I am genuinely curious. Please share, I'm sure a lot of us are wondering the same thing.
Steve Jobs is many things. He's a tech visionary and a great communicator. He's also an asshole and a liar. Like many great historic figures, his good qualities are inextricably bound up with his bad qualities.
I don't have any animosity towards the guy at all but I have to chuckle when he shovels out bologna like that.
OK, that is what many different people say about him. Must be true. I wonder if he has changed any after being kicked out?
I guess there is no genius without some form of madness. I respect him mainly because he is a product of the 60's counterculture and was able to infuse "cosmic consciousness" into technology.
I'm glad you don't. So many people take it way too far. It's just a computer man.
If I could ask him one question I would really like to know how he sees his life's work from the perspective of his inspirations from the 60s. In some respects what he's done seems very much in keeping with those ideals (fostering creativity and an appreciation for beauty) and in others totally antithetical (creating walled gardens, using the legal system as a cudgel). It goes to the heart of my own ambivalence about Apple. I like their products but I'm finding it hard to like the company lately.
After one-or-another of Dick Cheney's heart attacks, the news media spent some time quoting research about the way that life-threatening illnesses can change one's personality; how (of course) people react differently to such crises, but also how driven, egocentric men tend to refine and focus their priorities, and even to jettison qualms that they might have previously carried.
It's not surprising to me that an ambitious man like Jobs, who (arguably) failed with Apple the first time around, then failed with NeXT, then became seriously ill while leading a resurgent Apple, might decide that the touchy-feely bits of his youthful worldview are less important than a more tangible legacy.
I'm not saying it's the correct choice, or laudable, but it is understandable.
I read this today. The details may be wrong, but this has been his general attitude. And more than anything that is why I respect him.
Rumelt congratulated Jobs on the turnaround but expressed skepticism about Apple’s chances of overcoming the Windows-Intel lock on personal computers. “What are you going to do in the longer term?” Rumelt asked. “What’s the strategy?”
Jobs, he recalls, “just smiled and said, ‘I am going to wait for the next big thing.’”
