Jobs and Apple have changed the world in so many ways. WTF have you done with your life?
http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north670.html
Read it. Time is the great equalizer. Warren Buffett is worth ten thousand times more than you are, assuming you are worth $5 million. But he is 78 years old. Not many people would want to trade places with him, one for one.
Steve Jobs is a better man than I'll ever be, but I'd rather be me than him, Is that strange? No! Because time treats humans like call options--decay is priced in, and hits zero at the set date. Steve Jobs is very, very close to zero, no matter his accomplishments.
Why? Because he is famous? Because he is rich? Because he, debatably, has 'made the world a better place'? Screw all those default judgements based on cultural indoctrination. Why is it Good to be famous, rich, innovative, an effective leader, ...? As far as I'm concerned, Steve Jobs and Warren Buffett are no better than you or me when I consider what I think is important in life. Stop pressing culturally correct expectations and judgements on others. Develop your own code of ethics.
When I use a computer or listen to an iPod, when I prepare to upload my music to iTunes practically hassle-free, when I look at the Mac-using companies that have developed beautiful products, I'm aware that Steve Jobs stands as a symbol for all of the things I love about this community. A lot of us have that feeling. It's not celebrity worship like gets slurred around a lot. It's more that Jobs was the first pro-aesthetic guy in computers, and he's remained an inspiration and a hero to those of us that like beautiful product, and revolutionary product, and annual dramatic revelations on-stage.
But yeah, I like my iPhone.
(I also find, incidentally, that the more ambitious your goals the more likely you are to be an asshole. Jobs is certainly the archetype again. But on the other hand you've got great people like Jeff Bezos, so I don't agree with the folk that think assholery leads automatically to greatness.)
How often is it necessary to bruise the feelings of others to be true to yourself? Just about never, in my experience. There are lots of occasions in The Fountainhead where others feelings are bruised, but this is their jealousy causing self-inflicted distress. You can often be true to yourself by discreetly keeping your own counsel, so long as you are not dissuaded from your own true desires.
If you are the boss of others, you should be able to do this honestly and without cruelty, even if you are a hard taskmaster and blunt in your opinions.
Everyone knows people who are their own people, but who do not impose on others. If asked, they will tell you. If pressed, they will stand up for themselves. But they sometimes show restraint where others might take the opportunity to "count coup."
It's also possible to be your own person and stand up for yourself while being abrasive, suffering no fools, and keeping everyone around you on edge. There's also a whole spectrum in between.
If my observations about certain subscribers to individualist philosophy bothers you, I suggest that might be salient data. You have far better access to additional data than I for evaluating that.
I find Objectivism, from what I know of it, to be remarkably self-consistent. It is an admirable product of its time. Some of what Ayn Rand said needs to be modified in the face of new evidence from evolutionary biology and neuroscience. (Humans clearly do have instincts.) A sign of a healthy philosophy is its ability to incorporate such new data.
What I do criticize is the way some people apply "Objectivism." This is certainly not unique. I also find the attitudes of many Christians to be distinctly not Christ-like.
That's actually a really apt comparison! I think I'll borrow that in the future.