I Called In Sick Today

[Dread Aidan 8]

HEY BEANS JUST GONNA BE YOU AND ME FOR A MINUTE

Haha

they told me they can't give raises unless you change jobs

???I skipped over most of the Steve Jobs posts. I just need somebody to tell me if this will affect my life in any way. Note: I don't own Apple stock.

[LongLiveYorke 38]

The credit a generic CEO deserves varies dramatically from company to company. Since you brought it up, I would agree that the CEO of intel doesn't deserve a disproportionate credit for processor speed. He's not designing or putting pieces together, he's holding the business end of the company up.Jobs, however, deserves an extraordinary amount of credit for Apple's success. He wasn't writing code or building pieces, sure, but the success of apple came not from individual pieces, but rather from how they were put together. Apple's success came from design and an overwhelming drive for perfection, and all of that came from Jobs. He was an extraordinarily details-oriented man who drove his workers to be the same. For every product released, there were several simultaneous versions that were rejected. Jobs enforced the idea of internal competition, or releasing a small amount of products that work very well, and of emphasizing design and marketing.There are few CEO's who deserve more credit for their company's success than Jobs (and I haven't even brought up the fact that he invented the mac in his frickin garage).

[CardWarfare 4]

I skipped over most of the Steve Jobs posts. I just need somebody to tell me if this will affect my life in any way. Note: I don't own Apple stock.

The new iPhone won't double as a pocket pussy. That's pretty much what all the hubub is about.

[speedz99 145]

My thing is just that i salute the guy for his accomplishments, and thank him because it's his company Plus, I have a soft spot for the tale of the college drop out who became a success, and as cliche as it is, the "follow your dreams" and "do what you love" crowds. Regardless, I'd rather be reading debates on whether or not the guy deserved praise from strangers than people tweeting about what club they're going to tonight.

All very reasonable.

I skipped over most of the Steve Jobs posts. I just need somebody to tell me if this will affect my life in any way. Note: I don't own Apple stock.

Short version: No.Long version: Maybe!

The credit a generic CEO deserves varies dramatically from company to company. Since you brought it up, I would agree that the CEO of intel doesn't deserve a disproportionate credit for processor speed. He's not designing or putting pieces together, he's holding the business end of the company up.Jobs, however, deserves an extraordinary amount of credit for Apple's success. He wasn't writing code or building pieces, sure, but the success of apple came not from individual pieces, but rather from how they were put together. Apple's success came from design and an overwhelming drive for perfection, and all of that came from Jobs. He was an extraordinarily details-oriented man who drove his workers to be the same. For every product released, there were several simultaneous versions that were rejected. Jobs enforced the idea of internal competition, or releasing a small amount of products that work very well, and of emphasizing design and marketing.There are few CEO's who deserve more credit for their company's success than Jobs (and I haven't even brought up the fact that he invented the mac in his frickin garage).

I don't see how you know that the CEO of intel doesn't deserve just as much credit as Jobs. He doesn't do awesome powerpoint presentations, but his company puts out generally very well designed products that have pushed forward the realm of personal computerizing. I'm guessing the guy does have plenty of drive and is pretty detail-oriented. But his products aren't glamorous, so we don't know his name...Helping invent the mac in his garage is impressive, I'll give you that.

[LongLiveYorke 38]

I don't see how you know that the CEO of intel doesn't deserve just as much credit as Jobs. He doesn't do awesome powerpoint presentations, but his company puts out generally very well designed products that have pushed forward the realm of personal computerizing. I'm guessing the guy does have plenty of drive and is pretty detail-oriented. But his products aren't glamorous, so we don't know his name...

I have no idea about INTEL, really, that's just an example. But I DO know what Jobs did for apple in terms of changing their culture and products. And one can pinpoint his successes: he built the company from scratch, and later rejoined the company as it was failing and made it what it is today. You really can't argue with his success.Now, whether a successful businessman and designer is worthy of an outpouring of grief upon death, that's a different issue.

