It’s a Wonderful Life
Steve Jobs is dead. The New York Times adds, “He was 56. The death was announced by Apple, the company Mr. Jobs and his high school friend Stephen Wozniak started in 1976 in a suburban California garage.” The tributes and memorials will come thick and fast. But what is the worth of a man’s life?
Jeff Jacoby at the Boston Globe was coincidentally musing on David Horowitz’s search for meaning in life, little anticipating that the same issues would apply very soon to Steve Jobs. David Horowitz, a former leftist, departed Marxism without abandoning atheism. Nevertheless Horowitz doesn’t mind dying and nothingness, says Jacoby.
[Horowitz] writes admiringly of Marcus Aurelius, the Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher whose “practical wisdom” was that life’s torments — and tormentors — should be faced with equanimity, since oblivion is the common fate of all. “Be not troubled,” advised the emperor, “for all things are according to nature, and in a little while you will be no one and nowhere.” It is a passage Horowitz quotes several times. He is at peace with the prospect of dying, he says, “comfortable with the idea that soon I will be no one and nowhere, and comforted in a stoic way by the knowledge that it doesn’t add up.”
Is he, though? As Horowitz notes, even Marcus Aurelius was “haunted” by the implications of a world without transcendent meaning. If the universe is nothing but “a confused mass of dispersing elements,” the great Stoic wrote — if there is no God, no perfection, no possibility of redemption — why do we hunger to live? Why do we have such hopes for the future?
Maybe because we want to control it; because we want to make a positive difference and be certain of the fact before we die. For surely we make some difference. Even Marcus Aurelius, who predicted he would be “no one and nowhere,” finds himself quoted by Horowitz, Jacoby, and the Belmont Club centuries after he died.
Had Marcus Aurelius not taken the trouble to be either Roman emperor or philosopher then we would have no one to quote, or at the least quoted someone else. For good or ill, the ancient Stoic’s life changed at least this page; for if Aurelius had never existed then what would be written above? Something different surely.
One of the reasons given for the difficulty of traveling back in time is that the past matters; the past is privileged with respect to the future. “The arrow of time, or time’s arrow, is a term coined in 1927 by the British astronomer Arthur Eddington to describe the ‘one-way direction’ or ‘asymmetry’ of time.” One explanation for this is based on the “grandfather paradox,” which asserts that if we could travel back in time we might alter the conditions which gave rise to us in the first place.
The idea of changes rippling through is captured by the experience of George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life. In the throes of despair he is shown by his guardian angel how much poorer the world would have been without him. Unfortunately we don’t have a movie called It’s a Horrible Life, in which Hitler’s personal devil shows the tyrant how much better the world would have been without him.
I can’t remember a death of a non-family member affecting me as much. I reveled in Jobs genius. His life was strewn with enemies and haters, as is the case with all great men. But nothing diminishes his position as visionary.
Awful that he didn’t live to see 100. Wonderful that he lived this long and did this much.
Outstangingly profound. RIP Steve Jobs. Well done!!!
One of the reasons given for difficulty of traveling back in time is that the past matters; the past is privileged with respect to the future. “The arrow of time, or time’s arrow, is a term coined in 1927 by the British astronomer Arthur Eddington to describe the ‘one-way direction’ or ‘asymmetry’ of time.”
There is a thing called the Twin Paradox used to illustrate relativity in time. Taryn and Karyn are twins. In 2003 Karyn stays home, but Taryn flies to Alpha Centauri and back at very nearly the speed of light, a voyage that takes eight years of Karyn’s time, but only a few days of Taryn’s time. So Karyn thinks its 2011, she’s physically eight years older, but Taryn thinks it’s still 2003 and her ship’s clock agrees. She is physically only a few days older.
When Taryn steps off her spaceship and meets her twin, what year is it, 2003 or 2011? It doesn’t matter! There is no time, there is only a universal eternal NOW, but clocks and heartbeats can beat slower or faster depending on their relative motion or position within a gravity well.
The implication is that even if you had a time machine, there would be no available destination. There is no future, nothing for a god or prophet to foresee, and the only past which endures exists in physical records (subject to redaction) and human memories. Even human memories are not stored as complete records but as simple highlights which can trigger the brain to recreate the past at will. That is why three different eyewitnesses can have five different testimonies. Politicians and religious authorities know, like Santayana did, that to repeat the mistakes of the past they must control the teaching of history.
Some believers will object that this limits God, who can “see the end from the beginning” according to the scriptures, but we do not ask God to do impossible things, like create a four-sided triangle or a billiard ball that is all black and all white. The future does not and cannot exist, so even God can be forgiven for not knowing it. And this, in turn, guarantees that our will is always free.
There are loved ones in the glory,
Whose dear forms you often miss;
When you close your earthly story,
Will you join them in their bliss?
Will the circle be unbroken
By and by, by and by!
In a better home waiting
In the sky, in the sky?
Steve Jobs was a special person, a great entrepreneur and a giant in the contributions that he made to technology and as an example of how capitalism can work for the general good. A very important man to us humans.
One respectful question that I have about how God might regard Steve Jobs, or any other great men and women for that matter is – does God love a lush green jungle more than a harsh desert, or is it all the same to him? Would a great man be more important to God than Joe Blow? I don’t know what the answer is.
One of the things that I think fascinates us about Jobs is that his company makes stuff. Ok, the stuff isn’t actually made in America any more, but it’s created here. And it’s antiseptic enough to get past our Pecksniffian cavils at manufacturing processes that might stir up a cloud of dust somewhere or release a puff of CO2. I think the rage for Apple goods in some ways speaks to our longing for being a people that BUILDS THINGS.
Coincidentally, I just came across this astonishing picture of mills at Niagara Falls.
http://www.shorpy.com/node/11389
Click the “view in full size option.” It’s incredible. Of course, to our current sensibilities this is an environmental horror. But good God, look at the work that went into creating those facilities, all so we could MAKE STUFF. Nature was something to be harnessed for the betterment of mankind, not something to be put under a glass and worshiped.
Did we go too far in those days in terms of damaging nature? Of course we did. But we’ve swung too far the other way since. We need a balance.
We need to make stuff again. And lots of it. It would be nice if Steve Jobs’ legacy in some way led to a re-birth of creating and manufacturing, but I doubt it.
oh boy, here we go.
certainly Jobs was a big player and an icon of my own times and even of my own industry. I respect his energy and his success, have been horrified at the gauntlet he has had to run on the way out, and hope he can now rest in peace.
that said, I’ve never found Apple anything more than an irritation, personally, a hype machine for stuff not nearly as original or polished as they claim, and appealing to a lot of folks with Priuses decorated with Obama stickers, in other words clueless in other ways too. Jobs fought the introduction of color, he loved the tiny screen on the original Mac, stole the whole concept from up the hill at PARC, but to his credit did bring it all to the masses. he stayed with closed systems to the end, which many of the more creative types in the computer industry dislike – except maybe when Apple does it. he shipped tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs to China, though perhaps this is almost a paradigm case of how that works out in our favor, in the *short* term at least. personally he had a reputation as arrogant and abusive, in a more or less professional way. the radio today is full of people telling us what a sweetie pie he is at home and as an interview. well, if he was not a complete angel, that should not come as news or disappointment to anyone.
still, ironically enough, a little color goes out of my world and my own story with his passing. RIP, Steve. And if reception is spotty where you are, take your hand off the halo, or stand in line to have a heaven-approved lightning bolt recharge the battery.
wc@5: Would a great man be more important to God than Joe Blow?
