87 replies on “Steve Jobs Dead at 56”

  2. 50: Don’t sweat it. A lot of these Slog enthusiasts identify with people like Steve Jobs and can’t be bothered to consider Jobs’ mixed legacy (which included exploitation and degradation as well as good product design). People identify with their products and the people who design them. And they’re likely to ignore the small details for the big celebratory picture. That’s how powerful visionaries get away with their little excesses. Jobs was a brilliant guy, who will now be deified in death.

  3. Microsoft, under the new law was first to patent dying, while Jobs merely died.

    Thus he cannot legally be dead…unless Apple pays a hefty licensing fee.

  5. @50 You’re preaching to the choir. However, I think it’s just misplaced criticism. Apple is guilty of it, along with most other places. So, yes, it’s cultural. I think what I take issue with is a) you’re comparing Jobs (who makes something) to the banksters (who make nothing) b) why bring this up on the day of the man’s death? I am sure you can read numerous testimonials to his being short-tempered and difficult to work with/for or that the culture in which Jobs flourished is ill. (BTW, I don’t find it hypocritical in the least to participate in culture since one cannot extricate themselves from it entirely.) But your consumerism concern trolling on the day of the guy’s death is probably what got people irked.

  7. I’ll miss the crazy old kook …. But this is a huge loss for the poor, donations will fall to an all time low because of it unless someone who gets his money is as nice as he was. Still, doubt it will remain local.

  8. @53

    It’s worth noting that Apple has become every bit as protectionist, anti-competitive and monopolistic as Redmond has been accused of being. Buy a new iProduct and need a video out. “Well this model has a new miniVGA, DV or Firewire pin configuration. That proprietary dongle will be $30. Oh, have one for your Powerbook. Sorry, that won’t work for your air, $30 please. Have three for your Powerbook, Air and iPod? Sorry, they won’t work with your iPad, $30.”

    “Oh, you have IEEE devices for you Win platform? Here at Apple we call it firewire and claim to have invented it. It’s actually the same as what Sony put out in the mid 90s but our pin cofiguration is different, that will be $40.”

    “I’m sorry. You want to develop an app that works on iOS? Well, we don’t approve of it. NO! Yes, if you try to market it outside the AppStore, we will sue you?”

    “Open source? Puh-lease.”

  9. @55 – by “culture” in my comment, I meant the culture that surrounds Jobs rather than culture as a whole. I didn’t mean to come of piling on him on the day of his death but as I said in my first sentence, what struck me was the juxtaposition in Slog posts – hence the timing.

    As for the difference between bankers and other megabusiness – yes, at least Apple makes something – and I was clear what they make is a cut above – but I don’t think the 99/1- Occupy “movement” is just about bankers – it seems a bit broader than that to me – the banker’s part of the problem but it’s a culture that worships money, things, celebrity, etc. that’s at the root.

    In the end we’re all rats enchanted by one shiny trinket or another (sometimes the trinket is an idea) and we like to praise it and in the glare we lose sight of other things.

  11. 55: Bankers do make things. They generate capital to invest in stuff like Apple–without banks there’s no investment capital; without a stock market there are no Apple shares. Apple and banks are intertwined. They’re two heads of the same snake. Of course, my metaphor makes it sound like all companies should be smashed or something, but I don’t think so. I have no problem with the existence of banks or Apple. But there is a circle of culpability. And both kinds of enterprises need to be reined in.

  12. The man was not a saint, and Apple was, as a company, as implicated as any other tech or manufacturing concern in the exploitation and befouling of China…

    …but facts are facts: if you, a non-programmer, use a computer on a daily basis? (Nevermind a smartphone, or a personal music player, or this little thing called the “world wide web.”) You owe a large part of your ability to do that to one Steven Paul Jobs. Respect.

  14. I’m sorry to read this. None of us escapes death, but I do wish he had kicked cancer to the curb in a different way, though. Fifty six seems an early inning to exit the game. I hope those who loved him are comforted by wonderful memories and that we may see some of his visions that have yet to bear fruit in the future.