[speedz99 145]

Intel

intel

intel

INTEL

Stop that!

Now, whether a successful businessman and designer is worthy of an outpouring of grief upon death, that's a different issue.

I guess this is what I'm getting at more than anything else.

[speedz99 145]

You know who else I'm not very impressed by? Mother Teresa.Seriously.

[qyayqi 11]

Now, whether a successful businessman and designer is worthy of an outpouring of grief upon death, that's a different issue.

is there overlap between the people currently hanging about in various financial districts & those that are grief-stricken over a dead guy with all the money?

[CardWarfare 4]

is there overlap between the people currently hanging about in various financial districts & those that are grief-stricken over a dead guy with all the money?

i thought of that today. If i were more cynical I would've commented on the people live tweeting these protests from your iphone, but I'm far too lazy and apathetic to do that.

[vbnautilus 48]

How am I the one to break to you the fact that Apple is merely about the same thing every other technology company is about? They just do it better, in a lot of cases.

Doing something better than everyone else is exactly what Steve Jobs is being remembered for.

First of all, he wasn't even part of the company from '85-'97. And after his reinstatement he wasn't focused on shit like making computers work faster, he was focused on things like making them lighter and cooler looking. Oh, and making powerpoint presentations about cool gadgets that other people who worked for him invented and marketed. I find it weird that you associate your love for apple products with one guy.I'm unimpressed with the fact that he gets to take credit for inventions that came out of his company. The CEO of Intel doesn't take credit for increasing processor speed (or whatever)...maybe he should start doing cool powerpoints about it. And every single technological creation that came out of his company, which, again, he didn't really create (although he was a part of the driving force), was already in the works on multiple platforms. Yeah, his company did it first in some cases. Let's all worship him.

I think you just don't know very much about Steve Jobs or the history of Apple. For one thing, he was not just the "CEO" of the company, he started the damned thing in his parents garage. He and Woz created the first apple computers without a huge company around them. His level of involvement in the products that Apple created even when he was CEO is well documented -- the guy was a perfectionist and would demand that entire products go back to the drawing board if one small thing was not in accord with his vision. The CEO of Intel does not have a comparable role in his company. Steve's contribution was not really technological, it was in understanding the relationship between people and computers. What you are dismissing as "making them look cool" was actually a huge insight that no one else seemed to get -- these are things that people interact with and should be built as such. He wanted technology to be art. Part of the reason his products seem to have touched people's lives is because they had a humanity built in to them. Remember the first introducing the mac picture? The mac was saying "hello". Comparing the computers that were made during his absence and what happened when he came back is a perfect example of what his value was.

I should mention this, because it pertains to the point I was trying to make.Did you not reading the section I quoted about him shutting down Apple's philanthropy program and never starting it back up even when the company was making an obscene amount of money? Seems to me he was just about building up his company, and I really don't see anything that convinces me he was doing so to help the world. So yeah, I'm not super impressed with the way he went about his life. And I still think that, while you might have a legitimate reason for feeling a connection to his death, a lot of people are just giving it lip service to look cool and remind everyone that they're sooper hip and have Apple products.Edit: Really, I'm fine with some people mourning him and what he represented to them. Just not the outpouring that's going on. I absolutely think a lot of it is total bullshit.

Yes I've read that before along with other stories about his philanthropy. He was a very private man and worked hard to keep his private life out of the media. The truth is that we have no idea what kind of charitable contributions he has made. There are several large anonymous donations in the bay area that people have hypothesized are due to him. But again, you just don't seem to know very much about him. He was a total idealist and while he was surely concerned with building apple up, his main intention in doing so was always to make the world a better place. And he succeeded.

[vbnautilus 48]

Also, he fucking started Pixar too!

[RhinestoneCowboy 2]

SJ... Steve Jobs... Skeleton Jelly...SJ.

[vbnautilus 48]

You know who else I'm not very impressed by? Mother Teresa.Seriously.

Yeah she was no Paul Otellini.

