I can definitely see that argument, but I feel the issue is that Ive lacked a product-focussed and customer-focussed CEO to reign in his "wilder" impulses (the Edition watches are another example of that).
Jobs may have managed Ive's drive in a way that would not have seemed bean-countery to him but customer-focussed.
In other words, Ive was only a liability in so far as he had no actual peers at the company to reign him in. And it's debatable that that's not really his fault.
I would have liked to see what Ive could do with the M1 and its thermals.
I think that your comment is insightful in that while Ive's time at the top of Apple product development was far from perfect, his success was undeniable.
Jony might not always have been right but he was always wrong for the right reasons. Principled in his vision for design and human interface. I think his worst successes (lol) were those he had over software UI and removing information from the UI in the name of aesthetics or the Touch Bar in the name of changing how we see keyboards.
His understanding of how to make a computer something you wouldn't be embarrassed to be seen with but also something that you can take with you everywhere (thin and light are good when the tech can match) have certainly made his devices more a part of our lives.
Jobs could match him on this stuff but I would imagine that it would go over a lot of business and engineer types' heads. Takes all sorts.
> [...] struggled with a shift in the company’s focus from making devices to developing services.
Boy can I ever empathize with that.
This shift is the worst thing that ever happened to Apple. Personally, it was maybe the biggest reason I got disillusioned working for them and quit (I should note I was only a Retail employee, nothing big).
This is where most companies are trying to go if they can though. Unfortunately it has been proven that people will willingly pay for a service every month above purchasing it outright and shareholders love it because it means that revenue from each user is consistent.
The future is one where you don't own anything and companies nickel and dime you for features and services.
We can split hairs about what constitutes "long-term" and what doesn't, but if I can't smell anything for a year - not knowing for sure if I ever again will be able to - I'd consider that pretty devastating.
The point is that there are basic steps (vaccination being one, but not the only) that too many people still refuse to follow that can spare many people from having to wonder if they will ever be able to smell again (or worse).
> We can split hairs about what constitutes "long-term" and what doesn't,
Pretty easy to define. Long-term = chronic illness. There are tons of such conditions around. Rheumatoid Arthritis, Psoriasis, or even viral infections with flares that never go away for the lack of good cures. 1 year is nothing.
> too many people still refuse to follow that can spare many people from having to wonder if they will ever be able to smell again (or worse).
What a ridiculous position to have. You also have a simple way to avoid STDs, is to never have sex in your life ever again. If you want to avoid risks at all costs, you don't have a life anymore.
> Pretty easy to define. Long-term = chronic illness.
Not that easy. If I'm unable to exercise for a year due to COVID complications, that is a major life changing event and has long-term impact. Does it have permanent impact on my health? Maybe, maybe not, but certainly enough that I want people to take this shit seriously.
> You also have a simple way to avoid STDs, is to never have sex in your life ever again.
Fortunately I don't have to, because we have condoms. Do you see where I'm going with this?
I'm not sure driving is a great analogy to taking/not taking a vaccine or refusing to follow COVID restrictions, but if we do, we also need to consider this:
When driving, you can exercise caution and attempt to minimize the risk of an accident. I'm not from the US, but where I'm from you're also legally obligated to do so - if I drive and hit somebody, and it turns out I did so because I was going too fast or not paying proper attention to my surroundings, I will be held responsible for their injuries and damages.
Further, there are laws stipulating what safety requirements newly sold cars have to meet: again, this may vary by country/state etc, but fairly common requirements are having an air bag and seat belts (which you are legally obligated to wear where I'm from, and you will be fined if you do not).
I would say that the rules governing driving can be considered analogous to those governing social distancing, masking etc. And the safety guidelines for car manufacturers can correspond to vaccine mandates.
Of course you are free to refuse to follow driving rules, but the only legal way to do so is to refuse to drive a car entirely. Just as you can be responsible and stay at home and avoid contact with anybody as much as possible if you refuse to be vaccinated.
Driving is a fine analogy in my opinion. It doesn't have to be 100% exact identical to the other situation to be able to explore the idea and consider different perspectives on the argument.
