Today is Thanksgiving in the U.S. Traditionally we take stock of the things that we’re thankful for on this day each year. And I realized that one of those things is Steve Jobs. I’m thankful that he returned to Apple in 1997 and did the things he has done since. It wasn’t at all a certainty that he would ever return to the company that he cofounded two decades earlier. In fact, it was only luck and coincidence that pushed him back there.
It was late December 1996. I was an associate at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, the largest and most well known law firm in Silicon Valley. I’d fought for my job there, and I was lucky to be in a small group of lawyers that worked on some of the hottest deals at the firm – Netscape public financings and acquisitions, Pixar’s corporate deals with Disney, and NeXT Software, among others. Steve Jobs ran Pixar and NeXT, and whenever he did something that needed a law firm, he called my boss. Well, my boss’ boss – Larry Sonsini.
That month Larry got a call. Steve was going to try to sell NeXT Software to Apple. He’d presented to the Apple board of directors, and his characteristic anti-charm won them over. They’d shortly pay about $400 million to get NeXT, with Steve Jobs returning to Apple as an advisor. It wasn’t long before he took the CEO job and started a more than decade-long run of hit products that have disrupted the computer, music, television, movie and telecommunication industries.
We worked night and day on that deal for six straight days, barely leaving the office and usually sleeping on the floor under our desks. When we were done, one of the partners drove me over to Steve’s house to get his final signature on the documents I remember stuttering in his presence about my first computer, an Apple II+. A few days later Steve left me a voicemail about an administrative issue. I saved that voicemail for years, until I left the firm. It was, all in all, a formative moment for me.
And even today, not that many people fully realize how unlikely it was that the deal would ever happen. Apple was also negotiating with Jean-Louis Gassée to acquire his company, Be Inc. Be’s operating system BeOS was probably a better product fit with Apple than NeXT. Apple offered a rumored $200 million for Be, but Gassée held out for far more. And so Apple went with Jobs at the last minute.
Here’s what the NeXT Software website showed immediately after the announcement:
What if Apple had bought Be, and Steve never returned to Apple? What would the company, and our world, look like today?
Apple Then, Apple Now
When Steve Jobs returned to Apple the company had just completed a fiscal year where they lost about $1 billion on $7 billion in revenue. The company was worth about $4 billion. Rivals like HP and Dell were worth about $62 billion and $8 billion, respectively.
Today Apple is worth a staggering $184 billion on revenues of $36.5 billion and net income of $8 billion. The company is now worth far more than HP and Dell combined. Hewlett Packard is worth just $119 billion, and Dell is worth $28 billion. You could throw another Dell in there and Apple would still be worth more.
In 1997 Apple had a snoozy product line that included the ill-fated Newton, the Performa, the Power Macintosh, the PowerBook a bunch of printers and a few servers.
User dependence on desktop software meant that only the very loyal or the very strange used Apple’s products. Everyone else wanted a common desktop platform.
Fast Forward to today. Apple has the sexiest products in the business: iMacs, Macbooks, iPhones, iPods and more. Even the Mac Mini has a place in my home, powering my television.
In the last three months of this last year alone, Apple sold 3 million Macs, 10 million iPods and 7.4 million iPhones.
But the hardware isn’t even the start of what Apple has done in the last 12 years. They’ve accelerated the pace of change in the music, film and television industries as well with the iPod and iTunes. And they’ve redefined the mobile phone with the iPhone.
If Gassée, or anyone else, had become the CEO of Apple back in 1997, how many of these products would exist today? Would Apple have ever made the first iPod, entering into an already saturated MP3 player market in the beginning of this decade? How likely would the iPhone have been? And next year we’ll see an Apple Tablet computer. Does anyone think anyone but Steve Jobs would have pushed that product to market?
I don’t think any of those products would have launched. Or if they did they would have been as notable as the MP3 players and phones launched by competitors like Dell and HP. Quick, who can name any of those products? Who’s owned one?
Our World Without Steve Jobs At Apple
Fortune recently named Steve Jobs the CEO of the Decade, and with good reason. Not only has Apple performed financially – it’s worth about as much as Google, and has a larger market cap than AT&T, HP, Intel, Dell and countless other huge tech companies.
But forget all that. What would our world look like without him? We’d likely still be in mobile phone hell. Chances are we still wouldn’t have a decent browsing experience on the phone, and we certainly wouldn’t be enjoying third party apps like Pandora or Skype on whatever clunker the carriers handed us. Even if you use an Android, Palm Pre or newer Blackberry today, you must thank Apple for pushing open the doors to mobile freedom. Think back to the phone you had in 2006, and then tell me you don’t love Apple for the iPhone alone (yes, I’ve moved on, but the iPhone was the genesis).
