How Steve Jobs Jobbed The Left

Townhall.com ^ | June 4, 2012 | Bruce Bialosky

[Kaslin]

How do you become a business titan that treats employees like garbage, creates products intended to be monopolies, charges excessive prices that result in outrageous profits, practices significant tax avoidance, and yet not get pilloried (on the contrary, become deified) by the anti-business media? It’s simple; you are Steve Jobs and you are just too cool to criticize.

There’s no doubt that Steve Jobs was a major player in the development of the personal computer, transformed the animation business, and developed products in the last decade of his life that changed our culture and society. His finest quality was the ability to recognize the needs of his customers without relying on market research. He told people what they needed, and then delivered a product that they may have never thought they wanted – but to which they ultimately became addicted.

Yet, as accounted by Walter Isaacson in his recently-published biography of the late Mr. Jobs, the man was a fruitcake (no pun intended since he called himself a fruitarian). His behavior towards other people was, at best, erratic, and very often anti-social.

Perhaps the most telling characterization of Jobs took place amid his confrontation with John Sculley in the mid-1980s. After a harrowing day of dealing with Jobs – who had just been relieved of his position as head of the struggling Macintosh division by the Apple Board of Directors – Sculley went home and discussed the matter with his wife. She jumped in her car and found Jobs at a local restaurant, where he was plotting a coup. He initially refused to look at her, and, when she insisted upon speaking with him, responded with his practiced, unblinking stare. Recoiling, she told him “When I look into most people’s eyes, I see a soul. When I look into yours, I see a bottomless pit, an empty hole, a dead zone.” That about sums up the famous Steve Jobs.

But the fact that he broke almost all the rules of the Left and yet remained an icon to them is quite instructive. Here are some examples:

1. He was a horrible employer. He maligned employees in public meetings, and often axed staff members for no good reason. When he needed to reduce the head count at Pixar, he insisted on firing people immediately without any severance. One of his lieutenants pleaded with him to provide two weeks’ notice, to which he replied “OK, but the notice is retroactive to two weeks ago.” Can you imagine what would happen if Bank of America ever did that?

2. He exercised maniacal control over his products, adamantly refusing to consider open platforms. When he developed the Macintosh, he didn’t allow slots for other cards, and even created customized screws to ensure that only Apple employees could open the boxes. He maintained this closed platform philosophy for the iPod, the iPad, and the iPhone – which is one reason why sales of Google’s Android-based smart phones have now surpassed the iPhone (and also why sales of Android-based tablets will exceed iPads within the next year).

3. Through extensive marketing, he convinced people to pay more for his products than comparable products offered by his competitors. On the average, iPhones cost about $100 more than equivalent Android-based phones, yet people buy iPhones because of the marketing. How capitalistic. Apple also gets its customers to replace their existing products with newer models (even if the original product isn’t obsolete) by refusing to supply major software upgrades. That’s pretty predatory marketing.

4. Steve Jobs was always – and Apple continues to be – a monumental exporter of American jobs. While President Obama is running around accusing Mitt Romney of exporting jobs, he is well aware that Jobs was the master, creating over 700,000 manufacturing positions in China. To his credit, however, Jobs did tell the President to his face that he exported jobs because the educational system in America is disgraceful due to its domination by teachers unions.

5. Using these business practices, he rang up the largest profits in American history, but does anyone complain about Apple’s outsized profiteering? The Left complains about banks and oil companies and drug companies because they’re not “cool” like Steve Jobs. But Apple’s profit margins are 29.66%, compared to Shell Oil’s 6.74% or Citibank’s 11.73%.

6. And after earning exorbitant profits, he practiced serious tax avoidance (which I wholeheartedly endorse for any entity, but the Left hates.) What’s fascinating is how the Left protected and excused him for this; in fact, the New York Times just published a serious analysis of Apple’s tax avoidance schemes. It’s obvious that the Times knew about this for years, but chose not to write about it when Jobs was alive.

It’s also obvious that Jobs was intimately involved in this tax strategy. This was a maniacal man. Isaacson writes that at the gala event celebrating the launch of NeXT, Jobs was involved in everything with no detail being too small. For example, he personally reviewed the invitation list and approved the menu – behavior that was typical throughout his business career. He clearly knew Apple was engaged in every possible scheme to avoid taxes. To be fair to the Times, at least they contrasted the tax rate of Apple with that of the Evil Empire (WalMart). Apple’s federal tax rate was 9.8% while the Evil Empire paid 24%. What is a liberal to do?

7. It wasn’t until late in life that he started to make substantial contributions to charitable organizations. Compared to Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, he was never a generous person and chose to live in quite a luxurious life-style. Compare that with a contemporary who also earned huge amounts of money, but lived on less than 1% of it and started a foundation early in his career that directed millions of dollars to charity – the evil Michael Milken.

The point of all this is that the Left has always chosen its favored capitalists. Unions anoint business people whom they favor, and our President has been a major practitioner of crony capitalism – picking winners and losers. If Steve Jobs (and Apple) gets a pass for whatever reason, then every business in America should be treated the same way.

