Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine hits theaters, iTunes, Amazon Instant Video, and on demand systems today, and it’s already provoking a wide range of reviews and discussion. In March, our own Bryan Bishop called it an “unflinching look at the emotional shrapnel people took when they were part of Jobs’ life,” and that focus sets it apart from the growing body of work that celebrates Jobs’ accomplishments in business and technology while glossing over the depth of his character.
I spoke with Gibney earlier this week about the movie, what he’d learned while making it, and the future of Apple.
I’ve seen it. “Steve Jobs: The Man In The Machine” is amazing. What a beautiful testament to a brilliant, but flawed man. This documentary is anything but anti-Apple (as some claim). By painting this complete a picture of Jobs, it’s as pro-Apple as it could possibly get – and it’s glorious for it. When it hits upon Apple’s best days – the original iMac, iBook, PowerMac G4, the Cube, the iMac G4 – I nearly lost it. That is the Apple I still love.
I’ve never felt I understood him and Apple as much as I do now.
I don’t think you’d get this kind of reaction from even the most ardent Linus, Theo, or RMS supporter.
Well maybe because there aren’t hollywood movies about Linus, Theo or RMS lives. xD
It would be pretty cool though, especially in the case of RMS, I think he’s a real genius with pretty radical followers almost as influential as Steve Jobs (they are opposite kind of leaders for sure but they were equally effective changing the world).
Nobody would walk out of a Theo movie, simply because nobody would show up.
Theo who?
Exactly
But yeah, Theo de Raadt
From RMS fans I would expect a way stronger reaction, like camping in front of the theatre, with banners, T-shirts and such. And do this even if the movie is perfectly accurate but released under a “wrong” license.
A classic “I know you are, but what am I” deflection
If we were honest with ourselves, we’d look at their fans before Jobs’ death and there’s no evidence RMS fans treated RMS anywhere close to how Jobs fans treats Jobs.
i don’t know about you, but i have a few acquaintances who are RMS fans and they would definitely picket a movie they don’t agree with. when a local TV channel broadcasted an interview with RMS and never released whatever sources they wanted, they went to picket that TV channel
Anyone can claim anything on the internet these days.
RMS fans wouldn’t see the movie, because the firmware running on the projector isn’t built as free software.
In 100 years Jobs will probably be considered a B grade version of Ford or Edison. Bill Gates on the other hand will probably be remembered as a great philanthropist.
In most people’s minds, Ford is famous for creating the assembly line and the car, Edison for harnessing electricity and creating the light bulb and the phonograph. Their accomplishments are taught in grade school and virtually everyone knows who they are.
There is evidence that Ford was an Anti-Semite and an awful manager, Edison has his famous war with Tesla and did plenty of awful things… Point being they were both seriously flawed if you look at the details. Thing is history tends to ignore the details in favor of the narrative… If history decides that the Job’s story should be positive it will be, and the details that don’t fit the narrative will be glossed over.
On the other hand you have Andrew Carnegie, probably the single wealthiest man to ever live, and who by far contributed far more to society in the form of money than anyone else in history. But he wasn’t an inventor or a technologist – he just bought technology from others and used economy of scale to make cheap steel. Everyone has heard of Carnegie Hall and Carnegie Melon University, but most people don’t know why they have those names…
Point being in US culture (at least as it is now), people are far more likely to be remembered by the masses for creating new industries or new technologies than for philanthropy. Bill Gates might even end up being a bigger philanthropist than Carnegie was – but if his name is ever taught in schools it will be for being Steve Job’s foil (sadly).
History has a tendency to gloss over the details in favor of the narrative. Steve Jobs has over time, like it or not, cultured a really a good narrative. Bill Gates? Not so much.
ps. I’m not saying I agree with how history will view these men, I’m just saying you are seriously misjudging how history tends to warp things over time in favor of telling a good story.