Steve Jobs was also the man who talked the major music labels into dropping DRM. He nearly single-handedly disrupted the entire industry. And it’s amazing how many laptops and desktops today mimic the look and feel of Macbooks and iMacs.
Apple certainly hasn’t done everything right (MobileMe comes to mind, and I have had nothing but trouble with the Macbook Air). And their stance on the iPhone is irritating and, well, sorta evil.
But all of that’s ok. Because without Steve Jobs’ Apple the world would be a less colorful place. The man is a living legend and deserves his place in history. This Thanksgiving, Steve Jobs is one of the things that I’m thankful for. And I bet you are too.
Relax Victor. The courts didn’t come after Microsoft for decades. Apple’s time will come, life is a bell curve for every one and everything, FYI.
Under current US legislation there is nothing illegal about having a monopoly in a particular market – what is illegal is using that existing monopoly to gain a monopoly in another market. Apple does not have a monopoly in ANY market except for MacOS computers, and they have a very small share of the overall market for personal computers.
“life is a bell curve for every one and everything”
Another faulty analogy.
@th,
“life is a bell curve for every one and everything, FYI.”
It depends on when you die.
@Pete – “It depends on when you die.”
Yeah, and sometimes death happens before you’re born, but not always from natural causes.
If Apple ain’t monopoly, look at what they are doing with Psystar. Monopoly doesn’t have anything to do with market share, it is blocking other people from free choice. MS got punished for it.
Just like @ybouc said, what goes around comes around. You folks makes Apple popular, now that they are gaining market share, (which is good for everyone), we will see what the future brings. How long do you thing folks will like to live in a Wall?
You’re complaining about Nikon being a monopoly when they’re one of the few 35mm SLR manufacturers to keep the same lens mount for the last 5 decades? How idiotic.
@Jacques – The faulty analogy is based on @Infinity’s statement “Monopoly doesn’t have anything to do with market share, it is blocking other people from free choice” – Nikon won’t let me use Canon etc. lenses on my Nikon SLRs, just as Apple won’t let anyone use MacOS X except on computers made by Apple. Both are restrictions of free choice. Neither creates a monopoly.
There, that wasn’t so hard, was it?
Sorry Infiniti, Psystar is breaking the law. That software license agreement is a real legal agreement, not a friggin FYI.
If you want to point to a Monopoly, you would best look at the iPhone/ App Store, although even that is questionable in light of plenty of competition. Now, if Apple can convince developers not to develop on other phone platforms or they’ll be dumped from the App Store, then we’d have something to talk about.
Well yes, not letting people install OS X on non Apple machines does create a monopoly.
@Jacques – “Well yes, not letting people install OS X on non Apple machines does create a monopoly.”
If so, then Nikon not letting me use Canon lenses on a Nikon SLR also creates a monopoly.
Faulty analogy based on flawed premises.
Nikon do let you use Canon lenses, you just have to get an adaptor.
Installing OS X on a non Mac machine is an altogether different matter.
The camera is still functional, AF and i-TTL aren’t necessary to produce good photos, specially in a DSLR system where results can be observed immediately and manual settings changed. Unless you’re an idiot that has to shoot his camera on auto, in which case, spend your money on photography lessons rather than expensive ITTL flashes.
Point being, your original comparison was pretty idiotic, and yes, Apple are absolutely a monopoly.
Go away.
@Pete – “Go away.”
Don’t worry. I will. Eventually.
couldnt agree more… Steve is a legend, and one of the prime movers of the Valley
am i the only one who reads this as an early obituary?
Yes, you are the only one….
No, I also read it as an obituary. I will never understand why people are so mad about the Macs…
Thanks God, Steve is God!
(Let’s not forget about his team though and the countless Chinese/Taiwanese manufacturing all these shiny Apple gadgets)
Let’s not get too carried away now…
i was just about to say that
@Infinity – “If Apple ain’t monopoly, look at what they are doing with Psystar”
If Nikon isn’t a monopoly, why can’t I use Canon or Pentax or Olympus lenses on my Nikon cameras?
sic players and cell phones are 10x better because of the work Apple has done. Led by Steve Jobs, of course. Without Steve, Apple wouldn’t be anything even close to what it is today.
Mike,
Great post, Happy Thanksgiving too!
