How Apple's Story Is Like Breaking Bad 288
theodp writes "Over at CNN, Omar L. Gallaga explains how Apple's story is like Breaking Bad, the TV drama whose protagonist — high school chemistry teacher Walter White — decides to use his science skills to cook methamphetamine to provide for his family after being diagnosed with terminal cancer. Walter takes shocking, out-of-character risks but reinvents himself as a brilliant, feared meth chemist who grows more ambitious, ruthless and cocky with each victory. 'Like Steve Jobs,' writes Gallaga, 'Walter White's cancer awakens a panic in him to hurry up and leave a legacy through his work.' Gallaga continues: 'Like Walter White, it [Apple] has mixed the proper elements at just the right amounts to create highly pure, addictive products. The products have been made within secretive working conditions. The skill employed to design and manufacture them tends to make what competitors put out seem like cheaper, cloudier, less effective imitations.'"
The bullshit is strong with CNN (Score:5, Insightful)
It's totally true! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The bullshit is strong with CNN (Score:5, Insightful)
Can't we for a while at least stop ascribing a success, which is due to the hard work of a very large group of people over a long period to one man, and further look for some magical parallels where there are none?
tl;dr. Condensed version: "Rich people are right because they're rich and you're not."
This is just ridiculous (Score:5, Insightful)
Really? This article is just dumb. And ridiculous. And link-bait.
Stop with the BS "like Apple" stories and OMG Apple-is-amazing stories!
KISS for real (Score:5, Insightful)
But it gets even worse. This new DSL was being introduced at a time before cable modems. The highest speed connection of any geek I knew was a 128k ISDN line and this new DSL was going to give you 1Mbs for $40. Then as I did up the specs for it for the site I realized that the whole business model was a stupid Novell system of renting applications such as Microsoft office. Internet was way down on the list of features. I called up the Product Manager and he said, "Well we might not even offer connectivity to the internet initially." I told him that if they were able to offer 1Mbs for $40 when all the competition was offering 56kbs for $20 they were going to clean up. He told me that there was pressure from their own dial up to not offer internet via the DSL. I think what may have saved it was that I told him he would be out of a job if he didn't offer internet and they would be out of a job while he would ride a wave to the future if he did.
Now think about the above. This is the big telco in my area taking business advice from a tiny web shop. Good advice if I say so myself.
So how many companies don't have a single man who can stand up and say "whoa there cowboy. That might look good on a spread sheet but our customers will want to ram it up your ass.... sideways....covered in the juice from a ghost pepper."
From what I have read about Steve Jobs is that people brought shit to him with a great story and they left his office crying. Then they came back to him with something less shitty and left crying again. This would happen over and over until it just wasn't shitty anymore.
It is hard to tell an employee that what they just spend a lot of time on was crap. It is unpleasant for most normal people. So I suspect that where Steve Jobs' genius lay is in somehow being an ass right up to but not beyond the point where everyone quit. Beyond that he was probably just pretty smart.
Re:The bullshit is strong with CNN (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a large group of hard working people working for each of Apple's competitors too.
Fiction (Score:4, Insightful)
The difference is that breaking bad is fiction- it doesn't actually demonstrate anything. The writers decide the outcome, and the results are imagined, not real.
Re:The bullshit is strong with CNN (Score:5, Insightful)
Can't we for a while at least stop ascribing a success, which is due to the hard work of a very large group of people over a long period to one man, and further look for some magical parallels where there are none?
How soon they forget. When Steve Jobs came back Microsoft was having to prop up the company to avoid monopoly charges and Apple was still trying to sell slower technology for twice the money. Say it takes a team all you want, without Jobs Apple would have likely gone bankrupt so I'd give him some credit for their success.
Re:Samsung? (Score:3, Insightful)
Samsung is one of the companies that actually makes stuff. Apple just does marketting and distribution, and does it well.
So Jobs is more of a Gus, i think.
Or how about this analogy? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Apple's story is like 'Breaking Bad' in that I really don't care about either of them, and am tired of people always bringing them up and telling me I need to be watching it"
Re:It's totally true! (Score:5, Insightful)
Walter White didn't invent anything! He just packaged up his meth in blue crystals instead of boring white ones
You are rated insightful more than funny, so even though this is meant as a joke:
Walter White had challenged the general attitude of "they are stupid junkies, they'll smoke whatever we give them" by insisting that a higher-purity product will sell better. It is actually not the worst analogy to, say, Microsoft (you'll get our new OS with your new desktop and like it) vs. Apple (let's make our OS so that users like it).
This is completely orthogonal to discussion of which may be better. It is simply a fact that achieving monopoly status leads to complacency towards customers.
