A Look Back At the Career of Steve Jobs 324
Zothecula writes with a rather extensive piece in Gizmag about Steve Jobs's various business endeavors. From the article: "Revered by many, hated by some, but respected by most, the indisputable fact remains that Steve Jobs is the most successful business leader of his generation and quite possibly of all time. The numbers are impressive in themselves but the most remarkable aspect of his success is how it was achieved. Though he remains at Apple, the end of his tenure as CEO is the end of an era and an opportunity to try and grasp just exactly what it is he did and what lessons there are for all of us 'trying to make a dent in the universe.'"
Nah. Let's be serious (Score:2, Insightful)
Bill Gates, was never fired, Microsoft has better market, more value and far more in people's lives. Now that Bill doesn't direct MS we all known what happened. I like Jobs but the phrase "the most successful business leader of his generation and quite possibly of all time." is a fallacy. Thomas Edison, Henry Ford come first easily.
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I like Jobs but the phrase "the most successful business leader of his generation and quite possibly of all time." is a fallacy.
Agreed. For one, there are 42 people in the United States alone worth more than he is. The statement about Jobs is obviously from a fanboy, due to the fact it was claimed as an "indisputable fact". I didn't see a comparison with Carlos Slim, or Sam Walton, or Larry Ellison, or even Bill Gates for that matter. Just a claimed "indisputable fact".
Re:Nah. Let's be serious (Score:5, Insightful)
A business leader should be judged by how well he led his business (shocking I know). What other CEO brought a company from the brink of bankruptcy to being the most valuable company in the world (based on market cap)?
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What other CEO brought a company from the brink of bankruptcy to being the most valuable company in the world (based on market cap)?
That's just the thing - I have no clue, because I'm a programmer, not a business student. I don't know what Carlos Slim started with. I don't know what Sam Walton started with. I don't know what Ellison started with. And I also don't think the author of the article knows any of that either, he's just presenting his opinion as an "indisputable fact". I do know that Gates started with very little and built Microsoft up through a series of very good business deals (with IBM and others).
Jobs is no doubt a
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If the purpose of a publicly traded corporation is to "increase shareholder value", that can be easily measured objectively by looking at stock prices and market cap (the total value of all outstanding shares). So, the CEO who has generated the most shareholder value would be the most successful.
Now whether that is SJ in the last 30 years (a generation), I don't know. But I
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So, the CEO who has generated the most shareholder value would be the most successful.
But how do you measure whether the CEO is responsible for that? The company could just get lucky (e.g., a mining company that happened to have a rich find), and prosper despite mediocre management.
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From "The Micro Revolution Revisited" (1984), p103
Steve Jobs was twenty one when he formed Apple with his fellow inventor Stephen Wozniak who was twenty-six. They sold a Volkswagen minibus and a programmable calculator to raise $1,300 dollars. They built their first computer in the Jobs garage in Cupertino. Six months was spent designing the prototype, which was sold to a computer store. The store promptly ordered fifty."
From the Wikipedia entry, it was the strategic decision of Apple to "create a portfolio [wikipedia.org]
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I do know that Gates started with very little...
Wait, what? [wikipedia.org]
His family was upper middle class; his father was a prominent lawyer, his mother served on the board of directors for First Interstate BancSystem and the United Way, and her father, J. W. Maxwell, was a national bank president
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Uhh, he was referring to the "possibly of all time" bit?
Re:Nah. Let's be serious (Score:5, Funny)
Wow, you should really get laid or something.
Are you offering to help? Else it's something like telling a burning man, "You really ought to put that out."
"The Life and Career of Steve Jobs" (Score:4, Interesting)
The Life and Career of Steve Jobs [youtube.com], from Next Media Animation in Tapei. Enjoy.
Vision (Score:5, Interesting)
Regardless of what you think of Mr. Jobs' company's products, you must admit the man had an almost unparalleled vision for the future.
In a hyper-connected world of ethics-free corporate drones apathetic about anything past this quarter's profits and stock price, Jobs stood apart by having a 5, 10, perhaps even 20 year plan for Apple that he ruthlessly pursued at the expense of anything standing in the way (be it under-performing employees or products). As a commenter last week put it, he set out to make a dent in the universe, and actually did it.
