Why Jobs is no Edison
american.com
american.com
Sure, one person called Jobs an Edison, but it doesn’t feel particularly worthy of a reply, much less of a spot on the HN front page.
Minor quibble; the author is probably talking about the Mac -- not the Apple II, which predates the PARC visit by at least two years.
In Edison's time the interesting innovations were happening at the first-order level. Now most of the interesting innovations are happening higher up the technological food chain.
If there is one person you could compare Jobs to, this would be Henri Ford, who's vision also combined existing technologies into something new, brilliant, making something simpler, more useful and more accessible for the large public.
The one things Jobs has done that no one has is changed how the masses use technology in such a short period of time. I don't think many fall into that category.
The story of Wozniak and Jobs is widely known, Jobs described Wozniak on more than one occasion as a brilliant engineer and that without him, Apple would not have existed.
The area where Jobs has done what no one else has -- made technology into art we love to buy, use and enjoy, and opened the world up to connecting, sharing and creating, is in the same spirit of what Tesla brought into the world with his innovations with electricity.
I think we can agree that Electricity is a little more fundamental to day-to-day raising the quality of more people's lives in this world than a phone, computer, or ipad. It might be less and less each day, but I still think electricity can transform everyone's life.
I believe he has no idea about War of Currents and who won it.