I don’t know either, but I think the response to Jobs is more than superficial gadget idolatry. The “hit” for many of us (I am one year older) is more related to Jobs representing what was good about the much maligned Boomer Generation, situated as we are immediately after the so-called Greatest Generation. The other thing about Jobs, which people forget, was his remarkable and inspirational comeback after he was severed with very public vitriol from his position as Apple’s CEO in the mid 1980′s. Sweet. We don’t all get to experience that. Also, as is well known, I assume, he was a Buddhist. Lastly, a tough way to die.
what is most intriguing to me about Jobs is that he had his time in the wildnerness back in the late 80′s/early 90′s when the Wintel alliance was in full gear. he had his greatest successes after this period of exile, to be somewhat melodramatic.
i think that it says a lot about the fortitude and drive of someone who had the early success that he did to return with a vision (and the ability to execute) on solving basic needs in a way that no one else seemed to be effective at. to think that he led a company out of the woods to become one of the most valuable companies in the world in such a relatively short timeframe is likely something we won’t see again in our lifetimes.
You guys know he was a Democrat, don’t you?
My first PC was a Mac. Ironically I worked for Xerox who essentially gave up the technology that enabled Apple to differentiate their products. Jobs changed the world – God bless him.
My brother died in Dec. of this terrible disease. As a result of his diagnosis I came across the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network. They are the point of the spear for pancreatic cancer research yet due to the aggressive nature of this terrible disease receive a disproportionately small amount of research dollars.
If you can scrape together some funds, please check out PANCAN and give. They are some mighty fine people doing some important work.
Jobs moved the needle in a very noticeable fashion. I hope others are inspired to take the risks and drive the development to similarly change the world. We’ve never needed people like him as much as we do now.
Eternal Rest grant unto him, O Lord,
And let Perpetual Light shine upon him.
May he Rest in Peace, Amen.
I owned a computer animation company in the 90s and early 00s, and was required to purchase ridiculous and extremely expensive computers to operate. We primarily used Silicon Graphics machines which were amazing in their day, but we also owned many species of PCs, Linux boxes, and a few Apples. They all served their function, and I only mention this to show that I’ve owned hundreds of computers and other high tech devices over time – but I can unequivocally say the coolest, sexiest and most amazing pieces of tech I own or have EVER owned all come from Apple and Steve Jobs. I treasure most my iPad – followed closely by my iPod touch. When I use these devices I feel like I’m in the future which I dreamed of as a boy.
Thank you Steve Jobs and Apple! The best of the best.
Jobs was cipher–and a marketing guru.
His biological father is a Syrian Muslim economist who now works with the casinos in Nevada–Jobs refused to speak with him.
His adoptive father was a car repo man.
Jobs was an acid head in his teens and 20s–dropped out of college and wandered India looking for a guru and the next high.
He never gave a penny to Charity
–when he returned to Apple he threw out the whole corporate philanthropy department.
He was great at hiring talent and ruthless in burning out that talent–in his 20s, 30s and 40s.
He was driven by an insatiable hunger for Power and Control
In the American system that means you have to satisfy customers and drive talent to achieve this goal.
Jobs was ruthless–that is what it takes to build an empire–fortunately he did it within the American system–in other contexts such drives lead to The Horror.
A sad day for his wife and kids
Ashes to ashes–dust to dust
Vanitas Vanitatum, Omnia Vanitas
.. why do we hunger to live? Why do we have such hopes for the future?
Because there are flowers and puppies and mountains and canyons and little girls that smile. Also big girls. See them all at Theo Spark’s.
I met Steve Jobs once, when the Apple Store in NY’s Soho opened. I suggested that he include high speed modems in the computers, not just the old phone/fax modem, and he was dismissive. He said that the technology hadn’t settled yet but that eventually cable modems would win out over DSL.
Was his politics compatible with that of most of the people who frequent this Club? No and it does not matter more than it does. He made our world a richer place and by our principle we support what encourages every Steve Jobs to achieve their potential.
When I think about Marcus Aurelius, I remember not only his stoic philosophy, which I often think of, but that he made one of the worst blunders any emperor ever made. The previous four emperors had chosen as their successor, a qualified adult, who they adopted as a son. Marcus chose his son Commodus, who was unfit for the position. After a chaotic reign of 12 years, Commodus was assassinated, and Rome was not well governed again until the reign of Diocletian a century after Marcus.
Victor@13: He never gave a penny to Charity…–when he returned to Apple he threw out the whole corporate philanthropy department.
I always wondered about that. The United Way/William Aramony (Lebanese) scandal resulted in indictments in 1992 (convictions in 1995) – about the time Apple purchased NeXT and Jobs regained control of his old company (1996).
After the Aramony scandal, contributions fell to their lowest point since World War II, and many United Way chapters withdrew from the national organization, though most would later return.
The national UWA organization received a jolt in 1996 when Aramony filed a $5 million lawsuit for earnings and retirement benefits he claimed were due to him.
In the autumn wind
There will at least be
A lotus to sit upon
For eternal peace.
-Kasho
I regret that, in a post which muses on Marcus Aurelius and Ray Bradbury, I have only the below to contribute, but there it is:
Wretchard wrote: “Unfortunately we don’t a movie called It’s a Horrible Life … ”
Actually there is a good riff on the movie from the sleazy old TV series, ‘Married With Children”: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/marriedwith_children_its_a_bundyful_life/
“In this hilarious spoof of the classic film “It’s a Wonderful Life,” Al Bundy of television’s “Married with Children” winds up, on Christmas Eve, wishing he had never been born. But his guardian angel, played by comedian Sam Kinison, makes him change his mind after showing him how happy everybody in Al’s family would be without him. This holiday edition of “Married with Children” features the entire regular cast from the series”.
Steve Jobs’ politics are irrelevant to me because he did not use his renown at Apple to make political speeches.
His products were beautiful and worked. His standards were the highest. I used Mac from the beginning until they fell behind during his absence. I returned to Mac after he did.
I admire the Steve Jobs in reality along with the Hank Reardons of fiction. Non-homoginized. Distinctive. Human.
Had Steve Jobs never been born we would still have many of the products we enjoy today because he did not invent the computer. He did, IMO, inject a quality and innovative spirit into those same products. I don’t own any Apple products because I don’t like paying a premium price for what I can (mostly) get for free- Linux vs. Unix. But their product quality is so, so sweet. Thanks Steve and rest in peace.
Jobs had Al Gore on his BoD and was a cheerleader and major contributor to the Obama campaign.
To my mind, the greatest Apple product was the MacII with the Laser Printer. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the Mac when it came out, but the floppy drive was slow and the dot-matrix printer was – a dot matrix printer. The MacII was like heaven on earth, it was such a leap beyond the Mac. And the laser printer! It created documents which were things of beauty. Yet the MacII had to be protected from Jobs and was released commercially only because Jobs had been removed from power by Scully. Yet, without Jobs, there would have been no Mac in the first place and so, no MacII.
I’ve admired Steve for decades though he had flaws and he made some poor decisions in his business career. But some of his decisions were astonishingly successful. His last 14 years as head of Apple will go down as the single greatest “come back” in the history of business. Since his return to power at Apple, nearly everything Steve touched turned to gold. And, lets not forget his decision to buy Pixar from Lucas and then give full creative control to Lasseter which allowed Pixar to make “Toy Story” and all the rest of their fantastic films. That decision was another “home run” for Jobs on every level.