Enjoy your retirement, Mr. Jobs, you've bloody well earned it.
Re:Vision (Score:4, Funny)
As a commenter last week put it, he set out to make a dent in the universe, and actually did it.
And now we have to pay the LHC folks to get the universe repaired. Seriously, Steve, you couldn't even back it out of the local manifold coordinate chart without scraping the Magellenic Cloud on a superstring?
Re:Vision (Score:4, Insightful)
Do you really think Jobs has some sort of moral code? He's a narcissist; everything he does is for his own self-aggrandizement.
Asking whether Jobs is a rock star CEO or just another self-aggrandizing sociopath is like asking whether Coke is a beverage or just another soft drink.
Re:No I don't (Score:4, Insightful)
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Ah yes, wild speculation based on the lying bitch known as hindsight.
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Re:No I don't (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, this is the web we are talking about, invented by Tim Berners-Lee on a NeXT machine...
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I don't own a single Apple product and most likely never will.
And yet Apple has still made your life better.
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That's because Google's revenue comes from selling YOU. Google has to be neutral in order to get more "you" to sell. If they alienate 10% of the internet population, that's 10% less people they can sell to advertisers.
Apple doesn
He Didn't Sell Out Had Great Ideas And Was Lucky (Score:5, Insightful)
He had the luxury of being in a position to do that. It was only when he lost that ability that he got fired. He left. Apple sank. When he went back it was on his terms.
I think he was in the right place at the right time with some damn good ideas about how to build computers and products. But without the initial products to launch everything, courtesy of Steve Wozniak, Jobs would have been all dressed up with nowhere to go without getting even luckier.
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but I didn't want that somewhere to be based on MP3 players, locked into an amazingly shitty media player.
Apple has moved past that. Why can't you? All the newest stuff is way past the iPod era.
Going forward with iCloud, you almost never even have to use iTunes...
Wrong again (Score:2)
you cant even turn on your phone or tablet without being strongarmed into an iTunes account.
Did I not JUST FREAKING TELL YOU ABOUT THE FORWARD THING?
With iOS5, devices activate without iTunes.
Sheesh!
You are there (Score:2)
Let me know when they finally vanquished it for good and I'll jump on board.
Ok, in practical reality if you were dead-set against it would never have to use iTunes. You can activate directly on device with iOS5, all music/video purchases would be available from the cloud, app data should backup on iCloud.
Pre-deceased (Score:3)
'Most Respected Leader of His Generation??' (Score:2)
Come back with assertions like that when they are published in Fortune, Forbes, or the Wall Street Journal.
Some blog called Gizmag? Why do I scent a whift of fanboy spirit?
Jobs hagiography is beyond ridiculous (Score:2)
"most successful business leader of all time"? More successful than Rockefeller, who controlled a key commodity (oil) and who was worth over $600 billion in today's money? More successful than Gates whose company, no matter how unfashionable, still has an absolute hammerlock on computer desktop operating systems?
Jobs is a great business leader, but give me a break. He gets this fame because he knew how to give presentations in black turtlenecks. All these "Jobs came down from Mount Olympus to bless us with
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Being "slow" is one thing. How long has Apple been making iPods and other handheld devices now?
I think after a decade of stubbornly sticking with proprietary connections, you stop saying that they're just being "rather slow on picking up the open standards stuff".
Or maybe I'm wrong. When do you see Apple adopting "the open standards stuff"? 2013? 2018?
I'll tell you one thing: a certain person is g
You have no idea what you are talking about. (Score:2, Informative)
There is no standard connector that could have replaced the iPod dock connector, at least not at the time. Can you name one? (which supports video out, audio both ways, lightweight interface to USB/Firewire)
Apple has generally been a good corporate citizen in terms of supporting open standards where they have no value-added differentiation--that's about all you could hope for out of a business, frankly. Firewire is a standard, so is Thunderbolt, they have one of the most standards compliant web browsers out
Re:You really have no idea what you are talking ab (Score:5, Informative)
SMB support has been built in since 10.3
I have firewire ports on both my Dell and Sony. Firewire is not "Apple's" standard, it is an IEEE standard and Apple is part of the licensing pool. Just as there is a licensing pool for USB.
