Gosh, 12 year olds speaking.
Apple I and Apple II have nothing to do with Mac I & II; it's the Apple II which let Apple grow and made Apple enough cash that pursuing a Project like the Lisa and then the inferior, but cheaper Mac were even an option.
Woz WAS THE TEACHER, if anything, Jobs was the student; jobs was a little electronics tinkerer, WOZ designed entire circuit boards and chips.
Even the Mac's floppy controller board/chip were designed by Woz...
Woz understands more of the value of open systems, Jobs understands there's more money to be made holding customers data hostage in a closed system.
Closed iPhones are so "great" you can't get rid of zombie apps without starting from scratch, rearranging hundreds of apps manually again, and loosing years of call history and messages.
In an open system one could nuke some ill behaved files, fix some preference files, etc. and carry on with life.
The idea that a real computing platform like the iPad Pro aspires to be, is fully closed and is based on the idea of "trust us (Apple), but don't verify", and the concept that everything always works as designed, or else the only solution is to set up the entire system from scratch again, that is what I call scary, and it's Jobs' ideas of toaster-like computers taken ad absurdum.
I much rather have Woz more say and have systems that are empowering their users.
I see no discrepancy between the various accounts. While Jobs didn't get fired per se, he was completely sidelined and essentially being told he could collect a paycheck as long as he stayed out of the way. That's probably about as close to firing him as they were legally and contractually allowed to do -- making his life miserable and hurting his ego in order to push him out the door, and it worked.
Yes, I'm sure Jobs was the better businessman. Still, it was probably 'business savvy' to have him out in 1985.
As much as I admire SJ and have stated that many times, I personally believe that SJ wasn't so much a good "business man" as he was an ego-maniacal control freak. If anyone was going to screw up his "baby" it was going to be him... and even then, he just might point his finger at someone else within his immediate circle. Pointing the finger is hard to do if you let every Dick, Joe and Harry fumble around with your ideas and work and still expect them to deliver as your partners. Just ask Bill Gates.
No. I believe a lot of the success of Apple was a lot of hard work, but a bit of luck as well. Otherwise, more companies and executives would've tried to emulate Apple's i.e. SJ's success. Everyone STILL thinks Apple is heading only one way, and that's down the pooper of historical luck.
This really seems like splitting hairs to me. As far as I know everyone understands he was really just demoted to a do-nothing role and then quit to form NeXT out of a desire to actually be doing something. The characterising it as "firing" him is just shorthand because while they didn't forcibly eject him from the company, they rendered him so superfluous and powerless that it was obvious he would leave whether he had to or not.
In a way he's right, but this is not news. After losing his fight with Apple's board of directors, Jobs was banished to an off-site office location and stripped of power and responsibilities at the company. So technically he did quit, but so would anyone else under the same circumstances.
I think this is the best interpretation of events. I've been an exec at three major corporations and when they send you to Siberia (also known as "on special assignment"), it's cover for "use this office to save face, but go find a new job". Besides, once you're stripped of power and responsibility, you have essentially been fired even if technically, you're still collecting a paycheck. Eventually they tell you they need your office or they take away your assistant or whatever.
In Scully's own book, he says he told the employees
Quote:
"It's also clear that he's not going to have, either now or in the future, an operating role with Apple, "I added. "So Steve has got to decide if there's a role that he will enjoy as chairman, doing the kinds of things that he is getting a taste for right now..."
According to Scully, at a September 12th board meeting, Steve rose and said
Quote:
"I've been thinking a lot and it's time for me to get on with my life. It's obvious that I've got to do something. I'm thirty years old."
and Steve offered to resign as Chairman, but mentioned that he'd be starting the new company to address issues in Education and taking "a few low level people". According to Scully, the Board wanted Jobs to keep a Board position at Apple and they offered to buy 10% of the new company.
On Friday, September 13th, Jobs presented Scully with a list of the people he was taking and Scully maintains they were anything but "low level". When the Board heard of Steve's plans, they felt he was copying something Apple had already planned to do ("Big Mac") and unfairly so since Jobs had inside knowledge. Steve resigned on September 17th and he was sued by Apple on September 24, 1985.
So did Steve resign on his own? Yes. But was he forced out? I'd say for all practical purposes he was. So while Wozniak is technically correct that Steve resigned, when you look at the whole picture, he was forced out (IMO).
Apple I and Apple II have nothing to do with Mac I & II; it's the Apple II which let Apple grow and made Apple enough cash that pursuing a Project like the Lisa and then the inferior, but cheaper Mac were even an option.