Though I met him only once, he was “one of us”, born near the end of the baby-boom, a Californian, a great believer in the power of the computer to make the world a better place. This is a sad day in Silicon Valley, he will be sorely missed.
Well, for a different perspective, yes, RIP, Steve Jobs, but he meant as little to me as any stranger I pass on the street. AFAIK, I’ve never owned a product his company produced. And it’s probably a measure of my own ignorance, but to my mind, the stuff he produced seems to the soul as cotton candy is to the body.
westerncanadian@5: rest assured, God has no favorites as far as landscape, be it jungle or desert. Regarding Jobs…I know nothing about the man’s personal faith. God alone can judge him on that. And he will. That’s between Jobs and God, and not for us to know. But Steve Jobs and Joe Blow are on equal footing before God (unlike in our current political situation, where Steve Jobs undoubtedly has the edge).
Josh@7: Echo your thoughts. My very first programming experience was with an Apple ][. 9th grade, fall of 1982. Three computers for the whole school. I was ENTRANCED. Have been ever since. Whatever else Apple may have done, it was a BRILLIANT move on their part to focus on schools. I haven’t touched an Apple computer (I don’t think) since I finished up my resume and printed out a few hundred copies one of my last days in college on a Mac (using Aldus Pagemaker), but I’ve followed Apple’s story ever since, and I do have an iPod. And I recognize the genius that this man had in technology and especially in marketing. He was a giant among men, though I had an antipathy to his company. Somehow, though, I doubt that Gates’s passing, when it happens, will generate the kind of love among Apple enthusiasts that Jobs’ has done with us. Apple users as a class seem to be arrogant, elitist bastards, on the whole. No doubt the Obama White House is full of Apple users.
Speakeasy@20: Yes, we WOULD still have most (if not all, or even better) of the products we have today. I have no doubt. But the fact remains that this man DELIVERED them. No woulda, coulda, shoulda. The man has warts and stuff, but he was the guy that got the job done. His personal politics aside…he’s the one that did it. And nobody can take that away from him.
Salt Lick@23: Doesn’t matter if you never owned an Apple product. The dude shaped the lives of all those around you, who in turn shaped your life. Hard to say in what indirect ways Jobs benefited your life…but he did. For me, he did everything from found my career (though I’ve never professionally worked with his products) to give me a device that gave me sweet music through endless hours of running. And products that give you sweet music, well, I’m sorry, but I feel that’s a lot more than cotton candy to the soul.
Regarding the original post WRT time travel, well, in a free-associational way I offer:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Titor
Though, I call bullshit on wikipedia’s timeline. I first read about John Titor in about January 2001 (or maybe earlier) and they say the name “John Titor” was first introduced then. But When I read about him, the name was firmly established in WebCrawler, or whatever passed for Google at the time (don’t remember). It’s a fascinating story, though, even if you consider time travel to be utter crap. It is probably the first time I ever seriously considered survival as a priority. Not because I seriously entertained John’s story (though I have to admit I did) but because it made me really think about what is possible, and how it might affect me and mine. FWIW, if John’s story is true, from what I recall of his story we have about 4 years before the balloon goes up in a huge way.
Dare To Be A Daniel*.
…-
“Does this treatment sound familiar?”
“Vindicated: Ridiculed Israeli scientist wins Nobel”
“Yeah, consensus science never fails.
The shy, 70-year-old Shechtman said he never doubted his findings and considered himself merely the latest in a long line of scientists who advanced their fields by challenging the conventional wisdom and were shunned by the establishment because of it.
…
“I was thrown out of my research group. They said I brought shame on them with what I was saying,” he recalled. “I never took it personally. I knew I was right and th ey were wrong.”
Full story here at Yahoo News.
Congratulations for winning the Nobel Prize, and for having the courage and stamina to stick it out Dr. Shechtman. I hope you will be an inspiration to many others to not let the intimidation of closed minded peers wear you down. Science self-corrects, sometimes taking years to do so and we are witnessing the self correction of climate science consensus slowly take place before our own eyes.”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/05/does-this-treatment-sound-familiar/
*Dare to be a Daniel,
Dare to stand alone!
Dare to have a purpose firm!
Dare to make it known.”
http://www.scriptureandmusic.com/Music/Text_Files/Dare_To_Be_A_Daniel.html
> After a chaotic reign of 12 years, Commodus was assassinated, and Rome was not well governed again until the reign of Diocletian a century after Marcus.
Diocletian? Governed well? That’s a matter of opinion. My opinion is he was the leftist’s leftist. Re-establish the glory of Rome through expensive public works. Raise taxes on the farmers. When the farmers can’t pay, punish them. When the farmers flee, bind them to the land, destroying a centuries-old right of Roman citizens to move about within the Empire. Diocletian’s contribution to Roman history was to invent serfdom, which Europe got to enjoy for the next thousand-plus years, long after the demise of Rome. Stalin was a brilliant administrator, too. What good was it to preserve Rome if it meant destroying the things that made Rome what it was?
> You guys know he was a Democrat, don’t you?
The idea that someone’s bad politics necessarily negates all the good that they otherwise did is not a conservative idea.
As someone who spends his entire carrier for 40 years in the HI Tech industry since the early 70′s I had two illuminate torches that were an example for excellent engineering and innovation. The first one, that I admire, was HP that lead me how to design and manufacture electronic measuring instruments and later in the mid 70 the first pocket calculator such as HP 45 that I used for many years.
The second one was Apple with its innovation of the first PC – Apple I, II and later the MAC. After the introduction of the Apple PC, me and my colleagues quickly understand that a new era begins and we where the first in the imaging industry to adopted the computer innovation. Apple was always an example of excellent human interface design, and innovative company that illuminate the way for many people.
May he rest in peace, Amen.
One of the more interesting things I heard about Steve Jobs yesterday was that he wanted the inside of the machine to be as “beautiful” as the outside.
I didn’t know David Horowitz admired Marcus Aurelius.
Me, too
I prefer believe in God as opposed to an eternal uncreated universe because in the former case I might just be made in His image; and because in the latter case, at the end of the day, I am merely an animal. If we are made in the image of God then all of us possess infinite and therefore equal value – and therefore equal rights. If we are all just animals then, as George Orwell noted, “some animals are more equal than others.” For every Marcus Aurelius there is a Cicero.
“There is a true law, a right reason, conformable to nature, universal, unchangeable, eternal, whose commands urge us to duty, and whose prohibitions restrain us from evil. Whether it enjoins or forbids, the good respect its injunctions, and the wicked treat them with indifference. This law cannot be contradicted by any other law, and is not liable either to derogation or abrogation. Neither the senate nor the people can give us any dispensation for not obeying this universal law of justice. It needs no other expositor and interpreter than our own conscience. It is not one thing at Rome and another at Athens; one thing today and another tomorrow; but in all times and nations this universal law must for ever reign, eternal and imperishable. It is the sovereign master and emperor of all beings. God himself is its author, its promulgator, its enforcer. He who obeys it not, flies from himself, and does violence to the very nature of man.” Cicero
http://exlaodicea.wordpress.com/2007/07/17/cicero-de-republica/
#24 Plumber — I’m glad Jobs gave you music for running. Perhaps if I hadn’t stopped running (knees began to hurt) before the Ipod was invented, I’d have experienced one. I doubt Jobs and his inventions benefited my life, however, and don’t forget wretchard’s butterfly post — Jobs just may be responsible for Obama being elected President.