What is a DPort? Do you mean DisplayPort? The mini-DisplayPort that Apple uses was accepted by VESA.
So what "standard" is there that is able to duplicate this functionality cheaply?
http://pinouts.ru/PortableDevices/ipod_pinout.shtml [pinouts.ru]
Or do you expect a $20 boom box to implement a USB host controller?
The Mac Mini has an HDMI port. All other Macs have DisplayPort. DisplayPort is not an Apple proprietary connector. Dell and other manufacturrers have been selling monitors with DisplayPorts for years.
You mean "headaches" such as using a DVI to VGA connector? In fact it has just been recently that at least Mac Minis didn't come bundled with DVI to DisplayPort adapters.
Only a few Macs had optional Zip Disk support. All Macs came with 3.5" disk drives up until the iMacs.
2007 Macs still did not have +/- DVD writers (they choked on -R blank DVD's)
According to this site:
http://apple-history.com/ [apple-history.com]
Every Mac introduced in 2007 had built in DVD +/- drives
Apple is part of the licensing pool for Firewire. The licensing pool and operates under FRAND. Just like most other standards (mpeg, mp3, H.264, etc,).
Thunderbolt was created by Intel.
Well both my Dell and Sony have firewire. There is also a fee to use USB.
If you want to legally use a DVD Player there is a licensing fee....
You're not exactly batting a hundred....
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SMB is a file sharing protocol (Server Message Block) not an transmission protocol like TCP or AppleTalk. I remember getting Macs in 2006, they had Apple talk on by default but not TCP/IP
I used to have IEEE 1394, the laptop I bought last week doesn't have them. Every device I h
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"Apple's been actively rejecting the standards other people use, open or otherwise. There is no HDMI on Mac products, No VGA ports "
You must look at different Apple products than I do... These products support HDMI either directly or with a cheap adapter:
"Products Affected
iMac (21.5-inch, Mid 2010), iMac (21.5-inch, Late 2009), iMac (27-inch, Mid 2010), MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2010), MacBook Air (Late 2010), MacBook Pro (17-inch, Mid 2010), Mac Pro (Mid 2010), iMac (27-inch, Late 2009), Mac Pro (Early 20
Re:You really have no idea what you are talking ab (Score:4, Informative)
For years they pushed AppleTalk over TCP/IP, even after OS X.
No, the primary networking for OS X always was TCP/IP. AppleTalk was there for compatibility.
Firewire is an open standard, developed by a few companies, but mainly Apple.
Apple contributed their mini-display port connector to the display port standard, and it was adopted. That's contributing to a standard, not proprietary.
iWhatever doesn't have a proprietary USB connector. It has a proprietary dock connector which carries USB signals along with other signals that USB, and no other connector of the time supported. If USB supported video signals, then they would have used it. Apple quite rightly creates their own thing when there isn't anything currently out there that provides the features they want in their products. That's one of the reasons they stay ahead of the rest of the industry.
MacBooks don't need HDMI and VGA ports when they have a DisplayPort connector. Having multiple obsolete ports is a PC laptop thing. It's one of the reasons PCs are bigger and heavier. But that's nothing to do with rejecting open standards. HDMI is supported on the Mac Mini. And of course DisplayPort itself is an open standard.
You mention ZipDisks as if bundling some third party large removable storage is a crime. Again there was no open standard with high capacity at the time. You say "when everyone else was using floppy disks", neglecting to mention the fact that Apple pioneered the use of 3.5" disks and the rest of the industry followed. And they were the first to dispense with floppies as standard, which again the rest of the industry followed. Apple tends to lead with technologies, others often follow.
If you check out definitions of "open standard", you'll discover that there is no consensus that there must be no cost for licensing. Only that such costs should be reasonable and non-discriminatory.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_standard [wikipedia.org]
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I think after a decade of stubbornly sticking with proprietary connections, you stop saying that they're just being "rather slow on picking up the open standards stuff".