[strategy 4]

I wonder if people shorted aapl thinking that he'd die soon and it would drop.

it all pretty much got priced in when he said he was leaving to focus on his health and didn't give a timetable. whatever doubt that persisted after that was quashed when he formally announced he was done as CEO.

SHUT UP AND DO THE JOB YOU WERE HIRED FOR

I was given the task of making a two page form (only like 3 lines on page 2) into a one page form this morning. the file was a PDF scan of the original document, so basically, there's no way to play with the document electronically. so I cut the second page up and taped it to the bottom of the first, threw it in the copier, and handed it to the branch manager. he's like, "now that's creative. COPY AND PASTE."

I'm not dancing on the guy's grave, but, again, this outburst is fucking ridiculous, and it just goes to show how much more importance people place on their gadgets than almost anything else.

my trader friend mk and I were discussing this in some high-powered emails this morning. CNBC started in on it at 7 and has not ****ing let up since.

[Tiltinagain 973]

speedz: well internally you can't post out until you've been in your position for two years, so I've got a year to go there. and externally, I mean, I just got here, so nobody's gonna even look at my resume since they'd just see me as a job hopper. but really, the only thing I don't like about my job is the salary: I like the company, the people, the work I do, and the perks/benefits are pretty good too. just wish I wasn't paid half price. and when I asked for a raise, they told me they can't give raises unless you change jobs, either by posting out to another department or by them creating a new position basically for me (and I haven't heard anything about them trying to do anything like that since then).

This is a crappy excuse. Why are you making the hiring decision for other companies? You think they would look at it as job hopping but maybe they'd look at you as a talented, hard worker that is severely underpaid and looking to receive market value for his contributions.You're holding yourself back. Stop it.

I think you're way off on this speedz. We don't mourn people based on some abstract accounting of what their worth was to humanity*. We have emotional responses to what they meant to us. The guy meant something to people more than even the usefulness of his "gadgets" because of the way he went about his life and because of what Apple represented to them. I think the "Think Different" campaign they had back in the early 2000's captured well what Apple and by proxy SJ represented:

Steve Jobs has become much more than a CEO. He is a cult hero/leader. Which is why his death has received the reaction it has. *I don't mean cult hero in a negative way but Apple itself has a very cult like following.

The credit a generic CEO deserves varies dramatically from company to company. Since you brought it up, I would agree that the CEO of intel doesn't deserve a disproportionate credit for processor speed. He's not designing or putting pieces together, he's holding the business end of the company up.Jobs, however, deserves an extraordinary amount of credit for Apple's success. He wasn't writing code or building pieces, sure, but the success of apple came not from individual pieces, but rather from how they were put together. Apple's success came from design and an overwhelming drive for perfection, and all of that came from Jobs. He was an extraordinarily details-oriented man who drove his workers to be the same. For every product released, there were several simultaneous versions that were rejected. Jobs enforced the idea of internal competition, or releasing a small amount of products that work very well, and of emphasizing design and marketing.There are few CEO's who deserve more credit for their company's success than Jobs (and I haven't even brought up the fact that he invented the mac in his frickin garage).

This is so true. He wasn't the hands on builder of the products but it was his vision attention to detail that resulted in the final product.

[strategy 4]

[Dread Aidan 8]

Also, he fucking started Pixar too!

Now I'm grief-stricken.

SJ... Steve Jobs... Skeleton Jelly...SJ.

It was the first thing I thought of too, but, you know.

[iZuma 764]

???

well I mean raises in the sense of big ones; we still have the bs 2% or whatever "thanks for showing up!" raises, I meant one to actually get me in line with what I should be making. also, I think speedz just doesn't get it because he just isn't really smart enough to understand, that's all.

[speedz99 145]

Doing something better than everyone else is exactly what Steve Jobs is being remembered for.

Yes and no.

I think you just don't know very much about Steve Jobs or the history of Apple.

