
Is Steve Jobs Repeating His Past Mistakes? - ssclafani
http://www.stevenberlinjohnson.com/2010/06/is-steve-jobs-repeating-his-past-mistakes.html
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"I'm sure somewhere in Jobs' head he thinks that if he had been running Apple
instead of John Sculley, the Mac could have out-innovated and out-marketed
Microsoft through the late eighties and early nineties, and kept Windows from
dominating the planet."

Actually I believe this myself. It's hard to say exactly how well he would
have done at fending off Microsoft, but it would have been a closer race than
it was. Apple seemed totally lost during that period.

~~~
dieterrams
I'm sure he thinks he could have done better than Sculley, and it's almost
certain he would have. But to cite his oft-cited speech:

 _I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was
the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being
successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure
about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my
life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company
named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife.
Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy
Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a
remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the
technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current
renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from
Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it._

\-----

An addendum: I wonder how many decisions Jobs made after returning to Apple
would have happened if he'd never been fired. Would he have still embraced
Microsoft? Would the radically colorful design of the iMacs have happened any
earlier, or at all? Would they have switched to Intel? What about the iPod,
which was probably the most significant way Apple could introduce non-Mac
users to Apple design, making the value proposition of a Mac credible? I
wonder if his time away from Apple hadn't made him more sensitive to the
importance of media besides software.

~~~
dieterrams
Sorry, wanted to add another point but the editing window expired. Basically,
I get the sense that the Jobs that got fired was a lot more willing to shake
things up when he came back. Whereas it's hard for me to see what Jobs would
have done if he'd managed to oust Sculley, aside from killing 3rd party Macs
earlier and shrinking the product lineup.

~~~
stcredzero
I wonder if there's a way we can retrieve the last text we submitted? This
way, we can recover text when editing expires.

~~~
wglb
Sometimes the back arrow gets me there with chrome.

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forgottenpaswrd
Steve Jobs? mistakes?

It seems to me really strange to find people like Steve Jobs that belong to
the group of "most successful people in the world", economical, personal and
socially, being criticized by someone random on Internet, giving him lessons
on what he should be doing.

Of course Steve Jobs is human, and makes "mistakes",he is not a deity, but as
a human, he had more successes than anyone else I know in the IT field in a
sustained way over the time.

In fact what this blogger considers "mistakes" is what I like about people
like Steve "everything that Jobs has ever done in his career has suggested
that he loves great products more than market share."

Thank God!! some people care about products and not getting more and more rich
like the Banks, whose financial successes come from stealing other people
work, or getting monopolies from destroying competition and benefiting from
that, or getting(paying) the politicians to agree with them.

Not everything in life is money, marketshare ... and I respect the guys of
google or Apple because they cared first about the product, and the got money
and marketshare as a consequence later because people love good products.

Their primary goal was to benefit their customers and they benefited from
that. Those that try to first benefit themselves with crappy products,
tricking their customers to buy it using only false advertising, corrupting
others to give them market privileges(today you have to pay corrupt officers
to have the right to sell to some countries), well, those are the mistaken
companies.

~~~
ryandvm
Need a refill on that Kool-Aid?

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philwelch
"'m not so sure that Jobs thinks his Macintosh strategy failed."

True, but not quite in the way that the author thinks. The Macintosh lived on
if you wanted one, and Windows itself only existed and innovated to catch up
with Mac. The Mac made its dent on the world even if you never bought one,
because it forced Microsoft to make their operating system more Mac-like.

Learning to accept partial victories is part of life, and Steve's partial
victories are a little more complete than some people's. (Alan Kay, anyone?)

~~~
blasdel
Alan Kay is a particularly odd case — he's had to start over with Smalltalk
half a dozen times _because it was too successful_.

Because people from elementary schoolkids to Disney to IBM were invested in
it, he couldn't keep iterating. He had to leave it to them for it to rot in
stasis, and go off to start over again with a new community until it happened
again.

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etherael
but the fact that AAPL now has a larger market cap than MSFT, twelve years
after Jobs' return to Apple, has to give one pause.

This just reads to me that Microsoft has been failing hard since the great
succession and Apple is capitalising on the void more than Apple's excellent
strategy would've won the game against Microsoft back in the day.

My take is that Apple will lose, and yes, history is repeating himself.
They'll lose in the mobile/tablet space to Android handset/tablets, and
they'll maybe lose in the "real computer" space (eventually) to Ubuntu/Chrome
OS or a revitalized Microsoft. I'm more confident of the former than the
latter though, have heard "year of the linux desktop" just too many damned
times.

~~~
bonaldi
By the same token, Microsoft capitalised on the void left by Sculley-era
Apple. While Apple was charging thousands of dollars for underpowered Macs
with 9" screens, Windows PCs could leap into the bottom end.

They weren't really good: users actually wanted Macs, but couldn't afford them
at home, and businesses wouldn't pay the premium at work, except where
absolutely necessary (publishing and design, mostly).

Software and "closedness" had nothing to do with it. The Mac had much better
software -- Word and Excel were born on the Mac, as was Photoshop, Quark,
Postscript, Hypercard.

The question isn't "is Jobs making the same mistake?" it is "is Jobs making
Sculley's mistakes?". And the answer is "no". The iPhone and iPad are
aggressively priced, ensuring they go just low enough to put them in reach of
people who want them, and success doesn't depend on penny-pinching CYA CIOs.

Windows succeeded because it was good enough, just as Android is. Apple is
trying hard to sure you don't have to settle for "good enough", you can
actually have _good_ , this time.