Why the fuck would they change to what you consider to be "open standards stuff", when they are phenomenally successful picking the stuff that works best for the design? Sometimes proprietary, sometimes open standards. Whatever works best in the particular circumstances.
I think after a decade of stubbornly sticking with proprietary connections, you stop saying that they're just being "rather slow on picking up the open standards stuff".
Except for all the many things that they use that ARE open standards. Apparently you aren't very observant.
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'Open Standards' at Apple are seen as avenues to pull in resources from outside the company.
Logically, most companies using open standards are pulling in resources from outside. With the one exception of where a company invents the open standard which is "pulled in" by other companies.
You're suggesting that open standards should be like a hair shirt? Unless using them causes pain to a company then their use isn't worthy?
Then they put what they deem the proper proprietary twist on it to keep it theirs. They've been doing that for decades. No amount of fanboy spin will change this.
No amount of open sores whining will make it wrong.
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So, you're expecting Apple to adopt open standards soon?
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Bullshit, if that were the case then why did they build it with an intentionally obfuscated file system, and why did they develop proprietary software to act as the only means of getting data on or off of it?
The obfuscated file system only came along when Apple were implementing the iTunes Music Store. In order to get major record labels on board, they had to convince them that they were doing everything they could to discourage casual piracy.
The proprietary software (iTunes) came before the iPod. It was bought in as an easy way for consumers to store and play their music on a Mac. It was an obvious step to have the iPod sync to it. It made the process of getting music onto an MP3 player far easier than with t
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Not only is it a proprietary cable at the iPod end, they also actively and intentionally break 'non-approved' third-party video out adapters. I have one that worked fine when I first got my iPod but which was 'killed' in a subsequent firmware 'update.'
The connector doesn't 'HAVE' to support video out. A second connector could have been added for that. The USB connector could be one of the tiny standard connectors. But then... oh my, there would be an identifiable video out port on my iPod that they woul
Re:iPod was a side project (Score:4, Funny)
The connector doesn't 'HAVE' to support video out. A second connector could have been added for that.
Yes you're right. They could have followed your idea and made the device worse.
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In fact, iTunes as a 3rd party product (SoundJam) which they bought and rebadged originally. I was a SoundJam user for years prior to iTunes.
From memory the product(s) which became iCal/Addressbook started out as Expresso, but I could be wrong.
Re:iPod was a side project (Score:5, Interesting)
http://pinouts.ru/PortableDevices/ipod_pinout.shtml [pinouts.ru]
The dock connector allows a dumb,cheap device to control the iPod (volume, next song, previous song) just by sending the correct electrical signal to the correct pins and has pins for line level sound in/sound out and video. How do you propose you cheaply make accessories that work with the iPod by using USB? It would be a lot more expensive for an accessory maker to implement the functionality through USB.
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So you mean they added the proprietary connector and obfuscated filesystem as a value-added feature later on?
I see...
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The FIrewire connector was removed because whilst contemporary Macs all had Firewire, very few PCs did. So they switched to a USB connector at the computer end of the cable. They created the dock connector at the iPod end because they wanted to add video out, and that's not possible with a standard USB connector.
So yes, it was a value added feature. More compatible with PCs plus it supported video.
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The clue is in the name DOCK connector. The headphone jack isn't connected by dropping an iPod into a dock. Thus without video in the dock connector, no dockable video accessories would work.
It's certainly not hard to work this stuff out. But you never seem able to.
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It was a standard firewire port. It was one of those 6-pin standard jobs that can supply 12W of power (up to 48V, .25A. And yes, Macs have been known to fry Firewire hubs that way. 12V was more typical though).
Only on the 3rd gen did Apple switch to the Dock connector which enabled USB as well, but through a proprietary cable.
Hell, many Firewire
Re:Biggest tight wad of all time (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Biggest tight wad of all time (Score:5, Insightful)
This.
Steve Jobs has a publicity problem. It's basically at the point where the news goes wild everytime he breathes. His every action is scrutinized and criticized and commented and such 10 times over.