I always look Steve Jobs as a legendary being not to mention his “buddy” Bill Gates who made an amazing change in our world Today. I think even Mr. Jobs didn’t did that fateful move on 1997 he can still think of something to compensate that.
Jobs is just what our world needs and what Yahoo.com needs too unlike Carol Bartz (Yahoo CEO) who is pushing Yahoo to Armageddon on 2010
Loser Report: http://bit.ly/is-carol-bartz-a-loser
A man like Steve Jobs is what any Company needs. A visionary indeed. Happy Thanks giving to all!
This is a great Thanksgiving Day article. Well said, Steve Jobs is a living legend. Asides from the telephone industry (iphone) and music (ipod) he’s had a significant impact on the animated films industry with Pixar. What would this world be without the likes of Toy Story, Finding Nemo and Up? Indeed, Steve Jobs has made our world a much more colorful place, and I am thankful for that
thanks to steve!!
I bought apple stock for $16 on the day the colorful iMacs where announced, and that is why we all let him be so pompous.
I feel that 1985 was more significant as that’s when Marty and Doc travelled to the year 2015 and Marty purchased the Almanac. This somehow arrived in Jobs possession and the original timeline changed dramatically!
In 2015 we will have hoverboards and they will have the Apple logo, sync with iTunes and finally provide social networking features. To exchange contact details we just bump them together…
It’s not worth thinking about what would have happened if these events hadn’t transpired! The countdown to 2015 is on, if there are no hoverboards then Steve Jobs is a failure…..
We have to survive past 2012 first, don’t forget.
LOL – it’s funny how sort-of reasonable BTTF2 seemed in 1990. At that point, 2015 was still 25 years away. Now, as we’re barely 5 years away, it all seems so ridiculous. Flying cars? Hoverboards? Heh
That’s not to say I don’t love the movie. The back to the future series is one of my favorite movies of all time.
Steve Jobs is a genius.
The next website doesn’t look that different from the apple website!
I commend you for this post, Steve Jobs truly is a legend among men and deserves his place in history.
Steve Jobs is definitely a legend and I for one am happy that he decided to return to Apple’s fold. I wouldnt say though that we would have been stuck in the time warp of ugly mobile phones and dull computers. Innovations would have happened outside of it and we would have been talking of some Banana or Raspberry as the leading light.
Innovation would have continued on with or without Steve Jobs but I think the point Michael was trying to get at is that he help further progress much faster. The launch of the iPhone during its time was a monumental leap from the current mobile phone market and had he not been at Apple’s helm, I’m certain that today, we might still be waiting for the innovation to catch up to what would have been the first gen iphone if at all. No one can deny the SPEED at which these things came to light.
How can you believe that when here we are all these years after the first iPhone and all the other vendors can do is create “me too” products? Look at the Droid what’s different? How did it innovate and move things forward? The screen? A better phone? Apple had NOTHING but crap and came up with the iPhone. Palm, MS, Google, had the iPhone for years to and what did they come up with? Nawwww…we would STILL be in phone hell.
Most companies are dragged reluctantly into the future. Jobs and Apple drags people into the future. It’s a difference in attitude. Where most companies are worried about preserving their existing market share, and as a result do as little as possible, Apple goes out there and mixes things up.
As Patton would say, “you have to grab em by the nose, and kick em in the butt.” Apple does this. I am grateful for it, as it makes it harder for the lazy telecoms, music companies, and computer companies of the world to keep doing what they are doing.
Now, this approach is risky. We haven’t seen a high profile Apple flop in a while, but it will most likely come. However, the world does need a certain number of Jobses and Apples out there, so I hope they keep going.
You can love or hate Apple and Steve Jobs. But one thing is undeniable:
That man is certainly a genius and a legend!
Great Post.
These 2 statements from the article sum it all for me.
“You must thank Apple for pushing open the doors to mobile freedom.”
“Without Steve Jobs’ Apple the world would be a less colorful place.”
world a less colorful place? Apple is yet to touch the lives of so many people in so many parts of the world..
Microsoft brought computer to most parts of the world..It’s simply not the same with Steve Jobs..
… not to mention that most of the products are white, black or grey.
@Anand – “Microsoft brought computer to most parts of the world..It’s simply not the same with Steve Jobs”
Unless you can extrapolate that with the iPhone, Jobs accelerated the evolution of mobiles and the future of personal computing in the wireless cloud, since the iPhone was the first mobile with an HTML5-ready browser. There, that wasn’t so hard, was it?
@Left – this is Thanksgiving, and the only bile you can spew is your unseemly hatred for a man whom you have never even met, let alone read about in something other than the mainstream media?
