“Critics have their place in the world, and I often act as one myself,” Comeau writes. “But for the life of me, I can’t understand how some people wake up in the morning and expect Apple to follow some arbitrary set of rules that would make the world a better place, if only that damn Jobs would listen to reason.”
“I do a lot of thinking about how Apple comes up with so much great stuff, and it goes way beyond the scope of design and engineering. It’s will. Apple is willing to go it’s own way, and that starts at the very top with Jobs,” Comeau writes. “The harsh reality is that most big companies offer ordinary products and services that aren’t any different from that of their competitors. So we should celebrate the CEOs that are willing to stand out and go after the completely ridiculous goal of changing the world — critics be damned.”
Comeau asks, “Do you remember Apple’s famous Think Different ad?”
Comeau writes, “You can roll your eyes all you want, but Steve Jobs is living that message right now. The moment he stops being unreasonable is the moment Apple ceases to be relevant… Remember one thing: If it weren’t for Apple, we’d all be stuck with lame computers and phones… Even if you don’t like Apple’s behavior, you’re benefiting from its innovations.”
Full article – highly recommended – here.
All this on $1 year salary.
Steve Jobs – True to the Bone and Always putting his money where his mouth is.
Here’s to the folks who hear people say, “It can’t be done”…then go out and do it anyway.
My hero.
And don’t forget 5 billion in the bank. And Toy Story 3 opens today. Should help his majority stake in Disney.
Haven’t read the whole piece yet, but I agree completely with the portion MDN included here. Everyone else competes by copying each other; winning equals selling more of whatever than the next guy. Apple competes by not even playing the numbers game and creating highly desirable products that others cannot easily copy.
@ Breeze2
Steve Jobs may be the largest shareholder of Disney, but his holding is not the “majority” (more than half).
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ken1w:
All, well earned and deserved.
Atlas Shrugged gets name-checked a lot these days in political discussions, but anyone who wants to understand Steve Jobs’s value to the world (and the morass of mediocrity he fights against daily) should read The Fountainhead. He’s the closest I’ve seen to a real-life Howard Roark.
” Even if you don’t like Apple’s behavior, you’re benefiting from its innovations.”
What’s not to like? I love Apple’s behavior.
I know people who used to work with Steve Jobs. They say he yelled at people. So did Edison, and most any other visionary who is impatient that others are not getting it. He wants everything to be as good as possible. That’s not bad behavior.
(From this Little Caribbean Guy to Mr Steve Jobs)
May u Live a Long and Prospering Life, & Don’t Change a Thing about Yourself, Because People like us Do Appreciate Every thing u do to Make this World a Much Better Place, & Do Cherish Every Moment that u Spend Leading such a Great Company.
“U R My Hero”
@ M159
“I know people who used to work with Steve Jobs. They say he yelled at people. So did Edison, and most any other visionary who is impatient that others are not getting it. He wants everything to be as good as possible. That’s not bad behavior.”
So did my mother and father. I wish I had listened.
You said it Winston.
DAMMIT i’m proud to be an Appleican! (TM)
iPhones: 4
iMacs: 3
iPods: 2
iPad: TBD
Winston:
Still available everywhere for a fraction of the $27.99 iBooks store price.
He draws a very long bow with his suggestion about what we would be using if it wasn’t for apple- what was the last thing apple actually invented, rather than significantly improved to the point of being excellence? (and yes it’s arguable there is very few true inventions). Gesture control? Nope, OSX? Nope, mp3 player? Nope. Tablet? Nope. Desktop computer? Nope (Fendelstein got there first with Sol). Even reader in safari 5 is a ‘borrowed’ and modified FOSS project called readability (which begs the questions, are apple going to return their improvements to the open source world where they got it from?).
Jobs seemingly has always followed the truism: be the dumbest guy in any meeting of people you have working for you. And since he’s certainly isn’t dumb, that says a lot about who he has been lucky enough to be associated with over the years from Woz, through the Next days to now. That and the persistence to demand excellence and not selling a product short certainly have elevated him, whether deservedly or not. He’s a damn good CEO though.
Everybody remembers Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, but none of the thousands of engineers and scientists that put them there. Just like Jobs. The cult of personality and the Big Man Syndrome.
Brulek:
Ever hear of talent scouts? They have thebtalent to pick needle out of a hay stack and the uncanny ability to recognize detail perfection and what most people miss.
If I were a talentbscoutvid say you wreak of jealousy,have chip on your shoulder and wouldn’t know a virgin if you saw one.
Brulek:
Ever hear of talent scouts?
They have the talent to pick a needle out of a hay stack and the uncanny ability to recognize detail perfection and what most people miss.
If I were a talent scout I’d say you wreak of jealousy, have chip on your shoulder and wouldn’t know a virgin if you saw one.
That’s great, but I wish his elves would hurry up and get my iMac fixed.
<<breeze
All this on $1 year salary.>>
Steve took an unpaid leave of absence last year, so he only got 50 cents.
@Brulek
It’s you who don’t get it. There are thousands of engineers, thousands techies, thousands of designers. Steve Jobs genius lies in his vision. His vision of what technology could be for humanity and making it accessible to all. All the engineering, designing and technical brilliance means nothing without a vision. Steve sees the big picture. Everything else is a piece of puzzle to that vision.
Comeau makes one error. Those ‘lame’ computers were Apple’s very first creation (remember Apple II?).
They’re lame now because an unimaginative industry has glommed onto a 32 year old conception of the future that Apple created in 1978.
Only Apple, the real innovator, is willing to move on.