Now imagine how it applies should he not give anonymously. If he gave to a pro-gay-rights group, he'd have half the US population cheering him, half the population jeering him (and death threats). Ditto if it was a religious organization. Or minority group. Or whatever he honestly believes in. The act of donation would basically bring on such a wrath of coverage and commentary that really, I doubt even the charity itself would want that sort of scrutiny (especially since it often takes away from whatever goal they want to accomplish).
He gives anonymously, the charities respect that (and thankful the media doesn't go over their charity) and life goes on.
Hell, given his Spartan lifestyle (does he have a couch yet?), he may be giving a ton away - he certainly doesn't have a need for money.
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If he believes in a cause, he should be a coward about it.
Nothing says spartan like large mansions, private jets, 100,000 dollar cars.
Not that there is anything wrong with that, just pointing our it's laughable to call him spartan.
He certainly is a minimalist.
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A man who owns his own Gulfstream V does not live a "Spartan" lifestyle.
he may be giving a ton away
I find this hard to beleive. Unless the cayman islands banking association is a registered charity.
If he was really interested in creating good will, he'd use his public persona to raise awareness of issues in need of charity in the same way Bill Gates does.
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The "iCon" biography makes a reference to him donating to a charity for blind children. The SIVA website [www.seva.ca] confirms this and puts it around 1979 which is about the time the Apple II was released, so before they were big-shots really.
Re:Biggest tight wad of all time (Score:4, Insightful)
I feel kind of uncomfortable judging anyone about what they may have/have not done for charity. Jobs is a relatively private person when it comes to his personal life and a pretty deep thinker. Yes, he has no public record of philanthropy. Who's to say he doesn't do it privately or hasn't set up his will for postmortem charitable contributions?
Bill Gates and Warren Buffet bank on their reputations as front men for their charitable organizations. That's their right and they do a lot of good work. But that's not the only way to do it.
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FTR, agree with most of your post.
> Yes, he has no public record of philanthropy.
Philanthropy is not a black or white issue. His salary at Apple was $1.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-dollar_salary [wikipedia.org]
> Who's to say he doesn't do it privately or hasn't set up his will for postmortem charitable contributions?
Exactly.
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Yes, he has no public record of philanthropy.
Philanthropy is not a black or white issue. His salary at Apple was $1.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-dollar_salary [wikipedia.org]
A $1 salary is not an act of philanthropy, it's a tax dodge.
Any high ranking businessman does not earn the majority of their income from salaries, they earn it from shares, gifts (from the company), trusts and other means that are: 1) tax deductible.
2) non-taxable
3) taxed at a lower rate.
How many restricted shares in APPL (the kind that pay dividends and are not permitted to be sold openly) does Steve Jobs own. A lot more then $1 worth I'd bet. Meanwhile he compares all his expenses against his $1 s
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Philanthropy is using great wealth to live a
Re:Biggest tight wad of all time (Score:4, Insightful)
That's right â" Steve Jobs, worth $5.1 billion, has no public record of philanthropy.
I am all for encouraging charitable giving, but this is not a respectful way to do it. This is attempting to impose a value judgment ("People should have a public record of philanthropy") rather than talking about why charitable giving is a good idea and why the potential donor might be interested.
Regardless of whether he has given or not, Steve Jobs has served the public admirably. He has created wonderful products that people are willing to pay for, so obviously his service must have been valuable to some people. We live in a Jetsons age thanks to Steve Jobs. I haven't even bought an Apple product in eight years, but I'm still benefiting from the impact his company's designs have had on the industry.
I think it would be spectacular if Steve's billions were now spent looking for a cure for the medical conditions that are plaguing him. Doing so might seem "selfish," but would in fact serve the public yet again. Extending Jobs' lifespan would be a wonderfully fitting reward for the valuable service he has already provided for the world.
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Re:Biggest tight wad of all time (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Biggest tight wad of all time (Score:4, Interesting)
Charity doesn't fix underlying problems any more than antibiotics fix underlying systemic failure that lead to life threatening infections. However, if you don't provide the antibiotics, the patient dies. Hundreds of millions of people are alive today because of people who were generous enough to help those who could not help themselves, and that help includes money, time, labor, and the essentials of life. To be clear, I'm not talking about cultural failures, I'm talking about disasters (some natural, many man-made.) From Catrina to the Indonesian Tsunami, from Haiti to the devastating earthquakes in China and Japan, we've helped those who were in no position to help themselves, and these are true acts of charity. This is distinct from assuaging a guilty conscience by giving a bum a buck, who will promptly drink a dollars worth of rot-gut. That buck honors neither giver nor the receiver.
