

Why Jobs is no Edison - hammock
http://www.american.com/archive/2011/september/why-jobs-is-no-edison/article_print

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raganwald
This is a response to another article that made the comparison. Given that
neither Apple nor Jobs have suggested Jobs is an Edison, and given that I
haven’t heard anyone calling Jobs an Edison outside of the article this author
cites, I’d call this “Feeding a troll.”

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.

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sehugg
_Apple II would have been impossible without innovations by Xerox’s PARC_

Minor quibble; the author is probably talking about the Mac -- not the Apple
II, which predates the PARC visit by at least two years.

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brudgers
Even more minor quibble: the parent comment is probably talking about the Lisa
which predated the Mac by more than two years.

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frankus
Both men led organizations that took the "raw materials" of their generation
and created end-to-end solutions that very quickly dominated the market.

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.

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joev
That's not what the "Entrepenurial Walk of Fame" sitting in front of the
Kendall Square Marriott says.

<http://boston.tumblr.com/post/10274370791>

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knieveltech
As far as I know Jobs hasn't publicly electrocuted animals in an attempt to
scare consumers away from competing products. Yep. Clearly no Edison.

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koffiezet
Steve Jobs became big by being right most of the time. Edison became big by
being a bully with questionable business practices. DC vs AC anyone?

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.

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tlogan
My mother in law (in 80s) says: "iPhone and iPads will not get us out of the
recession". That sums things up.

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j45
More like, Why Jobs is no Tesla, Edison took credit for the work of others.

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william42
But Jobs took credit for the work of others(Wozniak) too.

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koffiezet
No he did not. He always talked about "we at apple", and always gave credit to
the engineering and designer teams.

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.

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j45
To clarify, I was agreeing that Tesla was beyond them all. :)

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.

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wushupork
The difference though is people love their iPods and macs but rarely think
about electricity and the lightbulb.

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aditiyaa1
Edison is no Tesla !!!

I believe he has no idea about War of Currents and who won it.

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chugger
That's right, Steve's no Edison. Steve's better than Edison.

