I hate point by point rebuttals, but
Quote Originally Posted by Miriel View Post
...the fact that this guy was an innovator and a game changer. MP3 Players were around, but the iPod was the first truly popular one. Smart phones were around, but none as popular and as influential as the the iphone.
Making a device that's more popular than the previous ones isn't innovation. The iPod did exactly the same thing as a regular mp3 player. It took off with the right business model.
There are other digitally animated films, but none of them as intensely beloved as Pixar's work.
I'll give you this one. Pixar is a good example of innovation in the film industry. Key point: Jobs was a majority shareholder. This doesn't mean he designed any of their systems.
The fact that he's been such a driving force behind the popularization of these things is the very reason why people are saying that he changed people's day-to-day lives.
He's a driving force because of clever marketing.
Steve Jobs impacted a lot of lives.
I'm not disputing this!
You say that he was a good businessman and marketer as though those things and inventor/innovator are mutually exclusive. They're not. He was an extraordinary business man. He was an extraordinary innovator. He was a creative powerhouse. It's not like the guy was there just to market apple products. He was literally the one whose vision was carried out from beginning to end. Design, functionality, marketing, etc.
I'll agree with creative powerhouse, but inventor? The Apple I was created by Steve Wozniak, a co-founder of Apple, and was encouraged by businessman Steve Jobs to make a personal computer (which would become the Apple II) as a possible money spinner for the company. When it came to the Apple Lisa, it was John Couch's idea to use a (new) windows and pointers interface. I'd credit him with 'inventing' the Macintosh, but everything onwards were largely Apple's versions of products that were already 'invented' elsewhere.
I get it if you're someone who doesn't use any of his products, so you're just like, "wtf? He was just a CEO". But saying that he was "simply" this or "simply" that seems pretty dismissive. He took a company on the verge of bankruptcy and then made it one of the most (if not THE MOST) profitable companies in the entire world. Simply good? Damn, talk about an understatement.
Jobs was fired from Apple when they were on the brink of bankruptcy in the mid 1980s after trying to arrange a managerial coup. He came back later and brought Apple to where it is today. You're right, calling him good at business is an understatement.