~~~
etherael
I don't buy it, Apple products still attract a significant premium just for
the brand. You don't see linux users purchasing Apple hardware to install
linux on generally, which would actually be a good measure of if the hardware
was worth the cost.

They're just trying to tie the software to the hardware and push the benefits
of the software to the average user in a way that it can't be separated from
the hardware (via their DRM etc in the chips).

Nothing Apple has ever made has been compelling to me in any way, shape or
form. So from my perspective, they generally make worse products than the
alternatives, this includes OS9, OSX, and definitely OSX touch.

~~~
dieterrams
Yes, people who buy Macs place enormous value on having a flat, nondescript
image of a piece of fruit on their computers. We are all massive brand whores,
and there has never been anything compelling about the design of Macs. Also,
Linux users, and you especially, are extremely representative of the market
for computers.

~~~
etherael
touche and a riposte, I'm well aware I'm not representative of the market for
computers, but if you're here this probably applies to you also. So whilst you
and the audience of mac users here may not be a massive brandwhore, that
doesn't invalidate the point that a significant amount of the mac userbase
actually are.

And when you have a company that is selling fundamentally the same product
with a different label on it and marking it up 40%, yes, that does tend to be
the difference. Maybe back in the Power PC days you had a point, but what's
inside the magnesium case is now pretty much the same as what's inside the
black plastic one.

~~~
dieterrams
Ignoring the fact that the hardware design is widely lauded as outpacing the
competition, your argument is sort of like saying that two books are
fundamentally the same if they're made of the same materials. Most users could
care less if the computer's running on an x86 or PowerPC chip: everything is
ultimately subordinate to user experience, cost, availability of desirable
software, and interoperability. (At least two of those are highly contingent
on the individual user: cost and availability of desirable software. If you're
a heavy PC gamer, a Windows PC remains much more desirable than a Mac
overall.)

Historically, Macs have owned user experience, but lost on everything else.
These days, cost is still relatively high (although historically lower, given
the drop in component prices), but the other things have gotten better. Growth
of the web, cross-platform file formats, ability to run Windows on Mac
hardware, shift in gaming from PCs to consoles, etc. have done a lot to
mitigate the disadvantages of Macs.

This, by the way, is coming from someone who'd been using DOS and Windows up
until a few years ago.

~~~
etherael
The hardware design component I just can't bring myself to care about, a fork
is for picking up food, a computer is for computing, I don't care about the
sheen on the stainless steel on one or the other, and it puzzles the hell out
of me why people do. But I guess that's just human nature or something.

My "user experience" on a mac is utterly abysmal due to the lack of the
customisations I use on linux and have been bound to inexorably over the years
by muscle memory.

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bonaldi
You found the OS X UI "bland and ugly" but caring similarly about the
aesthetics of hardware is so inconceivable that it "puzzles the hell" out of
you? I think you're getting your party lines crossed.

~~~
etherael
The actual software part that you interface with and concentrate on, yes, that
part is definitely the part that I'm paying attention to when I'm using a
computer.

The black or white or magnesium bezel around it? Not so much, keyboards and
mice once again yes, but I hate apple keyboards / mice too (not because of
build quality, but because of layout / design)

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jolan
Actually, allowing 3rd party vendors to make MacOS-compatible hardware is
basically what almost killed Apple to begin with.

So no, he's not repeating past mistakes.

~~~
xenophanes
Why was that so bad for Apple? Why didn't it work?