While Jobs may be a very iconic person in the USA, Gates is way more notorious on a global level. Jobs is “that dead American guy about they talk a lot on TV”.
An Emotional Tribute to Steve Jobs at Ginza Apple Store in Tokyo Japan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmIHOcR97WI
Steve Jobs Memorial Statue Unveiled In Budapest
http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/21/steve-jobs-memorial-statue-unveile…
Jobs mourned in China
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/language/wordsint…
Russia’s “Apple Generation” Mourns Steve Jobs
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/russias-quotapple-genera…
Europe mourns Steve Jobs
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/europa/europe…
I could go on for days… What planet do you live on? Do you really think if Bill Gates died tomorrow that you would see anything even remotely like that?
Of course not, most will probably go “that rich bastard died!”, but they at least they know who Gates was/is. Understand that those mourning Jobs are a tiny minority, a lot of people learned his name only after being bombarded with news items about his death.
Edison did not invent the light bulb
Edited 2015-09-06 14:16 UTC
I know that. Except if you ask 100 random people who invented the light bulb the answer you will get is Edison…
That is my point.
Correct; Edison did, however, perfect the light bulb so that was actually usable. Prior to that, a light bulb only lasted 3 minutes.
That said, my favorite Edison story was how he destroyed a railway box car at age 12 while playing with a chemistry set he was given.
Thanks for introducing the man behind this name to me. A very interesting read, but the Wiki is making me question the inflation numbers in the US:
<quote> which he sold to J.P. Morgan in 1901 for $480 million[2] (in 2011, $309 billion) </quote>
<quote> on August 11, 1919<snip /><He had already given away $350,695,653 (approximately $4.75 billion, adjusted to 2015 figures) </quote>
So in total he gave away roughly 5 billion adjusted to 2015 figures, which is incredible and will hopefully be followed not only by Bill Gates but by many more billionaires of the last 2 decades
They are really talking about parity purchasing power not inflation. eg A mansion that may have cost $100,000 in 1880 may be cost $100 million now.
Please …
Steve Jobs was a great man, but let’s not get carried away here.
Same goes for Bill Gates.
I’m sure they will be remembered in a computer history museum/class, but that’s about it.
Same with Henry Ford, he’s only remembered in car museums right? Under Ford the car when from Luxury to commodity. Jobs was a the forefront of the same movement but for computer usability. Something that will touch as many people, if not more, than cars have.
Jef Raskin was the reason the Mac is usable.
Edited 2015-09-06 16:15 UTC
Not really. Raskin wanted a completely different machine initially.
Steve Jobs told people what to do.
He never executed anything himself.
Ford brought automobiles to the masses and pretty much invented the way cars are built today.
Edison invented the frickin light bulb!
And you’re comparing Sjobs to them?
Give me a break yeah …
Edison did not invent the lightbulb. See how history is flawed? You learned something that isn’t true. Edison did the same thing Jobs did: take something existing, make it better, market it like crazy with your name stamped on it.
He did invent the modern light bulb.
The other electrical light sources at the time were either open air filament type things or very short lived bulbs.
Jobs didn’t do for humankind what Edison did. I think you need a little perspective here.
People were using oil lamps and candles before Edison came along.
Edison lit up the world.
Whether you want to admit it or not, Jobs’ contribution pales in comparison to Edison.
It’s just what it is.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Swan
Wow – so, no Edison didn’t invent the light bulb – moreover, he “stole” the design from Swan. Amazing to think how many could see this echo Apple and Jobs.
The vast majority of people who we consider significant today ( both the good guys and the bad guys ) ‘told people what to do’.
Only the most outstanding ‘thinkers’ and inventors are memorable.
Jobs name is synonymous with Apple – it is the company he founded and the company he took from near bancrupcy to being the most valuable company in the world – and so while Apple thrives so will his name live on in popular culture.
I think Microsoft is more responsible to bring the computers to the masses than Apple.
