Steve Jobs, February 24, 1955 - October 5, 2011

[Von Mises]

Steve jobs, great philanthropist, donated tens of millions to aids research, cancer research, tuborculosis and many more causes.

Amazing generous man.

Apple, meh. Multiple suicides in the last year or so in their factories, 51cents an hour to the factory workers and nets strung between buildings to stop more jumpers.

Hideous company, every product has blood on it (like many other products produced in china)

You do not understand economic development at all. Try for startes this By Paul Krugman http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_dismal_science/1997/03/in_praise_of_cheap_labor.html
Krugman, as you may know is not a fan of corporations, but he understands a bit more about development - bad pay and bad jobs are better than no jobs. Between 1981 and 2005 povert rate in China fell from 85% to 15% - 600 million people were taken out of poverty. Apple, Nike and others who have invested in China have gotten lot of slack ("blood on it") from stupid hippies, but at the end real change have come from these investments and not from anti globalization protests.

Its not Jobs philantropy, not some "Steve Jobs Foundation for Giving Stuff to Poor People in Exotic Lands and Making Me Feel Good About Myself", but his work what actually made a world better place.

 

[ramjambunath]

You do not understand economic development at all. Try for startes this By Paul Krugman http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_dismal_science/1997/03/in_praise_of_cheap_labor.html
Krugman, as you may know is not a fan of corporations, but he understands a bit more about development - bad pay and bad jobs are better than no jobs. Between 1981 and 2005 povert rate in China fell from 85% to 15% - 600 million people were taken out of poverty. Apple, Nike and others who have invested in China have gotten lot of slack ("blood on it") from stupid hippies, but at the end real change have come from these investments and not from anti globalization protests.

Its not Jobs philantropy, not some "Steve Jobs Foundation for Giving Stuff to Poor People in Exotic Lands and Making Me Feel Good About Myself", but his work what actually made a world better place.

Poverty figures are some of the easiest to doctor (example, the Indian Planning Commission said last week that the People who spend anything more than $0.8 a month in Urban India and $0.6 a month in rural India aren't below poverty line). The bad pay bad jobs argument is also not foolproof. The fact is these people work day and night in squalid conditions, which would absolutely shock any well to do person (ride through the whole of any city if you don't believe me). Most of the people (who rarely get to be with their families which maybe a 1000kms away) would do well if the govts paid proper attention to agriculture development and forming coop. societies to guarantee some income (ala the Gujarat coop. Milk Marketing Federation).

Back on topic, Jobs was a businessman and innovator. He was a fine exponent at what he did and stuck two fingers up to the computing world's Lance Armstrong. Let's not give him credit for development or lack of of the developing world.

 

[BillytheKid]

Job's ideas and products have truly been visionary. A man who could bring the best talent into focus creating a paradigm shift in the way we live.

Very unfair to hang the Asian labour issue on wholly him at this hour. Apple like other companies have be forced to manufacture there to compete and even exist at all. To blame Jobs and not the countries themselves for cornering the cheep labour market in electronics is a bit off.

I remember those who argued in Congress against opening trade with China warning of this. The counter argument pointed to the rest of the world already lined up to do business there. I suggest another thread on the topic.

Rest in peace Steve.

 

[Maxiton]

I suggest another thread on the topic.

Rest in peace Steve.

On the contrary, I think the best honor for Steve Jobs in particular is to have a vigorous debate on him and related subjects, right here, in this memorial thread. Because anything involving Steve Jobs is really about life, not death, and what could be more living than debate?

I was struck earlier by what Stingray had to say, which bears repeating:

I don't own any Apple products, nor am I tech savvy. I have deep misgivings about the production of Apple products and the human misery that causes in Asia, along with the fetishization of gadgets clouding out our better judgement.

However, reading some things about Steve Jobs today, I can see the world has lost a quiet hero. He spoke a lot about the inevitibility of death and the obligation to try to do something good.

He was a Socratic hero, always questioning, always looking forward. People that challenge ideas can change history. I believe Steve Jobs was motivated by the goal of history itself: the realization of human freedom.

 

[BillytheKid]

On the contrary, I think the best honor for Steve Jobs in particular is to have a vigorous debate on him and related subjects, right here, in this memorial thread. Because anything involving Steve Jobs is really about life, not death, and what could be more living than debate?

I was struck earlier by what Stingray had to say, which bears repeating:

Rest in Peace Steve.

 

[boomcie]

I believe Steve Jobs was motivated by the goal of history itself: the realisation of human freedom.

I will also quote this and call it total b*llocks.

Seriously.

