“I recently heard a successful business leader state that he was no different from Steve Jobs, and therefore Jobs was of no interest to him,” Eric Zelermyer writes for Medium. “It was a tossed-off, casual comment, but it bothered me, and I’ve spent a fair amount of time since pondering why.”
“Relentless devotion to minute improvements in product design is what engendered, over time, the emotional attachment of many millions of so-called ‘Apple fanboys,'” Zelermyer writes. “Apple under Steve Jobs consistently placed the improvement of their products over easy temptations of short-term profit. Why, even when Apple was nearly out of business, did Macs not become filled with sponsored crapware that undoubtedly would have brought in a huge boost to revenue? Jobs would rather have seen his products die than compromise on the experience of using them.
“It is hard to imagine any of today’s business leaders possessing the ability or desire to craft the details of their products to this level,” Zelermyer writes. “For many of us who are professionally engaged in creative pursuits, we see our skills almost in opposition to what is required to succeed in business. Self-promotion, financial meticulousness, managerial acumen, and competitiveness are traits that many of us wish we possessed but feel entirely foreign. For one person to have all those traits at a rarefied level and also possess brilliant creativity, design judgement on par with the world’s best, and a tireless devotion to enforcing his aesthetic standards is nearly unique.”
“It’s a cosmic accident, an extremely rare mutation,” Zelermyer writes. “So to those who think they possess equivalent greatness, I can only say: you’re not that lucky.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Steve Jobs was a jack of all trades and a master of many.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Mark” for the heads up.]
I am not Steve Jobs and I have no interest in being him. While he was no doubt extremely talented, I get tired of the endless praise of people that are no longer with us. He also appeared to be a tremendous jerk and someone I would never want to have worked for. Wherever he is now, whatever is said about him is probably not having much of an effect on him.
“He also appeared to be a tremendous jerk and someone I would never want to have worked for.”
Maybe this is how that guy in the story is “no different from Steve Jobs.” 😉
Steve was a one trick pony,
A small portable computer that is easy to use and available to everyone.
That was his vision, consistent from beginning to end. A pretty good trick
the glass staircase doesn’t count.:)
You are incredibly myopic if you think Steve Jobs, the man who is credited by anyone with any business acumen at all, with upending FIVE major industries, was a “one trick pony.” You don’t get that kind of reputation by a monomania about “a small portable computer that is easy to use and available to every one.” You ignore four other industries Steve Jobs remade with his vision and drive. . . that the rest of us see.
When Steve passed on, I was in the Hospital recovering from a Heart Transplant. That moment, I started crying and my monitor went off alerting the staff. They came running in they looked at me and asked if I was ok. I just nodded and pointed to the TV. They stood still for a second then they put their attention on me to calm me down cause earlier in the day they removed all the tubes. A part of me died that day. Shared a lot. Our birth year but he was only 2 months older and our love for tech. The next big thing and other things. But one thing he had me beat by a mile was his showmanship. Showing us things that became the next big thing. That man had it all wrapped up with a little bow. Tho I never met him or knew him, there will never be another man like Steve Jobs.
[violins]
I would love to know which “successful business leader” made that remark.
Hubris is an ugly thing.
Quit comparing yourself to Steve Jobs and you just show me your accomplishements.
I will then judge who you look like.
Some people act like jerks on occasion to help those around them focus on the issue at hand. Others are just jerks. I suspect Jobs was the former and the “highly successful leader” who thinks he is Jobs falls in the second group. A common trait among the second tier.
No one is me either !
Not even you?
Lol.. Touché
😉
🙂
Anyone who is great at anything will be derided by the ignorant majority until they die, at which point they are recognized and copied. Humanity is on the whole a petty, selfish species. That’s why Steve Jobs had to be a jerk sometimes.
Anyone here has read the Isaacson biography?
I can really recommend to listen to the extended version of the audiobook, audible offers it for free for 30 days.
Take your time, read it twice.
After this you come back and read your own opinion again.
Of course you can take it easy to judge what you do not understand.
As our origin and history is different, our goals are in general the same.
Do not judge with prejudice and beware of the great variety of forum falsehoods.
I trust everybody, but I do not trust the devil found in every man.