You say that as if it's a complicated history. He started it. He left. He went back and during his tenure as CEO it exploded. He was a big part of spitting out laptops that people love and handheld devices that were better than the competition. Did I leave anything out? Oh, yeah, Pixar. That one's pretty cool.

Comparing the computers that were made during his absence and what happened when he came back is a perfect example of what his value was.

Computers were going to keep getting more efficient, faster, more user friendly, etc. without Jobs. I'm fine with giving him credit for the sleek design. Do we really care about sleek designs? Has that really done anything for anybody, other than giving Apple a bigger market share and making people feel hip?

Yes I've read that before along with other stories about his philanthropy. He was a very private man and worked hard to keep his private life out of the media. The truth is that we have no idea what kind of charitable contributions he has made. There are several large anonymous donations in the bay area that people have hypothesized are due to him.

You're guessing. The only fact is the thing about Apple's philanthropy, which is pretty damning in terms of how he feels about supporting charitable pursuits. I'll change my mind if it turns out he was privately doing great things with his wealth.

He was a total idealist and while he was surely concerned with building apple up, his main intention in doing so was always to make the world a better place.

If you give me a source on that I'll be happy to agree. From my perspective, he just as easily could have been mainly concerned with building an empire because he was driven by the notion of personal success. I'm really not sure you can say, "He wanted to build the most user friendly smart phone to make the world a better place." I think he probably did it to increase the value of his company, which is fine, but not necessarily worthy of deification.

Also, he fucking started Pixar too!

Yeah, that's pretty awesome.

This is a crappy excuse. Why are you making the hiring decision for other companies? You think they would look at it as job hopping but maybe they'd look at you as a talented, hard worker that is severely underpaid and looking to receive market value for his contributions.

This is fair. If you're really that underpaid, it's understandable from an HR perspective.

[Dread Aidan 8]

Also, he fucking started Pixar too!

He didn't start Pixar, he bought it from George Lucas.But I would be less grief-stricken if George Lucas died because at least that would stop him from tinkering with Star Wars. Does anybody have the Star Wars blu-ray discs? He made the Ewoks blink. Somebody get this man a hobby. I guess this is sort of his hobby. A hobby that makes him billions of dollars.

[speedz99 145]

also, I think speedz just doesn't get it because he just isn't really smart enough to understand, that's all.

Hey, shuddup.

[speedz99 145]

He didn't start Pixar, he bought it from George Lucas.

Probably because he wanted to make the world a better place by entertaining children and adults alike! Certainly not because he thought it was a good, profitable business venture.I'm such an ass today.Someone uncreative: "Today?"

[vbnautilus 48]

You say that as if it's a complicated history. He started it. He left. He went back and during his tenure as CEO it exploded. He was a big part of spitting out laptops that people love and handheld devices that were better than the competition. Did I leave anything out? Oh, yeah, Pixar. That one's pretty cool.

I guess I was right...?

Computers were going to keep getting more efficient, faster, more user friendly, etc. without Jobs.

Yeah and the lightbulb was going to eventually be invented without Edison.

I'm fine with giving him credit for the sleek design. Do we really care about sleek designs? Has that really done anything for anybody, other than giving Apple a bigger market share and making people feel hip?

It's not just "sleek design". Do you remember what computers were like before the mac? The human interface of every personal computer on the market up until that point was some version of this:The mac introduced not only a graphical window based interface, but the mouse. Jobs didn't invent any of these things, but he recognized their utility and had the vision to see that computers were for human life, not just for geek basements.

You're guessing. The only fact is the thing about Apple's philanthropy, which is pretty damning in terms of how he feels about supporting charitable pursuits. I'll change my mind if it turns out he was privately doing great things with his wealth.

I mean first of all, fuck "charity". What a stupid concept, honestly, and now we are supposed to all agree that the pinnacle of human behavior is just giving money away? This is a naked emperor. Even Bill Gates has admitted that with all the money he's spent on charity very little has gotten done. A person has a responsibility to the world, and that responsibility is to do what they do best, to use their talents to the fullest of their creative potential. Maybe for some people that involves feeding homeless people. For some it might mean writing great songs or doing great science. To judge a guy who devoted so much creative energy to his life that millions of people carry around his vision in their pockets by the fact that he didn't throw money at some "cause" is just ludicrous to me.

