Steve Jobs never really invented anything but he knew how to play the role.
"The Wolf of Wall Street" also invented most of the stuff in the movie/book but he knew how to play the role.
Buffalo Bill was just an exhibitionist showman that never did anything heroic but he knew how to pretend it.
And Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian, ...
Well, you got the idea...
You're of course getting engagement here. But the key difference is this: Abgnale outputted nothing.
Steve Jobs outputted Apple, Pixar and Next (basis of Macos and iOS).
You can quibble over what share of what credit for the specific products of each of those three companies. But there's no disputing Next wouldn't have existed without him, nor Apple, and Apple would have failed without him. Pixar had been declined by 45 other investors; only Jobs said yes. So it likely would not have got off the ground without him.
Everyone involved in the output of those companies speaks highly of him and ascribe him a vital role. Key competitors do the same.
Your argument amounts to say:
1. He had a well known reality distortion field
2. Therefore he accomplished nothing and everyone who was there on the ground is wrong, for they were subject to this field
3. All of the output of those companies happened, no thanks to Jobs.
Point of my comment is people also accuse Jobs of outputting only a story. But it’s ludicrous to believe all the rest of the stuff is just coincidence that happens to surround Jobs, again and again and again.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/mar/18/they-st...
As easy as it is to disregard life choices because of trauma, I'm actually kinda unconvinced.
As far as I'm aware, Steve Jobs was, in fact, both the founder and former CEO of Apple. Unless he was pulling one HELLUVA ruse that I was unaware of.
* He didn't create the Apple II, Wozniak did.
* He didn't create the mouse, GUI and Ethernet, the guys at Xerox's Palo Alto research centre did it.
* He didn't really create Pixar, bought it from George Lucas. His idea and project was to have the company to make and sell hardware for CG, because that was the only thing he had ever done at Apple & Next. The movie production was an offshot from the demos and the business of creating intros for television shows.
* He didn't create the iPhone. In fact Apple's engineers had to pressure him for years before he accepted. What got him accepting the idea was the fiasco on having iTunes into a Nokia phone.
* He didn't invent the Appstore. In fact he only accepted the idea of people making apps to the iPhone because 6 months after release the sales were collapsing.
Apple was and still is a very smart company. I concede that he was good at surrounding himself with smart people, and taking merit for what those people did.
Steve Jobs was not a con-man. In fact, to the best of my knowledge, he never claimed personal credit for the things you're saying he didn't do; those were things that were attributed to him by others.
People also assumed Bill Gates created DOS because they are misinformed, no reality distortion field required.
The Apple II would likely not have been successful without both Wozniak and Jobs.
Would the iPhone have come to fruition without Job's leadership, vision, and design + negotiation skills?
Folks, especially humans for some reason, want to pin things on single individuals rather than groups. Even though our society and it's grand accomplishments are things that typically only groups can accomplish.
Even a person building "alone" is building something on the backs of those who came before them.
But that desire to name a single person as the "creator" leads to a lot of strife.
And hiring people who can bring them to you is worth even more, especially if you're able to hear them when they keep insisting.
Something a lot of engineers fail to realize is that a successful product is not just about technology, it is about timing, cost, ecosystem, market.
Who's to say Jobs didn't think the iPhone was not a good idea, but shouldn't be done earlier? The iPhone 10-15 years before the iPhone was the Newton.
* Woz would have remained an obscure engineer working at HP
* Apple would never have happened
* The Mac would have never existed
* Pixar would have vanished without a trace
* Apple would have gone bankrupt in 1999
* OSX would never have existed
* Apple would still be wasting its time marketing 420 SKUs of beige Macintosh, along with its panoply of zero-value-add peripherals
* Apple would never have tried to make an iPod, which was, for Apple, an insanely out-of-left-field hobby project driven by Jobs
* Without the iPod, there would be no iTunes Store, which near-single-handedly pulled the music industry into its post-Napster era
* There would be no iPad, a project inspired by Jobs’ personal reaction to a dinner with Gates
* There would be no iPhone, a project spun off from iPad development and fast-tracked for earlier release
* If Apple ever did develop a phone or tablet, it probably would have been based on NewtonOS and fail to crack 1% market share
* Android would have stayed on course to be a competitor to the Blackberry
Plus, he had to make the decision ultimately.
That's way way way way way way more important than I think most people realize.
Multi-touch displays was the key technology Steve Jobs needed to greenlight the iPhone.
Steve was completely invested in electing products that generated an experience the customer valued. This didn't always line up with the technical merits of the product. He subordinated the company to that goal, including holding releases back to hit a specific timing.
Steve said he did this strategy because he had the scar tissue to prove that making an amazing piece of tech and trying to market it, never worked for him.
He didn't create tech. He created relationships to the customer that made Apple billions.
He was however the catalyst that allowed many smart and dedicated engineers to develop the things they did. Giving them drive and direction, money and resources to play with and develop the toys of their dreams. I love the folklore.org website that talks a lot about this.
This means he does not fit in your list of fraudster and hucksters.
Do you think orchestra directors or managers of sports teams contribute nothing to their team’s success?
Would we have the iPhone if Steve Jobs were never born?
> You must admit that the genesis of a great man depends on the long series of complex influences which has produced the race in which he appears, and the social state into which that race has slowly grown. ... Before he can remake his society, his society must make him.
— Herbert Spencer, The Study of Sociology
> The first PDA, the Organiser, was released in 1984 by Psion, followed by Psion's Series 3, in 1991. The latter began to resemble the more familiar PDA style, including a full keyboard
And it’s not just me. A lot of very respected smart people think he was way above them. That’s not a conman.
Also, conmen usually have an expiry date or they have to switch roles or disappear into new communities once they get found out. Same with psychopaths. They get found out and get rejected by society. That’s not what Steve Jobs did. He was respected to the end and built products to the end.
As a side note, I also think the obsession with UX and design in tech never would have occurred without jobs. The only reason we have fairly well designed apps and websites at this point is jobs’ influence.
this is an absurd suggestion. Steve Jobs has been a pioneer in making computing ubiquitous
Do we know of one thing that Jobs actually invented or co-invented, or was he always the marketer?
In case you’re wondering, filing a patent with an improperly listed inventor is fraud and invalidates the patent. Every patent app includes a signed oath and declaration by the inventors that they did indeed invent it.
The idea that Jobs didn’t have direct input on the functionality of novel features of Apple products is beyond absurd.
Aside from the fact that he was notoriously hands-on, Apple has been coasting on his achievements and direction for over a decade now.
He was also very closely involved with every aspect of the products Apple was developing. Just watch any of his interviews. He knew all the details: technical, design, marketing.
So yeah, I'm not surprised he has his name on patents.
Recap (paraphrased):
"Jobs never invented anything"
"He was a pioneer"
"pioneer != inventor"
"You have to show proof that he claimed he was an inventor!"
"Nobody said he claimed he was an inventor."
I was taking the "reality distortion field" talk to refer to the cultlike status Job's fandom reached at its peak, where the "famous for being famous" effect came into play. I don't think he qualifies as a con man, and I don't think he claimed personal credit for the inventions of others (he never "took the initiative and invented the internet" like Al Gore).