I guess that says more about the sorry state of your interior life than it does about the idiosyncrasies of a particular Fortune 500 CEO. Pathetic.
Now I have something extra to thank for: Victor Panlilio. I have a good laugh reading your comments and wondering how one person can have so much time in his hands trolling the web.
I wonder if you have a day job, becuase if you do, you wont be trolling so much like you do. It may also be that you are paid to troll, then I must say you are doing a good job of it.
One last words of advice, you really need to see a shrink to have your Inferiority Complex treated. Y_content>
While at it, I also agree that when the population on top moves a notch higher, those at the bottom move up too. So, indirectly he has helped..
think about all the advertisements, art, movies, books, music produced on a mac and that are consumed by the world’s masses… yes, even in BRIC and subsaharan africa. So yes, the world is a more colorful place because of the steve.
as much i hate Apple’s policies and exuberantly priced line up (ipod isnt one) but no one can deny that steve job is as important to computer world as is Bill Gates.
You’ve got to be kiddin’……
“You’ve got to be kiddin’……”
Way, way MORE important than Gates. Gate’s whole career was based on suckering IBM to use DOS and then copying everything the competition was doing, having locked in the dull-witted Enterprise market.
Praising one great man need not be at the cost of vilifying another..
“way MORE important than Gates”…
FOR THE LAST FIVE YEARS. Oh and a maybe a few months in the 80s. IBM owned computing in the 70s, then Microsoft took over, and now Google and Apple are fighting for the crown. Then some Chinese company you never heard of will take over in about 2012.
How is Apple fighting for the computing crown right now? The OS and hardware of iPod doesn’t really matter at all. Mac’s OS is just as good as Windows 7. The only innovative thing they have right now is the iPhone. But even then it’s not like it’s OS is amazing or anything.
@Peter – Jobs founded a company called NeXT, which developed a computer system and software platform on which Tim Berners-Lee invented the web in 1990. If we are thinking carefully, there’s a case to be made that the Jobsian effect led to…the web.
Which is why Jobs is admired even by Sergey and Larry at Google.
Let us keep in perspective that Steve and Woz were members of the Home Brew Computer Club at a time when a home computer was a freakish nightmare/dream. Their work in designing and manufacturing the Apple 1 was the essential element that made the home computer as we know it today possible. Without their success IBM might never have decided to enter the PC marketplace, which of course is where Gates’ fortune has its founding.
Essentially, it is as impossible to overstate Steve Jobs value to the world as it is Henry Ford’s, Alexander Graham Bell’s, or Thomas Edison’s.
Ah, Apple’s stuff hasn’t been expensive (save the MacPro) since Steve returned in 1997. You’re confusing Initial Price with Overall Value.
Ted,
You are kidding, right?
Steve is truly amazing but that has nothing to do with Mac cost. IT IS expensive.
You just dont have a case there.
If you follow the original story of how Microsoft eventually made the leap to fame, it was ripped from Apple. Although I’m not a huge Mac user and by far is more of a Windows guy, I do recognize the importance in which Apple was a huge part of MS success.
@Steven – from the article linked to above:
http://tinyurl.com/yrc2a
“As you may be gathering, the difference between the Xerox system architectures and Macintosh architecture is huge; much bigger than the difference between the Mac and Windows. It’s not surprising, since Microsoft saw quite a bit of the Macintosh design (API’s,sample code, etc.) during the Mac’s development from 1981 to 1984; the intention was to help them write applications for the Mac, and it also gave their system designers a template from which to design Windows. In contrast, the Mac and Lisa designers had to invent their own architectures. Of course, there were some ex-Xerox people in the Lisa and Mac groups, but the design point for these machines was so different that we didn’t leverage our knowledge of the Xerox systems as much as some people think.”
but without the prior knowledge attained at Xerox there is no way they could have attained the success they did.. You can’t pick someone off the street to do what the Lisa and Mac groups did. this is the same argument of Apple’s influence even though they only have 9% of the OS market and are not as successful outside of North America. Yes, they have good products and that in turns drives competitors to improve and come up with new innovations…Without the Xerox experience there would be no Lisa or Mac groups…you cannot dismiss the influence..no matter how many quotes you throw at as.
IMHO,
We all should respect and honor Xerox for what they did in soooo many areas.
At least half of the technologies today we assume to be are either originating from Xerox or has/had something to do with Xerox.
Let us just accept that. We need to learn to give credit where it is due.
I am sick of posts here which are either biased either way or plane dirty.
