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> What Apple needed was another person like Steve, but unfortunately, by letting Steve select that person, they ended up with someone completely unlike Steve.

> What Apple needed was another person like Steve, but unfortunately, by letting Steve select that person, they ended up with someone completely unlike Steve. Paul Graham wrote about this back in 2012: "I was talking recently to someone who knew Apple well, and I asked him if the people now running the company would be able to keep creating new things the way Apple had under Steve Jobs. His answer was simply "no." I already feared that would be the answer. I asked more to see how he'd qualify it. But he didn't qualify it at all. No, there will be no more great new stuff beyond whatever's currently in the pipeline. Apple's revenues may continue to rise for a long time, but as Microsoft shows, revenue is a lagging indicator in the technology business. So if Apple's not going to make the next iPad, who is? None of the existing players. None of them are run by product visionaries, and empirically you can't seem to get those by hiring them. Empirically the way you get a product visionary as CEO is for him to found the company and not get fired. So the company that creates the next wave of hardware is probably going to have to be a startup. I realize it sounds preposterously ambitious for a startup to try to become as big as Apple. But no more ambitious than it was for Apple to become as big as Apple, and they did it. Plus a startup taking on this problem now has an advantage the original Apple didn't: the example of Apple. Steve Jobs has shown us what's possible. That helps would-be successors both directly, as Roger Bannister did, by showing how much better you can do than people did before, and indirectly, as Augustus did, by lodging the idea in users' minds that a single person could unroll the future for them. Now Steve is gone there's a vacuum we can all feel. If a new company led boldly into the future of hardware, users would follow. The CEO of that company, the "next Steve Jobs," might not measure up to Steve Jobs. But he wouldn't have to. He'd just have to do a better job than Samsung and HP and Nokia, and that seems pretty doable." – http://www.paulgraham.com/ambitious.html http://www.paulgraham.com/ambitious.html