  15. Everything that I have done in my professional career has been done on a product that Steve has created. I am frankly stunned at how upset I am by his death.

    My deepest condolences to his family.

  20. That time at NeXT wasn’t exactly wasted. The web was originally developed on NeXT and, if you program a Mac, it’s clear that MacOS X is an updated version of NeXTstep with some MacOS magic dust sprinkled on it. You will likely be typing NS a lot, it stands for NextStep.

  21. for fuck’s sake, there are suicide nets at the factories! I have never been disgusted with stranger readership as I am in reading this set of comments. fuck him, had he donated anything substantial to cancer research maybe he’d be alive.

  23. Fer fuck’s sake… Apple’s products are manufactured in sweat shops in China, and they have a long record of poisoning their workers, using child labor, etc. Plus, Apple is widely known as having ZERO philanthropic giving. They have no foundation, give nothing back to the communities that house them. Jobs himself hardly contributed a DIME to making the world a better place. Compare his record to the incredible generosity of someone like Gates and Microsoft, two entities often listed as “evil.”

    Confusing “they make fun toys” with “they are a force for good” is why we are in this mess.

    I got nothing against Steve Jobs personally, but it is quite ironic how he is being praised as a hero by the same people who have been so publicly angry about consumer culture.

  24. @57 – who’s the crazy kook, again?

    @62 – I’m confident that China (the government, not the people) is responsible for the exploitation and befouling of China (the people, not the government.) Operating – brilliantly- within a worldwide capitalist system, Steve Jobs is now to blame for every abuse of a worker or instance of “befouling” the earth? That idea is hard to swallow.

    While Jobs wasn’t a saint, he was absolutely an innovator, and he will be missed.

  26. @44 given your apologist attitude toward UW sports, that’s a highly hypocritical statement.

    Sorry, but you gotta be a cruel bastard to slam the football program that generates enough money to provide scholarships to hundreds of students every year. Nobody is going to graduate to the pro softball leauge, but someones daughter is going to get a free education for knowing how to kick, throw or catch a ball.

  27. @ 76, what role rape and mayhem play in that?

    I know a lot of athletes who know how to keep the aggression on the field of play. Apparently you only know frenzied goons who can also play sports.

    Admit you’re wrong. Be a grown up for once.

  28. @ 73, funny thing; Gates had a virtually nonexistent record of giving until the late 90s, when the bad publicity from the antitrust case required some good publicity to offset it. Or maybe Melinda made him realize that there was only so much he could do with all that wealth for himself.

  29. @78 – Just to contradict you with actual facts…The Gates Foundation was formed in 1994 with an initial gift of $94 million from Mr. Gates. United States v. Microsoft wasn’t filed until 1998. In other words, Gates was well on his way to becoming the world’s biggest philanthropist well before the antitrust case even started.

    Jobs on the other hand was worth around $8 billion – easily one of the richest men in the country – had no history of substantial personal giving, and was known for doing away with all philanthropic work at Apple.

    So which one of these guys is “evil?”

  30. @ 79, so it was Melinda’s doing? Gates could have been giving away that kind of money for years. (Did the antitrust investigation begin in 1998, or was it years in the making?)

    As for “who’s evil,” just to play along with your silly straw man (how much money do Boeing executives give?), you can ask all the businesses Microsoft ran into the ground.

  31. What in the world are you talking about? Don’t know how Boeing came into this, but they have a remarkable giving record. They give more than $100 million every year for local, national and international education, health and human services, arts, etc. The Boeing Employees Fund – funded entirely by employee contributions – gives another $50 million. Here in Seattle, there’s hardly an arts festival or major environmental project that doesn’t have Boeing money.

    I’m not claiming anyone is more evil than anyone else. I’m just wondering why Jobs is held to such a different standard from every other corporate leader. It seems so obvious that he, and Apple, are just as much a part of the problem as any other multi-billion dollar international corporation. And unlike many, they felt no need to ameliorate guilty consciences by giving back to the communities who helped sustain them. I think it’s reprehensible, and I think Jobs deserves to be called on it.