It will not serve us any purpose being jealous or envy success (in case failure) of either Xerox, Apple or Microsoft.
Another point, it is a great disservice to hundreds/thousands of engineers like you and others who design small things, write code and get paid peanuts but are so important to deliver a product.
Steve Jobs, Bill Gates or folks from Xerox who then joined MSFT or Apple are made into icons but those folks who developed so many technologies from the materials used which makes your Mac look beautiful, those engineers make the Silicon chips work the way they work are forgotten.
I wish in an interview one day, Steve or Bill or Larry would come and say that the success belongs to all of you who made incremental progress so that advances are possible.
Hope you all readers have thoughts resonating with me. If so, please comment back.
I understand the vision, strategy argument. You would know what I mean if one would have known me personally (
).
But all those things get over values when companies become successful. While we do that, we forget people like you all who work to best of your abilities day and day out.
And you do that with faith and devotion.
My salute to you all!
But maybe we would have been talking of NeXT the way we talk of Apple today….
I thank God for Bill Gates without whom there might have been no PC’s in the first place and IBM would have had us by the balls…
Most importantly, I thank god for my life and my family
… With them, I would still love life without the iphone, the internet or the PC.
happy thanksgiving!
No – I disagree. There would have been PC’s without Bill Gates, except they would have been called Apples.
And the starting price wold be $5000.
Gates made the PC affordable. That was a game changer, far more than making cute laptops.
Bill Gates made PC’d affordable how exactly? He is in the software business, not hardware.
By making in an open system… Not limited to what IBM or Apple would allow.
Anybody could build any program and put it on Windows. That lead to the computer “revolution”. Gates did his thing (get everybody to build onto his product) and Apple did their thing (invent and re-invent). Gates is to computers what Ford was to cars. He helped put one in every house.
My first high-end PC in 1992 cost me $4000.00 (IBM). My last one cost me $1200.00 (Dell). The Apple IIc I had in 1986(?) cost $2000.00 and a friend just bought a Mac Book for $2000.00.
Yes,
Credit goes to Bill Gates for making the PC affordable. He did contribute to making it a commodity.
Intel also played a significant role in making that happen.
Not under Jobs they wouldn’t… you’re thinking of the Sculley era, not under the 2nd Jobs.
People who are good with money always get Macs don’t forget.
You’re an idiot, people who want a status symbol by Macs. People who are good with money look for the best deal.
@Stu – “You’re an idiot, people who want a status symbol by Macs”
Fail. By calling Ted an idiot, you already lost the argument.
Tim Berners-Lee doesn’t need a status symbol, he invented the Web – on a NeXT system, the software predecessor of today’s MacOS X.
Without Microsoft we would have had Digital Research. I think the folks from Compaq and the mistakes of IBM get too little credit.
Awesome post Mike, agree 100%. SJ is a true, living visionary. Happy thanksgiving from Sydney in Australia!
Cost basis $4.58. I’m a pirate.
Now write one about Bill Gates and his contribution to balance the perspective.
If Bill Gates wasn’t around … where would the world be?
Word up to Tom. Apple is a greedy company and its attack ads on Microsoft sicken me, especially considering 2 things:
1) Microsoft licensed its OS and paved the way for the computing revolution, while Apple kept its OS to itself, then watched and withered. Until it learned how to be ‘cool’.
2) Bill Gates is a virtually unparalled philanthropist, and every time one of those stupid attack ads scares customers away from PCs (for questionable and misleading reasons), the beneficiaries of Bill’s philanthropy suffer.
Google ‘Steve Jobs philanthropy’ for a comparison. “The Complete Boof Of…” is my personal favorite.
Word up to Kevin. Try to read up on the history of eugenics. Google “Bill Gates Planned Parenthood” for comparison and then go to http://www.Unborn.info if you want to see videos/photos of “beneficiaries”
How bout you keep your ridiculous propaganda to yourself?
That link forwards to priestsforlife.org.
Priests…
@tatsuke – “Priests”
…gave us the Big Bang theory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lema%C3%AEtre
@Jacques – “any sources that aren’t youtube or some catholic church site?”
http://www.blackgenocide.org
http://www.silentnomoreawareness.org
I’m thankful Steve Jobs was put up for adoption instead of being aborted.
@Jacques – “Microsoft != Gates”
That is a legal distinction, but who was seen in the deposition videos during the discovery phase of the antitrust case? It wasn’t a person called “Microsoft”
You’re blaming Bill Gates for abortions? How ludicrous.
