Apparently, the biography states that Jobs was a skeptic of religion, but wanted to believe in an afterlife, and also that the reason he postponed surgery was because he was busy trying alternative medicine treatments, which is really tragic…

Jobs impregnated his girlfriend and abandoned both the mother and the baby at exactly the same age as his father who did the same to him and his mother? See, Occam? I told you I won the nurture/nature debate! 

Touché 

When you’re right, you’re right, George. 

I didn’t bother posting in this thread of admiration because I never liked Jobs.  Wozniak was the one who really developed the Apple structure while they were both in the Palo Alto computer club.  Jobs was the entrepeneur.  In addition, most of the fancy developments he got credit for were really developed mostly by his employees, but this bit of information fits right in with my impression of his basic personality. 

Occam

Occam. - 28 October 2011 12:18 AM

I didn’t bother posting in this thread of admiration because I never liked Jobs.  Wozniak was the one who really developed the Apple structure while they were both in the Palo Alto computer club.  Jobs was the entrepeneur.  In addition, most of the fancy developments he got credit for were really developed mostly by his employees, but this bit of information fits right in with my impression of his basic personality. 

Well sure, everyone agrees who was the engineer, and we’ve discussed that Jobs didn’t and couldn’t have done any of this alone. But Woz (and every other Apple employee who I’ve ever seen interviewed on the subject) says that without Jobs there never would have been an Apple; Woz had no marketing or business sense, and no vision about where the computer would go. That was Jobs. If anything he was often too much of a control freak; he wasn’t a hands-off manager.

E.g. HERE:

When it came to Apple’s products, “while everyone else was fumbling around trying to find the formula, he had the better instincts,” he said.

According to Wozniak, Jobs told him around the time he left Apple in 1985 that he had a feeling he would die before the age of 40. Because of that, “a lot of his life was focused on trying to get things done quickly,” Wozniak said.

“I think what made Apple products special was very much one person, but he left a legacy,” he said.

Occam. - 28 October 2011 12:18 AM

I didn’t bother posting in this thread of admiration because I never liked Jobs.  Wozniak was the one who really developed the Apple structure while they were both in the Palo Alto computer club.  Jobs was the entrepeneur.  In addition, most of the fancy developments he got credit for were really developed mostly by his employees, but this bit of information fits right in with my impression of his basic personality. 

Occam

so, i take it, you weren’t impressed with my early comment about the signed Macintosh cover being like a proto-religious icon ?

although, it was thirty creator signatures  

As I said, I wasn’t interested in posting in this thread.  The only reason I did was because I enjoyed George’s post.

Occam

The Newshour interview Jobs’ biographer, Walter Isaacson.  He says good things and bad about Jobs, but is in favor of him overall.  PBS Newshour: Steve Jobs Biography Examines How Rule-Breaker Tied ‘Artistry to Engineering’

I’m sure he did some artistry.  I doubt that he did engineering for Apple.  I’ve looked at dozens of patents that mention his name now, in the ones where he gets the credit they were for an ornamental claim.  Though I saw one of his describing a user interface, that would be engineering, but that interface didn’t look familiar to me, I wonder if it was ever produced?

“... he creates an insanely great machine, as he calls it, the Macintosh.”  Insanely great, huh?

“Likewise, Pixar, it’s computers were a little bit overdeveloped, the rendering computers that make 3-D graphics, but there was a guy there who was making beautiful animated shorts to show how the machines worked. Steve loved that artistry, and eventually Pixar becomes an animated digital movie company.”  Which guy was making beautiful animated shorts that Jobs loved?

“At least he’s creating products that combined art and technology to make something that we really want and are useful. And having 1,000 songs in your pocket, that’s not the worst thing in the world, you know? It’s kind of nice.”  That I am convinced that Jobs did. 

“Yes, the arc of the narrative of the book is a guy who can be pretty rough and mean on people, but, by the end, by the end of his career, he has proven that they can do the impossible, and he has gathered probably the most loyal team of eight players of any business in America.”  Mean on people, the plot thickens.  I wonder if the Mac fans like a mean rule breaker?  Personally, I have sympathy for workers who suffer under a mean boss.