Originally Posted By TP2000 Yeah, so apparently I misspoke when I said that Steve Jobs was probably a nice guy. It seems that he wasn't so nice, and that he could be rather mean and cold and cruel. His work habits and treatment of Apple employees would seem to be an HR nightmare, in any other company. And who knew Jobs abandoned his first daughter after his attempts to disown her and his claim to be sterile proved false? I also didn't realize Jobs really hasn't given any money to philanthropy, and set up no charity with all of his wealth, a very stark difference from the 60 Billion dollars that Bill Gates has given to charity and philanthropic organizations in the last 20 years. Not only did he not give to charity personally, he shut down Apple's corporate charity department in 1997 and never reinstated it. I was also unaware of his Big Brother-esque control issues, and his distaste for different cultures like Gay travel sites or Gay art from appearing on any of his Apple products. My gut instinct was that Steve Jobs really didn't deserve all the adulation he was getting, and he certainly didn't deserve to have the American Flag lowered for a week at Disneyland. After I read this, and thought about the big differences between Jobs and other more giving Billionaires like Bill Gates, I think I'm going to stick with my original instincts on this guy. He's not all he's cracked up to be, and he sounds like he was kind of a jerky nutcase to work for. <a href="http://gawker.com/5847344/what-everyone-is-too-polite-to-say-about-steve-jobs?tag=steve-jobs" target="_blank">http://gawker.com/5847344/what...eve-jobs</a>
Originally Posted By DVC dad123 Hummm... I don't think that anger expressed in post 20 should be directed at LP. I would instead direct it at Disney. I thought it was in poor taste to announce Iger's (eventual) departure just hours after Jobs was dead. But hey, that's just my on 2 cents worth.
Originally Posted By DVC dad123 Read the link in the Steve is Dead thread that I just posted there. He was a jerk, and for good reason.
Originally Posted By DVC dad123 <<Jobs abandoned his first daughter after his attempts to disown her>> --- He was what... 23 years old then? That doesn't make it ok, but there's been a lot of water under the bridge since. <<Jobs really hasn't given any money to philanthropy>> How do you know? He took a ONE DOLLAR ( $ 1.00 ) Salary to return to Apple. It's not like he was a Scrooge that you make him out to be, and no one truly knows anything about him personally, especially his finances. <<I think I'm going to stick with my original instincts on this guy. He's not all he's cracked up to be...>> -Well you are the one making it so personal. Think of all he did in 56 years that has directly impacted you personally in a positive way, even if you realize it or not, and then think of what you have done in the past 56 years by comparison. Venting and stone throwing about this guy is pointless. In a world of oranges, he was an apple...that's the whole point of him, the point that people seem to miss. He truly did THINK DIFFERENT, and I'm glad he did.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip I love Apple products (spoken as I type this on my iMac) and think Jobs was one of the most creative men of our generation. He actually invented very little... he saw the potential in the inventions of others, fine-tuned them, brought them to market and made us want them. Jobs did not invent the graphical user interface or the mouse... Xerox did. But Jobs saw the potential where Xerox did not. He definitely saw things in a way different from others, and we are all better off for that. But let's not confuse that ability with his being a good man. I read an article recently written by the man who Jobs asked to write his biography. Shortly before Jobs death the writer asked him (after over 50 interviews) why he, notoriously a very tight-lipped man, had chosen to share so much information. Jobs replied something to the effect of "During my life I often wasn't there for my children... I want them to understand why I did what I did." I guess it never occurred to him to spend his final days talking to his kids instead of his biographer...
Originally Posted By vbdad55 very few heads of industry or leaders in things like innovation are exactly the guy next door that you'd want to have a beer with, or would give you the time of day. Doesn't lessen his vision or accomplishments- but those in turn do not make up for not being a very good person. Flag lowering- no way.... a tip of the hat for the products he brought to market- yes.