Woz WAS THE TEACHER, if anything, Jobs was the student; jobs was a little electronics tinkerer, WOZ designed entire circuit boards and chips.
Even the Mac's floppy controller board/chip were designed by Woz...
Woz understands more of the value of open systems, Jobs understands there's more money to be made holding customers data hostage in a closed system.
Closed iPhones are so "great" you can't get rid of zombie apps without starting from scratch, rearranging hundreds of apps manually again, and loosing years of call history and messages.
In an open system one could nuke some ill behaved files, fix some preference files, etc. and carry on with life.
The idea that a real computing platform like the iPad Pro aspires to be, is fully closed and is based on the idea of "trust us (Apple), but don't verify", and the concept that everything always works as designed, or else the only solution is to set up the entire system from scratch again, that is what I call scary, and it's Jobs' ideas of toaster-like computers taken ad absurdum.
I much rather have Woz more say and have systems that are empowering their users.
So, basically, you want Apple to be Linux, or worse a 1990 to early 2000s Windows (all the configurability of linux without any of the security and stability...) You do know windows and Android are slowly but surely going towards Apple's position don't you?
You are not Apple's target customer, never have been and never will be.
As much as I admire SJ and have stated that many times, I personally believe that SJ wasn't so much a good "business man" as he was an ego-maniacal control freak. If anyone was going to screw up his "baby" it was going to be him... and even then, he just might point his finger at someone else within his immediate circle. Pointing the finger is hard to do if you let every Dick, Joe and Harry fumble around with your ideas and work and still expect them to deliver as your partners. Just ask Bill Gates.
No. I believe a lot of the success of Apple was a lot of hard work, but a bit of luck as well. Otherwise, more companies and executives would've tried to emulate Apple's i.e. SJ's success. Everyone STILL thinks Apple is heading only one way, and that's down the pooper of historical luck.
I slightly disagree. Jobs did have an ego but he wasn't full of himself to know he didn't know everything and when a better idea was presented, he was willing to change.
I think luck is a very very minor part of Apple's success. How many times can a company be lucky? I guess you can say Apple is lucky because its competitors were complacent and not "inventive".
Woz is correct, but the circumstances of Jobs' departure (Jobs resigned, but only after he had been stripped of executive responsibility by the board) are well documented elsewhere. Not sure why Woz needs to chime with a "it's fair to assume."
Jobs says he was "fired" but I've come to interpret that as Jobs thought he was being pushed out. And he was. Sometimes, large companies will not fire executives, but give them no responsibilities and no control, effectively "firing" them in all but name. It was only after Jobs had his responsibilities and power taken away from him that he decided to quit. But he did quit. The HR record from 1985 should show that, if Apple still has it. Remember: Jobs even said he would be taking a few "low level" Apple employees with him and invited Apple to invest in his new company. You don't get to do that when you're "fired."
I think this is the best interpretation of events. I've been an exec at three major corporations and when they send you to Siberia (also known as "on special assignment"), it's cover for "use this office to save face, but go find a new job". Besides, once you're stripped of power and responsibility, you have essentially been fired even if technically, you're still collecting a paycheck. Eventually they tell you they need your office or they take away your assistant or whatever.
In Scully's own book, he says he told the employees
According to Scully, at a September 12th board meeting, Steve rose and said
and Steve offered to resign as Chairman, but mentioned that he'd be starting the new company to address issues in Education and taking "a few low level people". According to Scully, the Board wanted Jobs to keep a Board position at Apple and they offered to buy 10% of the new company.
On Friday, September 13th, Jobs presented Scully with a list of the people he was taking and Scully maintains they were anything but "low level". When the Board heard of Steve's plans, they felt he was copying something Apple had already planned to do ("Big Mac") and unfairly so since Jobs had inside knowledge. Steve resigned on September 17th and he was sued by Apple on September 24, 1985.
So did Steve resign on his own? Yes. But was he forced out? I'd say for all practical purposes he was. So while Wozniak is technically correct that Steve resigned, when you look at the whole picture, he was forced out (IMO).
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As a NeXT and later Apple engineering alum, no one at Apple was thrilled when dozens of the top talent which made Apple possible left to start NeXT. The idea of a partnership dissolved immediately. There would be no offer to invest with NeXT.
This is why Woz never had a company (vs Pixar and Next)- often one resigns vs being fired because of conditions, etc.
The whole thing reminds me of Office Space where they try to push out stapler guy without actually firing him- that's sadly often how companies will do it: Make it so you quit.