Since Apple did not invent the desktop metaphor for their OS GUI, we cannot say they improved the usability of computers.
Apple stuff is not a commodity at all.
Edited 2015-09-06 17:25 UTC
Apple might not have changed the computer scene as much as Microsoft did, but they did bring us the mp3 player and the smartphone. Yes they existed prior and alongside Apple’s version of them, Apple didn’t invent them. Some technogeek will even point at products that were technically superior. But the truth is the Apple products were easier to use, better built, and they changed the market radically for the better.
A very good analogy
Much like the Passenger Jet Aircraft.
The Boeing 707 wasn’t the first one. That title belongs to the DH Comet.
But it was the first to enter service after the Comet disasters and the understanding of Metal Fatigue.
Ha-ha
Rounded corners vs Square Windows 1950’s style.
for those who don’t know, the comet 1 has large windows with square corners. These corners presented a larget stress point on the fuselage. Now aircraft that are pressurised have rounded windows for passengers to look out of.
The next gen of aircraft might not even have those. Instead a TV screen on the inside will show the outside view. This would make the fuselarge lighter and stronger.
Deja-vu?
“Computer for the masses, not the classes” was the motto of Jack Tramiel, not of Steve Jobs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Tramiel
Ford made many novel changes including:
– high wages for factory workers
– employing disabled workers on full wages
– providing free English tuition to employees
– a five day working week
– the first independent vehicle dealerships
– staff discounts for vehicle purchases
– selling cars on instalment plans
Edited 2015-09-10 06:38 UTC
What worries me a lot is that the men with the idea get all the glory but the men that IMPLEMENT the idea get almost nothing.
Dennis Ritchie, creator of C, is by far less recognized than Steve Jobs, though his work is not only running the software/hardware of a company, but of almost all the core software in the world.
Ken Thompson is not mentioned never ever, though he implemented the first Unix.
As someone mentioned above, Theo de Raadt, Linus Torvalds, RMS, Bjarne Stroustrup, James Gosling, Guido van Rossum, Anders Heljsberg, etc. are just known by the people that work with their stuff; although they gave by far more to the world that a bunch of mobile phones and colorful computers.
That is not fair, and that is not cool.
Edited 2015-09-06 16:40 UTC
The earlier you learn life isn’t fair the better you will be at it
I completely agree with you. I’m just saying you are failing to see why people like Ford, Edison, Jobs, Gates, etc. end up with all the glory. Its not because of how they did changed the world. Its not because of the gravity of their contribution. Its because they amassed fortunes. They are capitalist success stories in a capitalist country – they made it.
It is an American thing. We revere and idolize the people who made it, not the people whose backs were climbed in the process. Yes, its not fair, and its not cool, but it is what it is…
ps. Linus might manage to buck the trend on the sheer strength of personality. We like characters too.
I don’t know much about his financial status, but he’s definitely got the rags part down pretty well.
“Dennis Ritchie, creator of C, is by far less recognized than Steve Jobs, though his work is not only running the software/hardware of a company, but of almost all the core software in the world. ”
And he should be shot for releasing that crap on the world.
Why do you call “crap” to C?
Could you please elaborate technically your assert instead of emitting adjectives?
C syntactically is crap! It promotes bugs. Pointers, switch, if {}, to name only a few, all promote the inadvertent insertion of erroneous code.
Almost as much time is spent finding/fixing language facilitated bugs as spent finding logic bugs.
It is truly a nightmare that we are still using it as much as we are and that we we have descendant languages that propogate the same crap.
I take it your not a systems programmer, or a games, performance/memory critical app programmer.
C is obviously not for everyone, its a systems language, and if you want to be a systems engineer then you’d better learn about hardware, and you get close to the metal with C.
I write compilers, and real time physics engines, so I use C (well a bit of C++ where appropriate).
If I had a company where I’d want to hire a whole bunch of cheap programmers to write a web page or something, you bet I’d use something that’s meant to be idiot proof like Java, which I’d say is about the safest Lang out there.
