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In the 80s it was an astounding success with the Apple ][ then it all went to shit funded by that machine. He didn’t invent the LaserWriter. Jobs was great at

In the 80s it was an astounding success with the Apple ][ then it all went to shit funded by that machine. He didn’t invent the LaserWriter. Jobs was great at seeing the potential of tech but he was a terrible CEO until NeXT fell to pieces and he learned some humility to go with that famous reality distortion field. Canion is so underrated. Unlike Jobs he simply kicked IBM in the nuts and redefined the entire computer business.

kragen 3y ago
he didn't invent shit, he certainly didn't invent the apple ii, he didn't even invent the blue box he and woz sold! but he did force apple to do the adobe deal to ship the laserwriter even though it meant sinking a large chunk of cash into risky startup equity. i don't think apple's post-apple-2 jobs-driven trajectory in the 01980s (bringing guis, desktop publishing, vector graphics, and laser printers to the masses) can be fairly described as 'it all went to shit' in terms of jobs's goals. from the perspective of user freedom and empowerment, plausibly, and that improved dramatically when they kicked jobs out next didn't fall to pieces. it birthed the world-wide web, then merged with apple, replacing apple's then ceo, and provided the software stack that currently powers the macintosh line, ipod, iphone, and ipad. i can understand why you would describe next as a failure if it was 01996 and we were having this conversation on compuserve or fidonet, but in retrospect it seems obvious that next was at least the second most important software firm of the 80s and early 90s
- xp84 3y ago
  I find this an interesting debate. I think both are true: NeXT was a failure: because it didn’t make a profit, and its products were wildly overpriced for everyone but a tiny niche market like university CS departments and researchers, which didn’t provide it enough of a market to survive on its own. If it had been successful, NeXT could have bought Apple, not the other way around. Or more likely, just carried on by itself, IPO’d or whatever. NeXT was a huge success: because tech developed there was hugely influential to future technology used even decades later.
  - kragen 3y ago
    it was successful at delivering apple back into the control of steve jobs; it wasn't successful for investors along the way who bought stock at a higher price than the 427 million dollars apple eventually paid, but we weren't talking about whether steve jobs's investors were successful, but about whether steve jobs was successful. investors like canon were his cannon fodder. even a good slice of the investors ended up getting rich, tho it's hard to imagine what would have counted as a bigger success for steve jobs rod canion redefined the entire computer business once: he made open platforms dominant for personal computers. steve jobs did it four times: in 01977 by converting personal computers from hobbyist machines to home appliances; in 01984 by making the wimp gui the dominant interaction paradigm; in 01998 by redefining personal computers from home appliances to fashion accessories; and in 02007 by replacing the open-platform wimp gui with non-end-user-programmable sealed prisons with multitouch and always-on mobile internet access obviously none of these involved him inventing anything, and most of them are at best morally ambiguous, but certainly he set out to do each of those things and then successfully did them

kragen 3y ago

he didn't invent shit, he certainly didn't invent the apple ii, he didn't even invent the blue box he and woz sold! but he did force apple to do the adobe deal to ship the laserwriter even though it meant sinking a large chunk of cash into risky startup equity. i don't think apple's post-apple-2 jobs-driven trajectory in the 01980s (bringing guis, desktop publishing, vector graphics, and laser printers to the masses) can be fairly described as 'it all went to shit' in terms of jobs's goals. from the perspective of user freedom and empowerment, plausibly, and that improved dramatically when they kicked jobs out next didn't fall to pieces. it birthed the world-wide web, then merged with apple, replacing apple's then ceo, and provided the software stack that currently powers the macintosh line, ipod, iphone, and ipad. i can understand why you would describe next as a failure if it was 01996 and we were having this conversation on compuserve or fidonet, but in retrospect it seems obvious that next was at least the second most important software firm of the 80s and early 90s

xp84 3y ago
I find this an interesting debate. I think both are true: NeXT was a failure: because it didn’t make a profit, and its products were wildly overpriced for everyone but a tiny niche market like university CS departments and researchers, which didn’t provide it enough of a market to survive on its own. If it had been successful, NeXT could have bought Apple, not the other way around. Or more likely, just carried on by itself, IPO’d or whatever. NeXT was a huge success: because tech developed there was hugely influential to future technology used even decades later.
- kragen 3y ago
  it was successful at delivering apple back into the control of steve jobs; it wasn't successful for investors along the way who bought stock at a higher price than the 427 million dollars apple eventually paid, but we weren't talking about whether steve jobs's investors were successful, but about whether steve jobs was successful. investors like canon were his cannon fodder. even a good slice of the investors ended up getting rich, tho it's hard to imagine what would have counted as a bigger success for steve jobs rod canion redefined the entire computer business once: he made open platforms dominant for personal computers. steve jobs did it four times: in 01977 by converting personal computers from hobbyist machines to home appliances; in 01984 by making the wimp gui the dominant interaction paradigm; in 01998 by redefining personal computers from home appliances to fashion accessories; and in 02007 by replacing the open-platform wimp gui with non-end-user-programmable sealed prisons with multitouch and always-on mobile internet access obviously none of these involved him inventing anything, and most of them are at best morally ambiguous, but certainly he set out to do each of those things and then successfully did them