Re:It's totally true! (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not sure if the attitude you are espousing is really all that common. Not really caring about quality is present among junkies, but junkies aren't going to be the most profitable customers, sometimes relying upon sexual favors in lieu of cash. Also, due to the contraband status of drugs, there is a significant advantage to having a concentrated product. Having less on you is preferable for not getting caught, so more profit per gram is highly advantageous. What Walter brings to the table is knowledge and expertise, which isn't really an area where Steve Jobs fits the parallel.
Re:Samsung? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Samsung? (Score:3, Insightful)
Samsung is one of the companies that actually makes stuff. Apple just does marketting and distribution, and does it well.
So Jobs is more of a Gus, i think.
Apple doesn't make stuff? Where have you been hiding for the last 36 years?
Re:Samsung? (Score:5, Insightful)
Worst article and post followup in the history of slashdot....
This is not News for Nerds, its Drama for Dorks
Re:TFA missing some crucial ingredients (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Samsung? (Score:2, Insightful)
Samsung is one of the companies that actually makes stuff. Apple just does marketting and distribution, and does it well.
But most of all, Apple does design - "Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like," Jobs told the Times. "That's not what we think design is. It's not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works."
Re:Apple is the Little Red Hen (Score:3, Insightful)
REALLY? Posts written in a condescending tone that mimicks a children's story is now getting modded insightful on slashdot????
Re:The bullshit is strong with CNN (Score:5, Insightful)
Armstrong's humility is part of what makes him so great.
Re:Samsung? (Score:3, Insightful)
Foxconn doesn't make anything either, they assemble. If you go down that route, nobody is making the iPhones. Many are making parts, some are assembling, some are transporting, some are designing and distributing.
What is the point in nitpicking? Just for the pleasure of claiming that Apple doesn't make the iPhone?
How dumb can you be? I'm no Apple fan, but if any company can be credited (or blamed) for making the iPhone it's Apple, and no other company.
Re:Samsung? (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't you think that NOT having multiple plants to produce all their phones is a strength if ever they can't sell a phone anymore? How can you put that in their weakness list?
Let me tell you one thing: They build phones. They just outsource the mass production. This is completely different.
Re:Samsung? (Score:5, Insightful)
Did you even read my post in full?
Samsung makes most of it's phones. The display, the CPU, the RAM, the flash memory, the radios, the PCBs and a fair few other bits. They fabricate parts from raw materials and then they assemble them in their own factories.
Apple does not make its phones. Apple doesn't have any factories or silicon fabs. They designed the CPU by buying the company that was designing it for them. Most of the other hardware was designed by other companies and all of it is manufactured by other companies, then finally assembly is done by Foxconn.
How dumb can you be?
Okay, you win the gold medal, congrats.
Re:TFA missing some crucial ingredients (Score:5, Insightful)
Vision? Apple just waits for technology to reach a point where they can stick a really good UI on it. I wouldn't deny that they are good at it, but Jobs didn't have some "vision" of creating a HDD based MP3 player or phone and then go out and invent all the necessary technology. He just waited for other companies to have the vision to develop the necessary hardware and open up new possibilities which he then exploited (very well).
Even most of the stuff Apple claims to have "innovated" has been demonstrated to have prior art. Even though you can apparently get a patent on it just by doing it on a phone or a tablet does not make it highly innovative or the product of vision in my book, merely an obvious transference of technology.
I'll give you attention to detail, just a shame much of it goes into locking the user in to Apple products. I'd say the font rendering on MacOS is actually one of the worst aspects of the design too, funnily enough.
Re:TFA missing some crucial ingredients (Score:5, Insightful)
By this myopic definition of 'vision' no company in the technology industry has it.
Every company out there is taking advantage of economies of scale for their components. Sure, they could invent their own processor from scratch and put it in their own laptop they designed from scratch and satisfy your definition of 'vision'. Production of the CPU will be on such a small scale for the device, that the per unit cost will be very high. Then the device based around it will be unattractively expensive. Few units would sell.
Here comes Apple with more money than anybody else. They bring a feasible economy of scale to this problem. If they want a custom LCD display that is non-standard per the rest of the industry, they front the manufacturer the money to build the factory and staff it with enough resources to churn out millions of displays per year, thereby making the per-unit cost of the LCD's fit with the pricing model of the device designed around it.
The only other company that can do this is Samsung, and that's why Apple is trying to curb-stomp them in the courtroom. Samsung makes displays, CPUs, memory, etc. and was drafting off the scale of Apple's orders from their factories to produce their own price-competitive devices. I suppose your definition of 'vision' would have Samsung as a visionary company.
Seth