Steve Jobs RIP

So, Steve jobs died today.  I was at a concert and the opening act mentioned it - something about Steve Jobs being the only reason he had been able to do the things he did.  At first I thought it was a poorly thought out joke, I turned to my buddy that I was with, and he said: "Is that true?  Cause if so I would expect that my phone (iPhone) would be blowing up..."

I googled it.

It was true.

Let me say here that when a guy dies in the prime of his life (professional life in this case) it's unnerving.  Jobs was a guy who changed the tech industry.  He fostered the release of products that literally changed the way we communicate.  A friend, and coworker, of mine has on her email signature from her phone "iphoned".  Super cute and gets down to the fact that the iPhone (among Apple's many other innovations) was a game changer, and in this case a verb unto itself.  So I think anyone would be remiss in not recognizing that Steve Jobs was a cultural icon that will be sorely missed by investment bankers and hipsters alike.  Kudos to him.

What I take issue with in the story - and you know I need to take issue with something - is that throughout my twitter feed I saw comparisons of Jobs and Edison....ya, the Edison who invented the lightbulb.  Now, as I have said above, Jobs was a giant of a CEO in the tech industry and was likely a driving force behind the smartphone revolution.  But, what we miss from this, and are misled into thinking by comments comparing him to Edison is that he didn't INVENT these innovations, just helped them through the corporate red tape to bring them to the market.

Are we so blinded by business success that we confuse CEOs with inventors?  There are very few CEOs who have invented something of use in modern society.  The people who invent new products and create groundbreaking innovations are frequently engineers and scientists who are grossly underpaid and under appreciated.  Businesses help to provide the funding and bring visionaries together to create new products, subsequently they own the rights to the patents for those products, but PLEASE, let's not forget, the Steve's Jobs of the world (or Eric Schmit's) don't create innovative products, they work with people who do.

Something to keep in mind while setting up your shrine to Jobs this week.

Notes on a scandal

Just surfing the tech press and am really put off by the news that both apple and google are storing or locational info.  I mean, as an ad guy I get the desire for more consumer data, you can never get enough.  It's every marketers dream to know exactly what your consumers want so you can sell it to them where they want it, when they want it.  But I always wonder if steve jobs and guy kawasaki get versions of the hardware without these privacy invading add ons.  Because let's face it for all the info I want on the consumers I am targeting, I don't want the marketers targeting me to get my info.

I read that an apple customer actually wrote jobs an electronic mail asking jobs to explain the software and mentioning that he would really hate to have to change to android because they don't "track my location" (which we know now to be untrue).  Jobs' only response: "yes they do".  Cool, great info steve, but what's your reason?

I wonder when exactly, or how a guy like jobs decides to completely sell his soul to corporate success.  Gates, totally get, and now he is atoning by trying to cure diseases and feed the hungry...but jobs seemed like he was the nice guy who you would want to have a beer with.  But while having that beer I never wanted steve's shareholders to know exactly where we were tipping those pints...