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By the way, it's interesting how we hear about all the "evil" things that Steve did-- often overblown for political reasons- but we never hear about the far mor

by MCRed 11y ago

By the way, it's interesting how we hear about all the "evil" things that Steve did-- often overblown for political reasons- but we never hear about the far more heinous things done by others, for example, Bill Gates retarded the entire tech industry by a decade with dishonest, and criminal behavior. Yet he's seen as a "good guy" because he's got a really good personal PR agency and has been spending 20 years rehabilitating his image. Steve's real crime- - why so many people who never met him and don't really actually know much about him, yet still hate him-- is that he didn't employ PR to polish his image. This is also why people think Amazon-- a horrific place that abuses workers and has little technical innovation-- is a "tech company". That's what you buy with effective PR.

GCA10 11y ago
Too funny! Both Apple and Microsoft have huge PR teams. Apple's is relentlessly effective at creating product awe; Microsoft's not so much. Both Jobs and Gates lived the lives they wanted and talked to the media as they saw fit. The results speak for themselves. If you look at billionaires' standing in the course of American history -- going back to John D. Rockefeller and Henry Ford -- they always end up with a tangled blend of admiration and loathing. In the end, PR has surprisingly little impact. There's always plenty of achievement to satisfy the fans; plenty of villainy to justify the critics.
dragontamer 11y ago
Bill Gates is also seen as a "good guy" because he's spent the last decade of his life eradicating Polio in developing nations. Steve btw has "retarded" the ebook industry, built up "closed gardens" across the application universe, and has prevented the iOS from ever receiving 3rd party hardware upgrades by design. Bill Gates may have been ruthless ruling the 90s with Word and Windows... but even he was significantly more open than Apple ever was with their iPhone.
pekk 11y ago
Your perspective on this seems skewed. We have never stopped hearing about how "evil" Microsoft was. Microsoft is a company most people love to hate. There are not any movies painting Bill Gates as an inspired, messianic product visionary. Apple used monopolistic practices many times itself, but this is rarely discussed. There would not be much backlash against Steve Jobs if he had not been beatified by a brand-loyalty cult as the Design Messiah Who Changed Everything. That story was written by Apple, and now nobody can get away from it. There are plenty of other execs who made piles of cash selling widgets that were slightly different from other widgets, but we don't develop strong opinions about those guys because we never have to hear about them.

by MCRed 11y ago

GCA10 11y ago

Too funny! Both Apple and Microsoft have huge PR teams. Apple's is relentlessly effective at creating product awe; Microsoft's not so much. Both Jobs and Gates lived the lives they wanted and talked to the media as they saw fit. The results speak for themselves. If you look at billionaires' standing in the course of American history -- going back to John D. Rockefeller and Henry Ford -- they always end up with a tangled blend of admiration and loathing. In the end, PR has surprisingly little impact. There's always plenty of achievement to satisfy the fans; plenty of villainy to justify the critics.

dragontamer 11y ago

Bill Gates is also seen as a "good guy" because he's spent the last decade of his life eradicating Polio in developing nations. Steve btw has "retarded" the ebook industry, built up "closed gardens" across the application universe, and has prevented the iOS from ever receiving 3rd party hardware upgrades by design. Bill Gates may have been ruthless ruling the 90s with Word and Windows... but even he was significantly more open than Apple ever was with their iPhone.

pekk 11y ago

Your perspective on this seems skewed. We have never stopped hearing about how "evil" Microsoft was. Microsoft is a company most people love to hate. There are not any movies painting Bill Gates as an inspired, messianic product visionary. Apple used monopolistic practices many times itself, but this is rarely discussed. There would not be much backlash against Steve Jobs if he had not been beatified by a brand-loyalty cult as the Design Messiah Who Changed Everything. That story was written by Apple, and now nobody can get away from it. There are plenty of other execs who made piles of cash selling widgets that were slightly different from other widgets, but we don't develop strong opinions about those guys because we never have to hear about them.