FWIW, I keep a copy of “Meditations” beside my bed, right beside the Bible, and trade off reading them. Given the choice, I’d rather hang out with Jesus than Marcus, but YMMV.
Remember Marcus Aurelius was also an eager persecutor of Christians, whom he disdained for their obstinacy in refusing to bow to the emperor and the empire’s gods.
Teresita, excellent post.
I wonder if Jobs ever thought about fate in terms of being born during an era when an unmarried pregnant college students would put her baby up for adoption.
Teresita @3: “The future does not and cannot exist, so even God can be forgiven for not knowing it. And this, in turn, guarantees that our will is always free.”
Teresita expresses the idea of God imposing on Himself certain limits – the idea of self-limited Divine omnipotence – a Creator who is only limited by the freedom given by Him to man. I agree with this. By giving man freedom God limited Himself – He doesn’t know if we will choose Him or His adversary – whether we choose good or evil – we are truly free to choose. This explains the mystery and injustice of human evil in the world – a terrible reality which is rightly explained by the mystery of man’s freedom. When the last man dies there will no longer be any limits on God’s omnipotence.
“Almighty God hath created the mind free. All attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens…are a departure from the plan of the Holy Author of our religion… God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God?” Thomas Jefferson
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Memorial
I thought Marcus Aurelius was killed by Commodus, who was later killed in the Coliseum by the gladiator Maximus Decimus Meridius.
I think I read that in a history book somewhere, so it must be true.
wc@5: Would a great man be more important to God than Joe Blow?
bP @ 14:
.. why do we hunger to live? Why do we have such hopes for the future?
I survived a tour in Viet Nam, 2 forms of cancer and two other life threatening medical conditions. I don’t suffer from survivors guilt, but I do often wonder why I’m still here. My mother says there is still something for me to do.
My only concern is the safety and happiness of my two children. I want to see them thru college and on their life path. Maybe at the end of the day that’s all I’m meant to do. If so, for me it’s enough.
S-R@34: When the last man dies there will no longer be any limits on God’s omnipotence.
Nor much point to it, unless there are many gods who cavort in their own personal Elysian Fields.
YBR @ 37,
Forgive me for not making myself clear; I was refering to the God who created the universe and, if they exist, any lesser gods or angels. I believe there is a point to self-limited Divine omnipotence. It appears to me that God wanted a family – He desired children. Without our freedom to choose God would not have created children – He would have created pets.
“I thought Marcus Aurelius was killed by Commodus, who was later killed in the Coliseum by the gladiator Maximus Decimus Meridius.”
That’s the Hollywood version of the story; and truth be told I liked the Sophia Loren version better than the George Clooney remake. Not much real evidence to support the idea that Commodus had anything to do with M.A.’s passing, which happened in the rough frontier fort which later grew into what we call Vienna. Ah, well. Commodus truly was quite the bastard; a group of conspirators including his lover sent a wrestler named Narcissus to strangle Commodus in his bath, and he succeeded. Given that the Roman idea of Baths was significantly different than ours, it’s unfair to say that Commodus died near his commode, but it’s still fun to say.
not quite the glamorous Hollywood ending, but much more typical for the later Roman Emporers.
Note to Obama: official popularity rarely survives a fall from grace.
Re: Commodus; ” Upon his death the Senate immediate declared him a public enemy”
Looks like their Senate back then had just about as much guts as our Senate does today.
and 37. YBR: S-R@34: “When the last man dies there will no longer be any limits on God’s omnipotence.”
“Nor much point to it, unless there are many gods who cavort in their own personal Elysian Fields.”
That’s quite the human centric view, amazing how it creeps in. We love to flatter ourselves into thinking we’re the most important things in the universe. Lets just say I doubt that.
Josh @ 7 said:
“I’ve never found Apple anything more than an irritation, personally, a hype machine for stuff not nearly as original or polished as they claim, and appealing to a lot of folks with Priuses decorated with Obama stickers, in other words clueless in other ways too. Jobs fought the introduction of color, he loved the tiny screen on the original Mac, stole the whole concept from up the hill at PARC…”
I have to agree with Josh. Both Jobs and Apple are overrated. Jobs was a brilliant and ruthless entrepreneur. He immediately saw that the technology at Palo Alto Xerox (PARC) was incredibly advanced but the idiot management of Xerox was too stupid to see they were sitting on a gold mine. Jobs did the rational thing, stole PARC’s technology and became a billionaire. From what I’ve heard, Jobs was not a very nice person but an excellent manager. The most positive thing I can say about Apple is they kept Microsoft from completely ruining computer technology. As it stands, the Microsoft/Intel duopoly probably set back computer technology by a decade, i.e. computer technology could have been about 10 years more advanced had it not been suppressed by Microsoft/Intel’s predatory marketing. However without Apple, we’d probably be about 20 years suppressed. Apple did many intelligent things but at the end of the process they were still a closed architecture. Apple has not been as bad as Microsoft (I’m damning them with faint praise). At least OS-X is based upon Unix-BSD and the original Apple computers used the Motorola 68000. It frustrates me that there are so many goods ideas out there that never saw the light of day because someone at Microsoft or Intel did not see it as beneficial to their company’s bottom line.
Also, Marcus Aurelius was one of the noblest human beings who ever lived. A thousand years from now, people will still be reading “Meditations” by Marcus Aurelius but completely forgotten about Apple and Steve Jobs. Read “Meditations” and you’ll become a better person.
S-R@38: God wanted a family
Anthropogenic – why would a god desire a family?
wws@39: That’s quite the human centric view…
Not really, what is the meaning of omnipotence without a substrate? At the most I was making a “both are required” argument – the space between that counts.
I have never owned any Apple products. I think perhaps that others did what Apple wanted to do somewhat better, cheaper, if nothing else. And I will admit to more than a little frustration with the Windows operating system. I think it was 2 years ago that a computer magazine rated Apple’s new OS the best around, far ahead of MS products, which would not have to be that great, frankly.
But I will say this about Steve Jobs. Regardless of his company’s execution of his ideas, the rest of the industry ran at full speed trying to stay up with him – and never really succeeded.
It is a fact that in the USA innovation, real innovation, is both actively opposed and relied on very heavily. The Evil Rich that Obama railed against yet against this morning are people like Steve Jobs to one degree or another. The answer is to get on your iphone and tell the other neo-Marxists that corporations are evil.
It is very amusing to see staid, format-driven bureaucracies try to be innovative in a staid, format-driven way. The net effect is that of the Nazis handing out ice cream cones to the Jews as they herded them aboard the cattle cars.
So many of the modern personalities evoke an uneasy combination of conflicting messages from the disconnect between private lives that do not comport with public accomplishments, as true for Michael Jackson as for Jobs. The American persona is uncomfortable with (but very tolerant of) a Bad Guy (let’s just say a Marginal Guy) who accomplishes Good Things. Jobs wandered into cruel territory. Jackson just wandered in the absence of a good caretaker.
YBR 41,
If in creation God fulfilled His desire for a family it would be the opposite of anthropogenic – it would be Divine genesis. It could be that lonileness was first experienced by God, and that the human sense of lonliness is not entirely explained on the basis of our animal nature.