I think in one documentary I saw recently they said they had the factories to build 80'000 Macs a month, but sold only 500.
I guess that could be considered a failure. Of course they could have taken their time, but as SJ was constantly fighting and publicly madmouthing the Apple ][ (which paid their bills) they wouldn't have had that time with im in charge.
If i was Steve Jobs business partner i would it accomplish more than that loser..even a monkey could create a computer if he has great teacher, and i'm pretty sure the first real modern computers were Macintosh I and II (the original iMac and Mac Pro)
Not sure how much time you spent with an Apple II. It was a pretty well made machine for its time, given the processor and the state of storage. Woz was responsible for much of the machine's architecture, monitor in ROM, the disk drive system, and wrote the first high-level language for it - Apple Integer BASIC - from scratch. It did some neat things, even ran faster than the Applesoft BASIC they later bought from MS. Lots of things were run on Apple II systems long before - and for a surprising time after - the Mac came along. So much so that there was a Apple II hardware card made for the Mac LC. I ran an external research site that tested it. There was even a design for Mac card to go into Apple IIGS (and iirc the platinum //e models) a wise choice given how many were still out there, but that slot card would have taken a lot more money, time and engineering and never went into production. As for Woz's relative accomplishments, remember, the competitors for the Apple II were machines from entire established companies like IBM - with hundreds of engineers at their disposal. Woz's - and a few others' - core technologies of the Apple II managed to stay in place through the II, II+, IIe, IIc and IIGS. Not quite what a monkey could do.
In a way he's right, but this is not news. After losing his fight with Apple's board of directors, Jobs was banished to an off-site office location and stripped of power and responsibilities at the company. So technically he did quit, but so would anyone else under the same circumstances.
Exactly. Here's your office, your staff of zero and a phone. We can't really fire you but we can make it so you can't do anything.
Comments
Then here's a door to that wonderful world and people that think and work like you do ---> Without Cloud, iPad Pro is an executive's desk paperweight
As much as I admire SJ and have stated that many times, I personally believe that SJ wasn't so much a good "business man" as he was an ego-maniacal control freak. If anyone was going to screw up his "baby" it was going to be him... and even then, he just might point his finger at someone else within his immediate circle. Pointing the finger is hard to do if you let every Dick, Joe and Harry fumble around with your ideas and work and still expect them to deliver as your partners. Just ask Bill Gates.
No. I believe a lot of the success of Apple was a lot of hard work, but a bit of luck as well. Otherwise, more companies and executives would've tried to emulate Apple's i.e. SJ's success. Everyone STILL thinks Apple is heading only one way, and that's down the pooper of historical luck.
This really seems like splitting hairs to me. As far as I know everyone understands he was really just demoted to a do-nothing role and then quit to form NeXT out of a desire to actually be doing something. The characterising it as "firing" him is just shorthand because while they didn't forcibly eject him from the company, they rendered him so superfluous and powerless that it was obvious he would leave whether he had to or not.
I don't care about nit-picky details.
I just wanna see Fassbender Fassbender the shit out of some scenes.
In a way he's right, but this is not news. After losing his fight with Apple's board of directors, Jobs was banished to an off-site office location and stripped of power and responsibilities at the company. So technically he did quit, but so would anyone else under the same circumstances.
I think this is the best interpretation of events. I've been an exec at three major corporations and when they send you to Siberia (also known as "on special assignment"), it's cover for "use this office to save face, but go find a new job". Besides, once you're stripped of power and responsibility, you have essentially been fired even if technically, you're still collecting a paycheck. Eventually they tell you they need your office or they take away your assistant or whatever.
In Scully's own book, he says he told the employees
According to Scully, at a September 12th board meeting, Steve rose and said
and Steve offered to resign as Chairman, but mentioned that he'd be starting the new company to address issues in Education and taking "a few low level people". According to Scully, the Board wanted Jobs to keep a Board position at Apple and they offered to buy 10% of the new company.
On Friday, September 13th, Jobs presented Scully with a list of the people he was taking and Scully maintains they were anything but "low level". When the Board heard of Steve's plans, they felt he was copying something Apple had already planned to do ("Big Mac") and unfairly so since Jobs had inside knowledge. Steve resigned on September 17th and he was sued by Apple on September 24, 1985.
So did Steve resign on his own? Yes. But was he forced out? I'd say for all practical purposes he was. So while Wozniak is technically correct that Steve resigned, when you look at the whole picture, he was forced out (IMO).
Gosh, 12 year olds speaking.
