

The trouble with Steve Jobs - mronge
http://money.cnn.com/2008/03/02/news/companies/elkind_jobs.fortune/

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sanj
This line worries me:

"...chafe at his insistence on setting uniform prices for their songs and
videos on iTunes..."

because it ignores keen business insight by presenting it as another example
of Jobs's mercurial nature.

Joel does a good job of explaining why this is important. It is about the way
that the music industry uses pricing as a signal. And Jobs wants to own that
signal:

"And Apple? Apple wants the signaling to come from what they promote on the
front page of the iTunes Music Store. In the battle between Apple and the
recording industry over who gets to manipulate what songs you buy, Apple (like
movie theaters) is going to be in favor of fixed prices, while the recording
industry is going to want variable prices."

<http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2005/11/18.html>

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Electro
Ironically, fixed prices means people are able to afford to buy more music and
help the less popular artists earn more money. Incidentally it also makes the
more popular artists easier to hear and thus more popular.

Control or not, Jobs' fixing the price is a good thing for the music industry.
A book is usually around $5 for paperback, a movie is usually around $10 in
theaters, yet the price of CDs vary from popular to unpopular and that doesn't
make any sense.

I regularly buy books I'm not 100% sure I'll like, because it's $5. I go see
movies I'm not 100% sure I'll like, because it is ALWAYS $10. I don't buy
music I'm not 100% sure I'll like, because it can cost $20 for a popular CD.
I've bought DVD boxsets for $20! That's a damn months entertainment for less
than a 40-minute album.

The only music I ever buy without hearing nearly every song on the album is
from bands I know I like. The problem with this is that I'm a huge music fan,
and I can't even remember if I've ever gone a day without listening to music
in the last decade; yet I hardly buy any new music, because I can't justify
the price risk of getting something bad. I mean its two movies, four books and
thats if I'm not going for the $1.50 books off amazon. I once bought around 15
books of amazon because they were all cheap as hell, I haven't even read some
of them but the author and publisher still made money off of me, no artist or
music company gets free money from me when I'm admittedly stupid enough to
allow them to if they had good prices.

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cstejerean
"Steve Jobs running the company from jail would be better for the stock price
than Steve Jobs not being CEO,"

Couldn't have said it better myself.

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tptacek
This article is really gross and creepy.

It's a stretch, but a defensible one, to report that Jobs concealed a
dangerous treatable illness for 9 months.

But what possibly justification can Fortune have for reporting about Jobs'
children "out of wedlock", the antics of his absent biological parents after
he was given up for adoption, the lack of license plates on his car, or the
contents of his secret address book?

It's hard to feel sorry for a billionaire public figure subjected to takedown
pieces like this. So I don't feel sorry for him. But this reporter embarassed
himself and his publication. This stuff wouldn't even pass muster on
Wikipedia.

~~~
mixmax
I see what you're saying, and I understand your motives - but I only partly
agree.

When you are such a public figure, and especially when the company that you
are the CEO of is so dependent on you, it is simply one of those things you
have to deal with. Every job has its downsides, if you're a fisherman you
smell of fish, if you're a mechanic your hands are dirty no matter how much
you wash them, and if you're a salesman you have a much higher chance of being
burned out. The downside of being a public figure is that other people are
interested in you personal life.

While I understand that the information disclosed in the article can be seen
as a private matter, I can also understand the incentives for bringing it out.
It is, after all, of great interest to the shareholders of Apple who the man
at the helm really is behind the facade.

For a public CEO it is of course a nuisance. Just like it is a nuisance for a
fisherman to come home everyday smelling like fish.

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pistoriusp
Great article!

One of my favorite Steve Jobs quotes: "You've baked a lovely cake, but you've
used dog-shit for the icing."

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redorb
honestly- having to disclose cancer? WTF! - isn't that personal?

~~~
projectileboy
Well, no, not when the price of your publicly-traded stock hinges on whether
or not you're at the helm.

~~~
Electro
If you've got untreatable cancer then yeah you should be forced to disclose.
However cancer invokes more fear than there is actual risk, if I get skin
cancer its 100% treatable, some forms don't even need treating because its
merely a skin growth with no health risk except maybe an infection if you cut
it off with a blunt knife. Yet if a CEO announced they had 'skin cancer' the
stock would drop, even if it is one of the benign forms that doctors treat
with wart removers.

I think saving the investors from themselves should be just as big a concern.
He is predicted with survival past 10 years, which IIRC the average age of
death with someone having that prognosis is in fact only a few years shorter
than the average age of death. If Jobs getting cancer means he kicks it at 78
instead of 82, I don't see why it should be disclosed immediately or at all.

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staunch
They chose to write a story "Steve Jobs is a loose cannon putting investors at
risk". The problem is that he's just so damn good at what he does the article
comes across as really awkward and forced. Too funny.

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moog
When Steve retires, a lot of OS X fans could switch to Linux, figuring Apple
will never recover from the loss. Maybe hackers will then take the task of
turning Linux into the best OS seriously.

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delano
I think you meant FreeBSD.

~~~
moog
Nah, I mean a Linux distro with a GUI to die for. And drivers that ensure
everything 'just works' ;-)

Actually, maybe I do mean FreeBSD... with the GUI on top plus all the drivers!

~~~
boucher
It's called OS X.

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dcurtis
I want to vote this up twice. Fortune has had some great articles lately, and
this is definitely one of them.

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ashwinl
brilliant!! thank-you. the best bio of jobs I have read.