S-R@44: the human sense of lonliness is not entirely explained on the basis of our animal nature.
That’s sounding close to Cass Sunstein’s thinking on animal rights. It’s impossible to observe the higher order animals (dogs, polar bears and giraffes seem particularly given to “affectionate” behavior) and doubt their capacity for emotional response.
I meant to post this earlier, then heard Rush practically open his show with it. Rush has been a big Apple fan for many years, so was bound to talk about Jobs passing. And at the same time Rush started today’s show, Obambus was giving a press conference. So here’s the deal:
The contrast between a do-er like Jobs and a talker like Obambus, could hardly be more extreme. And guess which one we miss when he’s gone.
Finally, I didn’t quite say earlier nor have I see it – seems a shame that Jobs had to go at a relatively young age. Wherever he was going, there was certainly further to go.
STEVE JOBS MUSES ABOUT DEATH
Definitely related:
Steve Jobs gives the 2005 Stanford commencement speech, in which he muses on death and its consequences.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1R-jKKp3NA
It’s a 14 minute clip, and I don’t recall in which part he speaks of death and dying, but I’m certain this was the speech.
A related link:
http://lowendmac.com/misc/05/0620.html
It’s amazing what happens when the product definition is, as Jobs is said to have stipulated, “not just great — insanely great.”
YBR @ 45,
Cas Sunstein holds an opinion opposite to mine because he, as an atheist, believes that humans possess, like the animals, only an animal nature; whereas I, as a believer in God, believe that humans, unlike the animals, possess a dual nature – both animal and Spirit – because man is an animal – and made in the image of God.
I love my dog, and I know she has feelings, but I would not die for her. Dogs are not made in the image of God.
S-R@49: …I, as a believer in God, believe that humans, unlike the animals, possess a dual nature – both animal and Spirit…
My personal belief system is best described as deist. You and I have been here before (the argument being that many of the Founders can properly be described as deist as well.) I reject the idea of a personal god, but I acknowledge a Creator of the universe. I (try to) conduct my personal life according to Taoist principles of compassion, moderation, and humility (in measured amount.) I do not consider myself a Christian. My opinion is that the Republican Party has little tolerance for non-Christians.
I guess the light that burned twice as bright burned half as long.
I remember being in a philosophy class and learning that the struggle we know of as good versus evil is actually a difference between two things: there is love, and there is the lack of love. Choosing evil is easy, and there is a whole universe of permutations and variations on something that is, that only really amounts to the lack of something. So how is it so much can be wrought from nothing, or rather from the lack of something, love? Why do so many worship nil?
Jobs will be remembered for his Promethean spirit. He went back and stole some more fire from the gods, but the gods he stole it from lived right here on earth. He stole the GUI and WIMP from Xerox, who hadn’t thought to patent it, and gave him access to it, but even those inventions came from somewhere else, a system used to defend Britain.
http://www.computeractive.co.uk/pcw/pc-help/1925325/the-invented-gui
Nineteen saudi and afghani hijackers could destroy buildings and almost three thousand people using cell phones, free computer access provided by libraries and as such, untraceable e-mail, and then some box cutters. They don’t have the same appreciation for making technology available to everyone that Jobs and company did. We’re beginning to start counting the cost of what these devices can do when in the hands of those who basically worship at the alter of nil.
Add to that the fact that academics managed to make the irrational the supreme article of worship for the high minded and the covetous (during the twentieth century). Our Elites. And then one starts to realize that he and the rest of us are on quite a collision course.
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/279022/ten-lessons-obama-victor-davis-hanson
Appolgoies for the length, this touches on something I’ve been musing about for a long time, and Jobs’ death is a (pardon the pun and you’ll understand shortly) “good enough” time to try and set down my thoughts.
I think because success – goodness – is hard. Evil, stupidity and failure are easy. To succeed, to make things better, you have to do everything at least good enough. If any one part isn’t at least good enough, it brings the whole crashing down. To fail simply requires one screwup which can undo all the “insanely great” work in the rest of the project. Weakest link in the chain, if you’d like.
Apple – and their comparison with MSFT where I worked for many years – is a great example of this. In the 80′s and early 90′s, Apple did one thing exceptionally well. Their industrial design was really without rival. It is debatable whether their UI’s were really as good as people claimed, but overall they build extremely compelling (“sexy” is often used) products. But almost nothing else the company did was “good enough.” Their prices were too high, their manufacturing quality was spotty, their business model was out of step with the rest of the economy, and perhaps worst of all their developer relations were terrible. For all the assume elegance, the Mac OS was kludgy, bug-ridden, and difficult to program, all drawbacka Apple made worse by copping an attitude towards would-be 3rd party developers that could be described as “prove you’re worth to sully our devine machines with your worthless applications.”
MSFT with Windows on the other had was famously “good enough” and no better, though MSFT also did one thing exceptionally well in those days, and that was the thing Apple did worst – developer relations. In the early 90′s, MSDN, Microsoft’s Developer Network, was a phenominally good – “insanely great” really – resource for 3rd party developers who wanted to write Windows apps.
With MSFT doing everything good enough and Apple doing one thing insanely great and screwing everything else up, Microsoft thrived, becoming the highest maket cap company on Earth, and Apple struggled, nearly going under.
But, especially after Jobs returned, Apple didn’t quit. They learned, and slowly started fixing all the things they were doing poorly. Quality improved, their developer relations got better (though that’s an area where they are still just barely good enough), and though they didn’t change their business model, the pendulum of market fluctuations swung round to their way. Meanwhile, MSFT gradually stopped doing things good enough. In particular, the company gutted the developer relations staff (and no, that’s not where I worked, I admired them from afar in a different building), and failed to improve quality fast enough to keep up with the rising bar of expectations as the industry matured.
So now MSFT struggles, trailing Apple in market cap with no real near-term hope of catching back up. All because they traded places on the “good enough” bandwagon. I don’t have knowledge of Apple’s internal transformation, but I was a witness to Microsofts, and I can say that the hard work of many very talented people was undone by a relative handful of thoughtless individuals.
Which get’s back to Bradbury’s butterfly. Or Pandora’s Box. Or for that matter, the amazing coincidence of all the various constants in Physics that work together to allow the universe to exist as we know it. It’s hard to make everything work, but it’s easy to screw something up. Remove one key genius and the success becomes a failure. But there are no key bunglers, remove one and another will step up to take his place.
Michael Malone wrote recently about Gavrilo Princip, the “pathetic little man” as Malone calls him who touched off WWI by assasinating Archduke Ferdinand. If you were to travel back in time and kill Princip, would it prevent WWI? Doubtful. The tinder was stacked high and dry, anyone could have provided the spark. Maybe travel farther back and kill Bismark, but Prussian imperialism would have taken a different form. Go back not quite as far and kill Hitler instead, and see the Nazi’s replaced in history by what other socialist nightmare rising from the Weimar ashes? We tend to think of Nazi’s as the ultimate evil, but the world has seen worse.