So if you are saying that saving those in need is pointless because it doesn't address the real problem, I would counter, save the people in need, then by all means, address the real problem. That doesn't mean let millions die a horrible unnecessary death. Of course you might be more of the mind "If [the poor] would rather die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population" -- Ebenezer Scrooge.
Steve's lack of philanthropic endeavor paints a picture of a man more interested in himself than others. Absolutely not a crime, its not even evil per se'. Its just small.
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I don't consider emergency relief "charity" so I think there is some mix-up in terminology here. When it comes to emergency relief there are already systems in place, if not governments then at least the UN. If you want to talk about the real problems like world poverty, lack of education, widespread disease, non functioning markets and election systems things tend to get a lot more complex than "people starving because this disaster cuts of their supply of food so we need to give them food". You need to re
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There's another answer to the accusation: it's almost never a good idea to give gifts to charity under your name.
Once you're identified as someone who gives to the less fortunate, you'll have fundraisers and grifters of all kinds crawling out of the woodwork looking to get some for themselves.
By giving anonymously, you can do good deeds and move on to doing other good deeds without interference.
Try this educational experiment: give $5 each to three or four famous charities; United Way, Salvation Army, etc
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Co0Ps, this is your boss (Score:2)
Co0Ps, Jim here. Look, we've been on a hiring spree recently, and you know as well as I that unemployment rates have been at an all-time high for years. Therefore, I'm afraid we're going to have to let you go. I know, employing you probably resulted in some net good in some abstract sense, but the fact remains that employing you has basically had zero effect on unemployment overall. I men, it's not like you can just hire people and make unemployment magically disappear. I'm sure you'll therefore understand
Re:Biggest tight wad of all time (Score:4, Insightful)
You seem to think charities exist only to help the poor. With that in mind, many, many people will fall upon hard times at some point in their life and need assistance from others. Apparently you would rather they die off than help them out for a while until they get back on their feet.
Aside from helping the poor, charities also exist to:
Or not. (Score:3)
Most charities are essentially scams. Giving to them accomplishes almost nothing.
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No, but it's up to him what to do with his money (or lack thereof). Steve's wealth is primarily in Apple stock, he could give it back to the company, thereby enriching his shareholders, he could prefer his shares go to his children or whatever. He doesn't have to give it away, and while he can't take it with him, he could split it up 4 ways amongst his children.
He isn't a minimalist, he's an egomaniac, one tends to appear like the other but they aren't the same (he builds things he can control, which are
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You could turn around and say this, and you'd still be a running dog lackey libertarian fool. Investment strategies are understood very well, and the power of cogent capitalism. It needs oversight because there are assholes out there that think nothing of the lives of others and what their product methodologies can do to fuck them up. You need oversight because you're not trustworthy, and the greed motive makes quote unquote "moral" decisions for many abberant capitalists, just like it does for abberant soc
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this is definitely the most moral way of saving money - working for it, as opposed to how gov't creates it
Right, those nasty governments which do nothing except borrow money, invest in building shared infrastructure, and then levy taxes on the users of that infrastructure, and return any excess to the public purse. They're totally different from private companies which borrow money, invest in building shared infrastructure, and then levy intellectual property rent fees on the users of that infrastructure, and return a sizeable profit to a bunch of speculators in another country who don't use or care about the p
Re:Biggest tight wad of all time (Score:5, Informative)
Inheritance tax is not theft. It is a very progressive tax in that it serves to prevent the perpetuation of wealth, free of tax, in wealthy families and are “a certain corrective against the development of a race of idle rich”.
Re:Biggest tight wad of all time (Score:5, Informative)
I see you failed American History of the 20th century.
Progressivism as a political movement emerged in reference to a more general response to the vast changes brought by industrialization: an alternative to both the traditional conservative response to social and economic issues and to the various more radical streams of socialism and anarchism which opposed them.