Apple I and Apple II have nothing to do with Mac I & II; it's the Apple II which let Apple grow and made Apple enough cash that pursuing a Project like the Lisa and then the inferior, but cheaper Mac were even an option.
Woz WAS THE TEACHER, if anything, Jobs was the student; jobs was a little electronics tinkerer, WOZ designed entire circuit boards and chips.
Even the Mac's floppy controller board/chip were designed by Woz...
Woz understands more of the value of open systems, Jobs understands there's more money to be made holding customers data hostage in a closed system.
Closed iPhones are so "great" you can't get rid of zombie apps without starting from scratch, rearranging hundreds of apps manually again, and loosing years of call history and messages.
In an open system one could nuke some ill behaved files, fix some preference files, etc. and carry on with life.
The idea that a real computing platform like the iPad Pro aspires to be, is fully closed and is based on the idea of "trust us (Apple), but don't verify", and the concept that everything always works as designed, or else the only solution is to set up the entire system from scratch again, that is what I call scary, and it's Jobs' ideas of toaster-like computers taken ad absurdum.
I much rather have Woz more say and have systems that are empowering their users.
So, basically, you want Apple to be Linux, or worse a 1990 to early 2000s Windows (all the configurability of linux without any of the security and stability...) You do know windows and Android are slowly but surely going towards Apple's position don't you?
You are not Apple's target customer, never have been and never will be.
I slightly disagree. Jobs did have an ego but he wasn't full of himself to know he didn't know everything and when a better idea was presented, he was willing to change.
I think luck is a very very minor part of Apple's success. How many times can a company be lucky? I guess you can say Apple is lucky because its competitors were complacent and not "inventive".
Woz is correct, but the circumstances of Jobs' departure (Jobs resigned, but only after he had been stripped of executive responsibility by the board) are well documented elsewhere. Not sure why Woz needs to chime with a "it's fair to assume."
Jobs says he was "fired" but I've come to interpret that as Jobs thought he was being pushed out. And he was. Sometimes, large companies will not fire executives, but give them no responsibilities and no control, effectively "firing" them in all but name. It was only after Jobs had his responsibilities and power taken away from him that he decided to quit. But he did quit. The HR record from 1985 should show that, if Apple still has it. Remember: Jobs even said he would be taking a few "low level" Apple employees with him and invited Apple to invest in his new company. You don't get to do that when you're "fired."
As a NeXT and later Apple engineering alum, no one at Apple was thrilled when dozens of the top talent which made Apple possible left to start NeXT. The idea of a partnership dissolved immediately. There would be no offer to invest with NeXT.
Or Mac OS X.
What does his salary cover?
Lunch
The whole thing reminds me of Office Space where they try to push out stapler guy without actually firing him- that's sadly often how companies will do it: Make it so you quit.
I think in one documentary I saw recently they said they had the factories to build 80'000 Macs a month, but sold only 500.
I guess that could be considered a failure. Of course they could have taken their time, but as SJ was constantly fighting and publicly madmouthing the Apple ][ (which paid their bills) they wouldn't have had that time with im in charge.
If i was Steve Jobs business partner i would it accomplish more than that loser..even a monkey could create a computer if he has great teacher, and i'm pretty sure the first real modern computers were Macintosh I and II (the original iMac and Mac Pro)
Not sure how much time you spent with an Apple II. It was a pretty well made machine for its time, given the processor and the state of storage. Woz was responsible for much of the machine's architecture, monitor in ROM, the disk drive system, and wrote the first high-level language for it - Apple Integer BASIC - from scratch. It did some neat things, even ran faster than the Applesoft BASIC they later bought from MS. Lots of things were run on Apple II systems long before - and for a surprising time after - the Mac came along. So much so that there was a Apple II hardware card made for the Mac LC. I ran an external research site that tested it. There was even a design for Mac card to go into Apple IIGS (and iirc the platinum //e models) a wise choice given how many were still out there, but that slot card would have taken a lot more money, time and engineering and never went into production. As for Woz's relative accomplishments, remember, the competitors for the Apple II were machines from entire established companies like IBM - with hundreds of engineers at their disposal. Woz's - and a few others' - core technologies of the Apple II managed to stay in place through the II, II+, IIe, IIc and IIGS. Not quite what a monkey could do.
Exactly. Here's your office, your staff of zero and a phone. We can't really fire you but we can make it so you can't do anything.
Same thing.
Yeah, I love what Woz did for Apple, but add my voice to the chorus that doesn't believe a word he says these days. Anything to raise his own flag.