I have no respect for Bill Gates (Foundation) philanthropic activities because the foundation uses the same business practices as Microsoft did when he was in charge.
Unethical business practices are not OK for businesses even less for a philanthropic organization.
I realize this is a troll, but OK.
Exactly how much philanthropy would Bill Gates have to perform to pay for his sin for forcing most of the world to use Windows, how much philanthropy can pay for all the underhanded, unethical and likely legal tactics of preventing PC OEMs from installing any operating system other than Windows, this creating the Windows hegemony.
Windows didn’t win because of any technical merit, in fact it it by far the most technically inferior operating system of the 1990’s, it was Bill Gates marketing machine that foisted Windows on the world by systematically destroying every rival operating system and thus denying any choice to the world’s PC users.
I’m guessing your fairly young. Those of use who were there at the time thought Windows was pretty special.
The Mac was actually considered to be little more than a toy and sold very poorly when first released. It only became popular when it was combined with Aldus Pagemaker and laser printers for desktop publishing that it became successful.
Not really… Windows 3.1 was the first I used regularly and it was flakey and crashed a lot due to the co-operative multitasking it used. Windows 95 was a lot better, but it wasn’t till about 1998/1999 when I was using Windows NT 4 that it started to seem “special”. Doing the same task on 95/98, it was so easy to make a BSOD, where as NT with its superior multitasking and proper Task Manager meant that the system rarely locked up and had to be hard reset.
Really???
My first computer was an Atari 800XL, and my first programming language was MOS 6502 assembler.
I very very fondly remember a time when there was a huge range of choice for people when buying a computer. Back then, you could buy an Atari, Commodore, Amiga, Apple, PC and a range of others. On the pro side, you had a huge range of workstation vendors and some beautiful machines from SGI, Sun, HP, etc…
And even on the PC, you had a choice of OS/2 or DOS/Windows.
Thats what I liked, actual choice!
Then along comes Bill G, and the Microsoft marketing machine. They strong-arm all the PC to forbid them to install anything other than Windows. This one single tactic likely caused the rise of the Windows empire and snuffed out virtually every other OS / system vendor.
I really don’t know how Apple managed to survive Microsoft to this day.
But I remember when my friends were using Windows, and I though what a freaking joke back when I had an Amiga 1000. People actually payed money for a PC???
Thats because by that time, when you walked into a CompUSA or some other place like that, because of Microsoft’s deals with all the OEMs, every single one came with Windows.
Oh, and by the way, I really don’t care at all for the latest bunch of Apple products, I don’t care for their everything is glued together like some sort if iDevice crap, I’m immensely disappointed in the direction Apple is going. I have not bought a new computer in about 5 years, I’m typing this on an older MacBook Pro, as I just can’t see spending $2000 on a disposable piece of hardware like the new Apple products.
Edited 2015-09-07 15:29 UTC
The point is that most people used a PC at work. They found it much easier to use the same OS at home.
That’s what the Microsoft marketing machine managed to convince the world.
It’s interesting that with these new devices that don’t fit the PC paradigm, that people actually have a choice, people have a choice of Android, iOS, Windows, etc…
That was part of Microsoft’s very successful strategy — convince the world that anything “different” is “scary”, “different”, and OMG, OMG, OMG, “incompatible”. Interesting that people didn’t buy the “different is scary” when in came to phones and tablets.
The FACT is that there was NO alternative to the PC for most users. Most business and technical software required 100% PC compatible hardware and Windows/MS-DOS. A lot of hardware (printers/scanners/dongles etc) were PC only.
There is one simple difference between Steve Jobs and Bill Gates:
Steve Jobs created a product people wanted to buy.
Bill Gates create a product people were forced to buy.
