Steve Jobs's Speech - him and his life

This is a video of Steve Jobs giving a speech about his life:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1R-jKKp3NA


He is genualy a very nice guy and has been through a lot. I personaly would much rather buy products and give money to this guy than i would to Bill gates. another reason to buy a mac.

Is that the one he gave at Stanford law?

Though I'm not so sure about his nice guy status. A lot of people after reading iCon, have had negative views about him. I still love the products his company brings out though

What is this about Icon? All the information about him and content i read about him seems positive.

iCon was a biography which was written about him. I'm not sure whether its true or false, but at least something must be true in there. it is banned in Apple stores as such...

I admire the guy though!

Most of the anecdotal evidence published in books suggests Steve is a royal "donkey".

baggss said:

Most of the anecdotal evidence published in books suggests Steve is a royal "donkey".

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Can you expand or give a link to a resource?

tobywuk said:

All the information about him and content i read about him seems positive.

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That is what is more commonly known as "spin".

tobywuk said:

Can you expand or give a link to a resource?

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There are a number of books around, and you can find some tidbits on wikipedia. I don't think it's any secret or that any spin is involved to say that Steve Jobs is an extremely agressive individual and that he was widely known, particularly in the early years of Apple, for his verbal assaults and summary firings of employees.

In the 2006 Forbes list of the 400 wealthiest Americans, Steve Jobs was 49th with a net worth of $4.9 billion. At least in terms of business, you have to be supremely aggressive to create that kind of net worth. You've got to have a lot of chutzpah to think that you can compete successfully against the likes of Microsoft, IBM, and Dell, and then actually do it!

Look at Apple products. There's really no compromise in the products, which also means there's no room for excuses. You deliver or the one who will replace you will deliver. It's simple. Actually it's not simple. You have to have people a) who can deliver and b) who will deliver. Finding them isn't easy.

Did you watch Jobs with Pixar and Disney a couple of years ago? He played hardball and walked away from Disney only to win a short time afterwards. Did you see what was reported today regarding NBC television shows and iTunes? It's hard line business. How the NBC/Apple iTunes deal will go in the long run I don't know, but in the short run they are parting ways. There's no compromise.

I have no doubt he's tough as a businessman. If he wasn't, he wouldn't be at the helm of Apple, and he wouldn't be worth 1/1000 of what he's worth now. I imagine that as a person he's probably a nice guy. In business he's one of the very best.

I'll check out the video. It should be interesting.

tobywuk said:

This is a video of Steve Jobs giving a speech about his life:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1R-jKKp3NA


He is genualy a very nice guy and has been through a lot. I personaly would much rather buy products and give money to this guy than i would to Bill gates. another reason to buy a mac.

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Why would you not give money to Bill Gates? Isn't he a nice person as well? He's giving away a ton of money through his Foundation. Nice guy or not you have to respect that.

From my view, just by looking at them speak in public and having taking a few psych course, I would Jobs can be a royal jerk in private and Gates is really shy but nice.

And adding on to what flowrider said, Gates is the biggest philanthropist in the entire world, so I dont have any problem giving him money if he made a better product.

A lot of these books about Apple & Jobs in the early years are using stories from newspapers and magazines as sources... we all know how accurate they can be. Also, a lot of information is coming from other people, who all have different opinions on how things happened.

The iCon book (aswell as others from the same publisher) where banned because (at least this is how I remember it being reported at the time) the author kept trying to contact Steve and asking about his birth parents, and how he felt about being adopted. Steve wasn't too happy about this, some nasty words where said, and a lot of books got pulled from Apple Stores. Almost every review I've read of the book from people "in the know" have said it's filled with inaccurate information.

As for how nice Steve is or isn't... Just like all of us, and certainly any other business man, he can be a real... well, you know. I also think being booted from Apple calmed him down, and made him appreciate that he had to change tactics slightly if anyone was going to work for him again. I still don't think he's an angel to this day, but I don't think he's as bad as he once was, and seems to have the company and customers best interests at heart.

Like others have said, Bill Gates gives more money to charity than anyone else in the world. I don't know how nice or not Bill really is, but when a lot of the money he makes is going to charity I don't think it matters.

Regarding Bill Gates, I understand he is explosive and will swear without limits or constraints at MS. (Maybe they have a swear jar?! -_^)

As far as his philanthropy is concerned, I'd rather see him do something else with his money, such as funding intellectual pursuits and other things that take civilization farther. This is a man who could run his own space program. At a personal net worth of $53.0 billion, he could do a lot of good at the other end of the bell curve. The manner of his philanthropy does little for me, and I actually have *more* respect for what he's done in computing than what he does to help the sick and indigent.

^^^ I think we should try to get everyone on the bus before we selfishly drive away.

I love it when college drop-outs like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs give commencement speeches! I guess the administrations don't consider it to be too much of a risk.

Is it a bit ironic that he made time for a little jab at Microsoft copying and went on to borrow a couple lines from Frost's "The Road Less Traveled" for his speech?

So Steve came from a tough background. My life has been tougher than his. Give me money! I take some comfort in knowing that if I buy something from Microsoft, a relatively good part of that money will go to help some very well-deserved causes.

I'm sure both Jobs and Gates can get very aggressive and hot-headed in their business. I did see a show a while back where they interviewed former Apple employee programmers who said Jobs would run around to offices screaming and barking at them to work harder and longer with no regard for them and their personal lives. To me, it's like Bobby Knight and Gene Keady: both big icons in college basketball and both probably very demanding and hot headed with their work, but Bobby Knight got all the attention for letting it out at the wrong time.

fleurya said:

So Steve came from a tough background. My life has been tougher than his. Give me money! I take some comfort in knowing that if I buy something from Microsoft, a relatively good part of that money will go to help some very well-deserved causes.

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If one considers a middle class background in an affluent neighborhood in the South San Francisco Bay are a though background....

Steve's problems, like much of the 60s and 70s generation, was himself, not his background or his environment.

i've seen that speach and i think steve jobs is a great buy. we all have bad sides. he has a very good good side (if that makes sense)

for anyone who has ever seen pirates of sillicon valley, steve wozniak said on his personal website that the personalities in that movie were very accurate. i don't know how well we can trust him for bill gates personality, but i'm sure he would have a good grasp on steve jobs personality.

for anyone who has NOT ever seen pirates of sillicon valley... i recomend you go watch it.

ki99 said:

for anyone who has ever seen pirates of sillicon valley, steve wozniak said on his personal website that the personalities in that movie were very accurate. i don't know how well we can trust him for bill gates personality, but i'm sure he would have a good grasp on steve jobs personality.

for anyone who has NOT ever seen pirates of sillicon valley... i recomend you go watch it.

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After reading Woz's book he goes into more detail. He doesn't necessarily say they're accurate; they're like caricatures. They're based on truth, but exaggerated, and a lot is left out. When you watch it, Jobs is always the pushy, smug one and Gates is the creepy, quiet, geek; there's no balance.

Also the film is trying to fit 10+ years of very complicated history into a couple of hours. It's a fun film, don't take everything as a) true b) the whole story.