Originally Posted By TP2000 >>"He took a ONE DOLLAR ( $ 1.00 ) Salary to return to Apple. It's not like he was a Scrooge that you make him out to be, and no one truly knows anything about him personally, especially his finances."<< The $1.00 salary was more about ego and theatrics than anything else, and Jobs proved the board they made the right decision. Since Apple has made very, VERY few charitable donations in the last 10 years, even as its stock and profits soared, there may be a possibility that Apple's corporate philanthropy was taking place under a "Black Ops" type of budget that no one knew about, and that was handled through shell companies and third parties. Although why that would be good for Apple or its corporate culture is not really clear. <a href="http://www.cultofmac.com/5216/apple-scores-low-on-corporate-responsibility/" target="_blank">http://www.cultofmac.com/5216/...ibility/</a> Most companies do the philanthropy thing as sort of a mixture of obligation, honest giving, plus healthy doses of positive employee morale and local PR. Disney and Disneyland are masters at it; one scan through the local newspaper archives for the past year shows all the positive buzz Disneyland gets by handing out giant cardboard checks at feel-good, moist-eye ceremonies across Southern California. Apple never made that a part of its corporate culture, and appeared to give back to no one really, except for the techo-geek rush Apple fans got when standing in line for the latest product. I was up in Seattle this summer, and I had dinner at the Space Needle with old friends. As we revolved through cocktails and three courses (which was better than most revolving restaurants need to be), I kept seeing the sprawling Bill And Melinda Gates Foundation office campus that has just been built just below the Needle. It's a stunning, modern building; all LEED Platinum Certified and swanky and all that jazz. Bill Gates has given away Billions of Dollars of Microsoft's profits, his own money, over the last couple decades. There's Billions more to come, with a current endownment of 37 Billion Dollars, and the Foundation is now set up to see that it goes to do the most good around the globe. Seattleites are appropriately proud to point the Foundation and Microsoft's campus out to visitors, usually right after they've shown you the Space Needle and the Boeing factory. <a href="http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Pages/home.aspx" target="_blank">http://www.gatesfoundation.org...ome.aspx</a> There is no Steve Jobs Foundation, and no formal philanthropy department at Apple Inc. But that may change at Apple now that Jobs is gone, and it will be a change for the better, in my opinion. It's going to require massive corporate change, however. Almost impressively, Jobs and Apple have gotten a pass on the corporate responsibility front for the past decade because they tapped into the zeitgeist so well, and cultivated a very chic reputation with a young and/or hip demographic. But now that Jobs is gone, they'll need to change quickly or they'll just look like another bullying corporation raping the earth and forcing Chinese youth to live in triple-bunk dormitories to make tecnho-goodies at slave wages for fat Americans and their Christmas stockings. As for the "Well, he was only 23, so how can you blame him for trying to ditch the daughter he fathered?" thing. Wow. And for the record, the legal struggle where Jobs tried to claim he was sterile and couldn't possibly be the girls father went on for several years. At what point is a man supposed to be a man? 35 years old? 40 years old? Older? I know 14 year old kids who have a stronger moral compass than Jobs did at 23. Jobs only got around to accepting her as a daughter when he was in his 30's. And of course he went on to have more children, so somehow he cured the sterility thing too. Must have been an App for that. Steve Jobs was no saint, and he wasn't even a Walt Disney (who was also not a perfect saint). Jobs may have been brilliant, or just had a knack for talent and selling shiny new toys, but he appears to have quite an ethics problem. It's fascinating how he was able to build such a cult of personality around himself and his company, without doing so much of the things good men and good companies are supposed to do in the 21st century. I'm now forced to question Bob Iger's apparently deep and close friendship with Jobs. And as a patriotic American, the half-staff flag thing at Disneyland is more and more repugnant the more I read about him. I think a simple memo to the troops from Iger upon Jobs passing would have been sufficient. Everything else in his honor is increasingly distasteful.
Originally Posted By Labuda "Without Steve Jobs, Disney Would not be the company it is today." So we can blame him for the current state of the parks? Noted, thanks!
Originally Posted By SpokkerJones "Steve Jobs was no saint, and he wasn't even a Walt Disney (who was also not a perfect saint). Jobs may have been brilliant, or just had a knack for talent and selling shiny new toys, but he appears to have quite an ethics problem." This is what I hate about the passing of notable individuals. We do make them out to be saints and anything negative about their lives is washed away. This doesn't seem to happen in comedy, however. When people remember Sam Kinison, they remember the comedic talent, but they also remember the drugs and his wild behavior. People remember Rodney Dangerfield's one-liners, but they also remember his tremendous fondness for weed and his penchant for letting his testicles hang out of his robe because he just didn't care (and he earned that right in my opinion). But the point is that remembering the complete life lived, even the bad parts, is not a disrespectful thing. We pretend that influential people never behave poorly. That's just not realistic.