 

[mewmewmew13]

Was driving south on Highway 85 towards Cupertino less than an hour after Apple made the announcement. Was around 5pm out here in California.
The Santa Cruz Mountains above Apple Corp were dwarfed by humongous grey and white storm clouds and sheets of rain reaching all the way to the ground.
The sun was lowering in the western sky behind the clouds too.
It was very pretty. The windshield wipers were on intermittent where I drove, about 20 miles away from Apple....
It is going to be one of those "I remember where I was when I heard that so and so passed away" moments rip.

nice Polish. I can relate...
rip steve jobs

 

[Maxiton]

I too have deep misgivings about the exploitation of labor in China, and the despoiling of the ecology there, which ultimately is the ecology we all share.

Apple is today the most valuable company in the world, so some sort of beleaguered underdog defence of them would be obscene, especially given that the true underdogs are the nameless thousands who create much of that wealth on Apple's behalf. But, for the workers and the host country and the visionary geniuses, you go to work with the world you have, not the world you want.

I think the Chinese government sees the opening up of its country and its people to exploitation as a net gain for their civilization. I think Steve Jobs looked at the world and determined how to negotiate it, in order to accomplish his ultimate goal. And what was that? I believe it was nothing less than the facilitation of a qualitative leap for humanity. Whether that goal, or the way in which he sought to achieve it, were completely misguided: the jury is still out. It is arguably true that his company's footprint in China is a net gain for them, both the individual workers and the country as a whole, as well as for the rest of us.

 

[thirteen]

Rest in peace, Steve, rest in peace.

 

[Rechtschreibfehler]

I too have deep misgivings about the exploitation of labor in China, and the despoiling of the ecology there, which ultimately is the ecology we all share.

Apple is today the most valuable company in the world, so some sort of beleaguered underdog defence of them would be obscene, given that the true underdogs are the nameless thousands who create much of that wealth on their behalf. But, for the workers and the host country and the visionary geniuses, you go to work with the world you have, not the world you want. I think the Chinese government sees the opening up of its country and its people to exploitation as a net gain for their civilization. I think Steve Jobs looked at the world and determined how to negotiate it, in order to accomplish his ultimate goal. And what was that? I believe it was nothing less than the facilitation of a qualitative leap for humanity. Whether that goal, or the way in which he sought to achieve it, were completely misguided: the jury is still out. It is arguably true that his company's footprint in China is a net gain for them, both the individual workers and the country as a whole, as well as for the rest of us.

I don't really think you have a point here. Of course general economic growth is a gain for a lot of people in China, as the general living standard risese. But it's hard to believe that this is the reason Apple or Steve Jobs as a person would decide to go there. Also, if he or the company really cared about the people they'd force companies like Foxxconn to work in a vastly diffrent way. Which would of course decrease the profit margin considerably. But as Apple is such a huge and rich company, it could afford to do so without doing itself any harm.
That it doesn't act like this shows that Apple is functioning simply the way most other companies do. The only thing that counts is profit.

Today what really astouned me the most is that is seems to be the common opinion that Steve Jobs / Apple did help to make the world better. This idea never occured to me. I am really wondering what you guy's mean. It's not that I want to say "no Apple/Jobs can not ever do this", maybe I am just failing to see how.

But to me "If you don't have an I pod, you don't have an I pod" is rather a step back in the development of anything that could once be a civilised world, or at least a civilised society.

 

[Anonymous]

You do not understand economic development at all. Try for startes this By Paul Krugman http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_dismal_science/1997/03/in_praise_of_cheap_labor.html
Krugman, as you may know is not a fan of corporations, but he understands a bit more about development - bad pay and bad jobs are better than no jobs. Between 1981 and 2005 povert rate in China fell from 85% to 15% - 600 million people were taken out of poverty. Apple, Nike and others who have invested in China have gotten lot of slack ("blood on it") from stupid hippies, but at the end real change have come from these investments and not from anti globalization protests.

Its not Jobs philantropy, not some "Steve Jobs Foundation for Giving Stuff to Poor People in Exotic Lands and Making Me Feel Good About Myself", but his work what actually made a world better place.

yeh yeh, im a stupid hippy.

The thing about poverty is its a very subjective word. Theres what governments consider poverty in relation to the rest of the population, theres the very low limit that amnesty set poverty at, theres my idea of poverty, your idea of poverty.

Someone who moves hundreds of miles from their home, to live in a dormitory with other workers, working in a factory for 13 hours a day, for 31cents an hour, may not technically be in "poverty", but is it right.

 

[ElChingon]

A couple interesting reads on Apple and Jobs:

http://www.asymco.com/2011/10/06/steve-jobs-didnt/

and

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/10/in-praise-of-bad-steve/246242/

 

[Maxiton]

I don't really think you have a point here. Of course general economic growth is a gain for a lot of people in China, as the general living standard rises. But it's hard to believe that this is the reason Apple or Steve Jobs as a person would decide to go there.