@Jacques – I’ll save you the trouble of typing, just copy and paste: “Bill Gates Planned Parenthood”
If you can’t be bothered to do even that, here’s the top link
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2003/may/03050902.html
@Dropped Calls – Larry Brilliant in a 2006 TED talk mentioned that in 1980, Steve Jobs gave free Apple II computers to a medical foundation (name escapes me at the moment) in Kathmandu that was trying to improve health care in Nepal. 1980. This was one of the first public acknowledgments of any philanthropy by Steve Jobs that I can think of. For all we know, the philanthropy continues to this day, except Mr. Jobs prefers to do it quietly.
Victor, there’s a difference between pro choice and pro abortion. Or would you rather those 16 year old girls that never got adequate sexual education at school or home have their lives ruined because they didn’t know any better?
@Jacques – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPF1FhCMPuQ&fmt=18
@Terri – Jobs was adopted. Duh.
Connect the dots – if you are capable of doing so. By calling me a moron, you have already lost the argument.
All that proves is aborting at 30 weeks is a bad idea. Really though, I’d be interested in seeing you come up with a viable argument, rather than “bah bah, unborn child murderers”.
@Jacques
Have any sources that aren’t youtube or some catholic church site?
With the stupid comments you post I think you should be blamed for abortions.
Yeah, man, abortions are all my fault. I’m sorry people have unprotected sex or that sometimes, accidents just happen. People definitely should ruin their lives for a child they didn’t want.
Victor – you are a moron. You think that BG is sitting in an office somewhere planning on how to abort more babies or practice eugenics…? If you want to have a debate about abortion – GO SOMEWHERE ELSE.
http://www.theamericanview.com/index.php?id=648
Gee, that was easy.
@Jacques – “Whereas you do nothing”
Except banish other people’s ignorance?
@Jacques – “Is there something wrong with Bill Gates not considering an unborn foetus to be a life?”
Why, yes. When you have a lot of money and power, you can do a lot of good…or harm. With great power comes great responsibility.
The only ignorance that needs to be banished is your own.
So what you’re saying is that Bill Gates should adhere to your Catholic, pro-life beliefs? Isn’t he allowed to spend his money that he earnt in a manner which he chooses?
@Jacques – “Isn’t he allowed to spend his money that he earnt in a manner which he chooses?”
Is Bernard Madoff allowed to spend his money that he earnt in a manner in which he chooses?
You seem to forget that Microsoft was convicted of being a predatory monopoly by US Federal Courts.
@Jacuqes – “what you’re saying is that Bill Gates should adhere to your Catholic, pro-life beliefs”
What is the antonym of life? Death?
So the opposite of pro-life = pro-death.
Hey, we need more dead babies! Bring it on! Boo-yeah!
(Note: Adoption is NEVER a viable option)
Meanwhile, the UK will soon be under Sharia.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/05/birth-rate-chief-rabbi-sacks
Really, you’re comparing Gates to Madoff?
Microsoft != Gates.
Never a viable option? Is that what you’d tell a rape victim where the father is the rapist?
How about the teenagers that were so cloistered by Catholic schools and parents that they never knew about contraception, and then got pregnant after having sex and face ruining their lives because of it?
How about the burden on the tax payer that will have to pay for all these new children to be educated, to have healthcare, etc?
So anyway Victor, you being a good Catholic boy and all, do you use contraception (remember what the pope has to say about that)? Or maybe you just sodomise your wife (or she sodomises you, I’m not here to judge). Ah, but wait, the Catholic church frowns on sodomy too. I guess you just don’t get laid, which would explain your actions here.
I don’t see how the courts allowing a Jewish boy to attend a Jewish school constitutes the UK soon following Sharia.
@Jacques – “I don’t see how the courts allowing a Jewish boy to attend a Jewish school constitutes the UK soon following Sharia”
http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/rowan_williams_sharia_furore_anglican_future
@Jacques – From “http://twitter.com/iamacyborg”
“generally making an arse of myself”
Your words, not mine.
You might want to read that article before linking to it. All you’ve demonstrated so far is you ability to find articles which have nothing to do with the discussion at hand.
Me making an arse of myself would be posting photoshoped photos of yourself performing sexual acts upon the pope’s person on various popular sites across the internet with a link to your website contained within the image.
@Jacques – from the linked article:
“This is the background to Rowan Williams’s partial sympathy with sharia law. The Muslim community should not be despised as a nuisance for having, or seeking, particular legal arrangements. For the bigger picture is that religious communities contribute to overall civil life, and must be encouraged to strengthen their engagement.”
How is this not germane to the discussion of which laws will apply in the future?
