The True Genius of Steve Jobs

Today's topic has nothing to do with religion - unless you see the popularity of Apple, Inc. as being somewhat akin to a religion.

Which for some, of course, it is.

One of the biggest disappointments - regarding Apple - of the decade, was the death of Steve Jobs.  Millions of us were dismayed that such a genius could be so stupid as to fail to use his significant fortune to get the best medical care possible, and instead allow quack science to delay that treatment to the point that a very treatable cancer could kill him.  Goes to show that genius has its limitations.

Since then, Apple, Inc. has been watched closely by both detractors and investors with one question in mind. Could Apple repeat its success after the death of its genius founder?  Steve Jobs was seen as the architect of that success - the man whose vision informed and pushed for the creation of some truly world changing devices - devices that have reworked our world into patterns that were comic book sci-fi just decades ago.

Now, lots of words - billions, probably, have been written about this, many of them by people smarter or more educated than I in business and psychology.  I am not under the mistaken impression that I am unique or smarter than any of these folks.  But I have been watching Apple for over twenty years, and I've got some observations about that company that many have not noticed.

So I wonder sometimes.  Most of the articles I have read about Jobs focus on his product genius.  The creation of the products Apple has released and his part in that creation.  How he pushed people to and beyond their limits in making things they never could have imagined they'd produce otherwise.  Products that have been attributed to that genius.

Then, this morning, I read a VERY short article in which the author had been asked one question:  What was the most surprising thing about 2014 to you?

His answer:  Apple has survived, and even thrived, after Jobs' death.

I'm sorry, but my response?

Moron.

I've never seen such a stupid, uninformed, pitiful excuse for an answer - EVER.

So, you ask me, what WAS Jobs' true genius, genius?

It wasn't in making insanely great products, although he was pretty darn good at it.

His real genius was in building the company he built.  He built a company that has survived his death and in fact, is STILL turing out insanely great products.  Without his guidance, apparently.

I say "apparently", because that guidance is really still there.  His genius was in institutionalizing that vision.  Building teams of people and infusing in those teams the vision of how to make insanely great products.

Thats why they made such great products when he was alive - HE didn't make them, his company did - because he infused his vision and his methods into the teams and the people who made them work.  It is the people - the employees - of Apple, who made the products - who designed them, tested them, redesigned them, retested them until they met the insanely tight and high standards Steve helped them set for themselves and their output.

That company - those teams - are Apple, Inc.  As long as management at Apple continues to follow that vision and maintains the institutionalized vision Steve Jobs gave them, they will continue to make insanely great products.  At least until economic or cultural conditions change that challenge Apple's management to alter that vision in order to keep up.

Then we'll see if that vision stands up.  If Apple's management at the time is flexible enough to see whatever handwriting is on the wall at the time.

But for now, continue looking to Apple, Inc. to continue to make insanely great products - it is what Steve Jobs built that company to do.

Thanks, Steve.

Saints preserve me, I think I'm beginning to agree with the Pope!

In a recent blog post, "Popes come, Popes go", I cautioned against believing too much in the newly minted Pope's statements about how the church should pay more attention to how it cares for the poor, noting that I believe he is trying very hard to bring the flock back into the fold, so to speak.

I still stand by that post.  No matter how much sense this new guy makes in his public statements, he is still the head of the oldest and most conservative bureaucracy in the world.  He is still the monarch of one of the oldest surviving monarchies, and most definitely the only one with anywhere near absolute authority.  At least in theory.

But dang it, his statements sound so good!

The cyberwife and I were talking today about some of the recent posts we've seen on Facebook about right wing political statements we've seen, discriminatory laws we've seen getting either passed or proposed, the terrible time many people are having just staying above water on the bills, and juxtaposing all that with our own circumstances and my eventual retirement in a few years.

We are very lucky.  Lucky to be born white.  Lucky to be born in First World countries where we were able to get good educations, and have been able to help our children get well on their way to being productive adults as lucky as us.  Fortunate to have an income better than most Americans (though not wealthy, and burdened with more debt than we should).

And as a Fed, destined to have a decent retirement after over 40 years in service.  (So, don't think I didn't EARN it!)

But darn it, so damn many people who have worked just as hard as I, or harder, don't have either a decent income or are unable to look forward to any retirement, much less a good one.  Or even a half-assed one, for that matter.

We live in a house that we bought a couple of decades ago when we had three teenagers, and really needed the space.  Now, with them gone, we rattle around this house like two quarters in a can.  The technology we use to heat and cool this space ensures that we must heat/cool the entire space, regardless of how much we use.

That's not all.

In looking at our entire livelihood and lifestyle, it is plain that living in this capitalist country, in order to protect ourselves, provide for our own welfare and look out for our future, we must live in a way that is, essentially, selfish.

We live in a house that is too big.
We use too much energy to heat/cool it.
We tend to buy/consume too much food.
We use a transportation system that costs too much and uses too much fuel.

