“Steven P. Jobs died nearly eight months ago, but the technology industry is not ready to let him go,” Nick Wingfield writes for The New York Times.
“That was especially evident on Wednesday at the D: All Things Digital Conference, a tech industry gathering in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., that was the only event of its kind that Mr. Jobs blessed with his presence,” Wingfield writes. “He spoke at the conference six times over its 10-year history, most recently two years ago. His shadow this year was inescapable.”
“Edwin E. Catmull, a co-founder with Mr. Jobs of Pixar, and Larry Ellison, the Oracle chief executive and one of Mr. Jobs’s closest friends, participated in a joint interview billed as the ‘Lessons of Steve Jobs.’” The two men described the by now widely known collection of qualities that contributed to Mr. Jobs’s success: his perfectionism, his obsessive attention and need for control over every aspect of a product and so on,” Wingfield writes. “Nearly every other high-tech or entertainment industry luminary speaking at the event offered some form of tribute to Mr. Jobs. The screenwriter Aaron Sorkin spoke of his nervousness about taking on the challenge of writing a script for a biopic about Mr. Jobs based on Walter Isaccson’s biography… On Tuesday, Timothy D. Cook, Apple’s chief executive, talked about Mr. Jobs’s death as ‘absolutely one of the saddest days of my life.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: “…Blessed with his presence.” A dismissive “…and so on.” Please read the full article and then tell us, are we just cranky this morning or is there an undercurrent of “Hey you maudlin dummies, Jobs wasn’t all that” running under Wingfield’s piece. If the latter, why?
And this comes as a suprise?
Greatness is not determined or usually acknowledged by the Incompetent.
MDN, respectfully disagree. Article seems rather straightforward in its reporting to me, and I am not a NYT fan.
Cranky or far too sensitive.
The event is called ‘All things digital’, so it seems appropriate that the first one after his death should mark the achievements one one so influential in the digital world.
After all, there is probably nobody else who had such a profound effect on so many aspects of the digital industry over so many years. Just look at what he brought to market: the original Apple single board computer, the Apple II, Macs, iPods, digital music, iPhones and iPads and not forgetting Pixar. All of those ( and many more ) were hugely significant and any individual would deserve recognition for any one of those achievements, but one individual behind all of those and more is absolutely extraordinary.
Journalists may try and belittle him, but his achievements will endure, while each day’s work from a journalist fades into insignificance by the following day.
yes you might be a bit cranky this morning but use it to your advantage.
Agreed!
I wouldn’t say Wingfield’s piece had an “undercurrent” of dragging Jobs down. What the attendees—many who knew Jobs well—were saying seem to have been germane bits for Wingfield to quote.
However, ending with the “megalomania” quote, which was from Sean Parker, who had never even met Jobs, shows that Wingfield thought it good form to engage in a drive-by shooting on Jobs. It was poor form.
As for all the others, the “undercurrent” MDN is smelling is just realism. Even revered people like Mahatma Gandhi turned out to be complex human beings subject to human foibles. In the case of Gandhi, he was a tireless self-promoter dedicated to ensuring his good deeds were spotlighted without it looking like he was trying to put the spotlight there himself (“Oopsy, did the press notice that good deed by little ol’ me??”). In Jobs’ case, self-promotion was about the last thing he ever wanted. That he was bright beyond all comprehension is clear. That this quality brings out impatience with fools is understandable.