The Greatest Entrepreneur is Dead

RIP Steve Jobs

I was prepping a post the other day on the new iPhone but after this news I won't bother. In a nutshell I was going to say the new iPhone is a dud from a marketing and design point of view as they didn't do a form factor refresh. It is now obvious Steve Jobs had no hand in the project as he would have pushed for a change in appearance. Hopefully Apple will retain Jonathan Ives (design) and find a new slave driver who pushes for technical excellence and physical elegance. 

Steve Jobs is one of my personal heroes. His drive is legendary.  He had the gall to send Woz back to the drawing board to make the Apple boot faster. Seeing as Woz is one of the greatest computer architects ever that takes some type of something that most of us don't possess. It's who he was though and it made him great and it made him awful.
He made Apple the company great not once but twice. He made Pixar and he made Next which was the foundation of the modern Apple.
Gone is the slave driving genius that made Apple what it is today. When jackasses like Michael Dell found comfort mocking his designs and his computers and his operating system one year. The same jackass begged him to license his operating system the following year. When Michael Dell dies he will be replaced with another Michael Dell. He is a great entrepreneur in his own right but he sells little boxes you put your coffee cup and ashtray on. Apple sells you something you clean once a week because you love it. 

Steve jobs cannot be replaced and I fear for Apple.

2 comments:

GM Jenkins said...

It wouldve been hard for Apple to maintain its intense level of style and innovation of the past 10 yrs even if Jobs were healthy. I see it continuing on momentum for the next few years, but whether because of a major misstep or a new comptetior or just a series of iphone 4S type holes appearing in the dyke, you gotta believe the trend is down. But what a remarkable decade. It's hard to feel good about America presently, but Apple is the kind of company that will never appear in China, I don't care how wealthy they become.

Louis Cypher said...

The story on the iPhone was he was sick of using his own phone and asked the reasonable question why does this suck so badly? Why can't it do this, that and the other? So he sent his elves to the workshop. Apple didn't come up with the touch screen phone they were simply the first to market because they pushed and also made sure AT&T didn't load it up with crap and restrictions.
I hope he asked similar questions before he eased out of his role at Apple.
You are correct China will never build a company like Apple. They are great at stealing IP but have no interest in real product innovation or are incapable of it.