Evil is easy because Evil men appeal to the easy emotions – hatred, fear, envy, lust, a juvenile and narcissistic sense of justice. Those emotions are present in every human past puberty. Goodness appeals to reason, love, empathy and a mature sense of justice that is larger than one’s self. Not only are those things harder to appeal to, they have to be there in the first place and they aren’t automatic. Reason and empahy and true fairness need to be taught to humans, and if the preceeding generation didn’t lay the foundation, good leaders can’t succeed.
gp @ 51: sure how about the pantograph as a mouse-precursor? I think that goes back to Da Vinci, at least. and how about the cave paintings as a precursor to the GUI? the radar, trackball precursors probably count as something, but they don’t have huge priority, either.
–
meanwhile life goes on, the PPT has levitated the Dow back above 10800 One More Time!
Innovation comes as much though making connections between existing yet seemingly unrelated technologies as it does from inventing it all from scratch. Perhaps a lot more so.
*O’narcissist: the meaning of O.
O’mirrOr, O’mirrOr in my-I-O bOOk.
http://media.star-telegram.com/smedia/2011/10/04/16/32/713-4uLWV.St.55.jpg
…-
“Caption Obama reading a book about himself to school kids”
“U.S. President Barack Obama holds up a book with a cartoon of himself, inside a child development classroom at Eastfield College in Mesquite, Texas, October 4, 2011.”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2788832/posts
…-
*NarcissistOOOOOOOOOOO>>>
“Barack Obama – Narcissist or Merely Narcissistic?
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. – 8/13/2008
Barack Obama appears to be a narcissist.”
http://www.globalpolitician.com/25109-barack-obama-elections
Jobs was certainly a mover and a shaker, and we’ll all miss the creative energy he organized and made concrete. And no one can argue that he didn’t make and earn a lot of money the honest way.
But he was, especially in the later years, more a fashion designer than an inventor.
Not that there’s anything WRONG with that!
As a marketer, he found a real, unexploited niche that he could fill with existing or near-existing technology. As a business leader, he was able to attract the capital and drive the people to make many things that people wanted tangible and satisfying.
Our civilization needs more like him and more environments where people like him can thrive and succeed.
it’s almost shakespearean how jobs cheated wozniak out of his fair share of apple back in the early 80′s, but wozniak ends up with the last laugh.
JMH @ 52: all drawbacks Apple made worse by copping an attitude towards would-be 3rd party developers that could be described as “prove you’re worth to sully our devine machines with your worthless applications.”
Har! As someone who’s worked in software for a decade and a half, including a stint at Microsoft, I found this hilarious. The decline of Microsoft — the tyranny of the few, as it were — is a topic one could rant about for days, but let’s not worry about that right now.
Being good doesn’t give you the hormone dump that a good hating rage will. You don’t get the endorphin’s when you deliberately calm yourself. Going into “thrash mode” when you run out of ideas, at least ideas that work seems to be a habit of the left.
As a side note. Somewhere I read the term “Politically Correct” was and American invention but I thought I had seen those words in translation from the 1960′s as used by the Mao and the Red Guards during the Chinese “Cultural Revolution.” Can anyone enlighten me on this?
YBR @#43:
“The American persona is uncomfortable with (but very tolerant of) a Bad Guy (let’s just say a Marginal Guy) who accomplishes Good Things. Jobs wandered into cruel territory.”
Creative genius is emblematically difficult to live with, and successful genius often cruel. It is obsessive, focused, demanding, and relentless in pursuit of a vision that is seldom comprehended in full by others whose energy and resources (both emotional and practical), it so frequently uses and then discards. Without external sustenance, it will even feed upon, and thus destroy, itself. Picasso springs to mind on the one hand, and on the other, Van Gogh.
The field of genius has never been the reliable stuff of morality plays, where the good triumph and the bad get their just deserts. The quandary falls to us, when we choose between rejecting the fruit from a poisonous tree, to punish a malefactor, or putting it to use and perforce to reward him. The tension that such decisions induce stems largely from the privileged moral position we assign to self-denial and a corresponding unwillingness to be seen endorsing anything that smacks of self-indulgence without respect to whether or not it might advance some future good. In most arenas, of course, we’ve been doing the latter, without our own blessing, for eons.
How ironically apt is it that in the seminal story of creation, even Adam and Eve could not resist the apple? Yet if knowledge bore strife, it also birthed the striving to explore every branch, twig and rootstock we encounter, a psychological imperative which practically defines the human experience. As a metaphorical (not religious!) matter, it is also ironic, that their story is seen as a cautionary tale about the the consequences of disobedience, rather than the unveiling of an innate nature which could not, even in the first instance, be denied. We will eat the fruit, and only then sort out the good and evil.
Steve Jobs was a rock star.
I remember my attitude about computers back in the eighties and into the nineties and it was about running applications that I was interested and fast. I was a slave to the command line and would only fire up Windows to run a WYSIWYG application such as Excel and to log onto the net when I needed to send something. I saw the whole windows interface as a power hog and since I was into configuring memory managers and tweaking everything for performance it was more hindrance than help. But computers got more powerful and software evolved to take advantage or GUI which was an alien environment for those who were used to everything being numerically based, both in input and output. But the Mac had a different approach to things and probably made its market by porting usable graphics programs, the first of which I used called First Publisher that allowed you to drag and drop things on the screen. Sometime in the mid to late eighties Mac users started getting cult like. I remember working near someone who had funky little sound effects that would go off when he hit certain keys or commands. I can’t tell you how annoying I found that. But the Mac excelled at user friendliness and for many that was all it took. Windows had the compatibility issues, drivers, etc. But it also had the engineering applications and code that was developed for workstations and they were a lot more likely to be ported to a Windows based machine.
What Apple did to the Mpeg player is something else all together. In ’99 and 2000 I was toying around with developing a video juke box that you could download songs and buy music one song at a time. I couldn’t pull it off by myself and as it turns out I was not able to organize the critical mass either. I ran into one skeptic after another. Musicians would tell me that selling mpegs one song at a time would ruin the music industry and lead to theft. You really got to believe in yourself and drink your own Kool-aid to convince people now a days and that is only convincing when you have had a long track record of success. This frequently comes out of luck on top of brains and drive. There were several mpeg players out there but they were a tad large. What Apple did astonishes me to this day. They took readily available technology, integrated it into a smaller, better designed package, and then pulled together the vertical markets to deliver music to their customers. They weren’t in the gadget business. They were in the lifestyle business.
Windows by and large represented an open architecture development environment while Apple kept their operating system close to the vest. Windows was the masses and Apple was Hollywood. Steve Jobs represented an individual style and ideal in a way that open systems never did. Compare Bill Gates the bashful nerd against Steve Jobs. There is no comparison, Steve Jobs was a rock star and people wanted to know him, be around him, and to work for him.
Steve Jobs was trying to recruit Pepsi Cola CEO John Sculley but he wouldn’t budge so Jobs asked him; “Do you want to sell sugar water all of your life or do you want to change the world?” Sculley hired on. Steve Jobs had the skill of seeing where technology was going, when it would be ripe, and stepping into the breach with full abandon. God speed.
Obama’s Jobs program dies.
wws@39: That’s quite the human centric view…
“Not really, what is the meaning of omnipotence without a substrate? At the most I was making a “both are required” argument – the space between that counts.”
you make my point for me. Just because there aren’t humans doesn’t mean there would be no substrate. The possibilities are infinite.
JMH@60: We will eat the fruit, and only then sort out the good and evil.
Sure, “genius,” however defined, needs breathing space. I’m fine with that – to a degree, beyond which we enter into Hero Worship territory. The other point I note is the tension between the Corporation and Christianity (as rather well exemplified by Jobs – the relentless driver who gave nothing to charity), both of which hold prominent positions within the Republican Party platform.
wws@62: The possibilities are infinite.
