Why Steve Jobs is full of shit

Steve Jobs and
the NeXT Big Thing, - by Randall Stross.

The long version:
     First, it shows the backdrop against how NeXT was formed. Not as a wonderkind of technology for the masses - as NeXT's own businessplan would claim - but for the most part was merely a spite-play to sink Apple, or at least glom onto the spotlight as long as they could at Apple's expense. Two: it also shows a great insider look at how employees were still ranked as bozos within a few minutes of their being hired through a rigorous HR protocol. So much so that one victim was singled out in a meeting on the first day of his employment as not "looking smart enough". No racist parallels here Steve - you're a fucking bigot and we know it. We also find out - Three - what an increadible mistake it was for Ross Perot to be watching public TV in his Boulder residence - and how his multiple million dollar donation to the cause was otherwise wasted like a wad of cash given to pre-schoolers in a candy store. It did far more to harm to NeXT and made users suffer through imbalanced financials and cash-flow that any single damaging thing Steve Jobs could have done. Only giving atomic blueprints and plutonium to Iraq would be more idiotic. I particularly liked his soundbite during a boardroom meeting - which I enjoy imitating from time to time in my best midwestern faux-drawl - "so what you're telling me is that the plane is going down in flames - and there's no one at the controls. Tell me something I don't already know". Four: it is chronically correct from the disaster with IBM's partnership that went nowhere to the massive mistake of killing the hardware line without a product to offer the public for a mere 6 months of operational expenses (meaning Canon was subsidizing them for this entire time). Five: It doesn't just go on about NeXT and it's private disaster area - it actually bothers to interview and compare NeXT to other companies that were actually making money rather than spending other people's. In this case - it was Sun. A great ironic aside since NeXT eventually would target Sun as an evil one of those much in the same way Apple did to IBM in the 80's and most Apple users continue to do to Microsoft. What you take away is not only is this kind of marketing plan folly - but everyone who buys into such things is a fucking idiot. Now you know why I love fool-baiting the MacJihad.

The numbers:
     This sucker gets a 9.5. It would otherwise get a 10, but for reasons unkown, the author blemishes an otherwise PERFECT one of those with a tone of preachyness regarding some of the - now standard - marketing staples of Silicon Valley that have existed for over 15 years. It's the only indication that he may have gone a little over his journalistic head and become a critic of marketing and advertising - which sad to say - he is NOT. Otherwise his balance is keen, his research and interviews are ideal, and his nose for a good story and a good narration is beyond the usual for the run-of-the-mill computer corporate bios out there. It's even better than most non-computer corporate bios out there. Overall it's one of my top 5 fave books that shows what fools computer users who invest too much in pathetic emotionalism and brand-equity fads be in the long scheme of things. Because surely, it's all a business making tools. Not a fashion statement, not an art form, not a relationship. Just a computer, and company that builds them. If you think otherwise - you're just the kind of idiot that Steve Jobs is looking for today.

Coming up NeXT, the book that you should read if you think Apple can do no wrong. Even paid columnists like Dvorak swear by it.