Theodore Roosevelt, Wilson, FDR and LBJ are noted Progressives.
I believe that the Estate Tax system, even if the Bush cuts are repealed, will not lead to all of an estate's wealth going to the government, at the same time with an Estate Tax, it does not create a noble class of ultra wealthy land owners. I don't see government spending and welfare as an evil.
Reasonable tax regimes don't lead to the abolishment of private property, the 1950s saw the highest post-WW2 tax rates in the United States and also the lowest unemployment rates.
A progressive tax is a tax by which the tax rate increases as the taxable base amount increases. Income taxes are progressive as are Estate Taxes, sales taxes are regressive in that everyone pays the same percentage, leading to the poor paying a greater share of their disposable income.
So in no way does "progressive", either in politics or tax systems mean theft.
Re:Biggest tight wad of all time (Score:4, Informative)
You call people thieves and hacks, but then tell others THEY won't be polite?
you Hypocritical ass.
Government spend has ALWAYS created jobs. It is the only way ever to get us out of any recession.
"As to lowest unemployment past WWII, well of-course, government finally stopped spending after the war was over and it allowed the depression to stop and since 1947 there was growth helped by USA's virtual monopoly on labor (on production, because USA had intact infrastructure and others didn't)."
this is factually wrong.. and stupid.
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"Poverty, AFAIC, is created by government spending (and regulating/taxing/subsidizing) and wealth is created by the private sector investment. Government is not (or shouldn't be) here to invest. It's here with a specific spending function - protect liberties. That's all that all of the government must be concerned with."
Have you read the United States Constitution?
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_transcript.html [archives.gov]
Article 1, Section 8
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes,
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The 16th Amendment made Income Tax constitutional, as did Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3 and Article 1, Section 8, Clause 1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution [wikipedia.org]
If there is a Constitutional Amendment, then it's not unconstitutional.
As for the "effective taxes", there are not historical documents or data sets to support that claim.
Income Tax in the US dates to 1861, not 1913.
In order to help pay for its war effort in the American Civil War, the United States govern
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
The best thing he could do with the money (if he is not going to leave it to his heirs, and BTW, inheritance tax is real theft) is "donate" it to somebody who already has a lot of money and is running a successful company or to set up an investment fund to have the money invested into various start up businesses.
OTOH he could just burn it, wouldn't have to pay any inheritance tax at all and it would be something different for a change.
I'd rather see inheritance taxes than people gaining wealth due to nothing more than an accident of birth. Especially since money = political power^w speech, why should some people inherit a greater say in the political process than others. Seems the founding fathers fought a revolution against inherited political standing.
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" BTW, inheritance tax is real theft)"
No it isn't.
And he would never pay any inheritance tax, sine he would be fucking dead.
You're little unthinking excuse to rant does nothing for the conversation, fucking flamebait.
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OTOH he could just burn it, wouldn't have to pay any inheritance tax at all [......]
Who do you think ends up with the money when you burn cash?
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Who do you think ends up with the money when you burn cash?
Lawyers. Burning money is a crime in the US.
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Lawyers. Burning money is a crime in the US.
Not a hope. If you're on your death bed and you've burnt all your money, they can't get anything out of you.
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Anyone with enough resources to pay themselves in dividends and stock options would be stupid to take a large annual salary. Capital gains taxes are significantly less than income taxes.
It could be that Steve Jobs donates anonymously. If that is the case, it should be pretty easy for you guys to find some press releases or other PR material where Steve Jobs is at least speaking positively about groups he feels strongly about. Surely there is a lot of that information out there. Right?
I tried to search f
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In fact, Jobs even went so far as to eliminate corporate philanthropy programs at Apple.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs#Philanthropy [wikipedia.org]
That is not the behavior of someone who agrees with charitable giving, anonymous or otherwise.
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Re:Ten Times (Score:4, Interesting)
Ten Times the man Bill Gates is. Bill Gates is now trying to buy his way to people liking him.
You realize Steve Jobs isn't going to sleep with you, right? I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure Bill Gates never fathered an illegitimate child and then refused to acknowledge it was his. People already like Bill Gates for the fact that he was essentially responsible for bringing personal computers into homes, regardless of how you may feel about his business practices.