If you give me a source on that I'll be happy to agree. From my perspective, he just as easily could have been mainly concerned with building an empire because he was driven by the notion of personal success. I'm really not sure you can say, "He wanted to build the most user friendly smart phone to make the world a better place." I think he probably did it to increase the value of his company, which is fine, but not necessarily worthy of deification.

Again this stems from the fact that your knowledge of the man appears to be restricted to some media sound bites you heard circa 1998. This is so well documented that it will be hard to find a source among the current internet deluge, but I will look. If you're really interested you can read his biography.

He didn't start Pixar, he bought it from George Lucas.

He turned Pixar into what it became. When he bought it, it was a small division of lucasfilm with about 45 people in it. They had never created a full length animated film. Jobs created the deal with Disney that allowed them to make Toy Story.

[Dread Aidan 8]

He turned Pixar into what it became. When he bought it, it was a small division of lucasfilm with about 45 people in it. They had never created a full length animated film. Jobs created the deal with Disney that allowed them to make Toy Story.

And Pixar had even fewer employees five years after he bought it when the deal with Disney was made. And even for the few years after that until Toy Story was released, the company was losing money and he was thinking about selling it. John Lasseter and Disney saved Pixar for him and turned it into a monster. I have a hard time giving him some sort of visionary credit for making a business deal to save his company.

[vbnautilus 48]

This are excerpts from a great interview he did with playboy in 1985First, for the damned charity thing:PB: What does the money actually mean to you? Jobs: I still don’t understand it. It’s a large responsibility to have more than you can spend in your lifetime–and I feel I have to spend it. If you die, you certainly don’t want to leave a large amount to your children. It will just ruin their lives. And if you die without kids, it will all go to the Government. Almost everyone would think that he could invest the money back into humanity in a much more astute way than the Government could. The challenges are to figure out how to live with it and to reinvest it back into the world, which means either giving it away or using it to express your concerns or values. PB: So what do you do? Jobs: That’s a part of my life that I like to keep private. When I have some time, I’m going to start a public foundation. I do some things privately now. PB: You could spend all of your time disbursing your money. Jobs: Oh, you have to. I’m convinced that to give away a dollar effectively is harder than to make a dollar.On apple's motivation:Jobs: We've never worried about numbers. In the market place, Apple is trying to focus the spotlight on products, because products really make a difference. [...] Ad campaigns are necessary for competition; IBM's ads are everywhere. But good PR educates people; that's all it is. You can't con people in this business. The products speak for themselves.Picasso had a saying: 'Good artists copy, great artists steal.' We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas...I think part of what made the Macintosh great was that the people working on it were musicians, poets, artists, zoologists and historians who also happened to be the best computer scientists in the world.Jobs: Let me compare it with IBM. How come the Mac group produced Mac and the people at IBM produced the PCjr? We think the Mac will sell zillions, but we didn’t build Mac for anybody else. We built it for ourselves. We were the group of people who were going to judge whether it was great or not. We weren’t going to go out and do market research. We just wanted to build the best thing we could build. When you’re a carpenter making a beautiful chest of drawers, you’re not going to use a piece of plywood on the back, even though it faces the wall and nobody will ever see it. You’ll know it’s there, so you’re going to use a beautiful piece of wood on the back. For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through. PB: Are you saying that the people who made the PCjr don’t have that kind of pride in the product? Jobs: If they did, they wouldn’t have turned out the PCjr. It seems clear to me that they were designing that on the basis of market research for a specific market segment, for a specific demographic type of customer, and they hoped that if they built this, lots of people would buy them and they’d make lots of money. Those are different motivations. The people in the Mac group wanted to build the greatest computer that has ever been seen.