But if the net effect of companies going there is a general rise in prosperity for the country and its people, does it really matter why companies go?

Also, if he or the company really cared about the people they'd force companies like Foxxconn to work in a vastly diffrent way. Which would of course decrease the profit margin considerably. But as Apple is such a huge and rich company, it could afford to do so without doing itself any harm. That it doesn't act like this shows that Apple is functioning simply the way most other companies do. The only thing that counts is profit.

Here, you might have a point. Though it's my understanding that Apple did impose a requirement for a general pay raise and an improvement in working conditions. (I can't at the moment provide citations to back that up.)

As a publicly held company, Apple executives have a legal duty to maximize earnings for their shareholders. That is capitalism, and we are talking about a capitalist enterprise here. At the same time, they have a moral duty to ensure that the conditions people work in on Apple's behalf are at least tolerable, and hopefully better than they can find elsewhere. They've been famously successful at accomplishing the former goal. How well have they achieved the latter? I'm not sure we can answer that yet.

Today what really astouned me the most is that is seems to be the common opinion that Steve Jobs / Apple did help to make the world better. This idea never occured to me. I am really wondering what you guy's mean. It's not that I want to say "no Apple/Jobs can not ever do this", maybe I am just failing to see how.

But to me "If you don't have an I pod, you don't have an I pod" is rather a step back in the development of anything that could once be a civilised world, or at least a civilised society.

I think the idea behind people saying that Jobs made the world a better place is this: his company creates devices and technologies that transform the ways in which we relate to information and to each other. Thanks in part to Job's Apple, information is easier to get and costs less, and we, the people of earth, are given more powerful tools to create and can share with each other more easily. Most importantly where Apple is concerned, the interface between people and information - that is, the device - becomes less bottleneck and more facilitator.

A lot of these Silicon Valley types (many of whom are not even in Silicon Valley) are revolutionaries at heart. They play the game they're given, capitalism, and often they enjoy it and make obscene amounts of money, but at bottom, money isn't what they're about. These guys truly believe in the profoundly transformative potential of disruptive technology.

Steve Jobs was one of these. Other examples are Ray Kurzweil, Google founders Brin and Page, and Aubrey de Grey. Each of them takes it as his mission to use technology to radically transform society for the better and free us from shackles that prevent our realizing an innate potential, both as individuals and as a species. They actually expect their various projects to precipitate a revolutionary break with the past. In their drive to accomplish this, they make all sorts of Faustian bargains - and the most likely scenario is that it is society that will transform them, rather than vice-versa - but the outcome, for good or ill, remains to be seen.

 

[Maxiton]

A couple interesting reads on Apple and Jobs:

http://www.asymco.com/2011/10/06/steve-jobs-didnt/

and

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/10/in-praise-of-bad-steve/246242/

Thanks for the links. Disagree with some of the first one; love the second one.

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

Very sad. Changed or impacted the world as much as anyone I know of in my lifetime. A brilliant and gifted man whose life on this earth was far too short.

 

[craig1985]

yeh yeh, im a stupid hippy.

The thing about poverty is its a very subjective word. Theres what governments consider poverty in relation to the rest of the population, theres the very low limit that amnesty set poverty at, theres my idea of poverty, your idea of poverty.

Someone who moves hundreds of miles from their home, to live in a dormitory with other workers, working in a factory for 13 hours a day, for 31cents an hour, may not technically be in "poverty", but is it right.

And how much of your items are British made?

I wish people would get off it, you object at the conditions of people making these items (phones etc.) but I doubt you would pay the extra it would cost to make them in Britain, America etc.

 

[thirteen]

i am almost tempted to ask those who are dismissing the importance of Steve Jobs what their was their age is and what they do for a living...

did you have computers in school or did you write papers with pen and ink, dictionary and thesaurus (or were you lucky enough to have a typewriter)? do you remember black and white television that you had to get up off your a$$ to change the channel? or when making a call when you were out meant knocking on a neighbors door or finding a telephone booth with rotary dial? did you grow up with records, 8-track or cassettes, or is all you know cd's and music you get on the internet? speaking of which, do you remember a life before internet (and, if you do, do you remember Compuserve and slow-baud modems that thrilled you with that stupid noise when they connected)?

i ask this because i am really not so ****ing old and yet...

i bought my first mac back when Steve was still with Apple the first go around it changed the course of my life. it molded what i did for a living, who i surrounded myself with, and what gave me a special edge even in future jobs that were not solely based on what i could create on the computer.

a macintosh back then was the domain of creative individuals. starting with desktop publishing and computer graphics, moving on to video and then audio, etc. as expensive a mac was back then, at least it was a computer you could have in your own home to learn and grow with, unlike monsters like SGI, etc...

when people speak Apple now, they think iPod, iPhone, iTunes, and iPad. all wonderful products, mind you, and game changers in that they were at the forefront. feel free to bicker about where and how the products are made, but those really are not what i think of when i think of Steve Jobs... Steve, to me, was, is, will forever be the mac.

to me, like many others, it changed our lives.

his death was personal.

rip

 

[Von Mises]

yeh yeh, im a stupid hippy.