  32. @ 81, I mentioned Boeing because they’re known to be pretty evil themselves. I well remember how well they supported the arts in Seattle – I remember realizing that a genuine corporate presence was probably the reason why it’s such a great arts city, while my hometown, lacking a large, iconic company, pretty well sucks on that count.

    We’re probably more in agreement than was apparent at the offset – I don’t think anyone’s more evil than anyone else. Big business is amoral at best, and Jobs’ stinginess is certainly a valid thing to point out.

    But Jobs is being praised because he was a bona fide genius. That word used to have meaning before people used it to describe any talented or smart individual – it meant someone who had a revolutionary vision and the wherewithal to make it reality. That should be celebrated. It doesn’t mean Jobs should be deified, but he should be respected for how he changed the world (he truly deserves more credit for that than any other individual, although of course he wasn’t alone), and his passing should be marked because of that.

    His assholishness doesn’t diminish this, or at least it shouldn’t. If you hold everyone you admire to that standard, there would be very few people who make the cut. If that’s your standard anyway, fine. But I worked for Wamu, I know how much giving back Wamu did, and in the end they still ended up doing more damage because of it. Corporate giving really doesn’t mean much to me.

    (Footnote: keep in mind that Apple started the discounted computers for students program in the early 80s, I believe at Jobs’ behest. That’s what the NY Times obit said, anyway. That’s been a hugely beneficial program, and millions have benefited from it. That should count for something.)

  34. Rest in Peace SJ

    I wasn’t aware he was ill until recently, and I wasn’t expecting it would affect me, really, but he was an incredible person. He lead a revolution which made all people (who could afford apple products) more creative and intuitive and less enslaved by technology.

    For me personally, apple creations have saved me time, and increased the ammount I communicate with people I care about. And spared me the fate of becoming more robot-like to fit in with crude PC and mobile phone technology. And it feels like it had only just begun and now he’s gone.

    I realise now how grateful I am for his contribution. I never contemplated that Apple was very much the result of one person, and that all people eventually die.

    This is very sad. I am grateful for his amazing contribution. I really listened to his last speech because he was one of the people who spent their youth expanding their minds, which is why he was able to contribute so much.

    I hope very much that Gens X & Y and all that follow don’t forget the importance of living as Steve Jobs, and so many others of his generation lived in their youths. If we can be more daring, and prioritise expanding our consciousness as he did, then there will still be possibilities for amazing things in the future.

    This man has left an incredible legacy. Let us not take for granted the creations of creative people, because people die.

    The legendary Steve Jobs

  35. In every social movement (e.g. the 60’s tune in drop out period), there will be one or two intellectual genius types.

    Put in a different cultural period (e.g. a conservative, & mean spirited culture), the technical genius types might get caught up in the culture and use them within that context.

    But put a technical genius type into a culture that is idealistic, which encourages doing things differently, and following your heart, and sometimes you get a Steve Jobs.

    What I’m saying here, is that I think Steve Jobs was remarkable, but I’m also saying that all the people who were part of and who helped make the psychadelic flower power peace and love youth revolution also contributed to the legacy of Apple, because without that culture, Steve wouldn’t have become quite the person that he was. San Francisco, Portland Oregon…

    I don’t know if anyone from his era is reading this here on slog, but if you are, then I thank you also for his legacy.

    Sorry for the long rambling posts, but I’m just having a moment of big gratitude for that era and what it produced, now that I know it may die out if we don’t consciously keep it alive.

  36. “In every social movement (e.g. the 60’s tune in drop out period), there will be one or two intellectual genius types. “

    But none exactly like Steve Jobs. Anyone who can illicit the type of response on the internet that he is garnering for his death was a HUGE figure.

    Check out sites like http://www.pixt.com/remembersteve and look at the amazing tributes fans are leaving! Pretty crazy…

  37. “In every social movement (e.g. the 60’s tune in drop out period), there will be one or two intellectual genius types. ”

    But none exactly like Steve Jobs. Anyone who can illicit the type of response on the internet that he is garnering for his death was a HUGE figure. Check out sites like http://www.pixt.com/remembersteve and look at the amazing tributes fans are leaving! Pretty crazy…

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