And we didn’t even mention the child and slave labor used to manufacture Apple’s products.

[bigdaddy45]

Apple is 35 years old (ancient for a technology company), and has the largest valuation in the world at roughly half a TRILLION dollars. The market seems to be treating them just fine.

Steve Jobs as a person was an ass. But he knew how to build great products. And to suggest that just because i can’t crack open my ipod that my “freedom is restricted” is ridiculous. I want it to work. It does. Period.

[IamConservative]

I would argue that Jobs invented no technology. There were MP3 players before the iPod and there were phones running applications before the iPhone. What Jobs did was he made these products very simple, elegant and easy to use. His vision “consumerized” these technologies.

[Tax-chick]

The author praised Mr. Jobs’ “marketing,” and observed that his success in sales was achieved without “market research.” I don’t know if any of this is factually true, but the two points are not contradictory, as presented.

I think it’s interesting that one of the “customer needs” Mr. Jobs intuitively understood (per the author) was not a technological need, but an affiliation or status “need.” Many of his customers “needed” the Apple product for psychological reasons, not because the product performed an information function more successfully than a competing product.

And yes, the main thing about Mr. Jobs, as about all of us eventually, is that he is dead. Only God knows his eternal destiny, but that should be the main concern for all of us! Jesus’s parable of “The Rich Fool” comes to mind, in this context.

[Praxeologue]

The author may not realize that Apple is more conservative-friendly than Microsoft. If anyone has been conned, it is all those socialists who thought Apple was cool.

[WVKayaker]

Great arguments (/s).

No statistics, no facts, just hyperbole. Typical desperate choice of people that have opinions only.

I bought my first Mac Computer in 1984, a few months after they were introduced. My 3 year old daughter was using it shortly after I set it up, which was easy since even back then, there were icons to demonstrate what goes where (all the Windoze manufacturers do that now, too). Withn a few months she outperformed me in many ways. She was not afraid to "break" anything...

I never had to learn that c> crap. I learned how to use the mouse and GUI. I started using everything right out of the box and it contributed to many of my successes.

Due to their Linux base, Apple's OSX has kept me virus free for more the a quarter century. I own no anti-virus software, but instead am able to rely on Apple to keep me safer.

I have owned many iterations of Macs. I even bought a Newton, which was too far ahead of it's time, but is still in my collection. I currently use a 24" iMac, a MacBook Core2 Duo, iPhone 4, and an iPad 1st Gen. I also have a G4 Powerbook 17" which is great for watching movies while traveling. It is using OSX 10.5 and works great, when it isn't in it's box. I also have 8 older PowerBooks, both color and B&W models. I even have a third party PowerBook forerunner, the Outbound Computer (company bought whole Macs just to get the ROM which Apple would not sell to them direct) which competed against the suitcase PC orphans such as KayPro and others). Though many are no longer supported (according to the author) they still work fine with their resident OS. They can all access the internet, and many already had wireless capabilities.

I have owned no Windoze machines, and don't plan to buy one. Why change to somebody else's nightmare (think Vista, Windose 8, and too many before those)...

I note that most of the responders on this thread have never owned nor used these products but feel free to bash them because they are not MicroCrap. Too bad you posters have such small minds. Your world must be very gray.

I will continue to buy my Macs. I seldom buy them new these days. I can buy a great machine for half price and use it for years... then give them to my grown children ad grandchildren who continue the legacy.. That legacy was founded by Steve Jobs vision... and tho he's in the ground, his mind continues to inspire his prodigy!

[A'elian' nation]

Don’t think so.

Jobs’ last words were “OH WOW OH WOW OH WOW! “

Either he was seeing the portals of heaven or the new iPad 4.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/oct/31/steve-jobs-last-words

Jobs once describe death as “very likely the single best invention of life.”

I’m not excusing the kind of life Steve Jobs lived. I’m just saying no one knows what awaits us, although I do believe in reincarnation as do most psychics who have the gift of communicating with the dead. I’ve had some unexplainable contacts myself.

[dangerdoc]

“It has been shown repeatedly that excellent marketing will not maintain dominance if the product itself is inferior.”

That’s a Bill Gates quote right?

[TexasFreeper2009]

I bought an Ipad because I like the product, but even more importantly I LOVE the selection of free stuff available on Itunes. Just the 100’s of free kids books I have downloaded alone more than paid for the Ipad.

By comparison... B&N has maybe 15 mostly really old kids books for free, and Android has about 30 also mostly old.

[Sherman Logan]

Could be, except the Microsoft marketing has never been anything much, either.

[TexasFreeper2009]

He was successful in making his life comfortable here on earth, and was able to pass his wealth onto his children so that they and their descendants will have a great life too.

I am fairly wealthy and have no problem with “not being able to take it with me”. I don't want to take it with me... I want to give it to my children so they can have an even better life than i’ve had and so on with their children.

