[Info-vax] OT: About Digital and divisions

[JF Mezei]

Neil Rieck wrote:

> Don't take my remarks as offensive, but I was interpreting the
> language of your post as that of a religious position before you used
> the phrases "second coming", "bejesus", etc.

By definition, aren't all discussions about the Church of Apple
religious in nature ? :-)

> There's been lots of stuff written and said about Steve Jobs, but
> everyone should watch this interview with Walter Isaacson by Charlie
> Rose

I am in the process of reading the book. And yes, I was susprised by how
"unconventional" Jobs was in his youth.  But why his lifestyle may not
look normal to you, perhaps it was standard in the post hippie days of
Kalifornia.

And in terms of LSD, anyone who has used the itunes visualiser knows
that similar substances have been used by the Apple programmers :-)


> I was surprised to learn that Steve Jobs was unable to write a single
> line of code. Talk about the Jobsian Reality Distortion field!!!


But he did build hardware in his youth. Not software. He was a techie
and this is how he met Wozniak.


> I was surprised to learn that he was such a big baby.

Not clear to me whether this was genuine, or whether he was acting those
tantrums to get his way. In many case, it worked. Though in his later
years, he became much more normal and mature. And the folks around him
also learned how to deal with him and not take his blunt criticisms
seriously. (he would calls soe work "this is shit" but the next day, he
would proclaim it was the next best thing since sliced bread).



> I was surprised to learn he was a first class prick. He traveled
> around India with a good friend who became a very early Apple employee
> but not a millionaire during the IPO.

Andy Hertzfeld. Not sure that he travelled with him to India. But
Hertzfeld was instrumental in building the macintosh operating system.
But because of his job status at the time of the share distribution to
employees, he didn't qualify. And yes, Jobs was a real prick about it.
IT wasn't as if Jobs was a conventional "by the book" guy.

> His belief he could "will away" cancer was just plain nutty. (or
> Californian new-age)

Not too different from his belief that because he ate nothing but
fruits, he did not need to take showers.

> and iPads are manufactured. It showed people with crippled hands and
> missing fingers but Jobs didn't appear to show any sympathy.
> Apparently Wozniak left the video in tears.

You can spin this as "Foxcon doesn't discriminate against handicaped
people because they too can do the job".  Remember that the Chinese govt
doesn't force people to go work for Foxcon. People willingly apply
there. They work hard for a year or two and thn get a better job elsewhere.


> I was upset to learn that he felt LSD use was responsible for his
> talents.

Perhaps LaCarly should have used some too :-) (I bet she did if she grew
up in Kalifornia).

> His belief that Google's gPhone was an iPhone rip-off only proves to
> me that he was under the impression that Apple had invented the phone.

If you look at previous smart phones, they required a stylus to operate
the touch screen interface. So Apple was first with that stylus-less
form factor and interface.

What Apple rea;ly did is create a market for smart phones that extended
to the masses, not just a few nrds as was the case in the past.


> With regards to Sony, while they had the technical ability to do
> something like iTunes, they did not have someone with Jobs' Reality
> Distortion Field who could convince Hollywood industry insiders that
> this was in their best interests.


I disagree. Remember that Sony was Hollywood.  It has its very large
record label with the very big musicians and if it started to do the
"sony store" stuff, you bet the other labels would have jumped in.

Sony failed becasue of lack of leadership at the CEO level and the
internal structure which divided divisions into competing entities
instead of entities that worked together to build a unified solution.

This is where Apple succeeded where other companies failed, and this is
because Apple brought back this wacko guy who did not respect
conventional corporate structures  and  bucked the system.

And Jobs's "reality distortion field" may have been criticised, but Jobs
did manage to convince Sony to jump into the Itunes Store at a time
where Sony's own record label refused to embark into Sony's own attempt
at the same.  So give credit where credit is due.


> Most people would agree that Jobs
> could probably sell ice-cream to Eskimos.

I disagree. Jobs would not sell ice cream to Eskimos. He would want them
to desire Apple branded premium ice cream and  line up at the "Northern"
store (ex: Hudson's Bay corp) the day before in order to be first to get
their hands on it. That is a lot more than "selling".