I hope you don't think I am a Jobs "naysayer"; I'm one of his biggest fans and defenders - hardly surprising since I have benefited tremendously from his tasteful visions over the years. It's just that some of the hagiography must be qualified, in my opinion, if Jobs is as painful to work for as reported. That's a pathology, IMHO. I'm sure David Packard isn't the only example of a billionaire who didn't have to throw tantrums.
The Improv story is a good one, a healthy synergy just like the Apple/Adobe/Aldus one of yore.
As for the NeXT legacy... When Jobs left Apple he sold all but one share, giving him a healthy nest-egg ($400m-odd) from which to found NeXT (apparently with $7m of it). He didn't need to sell a single machine: it was a vanity product. He could afford to specify the best of everything (taste again!): magnesium chassis, the high-resolution greyscale display; the DSP; the bleeding edge optical drive; etc. The ultimate sign of this was hiring Paul Rand to design the logo for the company. (That's like hiring Annie Leibowitz to shoot your wedding. For all I know, he did that, too :) That's not chutzpah, though. Chutzpah is when you found a company on $10,000 and convince Rand to do the logo for stock. At that point, after being evicted from Apple, Jobs apparently set about soothing his shattered ego by designing the ultimate Apple - and he was prepared to burn cash to do it. Inevitably it was a commercial failure, just like Lisa... but a "beautiful" failure.
I wonder if he got the flower idea from first Apple CEO Mike Scott, of whom handing out white roses was a trademark. |
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A speech well worth reading - Tony 21:04:31 15-Jun-05
The video, and: What was he really trying to say? - toby 07:36:29 22-Jun-05
Jobs on the job - Tony 12:34:40 17-Jun-05
Re: Jobs on the job - toby 08:21:37 18-Jun-05
Fixed Malone's book link - toby 10:20:06 16-Jun-05
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