Not wearing masks or shutting down the economy for the flu and common cold, obesity, driving cars, extreme sports, and more are all great analogies you can use to explore logical consequences of various measures or lack of measures being advocated for dealing with covid.
Maybe gun violence is the best analogy, as it is a situation where people's preferences and convenience are given priority over thousands of other people's lives.
Maybe. I think automobiles is better because preventing driving prevents automobile deaths, so there is a pretty reasonable case to make that it is a necessary and sufficient measure to end deaths from car crashes. Pretty hard to rebut the automobile analogy, isn't it?
Gun violence is illegal and quite significantly committed with illegally obtained guns and particularly pistols. So banning or increasing legal controls on rifles (for example) would not be an evidence based policy for reducing the largest sources of gun violence. Unless you are drawing parallels with the relatively low effectiveness of vaccines, but even then I don't think vaccines are quite that bad :)
> And Im in favor of banning video games, social media and pornography.
Those are quite bad analogies you have there.
Playing video games, reading/posting to social media (assuming you're not posting content inciting violence etc) and watching pornography (or producing pornography, assuming consent of all involved) are not actions that have any significant potential to cause harm to others. I don't mind if somebody spends their entire day jerking off with their left hand while playing video games with their right, all the while posting to Twitter via Siri. I wouldn't personally want to be that person(or follow them on Twitter, for that matter), but it's their life and they're not hurting anybody.
Socializing without taking proper COVID precautions however puts other people at immediate risk. Getting vaccinated is one of the precautions we can take to avoid that, and it has been shown to be tremendously effective. It is also very quick, and very low risk for healthy adults. So it is our social responsibility to get vaccinated.
FWIW, I'm OK with people choosing to not get vaccinated for whatever batshit reason they may cite. Their body, their choice, right? But my body is not their choice. So if they choose to commit to endangering myself and other responsible people, and potentially contribute to overloading the health system we rely on, then I also expect them to accept the necessary consequences: minimizing social contact, getting COVID tests whenever they want to enter any establishment, potentially having to look for a new job that can be done 100% from home, and waiving their right to be treated for any COVID infection they may contract while unprotected.
Yeah, the only downside is increased death; continued disruption to the economy and everyday life for everyone, not just the refuseniks themselves; and continued strain on the medical system for no good reason. Otherwise, letting things run their course is just as good.
The vaccine does not make you fully immune, and the vaccine does not necessarily prevent you carrying and transmitting the virus. It just makes it less likely to happen (and you're certainly much less likely to become a coughing superspreader).
I don't know about where you live, but many places in the world have not yet reached levels of vaccination that would make make masking and social distancing redundant.
I had to double check when I read this post to make sure that you were the same person that posted:
> Frankly, fuck people who refuse to get vaccinated - they can rot in their own home for all I care (not talking about people with legitimate health risks, obviously).
How do you reconcile your apparent disdain for unvaccinated people with the fact that you do not believe the vaccine to be effective? Alternatively, you’ve determined that the vaccine is effective enough. What level of “immunity” and what level of “likely to happen” does a person have to cross before you stop saying, “fuck you, rot to death in your home” to someone?
No, it would be like reading a post that says “anyone who doesn’t have antilock brakes can fuck off and rot at home” and my post would be one asking “is there a line where someone can not use ABS and still not fuck off and rot at home?” What if they wear a seatbelt? ABS isn’t the only thing someone can do to stay safe on the road!
Analogies in the covid context are always bad though. The real question is: for a disease that kills less than 2% of people who test positive for it, most of those being older or already at risk, and in a world with vastly diminished efficacy against continually improving variants (with apparently unknown mortality rates), when does the GP think that we should all not rot in our homes? I’m vaccinated, but apparently I may need a booster. I probably won’t get said booster because playing whack-a-mole with this disease doesn’t seem worth it to me given my risk profile. Do I need to rot at home or am I cool to not fuck off and die because I got the original shot. Am I no better than the other disease ridden pieces of shit who didn’t even get the first shot in GP’s eyes?