In any case, you have not managed to refute my arguments, and continue to attack me personally by ridiculing my beliefs, which tends to support your own assertion that you generally make an arse of yourself (again, your words, not mine).
You have been provided with many links to remedy your ignorance. What you do with them is beyond my control.
I have now been sufficiently entertained by the general level of ignorance in this forum, and will depart to inflict my obnoxiousness elsewhere.
ahhh, the Air. i too have trouble with mine but LOVE it for its form factor and physical durability. i’ve learned to live with its limitations, which are far fewer than those of any netbook (albiet at 4x the price) but have often thought of replacing it. since i am a mac guy, evurse, bearing in mind what he does for others. Whereas you do nothing.
@Kevin,
How is Apple more greedy than Microsoft? Last I checked, they were both in the business to make money. As for Bill Gates, sure his philanthropy is well known but that’s his money, not Microsoft’s. Steve Jobs could be just as giving but maybe he doesn’t boast about it? There is no law against remaining anonymous.
@Kevin – “2) Bill Gates is a virtually unparalled philanthropist, and every time one of those stupid attack ads scares customers away from PCs (for questionable and misleading reasons), the beneficiaries of Bill’s philanthropy suffer.”
This is a bit of a stretch don’t you think?
Healthy competition towards Microsoft won’t effect Bill’s philanthropy efforts.
@TujuMaster and @Peter,
40% of Bill Gates net worth is still comprised of Microsoft stock, which equates to 10s of billions of dollars. And Apple’s attack ads only hurt Microsoft stock, which means less for Bill to give. I’m all for capitalism and competition, and I really respect Apple’s innovation; I just despise the way they attack a product that has done and continues to do some much good in the world, from powering the massive productivity advances of the past 20 years to the game-changing philanthropic efforts Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are focused on now. I’ll support a company like that over a ‘cool’ brand any day.
World would be a much more better place… without BG…
BTW – he just copied everything Steve did….
And Steve copied from……………Xerox.
So they are both thieves.
@Charlie – read
http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=A_Rich_Neighbor_Named_Xerox.txt
Thank God for Steve Jobs. He has cured boredom with the iphone.
+1
The recent Fortune article naming Steve Jobs the CEO of the Decade has some additional great perspective on him and the incredible path he’s taken – http://bit.ly/1swYCd.
Thanks for the great post and Happy Thanksgiving!
I really started to get a glimpse of what Steve Jobs was about when I came across a commencement speech he gave a few years back (I posted about it).
He broke our efforts down into essentials.
You’ve got to do what you love.
Great post Mike, the what if scenarios are frightening if Steve hadn’t returned to Apple. But imagine what he would have done outside of Apple? Maybe he would be spear heading his own smart phones, and pcs, or doing something even more awesome.
@Mark – Jobs also founded a company called NeXT, which developed the computer on which Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1990.
Isn’t that… world-changing?
No iPod, no iTunes, no iPhone. Hard to imagine. Didn’t know you were an attorney. It shows in your principled and detailed attack on the app scammers. Big contribution to the Internet this year. Keep up the good work. Thanks.
“No iPod, no iTunes, no iPhone. Hard to imagine.”
Not really. Don’t have any of them, never had an iPod or iPhone, installed iTunes for Windows once. I’ll never make that mistake again.
Of course Steve Jobs rocks the world!!! Without him there wouldn’t be bunch of great products Apple is offering today.
He is simply genius!
Happy Thanksgiving Day
just a thought. if steve had not returned to apple, he would have been at next.
maybe he would have done the same at next and next would have been what apple is today?
i am not sure what apple brand name has to do with it.
Apple had the hardware facilities. NeXT divested itself of the hardware business in 1993.
plus, apple’s got the best logo of all times
I’ve always been a fan of Steve Jobs. Never worked for him, but he has stock holders smiling. What’s the next disruptive technology Apple will unleash?
I’m a long-time Apple fan — been using one since 1982 or so and now I use my MacBook for everything. But, I’m also a Nokia N900 user and maemo.org community member. Just so you knowp the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet (with full Opera web browser) came out in 2004, long before the iPhone.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Tablet
@Steven – “Not everyone like each player, but or>
kemarken@broadpark.no
84.49.132.202
2009-11-26 13:40:33
2009-11-26 21:40:33
but then symbian seems to be a "err what?" in USA, in the same way that apple was in europe, if you where not a graphics or music person, until the ipod made a splash (much of that thanks to itunes being ported to windows. i swear there are more people running itunes as their media player then there are people owning ipods).
