trey,
Steve Jobs and I are the same age and I only hope to God that I'm not the same arrogant bonehead I was when I was in my 20s. Give the boy a chance. Life dishes out tough lessons for us all and some of us actually learn. If he screws up, then I'll be right there with ya to chop off his head, but so far he's been doing great.
I have never viewed Jobs as a failure. Naive maybe (in the past). Arogant? Definitely, but that all comes from the early 80s. In those days (as I'm sure you know) nobody (save Jobs and a few others) had a clue where this industry was headed. He saw the Xerox interface and ran with it (something Xerox had failed to do). And just when his project was starting to grow legs, he was betrayed by his Pepsico Brutus and his ol' pal Mike. It was old time Bizness at it's best and Jobs was left to lick his wounds for the next five years. Apple, under Scully and Spindler, milked Steve Job's cow and made a fortune, but they didn't have the vision. It was like taking a great restuarant to franchise and then going public. We all know what happens to the food. Meanwhile, Jobs looked for revenge in NeXt. The system was brilliant (ask any developers that have used it in the last 10 years) but the Market just wasn't ready for a new platform (at least not at that price). And this ubderscores one of Job's main sins: He's been too far ahead of the public in his vision. It was true with the Mac and I think it was true with NeXt. Gates ended up cashing in on the Mac because of Scully and Spindlers fumbles. And I think most would agree that Job's handling of Pixar is anything but a failure. The question now is:"Is the world ready for a Macafied version of OpenStep. Given all the bells and whistles, and the current hardware, I say yes. And whatever Larry and Steve are dreaming up for NCs is anybodies guess. There's plenty of current fact that's enough to get me excited.
Good luck to you too.
Scott |