Originally Posted By SpokkerJones And TP2000 brings up the example of Walt Disney. He wasn't Christ incarnate. He probably wasn't as anti-Semitic as he has been accused of being, but he was probably a product of his times, especially earlier in his career. He smoked like a chimney and that's probably what killed him. He acted like a child during the animator strike (though I don't think the animators should get off scot free either). Oh, and he didn't learn from his mistake when it came to bringing the circus to Disneyland and he became disinterested in the animation division in the years before his death and I think it showed in the quality of those films.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan There are years and years after a person dies to analyze the good and bad parts of their personality. But there's also nothing wrong with a short period of leaving those bad aspects alone. Not forever, of course, but for a week or so? Is that too long? Instead, we seem quite eager to dredge up all the dirt and negativity possible, often at the exclusion or at least overshadowing of the good one has done, to remind everyone that this person or that person was no saint. Maybe I just need to be more cynical.
Originally Posted By SpokkerJones "But there's also nothing wrong with a short period of leaving those bad aspects alone. Not forever, of course, but for a week or so? Is that too long?" For family and friends, who actually have an emotional attachment to the person, yes. But for fans, detractors and critics? No. It is mental to be so attached to a person you don't know that you become seriously angry if someone else has the audacity to remember their life accurately.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <Maybe I just need to be more cynical.> "No matter how jaded I become, it's never enough to keep up." - Lily Tomlin
Originally Posted By mawnck >>We do make them out to be saints and anything negative about their lives is washed away. << See also Jackson, Michael (a/k/a Eo, Captain).
Originally Posted By DDMAN26 <<So we can blame him for the current state of the parks? Noted, thanks!>> I don't believe Jobs really had much of an influence in the parks.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>It is mental to be so attached to a person you don't know that you become seriously angry if someone else has the audacity to remember their life accurately.<< I'm not attached to Steve Jobs in any way other than I enjoy the products his company produced, and appreciate his care for design and functionality. And that I can see his death as another milestone of the computer age. Other than that, I think it's rather 'mental' to need to urinate all over him within moments of his death and dismiss his business accomplishments. I'd also question the "accuracy" of some of what I've read in this thread.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan The other thing is that I never think of any business executive as a saint in the first place. So I really don't need any "reminders" that Jobs wasn't one. I doubt any high end executive is a swell person overall. What it takes at that level is total, driven dedication (obsession really), usually at the expense of what most of us would consider the most important parts of life -- families, relationships, etc. There are financial rewards, no question, but so many of these guys go through multiple marriages or wind up with screwed up kids. It's really not an aspect of living large that most people consider, but it's real. Steve Jobs, Walt Disney, and any other creative executive/master marketer probably treated people shabbily, at least some of the time, throughout their lives. This isn't surprising to me, having dealt with executives at a far lower level who were insufferable tyrants. Still, the other end of that spectrum should get its due, what they brought to the world while they were here, before all those helpful reminders that they had feet of clay. We know that.
Originally Posted By vbdad55 "I doubt any high end executive is a swell person overall. What it takes at that level is total, driven dedication (obsession really), usually at the expense of what most of us would consider the most important parts of life -- families, relationships, etc" exactly --it takes a different kind of person. I remember well jumping off the every 6 month promotion, living on the road while my wife was home with an infant...and doing whatever it took to be successful path. I asked off at a mere 31 years old after a mild heart attack on a plane. A little brush with death will cause you to re -evaluate. I have had a very nice career, although not the one I was 'earmarked' for at the time I don't regret the tradeoff ... none of those I was on the fast track with today are married ( some have been multiple times)- and most have no relationship with family ..but they are rich. the lines that always stuck out to me for those at the top ( many- again likely not all) - came from Mr J Lennon..and I find it oh so very true. "There's room at the top they are telling you still, But first you must learn how to smile as you kill, If you want to be like the folks on the hill "