(I have no strong opinion on the matter.)

~~~
etherael
Because they basically acted as enablers for the competition on their core
profit center. I'm prone to agree that it was a bad move keeping in mind what
Apple's strengths are, but then I just don't think that highly of Apple's
strengths so ymmv.

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zweben
It seems that some people will never learn that going for market share first
isn't always the path to maximizing profit. I could understand these arguments
when Apple wasn't doing so well, but now it's just silly; Apple has, for ages,
been extremely consistent in prioritizing margins over market share. By all
measures, it's working brilliantly for them.

Success through high margins is less visible and less obvious than success
through high market share, and I'm guessing that contributes to the strange
idea that Apple is somehow making a mistake with a high-margin lower volume
strategy, but come on, they make more money selling cell phones than almost
any other company in the world.

Apple could certainly license their OS to other vendors. But in doing so, they
would be throwing out an extremely successful business model for one that
eliminates their biggest differentiation from their competitors: the polish
and quality they can provide by having complete control over all aspects of
their products.

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pkaler
Different situation. Developers make more money on the iPhone/iPad/iPod than
Android at the moment. Developers will continue to target the platform where
they make the most money.

Apple treats Apps as a switching cost. The more Apps and content that a user
purchases, the less likely there are to move to a competing platform.

Microsoft won because Office, Outlook, games, etc increased the switching
cost. Once you were over in the Microsoft camp, you were there forever. There
was zero user churn.

The whole point of the Get A Mac campaign was about how the switching cost was
now low.

Google treats Apps and content as a commodity. Ship your App and make crumbs
from AdSense and AdMob. Google's switching cost is in the data in Gmail,
Google Apps, etc. Google needs to ship Google Checkout worldwide and then
store your purchased Apps like mail and docs to build up the same competitive
advantage and attract developers.

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SkyMarshal
Some similarities this time around:

1\. iPhone leads out of the gate.

2\. Apple charges a premium.

3\. Apple does not license the OS for clones.

4\. Google not only licenses the OS, it's completely free, as is their
development kit and app store.

5\. Apple lacks some infrastructure redundancy and is reliant on ATT and
Foxcon, maybe others.

Some differences this time around:

1\. Meta standards. There's no longer the Microsoft file formats vs the Apple
file formats that locked so much of the world into Windows/Office. These open
meta standards eliminate the possibility of lockin. Hence even if Android
pulls ahead in market share, it won't have the lockin that Windows had.

2\. Apple has fully transitioned from a computer company to an industrial
design company. They just happen to specialize in consumer technology (and are
not too shabby with the business tech either, thanks to BSD). Most people,
consciously or subconsciously, perceive Apple this way as well. Apple owns
this niche.

3\. Unlike Microsoft, Google actually has a sense of design and aesthetics.
Not quite at Apple's artistic level, but, crucially, intuitive, easy to use
for noobs, with power-user features under the hood.

I do see Android eventually outselling iPhone simply because of its cost,
openess (to handset makers, app devs, and end users), economy of scale, and
Google brand.

But I think there's room in this field for both, and no lockin to prevent
that. Apple will do fine as the BMW of handsets, I don't see them coming so
close to death in that role as they did the last time.

~~~
dkuchar
Good analysis, and I agree with your conclusions.

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tmsh
I think the PC succeeded because of the massive demand in business for a
reliable, cheaper alternative.

The thing about the markets these days is that a tablet and a phone are very
different from an office computer. They're much more personal. They're also
cheaper to start with, so people might just be willing to pay for quality in
ways that small/medium/large-sized businesses wouldn't for PCs.

But all of this is sort of thinking relativistically in terms of the
desktop/tablet/phone space. However, there are too many paths out there these
days for things to proceed slowly, linearly and predictably.

That's the one huge advantage that Linux has over all of this. It attracts
people who are in left field who are going to change the entire paradigm.
Maybe the future is 3D CSS transforms. Maybe it's Apple. But maybe it's a
completely different dialogue. All it takes is one or two misguided people on
HN, e.g.

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jey
No, because computers have already been commoditized. The new innovation is in
high-end items -- which are also partly _fashion_ and _style_. Sure, you can
use an ASUS tablet running Win7 or Linux if you're willing to put up with it,
but everyone else will shell out the extra $200 for an iPad. (cf. Swiss
watches -> Cheap quartz watches -> Fancy mechanical movement watches, e.g.
Rolex)

I don't think Jobs is naive enough to think he could have out-competed
Microsoft with the "aesthetically pure products" strategy. I'm pretty sure he
does think he could have maintained a much more significant chunk of market
share for Apple through the 90's, but I bet he recognizes the strong pressures
toward commoditization of the PC concept. And would we have iPods, iPhones,
and iPads if Jobs hadn't been fired and grew complacent instead? Doubtful.

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pvdm
Bill Gates wrote to John Scully to license the MAC OS to third-party
manufacturers. Scully refused. Steve Jobs wasn't around when the first mistake
was made.

29:00 into this video.

<http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=2457>

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sx
Even if Apple allowed 3rd party vendors to make IPhone OS compatible phones,
Android would still be free and Google would still push it as hard as
possible, so the competition would still be there (which by the way is really
good). Also, it's not easy to beat "free" from the vendors' perspective.

I think the iPhone will continue having a significant market share and I think
Apple will continue innovating. In the meantime, the Android market share will
grow, possibly beyond the iPhone share, but I don't see why it's necessary to
only have one winner that takes it all. I think both companies, along with
RIM, will do fine

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houseabsolute
> who suggested a theory that seemed outlandish at first but is making more
> and more sense to me: Steve Jobs just isn’t bent on world domination.

Hard to understand how that idea could be outlandish considering how many
times Steve himself has repeated it.

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dkuchar
yes

~~~
dkuchar
wow i expected up-votes for this. jobs is one of the greatest innovators of
our time. but he got completely destroyed by microsoft last time, and he's
going to get similarly beaten by android and google.

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whatwhatwhat
My gut reaction was yes just because I had already had this thought before.