You linked to a site called priestsforlife.org for evidence…and are ripping on people for for intellectual laziness?
I wish Alex Jones had a tech section for guys like you to post under, so I wouldn’t have to fry braincells reading such nonsense.
@tatsuke – “so I wouldn’t have to fry braincells reading such nonsense”
Your brain must be exceptionally fragile. Try wearing a tinfoil hat.
@tatsuke – “I wish Alex Jones had a tech section for guys like you to post under”
It’s called Slashdot.
“Nothing is certain except, death, taxes, and ignorance (as is abundantly obvious from some of the misinformed comments here)….”
Actually, nothing is certain except that you believe you are the only one in the world who is right about anything and you’ll tax our patience and badger us to death if we disagree with you.
@Timsamoff, The tablet wasn’t a really a phone. Granted the browsing was good and you could use Gizmo. Phone calls weren’t really what the N700 was about.
In all honesty, I’m happy for mr jobs but he’s got a shifty personality. He bitches and whines like no one else. I’m a mac user a d iPhone lover so I respect his vision but he seriously needs to work on his personal skills.
This is a man that didn’t acknowledge his biological daughter until years later. Wow. What a loser.
Yes, he is a difficult man, by many accounts, but the value of these accounts is only as good as those who tell them. I believe that he will not put up with people who cannot understand his vision and are thus wasting his time; we are all thankful for that. From personal experience, I spoke with the man, at my own home in Palo Alto, of all places, just two blocks from his, and he was very courteous and humble, even as I told him that he had been my idol growing up. As for his family issues, they are his own business and no one else’s.
you probably would have hated ted williams and his personality also, if you are old enough to remember him.
Sorry, don’t know why my comment was submitted prematurely… Anyway, also see this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_770
Now, the Nokia N900 has a full-featured Mozilla web browser with Flash 4.6 — something the iPhone still doesn’t have.
Anyway, I’m still a Mac fanboy, but there are other innovators out there. Steve Jobs is smart, but he’s not “The One.”
What If Steve Jobs Hadn’t Returned To Apple In 1997?” – Counter factual condition.
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.
.
.
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The earth wouldn’t have stopped spinning.
Nothing is more annoying than when someone drinks all the Kool-Aid and doesn’t make a fresh pitcher.
Shame on you Arrington. Shame.
I saw the headline for the article and I thought the exact same thing initially (“not another Steve Jobs rimjob?”).
I was pleasantly surprised to see a much more insightful piece with personal anecdotes and reflection. Glad I clicked through and read the whole thing. Thanks, Mike.
What if Steve Jobs had chosen to go open source and to lead the development of the Linux kernel?
What if NeXT-Mac OS X was just a Linux distro, just as Ubuntu?
NeXT could have ended in the perfect Linux distro, open sourced, leading the Linux kernel development, making the distros environment even richer (Mac Linux for mac users, Ubuntu-Debian & similars for those who don’t buy Apple hardware, Chrome OS for netbookers; and minoritary distros for the ones who tweak their own flavor.)
The world would be a better place.
The hardware? Some has been good. Some really advanced to their time. Some G4Cube-ish.
I have to admit the guy is brilliant.
OSX has always been opensource, google:
Darwin Opensource
It’s all right there, free and ready to download.
Linux just can’t compete against FreeBSD, so the game is over, OSX won.
you really don’t know much about computaz, do u?
Fan boys.
@Ted – “Linux just can’t compete against FreeBSD, so the game is over, OSX won”
In terms of mainstream adoption, OS X currently has greater consumer market share than Linux (any distro). This likely isn’t because of the open source BSD underpinnings of OS X, but because the Linux community has internal squabbles (Gnome vs. KDE, ReiserFS vs. ext3, etc.) and no dictator (Stallman is no Steve Jobs even though he is an ideologue). So to bring this back to the OT, we can thank the Jobsian directorate (supported by henchman Jony Ive) for the (relatively) unified experience typical of Apple products.
Dustbin meet History…
The Mac Kernel *is* open-sourced. It is called “Darwin”. It is based on the more full-featured freeBSD branch of UNIX instead of LINUX.
It’s not a matter of just being opensourced, but being proactive with a bigger environment. That was what I meant.
There is no bigger UNIX environment than OSX don’t forget.
I rarely write comments about such “legends”, but I’d like to say this:
Oh, how naive thou blind followers!
Mission accomplished Steve!
Great Job(s)!
Have a very happy (US) Thanksgiving!
Yet, I’ll still eagerly await your 60th birthday bash!
As for that other guy…another day