

Doc Searls on Steve Jobs (1997) - idiginous
http://www.scripting.com/davenet/stories/DocSearlsonSteveJobs.html

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mnemonicsloth
I think this looks a lot more prescient than it really is.

Searls says that whatever Jobs created at Apple would be: original,
innovative, exclusive, expensive, [beautiful], maybe influenced by other
software tycoons, and minimally influenced by developers. He's right on all
counts. It's a good picture of Steve Jobs.

What's missing? Searls didn't say one word about the likelihood that Steve
Jobs would be _successful_ , and that success is what makes him something
other than Just Another Malignant Narcissist CEO.

~~~
pohl
Reg: _All right, but apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine,
public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health,
what have the Romans ever done for us?_

~~~
mnemonicsloth
I don't think this means what you think it means. Consider the situation in 36
AB (After Brian):

 _By the summer of 70 the Romans had breached the walls of Jerusalem,
ransacking and burning nearly the entire city...

The Second Temple (the rennovated Herod's Temple) was destroyed on Tisha B'Av
(29 or 30 July 70).

Tacitus... notes that those who were besieged in Jerusalem amounted to no
fewer than six hundred thousand, that men and women alike and every age
engaged in armed resistance, everyone who could pick up a weapon did, both
sexes showed equal determination, preferring death to a life that involved
expulsion from their country. All three walls were destroyed and in turn so
was the Temple, some of whose overturned stones and their place of impact can
still be seen...

The famous Arch of Titus still stands in Rome: it depicts Roman legionaries
carrying the Temple of Jerusalem's treasuries, including the Menorah, during
Titus's triumphal procession in Rome._

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Jewish-Roman_War>

Even after crushing the Judean revolt, the Romans provided sanitation,
medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water
system and public health. But they also destroyed the symbolic center of the
Jewish identity.

~~~
shadowsun7
Dude, that was a Monty Python reference. I like your counter-argument, but
still: it was a _Monty_ _Python_ _reference_.

~~~
mnemonicsloth
I make no apologies. Steve Jobs is Serious Business :-)

~~~
stcredzero
I await references from other movies, like "The Omen."

------
pohl
"To Steve, clones are the drag of the ordinary on the innovative. All that
crap about cloners not sharing the cost of R&D is just rationalization. Steve
puts enormous value on the engines of innovation. Killing off the cloners just
eliminates a drag on his own R&D,..."

Repace clones with middleware when you read this.

~~~
wallflower
As an iPhone developer, who developed the skill through brute-force experience
and trial through throwing away lots of code, I wonder why Google doesn't take
advantage of this. Currently, the iPhone SDK is better than the Android's SDK.
Similar to the high value of Microsoft Visual Studio integrating everything
into a true integrated environment, the iPhone SDK is much closer to Microsoft
Visual Studio-like than the Android SDK.

Overnight, Google could start to change this underdog status. Why doesn't
Google buy Appcelerator's Titanium or Phonegap? By buying a software tool
company that makes it much easier to write Android apps, Google could show up
in force for the battlefield of developer mindshare and consumer experience,
by giving away the tool free and sponsoring conferences, contests, bloggers,
heck even venture capital for Android-focus companies.

In the long run, because of their carpet bombing approach with devices, Google
will earn the majority share of smart mobile device operating systems. Why not
accelerate the process by making it easier for developers to make something?
Not everyone is above-average when it comes to software development - why not
make the Visual Basic for mobile platforms. I argue that Visual Basic was a
key linchpin of Microsoft's Windows dominance. Before Visual Basic, you had to
use the Windows API or (yes, a third-party app framework) like Foxpro.

~~~
ahoyhere
Because Google has never genuinely competed on quality, except for search
results, and that was only for a blessed golden period. (And not counting
Gmail, which was a 20% project, and is only considered high quality because
the rest of the state of web-based email interfaces is horrible, open source
shit.)

Google doesn't need finesse: They strongarm, using brute force & sheer volume.
That's what they do.

Ergo, they don't need to finesse the SDK or truly court developers. (The best
way to court developers is to ensure apps sell - and the Android marketplace
numbers are dismal.)

They think they will win anyway.