massysett 10y ago
Bezos isn't following the example of Walton, Sears, or Montgomery Ward. Jobs didn't follow the example of Hewlett. Musk isn't following the example of Henry Ford. It would be a huge mistake for any startup to try to become the next Apple by following the example of Jobs. The Jobs worship has got to stop. He was a unique man in a unique historical circumstance. That time is over. Whether the next big thing comes from Apple or from someone else, it's not going to come from someone who is worshipping and trying to follow Jobs.
- delinka 10y ago
  There's a difference between "following an example" and "learning from an example."
JumpCrisscross 10y ago
> if Apple's not going to make the next iPad, who is? None of the existing players This is a great pitch for an early-stage fund. Sort of like the kind pg peddles :). (I mostly agree with the analysis, but the bias is worth noting.)
- sangnoir 10y ago
  As a customer, I wouldn't buy such a device from a new entrant out of fear of the dreaded "Our amazing journey" blog post when the start up is inevitably shuttered or acquired. The existing players are likely to still exist for the 4+ year device lifetime, which is handy for security updates, warranty and service and replacement purposes.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - thr0waway1239 10y ago
    Although it would be helpful to remember that: 1. The big companies also shutter projects. Minus the "amazing journey" blog post. Their announcements usually have the tone of "Thanks for being part of the gigantic data collection experiment although you wouldn't quite know that yet. Here, take this gratuitous 6 month window to take your data out and then go f yourselves." 2. The security updates, warranty and service and replacement etc also involves occasionally bricking perfectly running systems (ala Windows 10), so it is hardly a comforting thought.
    - intoverflow2 10y ago
      The point is shuttering a product is rarely the end goal for a larger companies product. It is the end goal for almost every startup in the current climate.
  - nradov 10y ago
    Yes that's the difference between early adopters and the mainstream market. The early adopters will take a risk but companies typically need to change strategies to go beyond that. For details see the classic business book "Crossing the Chasm" by Geoffrey A. Moore. https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062292988/crossing-the-chasm-3rd-edition https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062292988/crossing-the-cha...
raverbashing 10y ago
It's hard. Also, there wouldn't have been Steve Jobs without that crazy and convoluted history. Getting fired from the company, then founding a new one then getting brought back? People focus too much on the 'nasty' side of jobs, but it's easy to be nasty, and a lot of people do that, what's hard is having the other aspects that might be more subtle in his biography (or most likely I read it somewhere else), the group that worked with him had a whole way of presenting things to him, that "made" him go for the best solution. It was a ruse, which he might have been aware or not, but it worked. And of course people were on their feet to present the best products Jobs had a very finicky way of thinking about products, but I guess that created a dynamic in which other people that worked with him also stood for things that they believed in and that resulted in a balance of qualities that is lacking Also Apple is not thinking about experience. When they took the floppy disks from the Macs I assume people were more than happy to see they go. Heck even display port has some advantages (you need one tiny interface to plug whatever kind of monitor you want). Now we get a crapfest of different very similar cables with USB-C with different ports that look the same (charging/display/etc) and we killed an existing interface that for the most part works And guess what Apple, your Keyboard and Mouse may be wireless and bluetooth but they still need an USB cable to be charged! Which cable comes with it? USB-A I'm assume Steve would be testing the aerodynamic properties of the latest MB line, if you know what I mean
- Chathamization 10y ago
  > When they took the floppy disks from the Macs I assume people were more than happy to see they go. There were a lot of complaints, even more than you're seeing now.[1][2] At the time it was still the main way people transferred files. [1]http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB901747560996300000 http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB901747560996300000 [2]http://articles.latimes.com/1998/may/11/business/fi-48540 http://articles.latimes.com/1998/may/11/business/fi-48540
visarga 10y ago
Apple is not into the next wave. If it were, it would be a powerhouse of deep learning hardware and software. The next wave is going to be robotics and conversational agents. You can't make a new Apple with slightly better laptops and phones any more. If, at least, they developed and opened up Siri in the last few years... but it's dead in the water.
- Guyag 10y ago
  Do you know any good resources on the future of conversational agents? In terms of what need they fulfil - I don't use Ok Google/Siri/Cortana, and rarely use my Echo but for music, and find it hard to understand where they fit in. Home automation is the only thing that comes to mind ("only").
  - deepGem 10y ago
    Check out X.ai and Clara labs. Some of their blog posts highlight what needs they fulfil. These are not messaging agents but conversational nonetheless.
    - treehau5 10y ago
      Has anyone stopped to think, "do people actually want to talk to a computer?" I think we are more simply interested in commanding them to get our tasks done easier, but this "conversational" nonsense and making it more human like is, well, nonsense.
      - intoverflow2 10y ago
        >but this "conversational" nonsense and making it more human like is, well, nonsense. Can't say I've ever been impressed when one of these systems fails to understand me and replies with a human-like response. Feels disingenuous.
  - shuntress 10y ago
    The term they should be able to fulfill is natural interaction with a humans. You should be able to crawl into your car and sputter "take me cough to the hospital" to which the car vocally responds "Right away" then drives itself to the hospital. edit: Meaning, this interaction should play out exactly the same as if you had a full time driver/butler whos only job is to sit in the driver seat of your car and wait for your commands.
rvanlaar 10y ago
> Apple's revenues may continue to rise for a long time, but as Microsoft shows, revenue is a lagging indicator in the technology business. Well, revenue is already falling [1]. If you look at the first graph (revenue) you'll see that revenue is declining. Click "Trailing 12 months" to remove the seasonal trends. [1] https://fairlyvalued.com/company/AAPL https://fairlyvalued.com/company/AAPL Disclaimer: Fairlyvalued is new tool build by alch- and me.

massysett 10y ago

Bezos isn't following the example of Walton, Sears, or Montgomery Ward. Jobs didn't follow the example of Hewlett. Musk isn't following the example of Henry Ford. It would be a huge mistake for any startup to try to become the next Apple by following the example of Jobs. The Jobs worship has got to stop. He was a unique man in a unique historical circumstance. That time is over. Whether the next big thing comes from Apple or from someone else, it's not going to come from someone who is worshipping and trying to follow Jobs.

delinka 10y ago
There's a difference between "following an example" and "learning from an example."

JumpCrisscross 10y ago

> if Apple's not going to make the next iPad, who is? None of the existing players This is a great pitch for an early-stage fund. Sort of like the kind pg peddles :). (I mostly agree with the analysis, but the bias is worth noting.)

