this post was submitted on 26 Mar 2024
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[–] [email protected] 263 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (3 children)

People need to stop holding Jobs up as some deity of tech. He was a marketing and hype man that was in the right place at the right time and knew how to take advantage of that luck. Nothing more, nothing less. It is equally possible his leadership style would have squandered the opportunities Apple has had since his death had it been him and not Cook in charge.

By any metric other than "line must always go up" Apple is doing just fine.

"Oh no, they haven't found another multi hundred billion dollar product to release since the iPhone, even though there are no signs that the iPhone won't continue to be a very profitable business for years and years to come...better go dig up Steve jobs, shove a stick up his back, magic his corpse back to life, and beg him to save the shareholders profit margins", the horror.

[–] [email protected] 66 points 8 months ago (1 children)

He was very much the Elon Musk of his times, and it's very possible he would have gone down the same route of extremist views and decisions that completely failed because of his egoism.

[–] [email protected] 141 points 8 months ago (2 children)

He died because he didn't listen to his doctor's advice. That is somewhat extreme.

[–] [email protected] 100 points 8 months ago (5 children)

Had pancreatitis because of his diet. A diet in which he thought would magically avoid creating body odor.

It turned into cancer. He lucked out that it was a rare form of treatable pancreatic cancer with a 90% survival rate 5 years out. Which is abnormal as most forms of pancreatic are essentially a death sentence. Survival rate past 3 years is under 10% for the more common variants.

Stuck to his diet anyway. Ignored his doctors. Died to an illness he had a 90% chance of beating because he knew better.

[–] [email protected] 42 points 8 months ago (2 children)

And to top it all off, it didn't help his body odour at all. He stank.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I see you also listen to Behind The Bastards.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago

Actually no, I think it's a well enough known thing though. But for sure he was a right cunt.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago

Kinda crazy, because we figured out deodorant a while ago.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 8 months ago

He also jumped the line to get a liver transplant once he, presumably, decided maybe there’s a chance the diet thing wouldn’t work out.

Died shortly thereafter, wasting a perfectly good liver.

https://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/23/business/23liver.html

[–] [email protected] 23 points 8 months ago

And that 90% is average number, it's quite possible that with his money that number would be higher...

[–] [email protected] 14 points 8 months ago

Nobody ever said smart people can't be stupid too.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago (1 children)

A diet in which he thought would magically avoid creating body odor.

Those of us who have this problem know that your diet really does affect that. Actually others can sometimes say what we've eaten a few hours before.

However, Jobs' case is kinda extreme, usually eating less sugar and fat and more carbs is kinda sufficient.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Jobs actually believed he didn't need to take baths though, it was more extreme than just reducing his smell, he legitimately believed he didn't smell at all.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

Well, there's such thing as nose blindness. If you stink always the same, you don't feel your own smell. Which is why asocial people become smelly very easily.

Jobs was clearly narcissist, though, so he'd just be in denial anyway.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 8 months ago

He believed in the teachings of a 20th century cultist who said you excreted mucus based on dietary choices, and therefore didn't have to worry about health or bathing unless you ate poorly. (Stinky dude who also made an 8 yr old cry for eating a cheeseburger).

Wish everyone health but guy was as extreme as it gets in regards to being an asshole. Denied his daughter, settled child support days before taking Apple into the public market, etc.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 8 months ago (1 children)

To be fair, we saw formerly what Apple without jobs did, it was a failure. So one might wonder when the new Apple might run out. The catch being that the iPhone, app store, and iTunes are all indefinite money machines, except maybe iPhone one day. So they had a steak of ever increasingly wildly successful products that culminated in the iPhone and then no mind blowing follow-up, but they don't need one. Folks may like the narrative that Jobs death coincided with their last big product category though

We also saw Jobs without Apple, also pretty much a failure.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

NeXT was successful at being an application for the position of CEO at apple.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

NeXT was a mediocre BSD front end and a few interesting Objective-C libraries. Apple’s board of directors pretty much crawled back to Jobs hat in hand after the disasters of Sculley and Spindler.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago

It is equally possible his leadership style would have squandered the opportunities Apple has had since his death had it been him and not Cook in charge.

Look at NeXT right before Apple 'bought' them. They were pretty much on their deathbed. Turns out, marketing $10,000 workstations to college students isn't such a smart idea.