~~~
megablast
<i>, and is only considered high quality because the rest of the state of web-
based email interfaces is horrible, open source shit.)</i>

I take issue with this. Google is also better than non-web based email clients
as well, including outlook, thunderbird and Apple mail. It searches quicker as
well, which is completely unbelievable.

Sure, some things these clients do better, but for most tasks, gmail is much
better. Outlook 2010, just released last week, has just started linking email
conversations.

~~~
aristoxenus
Getting further OT: I used to agree wholeheartedly with this, but have you
noticed how slow Gmail is getting? I recently switched back to Apple mail,
after insisting on Gmail as my frontend for years. Can't beat Google on search
speed, but Apple does a fine job of that, and every other function is
considerably faster.

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stcredzero

        - It will be original.
        - It will be innovative.
        - It will be exclusive.
        - It will be expensive.
        - It's aesthetics will be impeccable.
    

Innovative? There will usually be a twist that distinguishes it from the
mainstream pack, but all of the parts will have been implemented before. The
result will have compromises, but they will be compromises fine tuned to the
tastes of an actual individual person. Just about everything else will have
been decided by committee. Imagine you are competing in a song writing market
where most of the other compositions are written by focus groups and
committees. That's the kind of advantage Steve enjoys.

(One can also think of this as: development unfettered by fear of failure.)

Expensive? Try "high margin." Read: the most lucrative market segments.

~~~
megablast
The iPhone was truly innovative, same for the iPad. iTunes as well.

<i>There will usually be a twist that distinguishes it from the mainstream
pack, but all of the parts will have been implemented before.</i>

You could say that about anything innovative, it always consists of parts of
things from before.

~~~
stcredzero
The iPhone wasn't the first touchscreen phone. It was the first to combine
such a good execution, usable mobile browser, and multitouch. Add the App
Store into the mix, and you have something unbelievably good.

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othermaciej
I wonder if anyone still thinks killing Mac clones was the wrong move.

~~~
thafman
I'll take the bait, Apple and everyone else lost a massive opportunity to
dethrone the Borg, not once, but twice. First with Windows ME and then with
Vista Microsoft were caught with their pants way, way down and without an
actually usable consumer OS. Apple could have owned that and could have made a
massive push for the mainstream.

This being said, had they actually taken on the Borg at their own game they
would be a _very_ different company than they are today, and not necessarily a
better one.

~~~
jfager
When ME came out, Apple was busy clawing its way out of the grave, and since
Vista, Apple has been killing MS in consumer mindshare, revenue and profit
growth, and new sector growth. MS is dead in the water in mobile and appliance
computing - where do you think the growth over the next 3 years is?

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heresy
Remarkably prescient, though I guess the signs were there for anyone smart
enough to see them at the time.

~~~
eugenejen
IMHO It is not prescient but Doc Searl recognized "the essential Steve P.
Jobs". It is funny to see how most of us are blinded by noise in the echo
chamber.

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rbanffy
I think the only thing he got wrong was the irrelevance of NeXT.

Just about everybody I know instantiates lots and lots of NSObjects every day.
;-)

~~~
bradleyland
Nice strawman. He never said NeXT was irrelevant. He said, "Regardless of
their market impact (which in the cases of Lisa and NeXT were disappointing),
all four were remarkable artistic achievements." The key words being "market
impact". In other words, they didn't sell much, which is true. It was a
hindsight observation of market performance, not a forward looking prediction.

~~~
rbanffy
Actually, "market impact" does not mean "sales" either. It means more or less
"relevance". At that, NeXT failed miserably to influence Unix workstation and
personal computer makers.

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itistoday
> _So his message to everybody was no different than it was at Day One: all I
> want from the rest of you is your money and your appreciation for my Art._

There's the conflict. Your art's success depends on the ability of others to
say the same exact thing, in a symbiosis with your art.

Does it not go against the very spirit of art itself to tell other artists
that they must paint your way?

~~~
wmeredith
> Does it not go against the very spirit of art itself to tell other artists
> that they must paint your way?

Not if you're curating a _private_ gallery.

~~~
itistoday
I see. The App Store is a private art gallery.

Stop kidding yourself.

~~~
wollw
You might read about the Paris Salon.