[mdmathis6]

Between your slavish fanboy liplock on Job’s memory, your quotation from old “Shoapy” in your tagline, and your Freep page antireligious rants...I see you yourself come across as “self religious” or another words “self righteous”!

You do know Jobs chose the word “Apple”, a symbolic term for “forbidden knowledge” deliberately as an “in your FACE” against traditional religious morality, don’t you? You’ve seen the company symbol....apple with a bite taken out of it? Some folks with a Christian background may have a tendency to react with a visceral negativity to Apple’s technology related to such a blatant attack on Judeo Christian values and to the history of Job’s behaviour towards such folk.

If Apple products work for you...fine...take a “bite of them” all you want...seeing that they make you “feel wise and like the gods, knowing good and evil”!

[mdmathis6]

Between your slavish fanboy liplock on Job’s memory, your quotation from old “Shoapy” in your tagline, and your Freep page antireligious rants...I see you yourself come across as “self religious” or another words “self righteous”!

You do know Jobs chose the word “Apple”, a symbolic term for “forbidden knowledge” deliberately as an “in your FACE” against traditional religious morality, don’t you? You’ve seen the company symbol....apple with a bite taken out of it? Some folks with a Christian background may have a tendency to react with a visceral negativity to Apple’s technology related to such a blatant attack on Judeo Christian values and to the history of Job’s behaviour towards such folk.

If Apple products work for you...fine...take a “bite of them” all you want...seeing that they make you “feel wise and like the gods, knowing good and evil”!

[nascarnation]

You’re going to have to lay down some footnotes for that Apple naming story. I could find nothing that substantiates it.

(FWIW I’m typing this on a Dell and have no bias in favor of Apple)

[dangerdoc]

I just googled “free kids books” and found hundreds in .pdf format which will play on your choice of devices.

[ctdonath2]

Well, for all his crap, his riches, his big houses, big cars,

None of which he had much of. While he certainly lived well as he chose, he chose to live a relatively frugal life. His wardrobe truly was nothing more than black turtlenecks & jeans. Not sure about his last house, but the house he was planning was quite modest. His car, while nice, was not far beyond most upper-middle-class folks. He had little more than that. Word is one could often glimpse him washing dishes by hand in his kitchen (hardly the expected behavior of a multi-billionaire). Oh sure he was insanely rich, but that seemed more an unavoidable side effect of his labors than a goal to be reveled in. Remember, his salary from Apple was $1.

I do recall a homeless community organizer who lived a couple thousand years ago once said something about removing planks before attending to the specks others suffer from.

[TexasFreeper2009]

the thing is ... I don’t want to go to the internet and get pdf files to watch on my tablet, I want all that built in.

I want the free stuff easily accessable from the tablet, shown in an easily sorted way that is kid/parent friendly and that can be sorted by others reviews to weed out the garbage.

Only Apple achieves that.

[ctdonath2]

A key issue is quality.

In dissuading my wife from buying some classic kids’ books (full-price hardcover vs. used paperbacks vs. free e-books), I snagged her choices online for free. The Apple versions were clean renderings, well formatted and proofread, with a single easily-obtained copy available each. The Nook versions numbered into the dozens for each title, most of which were hideous raw images or mangled un-proofread automatic OCR renditions (many “rated” 4.5 stars - complete malarkey) which took 10x longer to choose and acquire; I expect most Kindle & PDF versions will suffer a similar fate. Sure some non-Apple free ebooks will be good, but I’d prefer a small pool of high-quality renditions vs. a vast array of mostly crud.

[gr8eman]

I bought an Apple, took it out of the box...plugged my printer into it and....IT WORKED...the first time it was tried! Try that with any windows machine. Good Luck

[Hodar]

You do know Jobs chose the word “Apple”, a symbolic term for “forbidden knowledge” deliberately as an “in your FACE” against traditional religious morality, don’t you?

Sources please.

It appears you have some issues with Apple - funny how a product that uses the same chips as your PC, runs Unix (Darwin Kernal) instead of Windows can elicit such a strong emotional response. Too bad you have to resort to personal attacks - without really saying anything to dispute what I said. Please, up your meds - you know nothing about me, nor apparently anything about Apple.

I guess a self-obsessed, ill-informed tyrade and temper-tantrum may feel good, but your ignorance on this subject is truly amazing. It requires very little effort to show you have no idea what you are talking about, and I doubt this is the first time someone has pointed this out to you.

The name Apple Computer was chosen late one afternoon as Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, Apple's founders, faced the deadline for filing a Fictitious Name Statement, part of the business licensing procedures. After volleying names back and forth with Wozniak for hours, Jobs looked at the apple he was eating and decided that, unless he or Woz arrived at something better by five o'clock, they would call the company Apple. Five o'clock came and went; Apple was the new company's name.

Apple IIe User's Guide see page 70.

[kevkrom]

Due to their Linux base, Apple's OSX

Minor correction -- OS X is BSD-based, not Linux-based.