If you say so.
…………..
The other thing I wonder about pancreatic cancer is the extent to which Jobs allowed the cancer to gain some perhaps fatal traction during the early days when he attempted to deal with the prognosis through diet and nutrition for something like 6 to 9 months?
No matter, another subject where I am hopelessly stuck in the middle – neither a huge fan nor a critical detractor, but he did achieve iconic status. RIP.
Josh @ 53 said:
“meanwhile life goes on, the PPT has levitated the Dow back above 10800 One More Time!”
The disconnect between the PPT’s manipulations and the real world is amazing, refer to:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/8812260/World-facing-worst-financial-crisis-in-history-Bank-of-England-Governor-says.html
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/bbc-does-it-again-absence-credible-plan-we-will-have-global-financial-meltdown-two-three-weeks-
Prognosis for pancreatic cancer isn’t good for anyone. Godspeed Mr. Jobs.
That’s my understanding as well (I remember being alarmed when I read that – seemed ill-advised.) But one can argue that the medical community is overtly hostile to the possible therapeutic effects of holistic treatments, the emphasis being on individual biochemistry. I pray I will not have to deal with too much of “the medical community” during my last days. All heck could break loose.
#53 “MSFT with Windows on the other had was famously “good enough” and no better, though MSFT also did one thing exceptionally well in those days, and that was the thing Apple did worst – developer relations. In the early 90′s, MSDN, Microsoft’s Developer Network, was a phenominally good – “insanely great” really – resource for 3rd party developers who wanted to write Windows apps.
…..Meanwhile, MSFT gradually stopped doing things good enough. In particular, the company gutted the developer relations staff (and no, that’s not where I worked, I admired them from afar in a different building), and failed to improve quality fast enough to keep up with the rising bar of expectations as the industry matured.
So now MSFT struggles, trailing Apple in market cap with no real near-term hope of catching back up. All because they traded places on the “good enough” bandwagon. I don’t have knowledge of Apple’s internal transformation, but I was a witness to Microsofts, and I can say that the hard work of many very talented people was undone by a relative handful of thoughtless individuals.”
Let me offer up another explanation because I lived it. It was at this time that the US Justice Department then the EU started looking at Microsoft for uncompetitive practices. As a survival mechanism, MS backed off and took the edge off their marketing. They lost their focus due to government actions.
The same thing happened to GM. As the Justice Department looked to break them up in the 60′s/70′s GM took their foot off the competitive gas. GM Management deliberately never strove to be much above the 55% of the US market share. To do so was to invite break up. They also created GMAD (an organizational disaster for assigning accountability and responsibility) and mixed car lines and models to make a break up more difficult. They were successful. As managing the market share became more prevalent, the bean counters started pushing the car guys aside culminating with Roger Smith. The rest is history.
Now GM survives by government gratis, thousands of jobs lost and salary pensions obligations slashed or dumped and union might rewarded. An unintended result of “government looking out for you” actions.
How many jobs have been lost due to well meaning politicians and bureaucrats. Ronald Reagan was right “government is the problem, not the solution”. When it steps outside of it’s legitimate function of monopolizing organized violence and setting equitable standards it fails.
Jobs made the most of his life.
When I arrive at Judgement Day my greatest fear is that I will be condemned for wasting mine.
31. tom
Remember Marcus Aurelius was also an eager persecutor of Christians, whom he disdained for their obstinacy in refusing to bow to the emperor and the empire’s gods.
That struck a bell, tom, and I looked it up. Turns out you were right, it was in the Emperor’s own book, “Dreams of My Father.” Reasons were something about guns, certainly religion, and hating people that were not of the Roman elite.
There but for the grace of God goes Horowitz, but for the almost saving faith in derailing those who revel in the politics of bad faith. There’s a book in there somewhere.
Steve Jobs (RIP) will ultimately get what he deserves (we all will), but Horowitz, for his work in thelast 20+ years in warning us about Communism here at home, deserves sainthood. Too bad he was too late.
Say, didn’t Steve Jobs get a Liver transplant by jumping “in lime” for the next match? So did Mickey Mantle as I remember. The powers that be who accomplished such while some may have died waiting for the next one have magnified their greatness even more, but that depends upon the audience appreciating such things.
There is a nexus and a decided link in the Liver-Gall Bladder-Pancrease organs. Never paid attention to it until June.
The DoJ’s hatchet job didn’t help, but it isn’t what did MSFT in, not by a long shot. MSFT’s problem was self-inflicted, and had actually started rotting the company from the inside out a little while before the DoJ came calling. Perhaps it had really started years before.
Ultimately MSFT succumbed to the “Larry Problem.” Larry – for purposes of the example – is the worst engineer on the team. The team has a lot of work to do. The bosses want to have lots of meetings so they feel like they’re in control of the project. The meetings take time the engineers don’t have to spare. So they send Larry, since they’ll miss him the least. Initially it works great, Larry keeps the bosses happy and the engineers get their work done. Eventually though the bosses come to think Larry is the brains of the outfit, since he’s the guy they always see. So when the project succeeds (largely because Larry had nothing to do with it), Larry gets promoted!
At MSFT, they institutionalized Larry and called him a Program Manager.
67. Jeff from Michigan
Great post…and spot on. We all lose when we work with our sights set on the lowest common denominator, rather than the stars. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, at their beginning and the height of their creative genius, epitomized just the stars approach.
We’ve pissed that away.
The company I work for handles great ideas thus:
1. They hear them and don’t float them up even thought when reading about them their mouths form the shape, “WOW!”
2. Next they put them aside until the company loses even more money. They want to get the credit, you know.
3. Next they keep an eye on when the person that proposed the idea leaves out of frustration. But if he doesn’t leave out of frustration, they know he’s not the kind of guy that will “get excited” if he sees his ideas plagiarized.
4. Then two or three years after they might have worked middle management raises them to the next level (hoping to now get the credit) and then wait patiently for the “Bob and Weave.”
5. Weave – if the idea is thought to still merit attention, they claim it for themselves. Of course, since the upper level managers are of the same mind-set, they might hold on to it for two more years until that other knucklehead leaves.
6. The Bob – if the boss considers it a really stupid idea, the immediate supervisor will apologize for one of his “well intentioned, but stupid underlings.”
This will all take place 4 to 6 years after the original suggestion, and when the last manager raises it to the CEO, the CEO will pat him of the back, say thanks and then let him know that competitor B implemented that very same idea – 4 years ago, and that it has resulted in 5% points loss of market share for my company.
Nothing is too big to fail – including the United States of America, which we will all have ring-side seats to in the very near future.
JMH@70: At MSFT, they institutionalized Larry and called him a Program Manager.
Steve Ballmer took over in 2000, right in the middle of the DOJ investigation, which ended in 2001. The guy at the top sets the tone and the direction. Would you agree that Ballmer is responsible for the corporate re-focus at MS?
SD@71: The company I work for handles great ideas thus:
What I read from this post (and some from Josh) is criticism of corporate mid and upper level management, without even getting into the issue of passive/active corporate boards. I agree with this, which leads me to suggest something that I know full well will find accordance with few here: business needs to repair/upgrade some of the internal mechanics of corporate management before whining about being over-regulated by government.