sangnoir 10y ago
As a customer, I wouldn't buy such a device from a new entrant out of fear of the dreaded "Our amazing journey" blog post when the start up is inevitably shuttered or acquired. The existing players are likely to still exist for the 4+ year device lifetime, which is handy for security updates, warranty and service and replacement purposes.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- thr0waway1239 10y ago
  Although it would be helpful to remember that: 1. The big companies also shutter projects. Minus the "amazing journey" blog post. Their announcements usually have the tone of "Thanks for being part of the gigantic data collection experiment although you wouldn't quite know that yet. Here, take this gratuitous 6 month window to take your data out and then go f yourselves." 2. The security updates, warranty and service and replacement etc also involves occasionally bricking perfectly running systems (ala Windows 10), so it is hardly a comforting thought.
  - intoverflow2 10y ago
    The point is shuttering a product is rarely the end goal for a larger companies product. It is the end goal for almost every startup in the current climate.
- nradov 10y ago
  Yes that's the difference between early adopters and the mainstream market. The early adopters will take a risk but companies typically need to change strategies to go beyond that. For details see the classic business book "Crossing the Chasm" by Geoffrey A. Moore. https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062292988/crossing-the-chasm-3rd-edition https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062292988/crossing-the-cha...

raverbashing 10y ago

It's hard. Also, there wouldn't have been Steve Jobs without that crazy and convoluted history. Getting fired from the company, then founding a new one then getting brought back? People focus too much on the 'nasty' side of jobs, but it's easy to be nasty, and a lot of people do that, what's hard is having the other aspects that might be more subtle in his biography (or most likely I read it somewhere else), the group that worked with him had a whole way of presenting things to him, that "made" him go for the best solution. It was a ruse, which he might have been aware or not, but it worked. And of course people were on their feet to present the best products Jobs had a very finicky way of thinking about products, but I guess that created a dynamic in which other people that worked with him also stood for things that they believed in and that resulted in a balance of qualities that is lacking Also Apple is not thinking about experience. When they took the floppy disks from the Macs I assume people were more than happy to see they go. Heck even display port has some advantages (you need one tiny interface to plug whatever kind of monitor you want). Now we get a crapfest of different very similar cables with USB-C with different ports that look the same (charging/display/etc) and we killed an existing interface that for the most part works And guess what Apple, your Keyboard and Mouse may be wireless and bluetooth but they still need an USB cable to be charged! Which cable comes with it? USB-A I'm assume Steve would be testing the aerodynamic properties of the latest MB line, if you know what I mean

Chathamization 10y ago
> When they took the floppy disks from the Macs I assume people were more than happy to see they go. There were a lot of complaints, even more than you're seeing now.[1][2] At the time it was still the main way people transferred files. [1]http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB901747560996300000 http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB901747560996300000 [2]http://articles.latimes.com/1998/may/11/business/fi-48540 http://articles.latimes.com/1998/may/11/business/fi-48540

visarga 10y ago

Apple is not into the next wave. If it were, it would be a powerhouse of deep learning hardware and software. The next wave is going to be robotics and conversational agents. You can't make a new Apple with slightly better laptops and phones any more. If, at least, they developed and opened up Siri in the last few years... but it's dead in the water.

Guyag 10y ago
Do you know any good resources on the future of conversational agents? In terms of what need they fulfil - I don't use Ok Google/Siri/Cortana, and rarely use my Echo but for music, and find it hard to understand where they fit in. Home automation is the only thing that comes to mind ("only").
- deepGem 10y ago
  Check out X.ai and Clara labs. Some of their blog posts highlight what needs they fulfil. These are not messaging agents but conversational nonetheless.
  - treehau5 10y ago
    Has anyone stopped to think, "do people actually want to talk to a computer?" I think we are more simply interested in commanding them to get our tasks done easier, but this "conversational" nonsense and making it more human like is, well, nonsense.
    - intoverflow2 10y ago
      >but this "conversational" nonsense and making it more human like is, well, nonsense. Can't say I've ever been impressed when one of these systems fails to understand me and replies with a human-like response. Feels disingenuous.
- shuntress 10y ago
  The term they should be able to fulfill is natural interaction with a humans. You should be able to crawl into your car and sputter "take me cough to the hospital" to which the car vocally responds "Right away" then drives itself to the hospital. edit: Meaning, this interaction should play out exactly the same as if you had a full time driver/butler whos only job is to sit in the driver seat of your car and wait for your commands.

rvanlaar 10y ago

> Apple's revenues may continue to rise for a long time, but as Microsoft shows, revenue is a lagging indicator in the technology business. Well, revenue is already falling [1]. If you look at the first graph (revenue) you'll see that revenue is declining. Click "Trailing 12 months" to remove the seasonal trends. [1] https://fairlyvalued.com/company/AAPL https://fairlyvalued.com/company/AAPL Disclaimer: Fairlyvalued is new tool build by alch- and me.