This rhetoric surrounding the vaccine is the real thing that needs to rot at home and die.
The sentence you quote is followed by a sentence which adequately addresses your comment. Here, I’ll paste it for you: “Alternatively, you’ve determined that the vaccine is effective enough.”
After almost 2 years working from home, I do miss the office.
However, crucially, I do not miss my commute. So unless I could afford to live within easy biking/walking distance of the office, I don't see myself going back.
> If you want to work hard and become rich, that's your spot.
Maybe, maybe not. I'd argue there are far more who tried and failed than who succeeded, but I don't know if that ratio of success is better or worse than in other countries today (yes, today - not when the US economy was booming relative to other countries, or when immigration was easy, or in the early days of Silicon Valley, or back during the Gold Rush(es) etc).
In any case, though, I would argue this argument applies to a narrow slice of the population, namely those whose main goal is to get rich. Not everybody wants to "work hard and become rich". Not everybody wants life to be a competition to get ahead. Plenty of people are not deeply invested in a career and simply want to work 40h/week for a decent salary and still be able to afford a decent life.
Others feel a calling to a profession that will generally not make you rich, but is still valuable to society. Case in point: teachers. Extremely valuable to society and extremely badly compensated in the US. If I wanted to be a teacher, I'd much rather be in most European countries than in the US.
Why qualify it with "sometimes"? I think it's safe to assume that the way a person behaves in private, among their peers, shows more about their essential character than how they behave when doing public relations.
The Schmidt and Jobs on display in the email are the essential Schmidt and Jobs. The admirable qualities are the stage show.
That's an interesting question. The cynic argues that everyone is on a PR mission and that our true self is when we are in a moment of weakness. The idealist argues that those moments are rare and far in between, and shouldn't define us. But at the heart of the debate is the question of whether there is a "true self" at all. Maybe people do just what people do.
I suspect we try to characterize people because we're attempting to build a Bayesian Model that can help us predict someone's next move. And all that is going to depend on our 'prior' and 'base rate'. In this perspective, there is no "true self" that will be observed by everyone on the planet.
It's important to consider the context here. What seems significant, in lieu of the eventual exposure of their wage fixing scheme, was what Steve Jobs didn't say in his response. Read the emoji as "that works" rather than just "I'm pleased".
Sure, but at the very best it means he did not object to somebody getting fired over it.
Legality of wage fixing aside for the moment, I don't think this should have been a fireable offense at all (reprimanding the recruiter to ensure it does not happen again would have been all that's needed to satisfy their little gentlemen's agreement).
Object to what end? That was Google’s call to terminate the recruiter. What should he have said: oh, that sucks, I didn’t want you to fire one of your people over it? The only outcome there is disagreement and why waste the energy, even if he believed that? That’s also a mixed signal contextually.
Even setting aside how Steve fired more than one person on the spot — I’m personally aware of him firing half a room in MobileMe, for example — and everything we know about him, and how the firing of that recruiter was probably the outcome he was telegraphing via the email, there’s absolutely nothing to gain in this situation challenging or objecting to Google’s move as an executive at another company, particularly on moral grounds. He’d have looked like an (exploitable) idiot, to be quite frank, given how business works at this level.
How do you think that conversation would have gone? “Oh, you’re right, we shouldn’t have done that, our bad?”
Did I say he should have objected, or to get the recruiter reinstated? I find it inappropriate to respond with a smilie when you hear somebody was just fired. Something more neutral like "I appreciate the issue has been handled" would have sat better with me (disregarding the larger context of how f*cked up the entire agreement was, of course).
Admirable qualities? I'm pretty certain that I would have told Steve to fuck off within five minutes of meeting him. Just another rich prick consumed by his ever inflating ego.
But I also wouldn't also have left the building without that NeXT station under my arm.
Jobs may have managed Ive's drive in a way that would not have seemed bean-countery to him but customer-focussed.
In other words, Ive was only a liability in so far as he had no actual peers at the company to reign him in. And it's debatable that that's not really his fault.