Jeff@67: As a survival mechanism, MS backed off and took the edge off their marketing. They lost their focus due to government actions…..The same thing happened to GM. As the Justice Department looked to break them up in the 60′s/70′s GM took their foot off the competitive gas…..When it steps outside of it’s legitimate function of monopolizing organized violence and setting equitable standards it fails.
Before I finish with another toxic subject, let me say I am neither anti-business nor pro-government, but the DOJ investigation into MS was prompted by complaints from private industry! – Larry Ellison and Scott McNealy (“It’s mankind against Microsoft”) being two of the loudest!
Since the 1980s, Microsoft has been the focus of much controversy in the computer industry. Most criticism has been for its business tactics, which some perceive as unfair and anticompetitive. Often, these tactics have been described with the motto “embrace, extend and extinguish”.
The government didn’t cause Microsoft’s problems. Microsoft caused Microsoft’s problems.
They may even have caused GM’s problems(!): “I am convinced that if General Motors could eliminate [Microsoft] Office from their entire company, they could get the 1999 cars out next year at half price.” – McNealy
I’ve enjoyed reading the many interesting anecdotes about Steve, so here is mine. When the original Mac development team was finishing up their work, prior to the first release in 1984, Steve went around the group, and without an explanation asked each person to sign their name on a blank piece of paper. When the Mac was released they discovered that their signatures where engraved into the inside of the case of every Mac.
No. The problems were already deeply rooted at that point. Ballmer shares in the blame for them – having been one of the driving forces in MSFT leadership long before he took over for Gates – but his promotion did not create the problems.
Several long-term problems came together right about the same time-frame – around 2000. In addition to Ballmer taking over for Gates, the stock option gravy train came to an end. The DoJ action helped both of these things along (Gates was less enthusiastic about running the company after being smeared by the DoJ, and the investigation caused MSFT’s stock to tumble a few months ahead of the rest of the tech industry) but didn’t fundamentally cause them.
The end of the stock option bonanza for regular employees (at one point, perhaps a third of MSFT’s entire workforce were millionaires at least on paper) was a bigger factor than outsiders realize. Up until that point, the best way to get rich was to do the right thing for the company’s product line, because nearly everyone shared in the financial success through ubiquitous and generous stock options. After, the only way to get rich at MSFT was to get one of the limited number of outsized bonuses or promotions. The impact was to create far more internal competition – employees at all levels began to engage in more counter-dependant behavior fighting for one of those brass rings. Cooperation declined, internal sabatoge increased, and the products suffered mightily.
The infighting and dysfunctional management had existed for at least a decade at that point, but the stock options had supported a large group of very smart, very motivated “doers” who made it all work anyway. The company had never developed any sort of competent management culture, and instead relied on a huge population of self-starter front-line employees who could self-organize. Once the stock options went away, those folks were smart enough not to be motivated any longer. Some retired, some moved on to other companies, some went into low-energy mode. A few of us tried to keep it all together, hoping (in hindsight I’m dissapointed at my own foolishness ) that we could turn it around. Ultimately though it was hopeless, there weren’t enough of us to make it work anymore, perhaps because there was no longer any reward for doing so.
Regarding:
It was actually James Barksdale of Netscape who was the ringleader, and you could call this an ealry example of Crony Capitalism. He came from a highly regulated industry (telcom) where playing off your competitors against government regulators is critical to profitability. The DoJ investigation was pure Crony Capitalism.
JMH@74: …there was no longer any reward for doing it.
What a story. Says something about brains, innovation, and the corporate structure. I’ve *heard* that the only place worse was/is Oracle – cut-throat being the kindest term, at least among the sales force. (Is it true that Bill & Melinda hate each other??)
(Ignore that last part – much too catty for the mahogany reading room.)
No idea if Bill and Melinda love, hate, or simply tolerate each other. I was never close enough to know, but from what I saw, they seemed to have a “normal” relationship for two people as busy as they were (honestly, I saw very little of BillG my last five years there, while he was nominally still working).
As far s a place to work, I can’t imagine a better place to work than MSFT in the mid-late nineties. All the seeds of our eventual downfall were there and sprouting, but there was so much success, excitement, accomplishment and opportunity, it was dizzying. Intoxicating at times. Being a front-line lead with an elite team, a member of a group that was empowered to tackle any problem that needed tackling, and being involved with problems that would matter for hundreds of millions of people… the desire to recapture that is what kept me on long after I knew the magic was gone.
In a very real sense, the success during that time masked the problems and allowed them to grow. There always seemed like there would be time to fix them, until of course there wasn’t. The turnaround came fast. A microcosm in a sense of the US itself.
Oracle – especially their sales group – is a viper pit in a way MSFT never was even at the end of my time there.
JMH@76: The reference to “internal sabotage” gave me the impression of GS-like competition, which I have seen, if even from a distance. One has to be mentally wired to sustain that level of engagement for any prolonged period of time. (A while back I linked to an article describing the ‘thanks but no thanks’ response of credentialed blacks who back in the 1970′s started to consider Wall St as a career path but, by and large, chose other professions (self-employed or smaller venues.) It wasn’t IQ or education. It was the snakepit.) The Good, The Bad and The Ugly sides of competition.
You’ll always have Redmond. (ouch)
“10. The Bobs
You guys know he was a Democrat, don’t you?”
I suspect Jobs was a dem mainly for social issues, but at heart was actually a libertarian. In any event I cant imagine that an independent minded entrepenour like him could have been very happy with the Obama regulatory state, where if you give him the danegeld you get a handout, and if you dont the regulators crush you.
We are proud of you, Steve Jobs, for being a part of our world and improving the path of our lives. I pray that the first face you gazed upon was Jesus (who, by the way, is also proud of you). Good Bye our American friend.
YBR 41,
If in creation God fulfilled His desire for a family it would be the opposite of anthropogenic – it would be Divine genesis. It could be that lonileness was first experienced by God, and that the human sense of lonliness is not entirely explained on the basis of our animal nature.
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this is not biblical
Scripture says that God created the Universe for his own pleasure
Rev 4:11 Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.
Q. 1. What is the chief end of man?
A. Man’s chief end is to glorify God, [a] and to enjoy him for ever. [b]
[a]. Ps. 86:9; Isa. 60:21; Rom. 11:36; I Cor. 6:20; 10:31; Rev. 4:11
[b]. Ps. 16:5-11; 144:15; Isa. 12:2; Luke 2:10; Phil. 4:4; Rev. 21:3-4
3. Teresita
Some believers will object that this limits God, who can “see the end from the beginning” according to the scriptures, but we do not ask God to do impossible things, like create a four-sided triangle or a billiard ball that is all black and all white. The future does not and cannot exist, so even God can be forgiven for not knowing it. And this, in turn, guarantees that our will is always free.
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This presumes too much on God.
God is sovereign over the Universe. Man has free will.
These is tension between these two propositions. Call it a paradox if you will.
This dynamic tension lies at the heart of the dynamism of western civilization.
One other point about the government investigation to both Microsoft and GM. When you face an “existential” threat you pay attention to it so that you can not focus on core problems or issues. That “threat” diverted both management teams attention from internal issues and strategy implementation. After all there is only so much time in a day. I saw and tangentially worked on this issue during part of my career. You can’t believe how much time you get sucked into. I easily put in 60 hours in an 80 hour week on this and the people I worked for even more time. It just saps you.
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