re: #110 Targetpractice

Would Steve Jobs be as bad as Elon Musk? The young Jobs would have, the cocky little fuck who exploited Woz’s work and brilliance to make his first bucks, then mistreated him and the people who joined to work with the famous Steve Jobs to boost his own star and thus polish his ego to a mirror finish. The one who nearly drove the company into a ditch by dumping more and more resources into a dead-end project (Lisa), ignored the one profitable sector of the company (Apple II), and then took over and hobbled the new flagship project (Macintosh) such that the board had to maneuver to run his ass out the door.

The older Jobs, one that had spent several years in the wilderness rebuilding from scratch and getting back to his roots, eventually building a start-up company specializing in high-end computers into a powerhouse that his old company had to buy out just to get him back? Yeah, he’d have stomped on Musk’s balls and did so with a smile on his face. He was still full of ego and hubris, but it had been tempered by the reality that he had to cultivate and nurture talent if he wanted to keep being an innovator and keep the company moving forward. To him, asshats like Musk who made their fortune exploiting others to get ahead would be too much of a reminder of who he used to be.

Jobs flaws are more akin to Zuckerberg. AFAIK neither was/is a racist or right wing bigot. Both had interests in developments related to personal use of technology. Not as sweeping interests as Musk has demonstrated although he himself does not exhibit any special technical expertise or knowledge.