If you want to talk about "likability", talk to people like Wozniak, John Sculley, or anyone else that worked directly with Jobs.
That's not to suggest that he ever became easy to work for. Jobs is even known to yell at company directors. Asked how she dealt with her boss, former Apple PR chief Laurence Clavere once told a colleague that before heading into a meeting with Jobs, she embraced the mindset of a bullfighter entering the ring: "I pretend I'm already dead." (Clavere says today that she doesn't recall making the comparison but notes that "working with Steve is incredibly challenging, incredibly interesting. It was also sometimes incredibly difficult.")
Often Jobs would suddenly "flip," taking an idea that he'd mocked (maybe your idea) and embracing it passionately - and as his own - without ever acknowledging that his view had changed. "He has this ability to change his mind and completely forget his old opinion about something," says a former close colleague who asked not to be named. "It's weird. He can say, 'I love white; white is the best.' And then three months later say, 'Black is the best; white is not the best.'"
I challenge you to find a single account from someone who personally knows Bill Gates who claims that the man is unlikeable.
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When all of you are done arguing whether Bill Gates or Steve Jobs is the true Messiah, will you please wake up and join us adults in the real world? Both men are wildly successful because they knew how best to exploit others, were driven and hard working in doing that, and were lucky. Both men set aside morals and decorum throughout their career to behave badly. Both have a reputation for abusing staff who didn't perform. Both are happy to take credit and earn money from the work others have done. Both are
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More than Jonas Salk? More than Charles Drew? More than Alexander Fleming?
Cool story, bro! (Score:2)
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Please tell me this was snark! LOL I'm sure there are a lot of cool ideas out there that we'll never see because they were never "merely" bankrolled.
Poor streaming fool (Score:3)
When the network gets choppy you are going to wish you bought devices that actually aimed at storing data locally instead of relying ONLY on the "cloud".
With iCloud you get the best of both worlds - any media you want on-demand, but stored away so you can really access it any time you want.
This just in - iCloud has better than streaming (Score:2)
http://www.macrumors.com/2011/08/30/despite-apples-denial-itunes-match-is-streaming/ [macrumors.com]
Re:misdirected (Score:4, Insightful)
Our society it predicated on making a mark on the universe. We are obsessed with painting the scenery with our big fat egos. Its kind of sad and pathetic.
I don't see your concern here. Humans are, among other things, capable of changing the universe profoundly, not merely making a mark on it. It's not magical. Any intelligent, self-reproducing machine could do the same.
You don't see astronomers with ego issues for the most part, because they have a fair sense of man's importance in the big picture.
They don't. Ask them where humanity will be in a billion years. The question is unanswerable.
Until we get over ourselves (as individual selves), our focus won't be contributing to a future worth living in for human beings, and with 7,000,000,000 on the planet now, perhaps its a good time to make this shift while there still is a future left for human beings.
What shift? To a humbler, unambitious useless creature which will die off in time, leaving no trace? What reason is there for you to issue this call to seven billion people, if you're intent on being so humble? Maybe you should practice what you preach? Or maybe you should eat your words.
Re:misdirected (Score:5, Insightful)
Astronomers sent a probe out into the universe with a gold disk because they feel aliens would want to know about are species. How is that not a big fat ego?
And you know what? it's that big fat ego that builds huge bridge, building covered in glass that touch the sky., It's that ego that put us on the moon, and sent rovers to mars, it's that ego that allows us to make better vaccines, and better cars.
Ar ego is awesome, inspiring and makes us the greatest species on this rock.
The problem is the few psychopaths that run large corporation, or any large body of people.
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The Summary says "Of his Generation" - neither Rockefeller or Anton Fugger are really in the same generation as Mr. Jobs.
"...and quite possibly of all time."
Anton Fugger (and even more his uncle, Jakob) pretty much controlled the fate of
several kingdoms. Today's Murdochs pale in comparison.
And let's not forget Marcus Licinius Crassus, who personally owned a big
part of the Roman Empire at his peak. Seriously.