These sorts of articles feed’s Apple’s ego building the myth that Apple can do no wrong. But what about Apple’s ludicrous stance on cutting the matte, antiglare screen from the iMac. And don’t give me the one that only a teeny percentage need matte. Read the 1,000+ petitions at http://macmatte.wordpress.com Apple is not doing the right thing by its customers by cutting the matte screen, and these sorts of ego-creating articles make them think they’re doing no wrong. Get real, Apple.
When you try to please everyone, you please no one.
That’s something the bloggers and pundits will never understand. Apple could have launched an iPad with everything the techno-pundits wanted – the floppy drive, the front-and-back camera, the switches, pulsing lights, the ability to open it up and tinker with it, a physical keyboard, ad nauseum. Thank God they didn’t.
It reminds me of the definition of a camel: a horse designed by a committee. I call it striving for mediocrity.
Thank God for stubborn people with impossibly high standards. Thank God for Steve Jobs.
Critics be damned!
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman (1903) “Maxims for Revolutionists”
I found Steve Jobs and told him to create Apple. I introduced him to Woz and later suggested UNIX for his Next computer. The guy is fine as long as you point him the right direction. You are all welcome. It has worked out well.
@breeze are you stupid or what?
@tz if you say so…I’d say he’s sees opportunity (money) and has the wherewithal to recognize how the devices/ideas the apple engineers design and make fit with this. He certainly drives people to excell and obviously gives them good directions. He reads the wind very well nowadays. He’s an excellent ceo, just as the coach/manager of a team should be. What he isn’t is an engineer or designer. It has always been well known his skills in these areas are quite mediocre. But then, as I said, he’s always been the dumbest guy in the room in that regard. He fits apple because apple has the culture of excellence imbued by woz (employee #1) from day #1, no doubt under his urging and cajoling.
Hear! Hear! I second that motion
I don’t deify anyone. Hell, I don’t even deify a deity.
Médecins Sans Frontières does something important for humanity. Steve Jobs makes consumer goods that we purchase, making a class of individuals wealthier. How that helps humanity is beyond the simple knowledge of MDN and Michael Comeau.
When Jobs can cure his own cancer rather than gaming the system using his wealth to get a liver transplant, I’ll give him his due. Otherwise, WTF?
@Brulek
Yes, Woz may have been the genius who designed and built the Apple I and ][, but it was Jobs who had the foresight and vision to build a company around great engineering and design and bring computing power to ‘the rest of us’ with elegance and simplicity.
BTW Steve was employee #0, although there is also a story about that…
Where there’s a will, there’s a way. – Critics be damned!
“……Where there’s a will, there’s a way……..”
yeah, maybe…… but….
where there’s a wilt…….
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there’s NO way !!!
“……Where there’s a will, there’s a way……..”
yeah, maybe…… but….
where there’s a wilt…….
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” />
there’s NO way !!!
“……Where there’s a will, there’s a way……..”
yeah, maybe…… but….
where there’s a wilt…….
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” />
there’s NO way !!!
“……Where there’s a will, there’s a way……..”
yeah, maybe…… but….
where there’s a wilt…….
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” />
there’s NO way !!!
“……Where there’s a will, there’s a way……..”
yeah, maybe…… but….
where there’s a wilt…….
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” />
there’s NO way !!!
“……Where there’s a will, there’s a way……..”
yeah, maybe…… but….
where there’s a wilt…….
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” />
there’s NO way !!!
“……Where there’s a will, there’s a way……..”
yeah, maybe…… but….
where there’s a wilt…….
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” />
there’s NO way !!!
Did you have to pay michael comeou for this article or b/c you typed “michael comeou says” every other paragraph, you think this is your ORIGINAL WORK?
Where there’s a will… there’s a relative.
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As Picasso said, “Good artists copy. Great artists steal”.
Apple may have stolen some ideas to create the iPod/iPhone/iPad but everybody else is now copying Apple.
Show us the way, and we will follow. Thank God for a company that makes sense out of the non-sense that is the world of technology, and delivers to me a small thing that lets me take part in the Web in a way that I like and which is efficient and sensible. Buy AAPL you won’t regret it.
Thank you
Jef Raskin
Bill Atkinson
Burrell Smith
Susan Kare
George Crow
Chris Espinosa
Joanna Hoffman
Bruce Horn
Andy Hertzfeld
Guy Kawasaki
Daniel Kottke
Jerry Manock
and Douglas Adams
I remember an interview with Steve Jobs an Bill Gates a few years ago when the interviewer asked Steve about the user experience of iTunes on a PC and he said (with Bill Gates sitting there) that, “It’s like giving a glass of ice water to somebody in hell.”
Yesterday afternoon I worked on my wife’s Dell laptop, killing the user account, removing software and generally getting it ready for sale. This is a one year old laptop with pretty nice specs by the way. There was nothing unusual about this machine. It was stock except for Outlook and MS Office.
The machine had not been run in several weeks so there were updates waiting and I needed to download some freeware from a well known safe site to help clean it up. After an hour and a half I was bleeping bonkers bouncing off the wall bats#%t crazy. At every turn there was a window from some bit of sludgeware wanting attention for an update, to buy the factory loaded trialware, etc. Just performing these simple operations was like visiting a carnival with barkers trying to divert my attention at every step while all the while looking out for pickpockets.
I cannot understand how people tolerate the Windows experience. Thank you to MacDailyNews. I needed a safe place to rant.
@ GaryKPDX
You should have just erased the laptop’s drive (zeroing out data) and reinstalled from the original disc. Sell it that way and let the new owner deal with updates.