In order to protect our lifestyle, we cannot bring in strangers in frigid weather who need a warm place to sleep, because that would place our lives in danger.  The amount of money we can afford to donate to causes that help such people is, really, not nearly enough.

Why?  Because as the Pope says, we live in a country under a capitalistic system that cares only for the almighty dollar.  People do not count.  Wasted resources do not count.  There is no effective way to force this system to change in time to keep more people from dying in poverty.

We are, in short, trapped.  Like most Americans.  Trapped in a system that doesn't care about us, doesn't care about the poor or the unfortunate, or the sick or the mentally ill.  A system where only money talks.

It forces me to live in guilt, feeling that I am using too much energy and other resources (which I am), but also knowing that if I don't, I run the chance of losing all that and ending up in poverty.

And I hate that.  I want to live in a society that cares for the less fortunate.  One that provides good, solid and low cost health care for all its citizens.  One that provides a good roof overhead and three squares a day for everybody.   Someplace that will pick me up if I stumble, and gives me a way to pick up my neighbor if he/she stumbles instead without jeopardizing my livelihood or my safety.

One that doesn't tell people who need help that they don't deserve it.  A society which allows people their personal freedom to determine their own future, without coercion, without shaming, without making them feel like second class citizens.

Is that too much to ask?  Is it?

Guns or Butter?

I've heard these arguments for decades.  I had a college professor who was so virulently anti-war and anti-military that he actually lowered my grade when I argued the point with him.  His argument was that money spent on the military was wasted and useless to society.

My point to him is the same I will make to you and the same I made to a virulently right winger at the dog park the other day.

Military spending (including the WWII spending the dog park guy was talking about) DOES help the economy.  The money gets spent right here in the USA (as Federal law makes it mandatory for contracts to be let to US companies wherever possible), the employees who develop, design and build those things for the military work right here and spend their paychecks here too.  The companies spend a fair amount of that money on goods and services obtained here (absent the specialized elements not available here, such as specialized metals and other things mined elsewhere) and even that contributes to American jobs which ship them from US ports to the manufacturing sites here in the US.  Every penny the US government (or other levels too) spend in the US, they use to pay US companies for good and services used to further the government's mission.  These dollars contribute directly to the US economy in myriads of ways and are scattered scrupulously across the US to invite the votes of as many US Congresspersons as possible!

Which is why my friend George, in an email about this today, noted that even military spending shouldn't be reduced too much yet.  The economy is too fragile.  Krugman has said it time and time again, and he is right, you spend your way out of a recession, and Europe's experience proves it.  When the government is the only entity with money to spend, and it stops, the economy grinds to a halt.

It has been a popular meme that WWII didn't get us out of the Great Depression, which this high school "historian" tried to tell me the other day, and refused to see this point.  We did NOT see the depression end until we began our buildup, beginning with the lend-lease programs which began to put people back to work as we sent goods to Britain.  He tried to tell me that none of that helped because all that stuff we built went overseas.  Bullshit, because the money we spent to build it had been spent already - right here in the US of A.  What the US government does with those goods makes no difference to the economy - in fact the point he made that those things kept getting blown up just proves my point that the destruction simply drove up demand, which just made us buy more stuff!   As we shipped more stuff, that made us pay more US companies to ship it overseas (we had a real merchant marine then) - at exorbitant rates as companies had to cover war losses.

That is why wars always lift us out of depressions - we spend our way out.

The difference here is that today we need to spend on civilian stuff - infrastructure that badly needs to be rebuilt and repaired, putting construction workers back to work and also sending money to the States, putting teachers, cops and firefighters back to work, too as well as other State workers who, for instance, maintain those roads or keep them open in winter. (or city workers who do the same things)  The Feds used to send a lot of money Stateward - we need to get back to doing that so they will begin hiring people back they fired in the last four years - many of them to further the Republican dream of not re-electing Obama.

This whole concept is well known in economic circles and is called the guns vs. butter controversy.  Which are better for the economy, guns or butter?  The main thing that was concluded by my Economics 102 teacher (macroeconomics) was that it depends on your goals - defense or civilian uses?  Do you need to defend yourself?  Or do you need to care for an aging and sick population?  The money is spend right here in either case, the circles of wider spending as the primary contractors buy goods and services to fulfill those contracts get wider and wider and fall to companies whose business isn't strictly military or governmental - and of course the employees spend all of their salaries on civilian goods, just like the rest of us do.   Hence the spending benefits us all in the end, no matter the primary contract's purpose.  (not counting, of course, the profits that remain in the pockets of the rich and don't get spent at all)

Detractors of the military often speak as if the money so spent disappears down a black hole and is ever seen again.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Every dollar of it is spent in the civilian economy.

The primary thing to truly argue over is to what purpose should our money be spent?  That depends on the circumstances of the day and what is needed more at that particular time - guns or butter?