The thing about poverty is its a very subjective word. Theres what governments consider poverty in relation to the rest of the population, theres the very low limit that amnesty set poverty at, theres my idea of poverty, your idea of poverty.

Someone who moves hundreds of miles from their home, to live in a dormitory with other workers, working in a factory for 13 hours a day, for 31cents an hour, may not technically be in "poverty", but is it right.

You are missing the point. I am not saying that wages and life in China are wonderful. But productivity in China is extremly low and there is excessive supply of unskilled labor. This is reality.

Modern macro may not understand every detail of development, but some basic thruths hold high consensus. If you want development and higher rises, you need growth in productivity and technological advancement. For this you need investment and innovation + some good institutions.
Steve Jobs did his part - invest and invent. To blame him for poverty is stupid, it just shows no understanding the causes of poverty as well as causes of development.

Development is not easy, but it can be done. Japan in 1950 was poorer than Gabon or Namibia, South-Korea in 1950 was as poor as India or Nigeria and poorer than Benin or Somalia. They developed and not because of farming coop. societies, sorry ramjambunath, it is dead end, but because of afromentioned reasons. In fact, we can see same development in China also- from 2003 wages of unskilled workers have risen substantially.

I myself come from developing countrie. 20 years ago average hourly wage was here 25 US cents, now it is 7 dollars. Sure, still substandard compared with wetsern Europe, but I hope you van see a growth. And it was not achieved by outcasting investors and silly talk about exploitation.

 

[ramjambunath]

Forgive my potty mood yesterday, i hate it when one (non essential) story dominates every single news channel especially when there are a couple of very serious news items to be covered.
Steve Jobs though is not responsible for poverty alleviation in such countries and his motive was to create top notch technology and profits which he did very well.

Von Mises, I don't think one can't compare the situation between S Korea or Malaysia and China and India. These are countries with massive populations with massive agriculture and massive sections of neglected society.
Nearly 60% of the population are involved in the primary sector. My comments aren't completely unfounded as most of the agriculture in both these countries are subsistent in nature and proper organisation of the primary sector the current growth levels of 2% could easily be doubled and could guarantee a somewhat stable income. Gujarat's primary sector workers are much more well to do than less organised states like Bihar (despite having the most fertile soil in the country).
Another problem is that such a large section of the population are unskilled so getting these sections into services will be that much more difficult and long drawn out and expensive.
Of course, I am not saying do not bother about anything like Foreign investments etc as that would just be a plainly destructive mentality but when 55-60% of the population are involved in a sector it has to be developed optimally.
Wages have risen but prices and inflation has risen much more sharply (check the inflation stats, which is wholesale price index not CPI).

 

[Anonymous]

And how much of your items are British made?

I wish people would get off it, you object at the conditions of people making these items (phones etc.) but I doubt you would pay the extra it would cost to make them in Britain, America etc.

A fair few actually, a lot of our furniture, and various other bits.

Most of our home furnishings come from either Nepal or India through traceable sources, as do a fair amount of our clothes. We get a lot of our stuff direct from a lovely Indian family for whom the daughter is at university studying business and gets her family income from selling hand stitched designs. We got all our cushion covers, wall hangings, lampshades and various other bits from her.

As far as phone's go, its impossible to avoid where they are made (although there are some very good small british companies producing phones). What you can do is only replace them when they actually need replacing, and recycle the old ones. Ive had three phones in ten years. Better than upgrading them yearly. My old tv i bought in 1993 and it was only replaced in 2006 when it died, and we still have the crappy tv we bought then.

 

[hfer07]

"10 years ago, we had Steve Jobs, Bob Hope & Johnny Cash.........
now we have no jobs, no hope and no cash....."

 

[jamiephillips]

^ I don't think that's entirely app-ropriate.

 

[ElChingon]

http://politics.salon.com/2011/10/08/steve_jobs_and_drug_policy/singleton/

time to get all the CEO's to drop some as well

 

[RDV4ROUBAIX]

Been a Mac user since 1990, but....

 

[ElChingon]

Been a Mac user since 1990, but....

I started back when you'd get floppy disk elbow. I escaped the cult in '97, been enjoying the fastest computers and all the software I can get ever since, no limits anymore.