Edited 2015-09-06 23:01 UTC
Trolling much? There are countless people that want to buy a Windows PC. Nobody forced me to use Windows as my primary OS for 20 years. I’m not even a fan of Windows when compared to many other people.
That’s because they walk into a BestBuy, and essentially, their only choice is a Windows computer.
I just so wish that instead of creating 5,000,000 different Linux “distros”, developers would actually get together and make one single distro that is a viable alternative to Windows for the average person. One that is sold at BestBuy, already installed on hardware, and had a complete, fully consistent suite of libraries, apps, configuration utils and so forth.
Note, I spend about 50% of my time on OS X, and the other 50% on RedHat Enterprise Linux, and I’ve been Unix user since 1993, and Linux since 1998 (slack ware back then). And I can say, there is no single distro that I think is a viable solution for the average person who wants to buy a machine, have a full, high-quality consistent office suite, a quality collection of apps like Adobe CS, install and play some games and so forth.
Linux is fine for me, as I spend most of my time in Emacs, writing compilers, but I just don’t think its anywhere near ready for the above mentioned average user.
Edited 2015-09-07 15:42 UTC
I believe it’s people like Elon Musk that count.
All over-styled badly engineered pieces of shit.
Worse than the iMac G3? That’s the Mac I hate almost as much as the Cube.
The Powermac G4 was a good machine, wasn’t it? I never owned one.
They got worse as they progressed in terms of noise output and reliability. But they were pretty machines in a sea of beige boxes and easy to crack open and work on.
I’ll give you $1,000 if you can tangibly demonstrate why the color of the machine actually matters. Do beige boxes perform worse than other computers?
Especially since my favorite Mac is the beige G3.
No more than beige cars perform any worse than red, silver or black cars, yet those regularly outsell beige despite not delivering any ‘tangible’ improvements in performance. Well, fancy that!
Can you not do any better than this tired strawman?
The only thing you demonstrated with your post is that the color of a car doesn’t matter either.
Go to Best Buy today and find a beige computer. Having trouble? Why?
Because people care about color, and have decided almost universally that they prefer almost anything else to beige.
All Apple did was recognize that beige is an unpopular color, that the market was almost entirely comprised of this color, and that bucking the trend violently (by going full on dayglo) would produce sales.
It did. They sold tons of the tacky things, almost purely on the basis of finally being something besides beige. Now? Everyone else recognized it too, they just went with more conservative replacements (black, silver, white). No one makes beige computers anymore – they don’t sell.
I would argue that the fact Apple actually managed to sell pretty shitty neon colored plastic all-in-ones is in itself extremely strong tangible evidence that color matters…
LOL.
But WHY does color matter? Esp. for something that usually sits on the floor, out of sight. That was the whole point of my post.
Marketing and aesthetics is the only reason. That’s the point.
That was the difference, people with mac:s didn´t put them on the floor, they put them on their desktop to be seen.
For people buying the iMac, it was one piece with your display.
The cube was all about estethics, to be visible on the desktop.
WHY do you think they came in many colours and emphasis on design?!
Because people don’t want to use machines that looks intimidating. Gray boxes does that: look intimidating.
What the iMac did was giving people a computer that looked playful. Even the useless handle on top was made with that in mind. If a computer looks like it’s as simple as a DVD player people will try it out. If it looks intimidating, people are gonna assume they won’t understand how to use it. Or worse, assume they will break something.
Then it no longer matters that Win98 was about as user friendly as MacOS 8. Only in the case of the iMac people would understand that MacOS is user friendly by actually trying it out.
That the iMac looks ugly today is irrelevant as companies realised this point and started to make their own computer cases less gray and less boxy. It’s proof that Steve Jobs understood what people wanted before anyone else did. Today, no one wants to go back to the gray box era, even if we don’t want the original iMac design either.
I do actually miss beige, it fits in in out of sight places without the dust drawing attention, and it works great in high use areas without drawing attention to the mess of grease and prints. A quality substrate and finish has a visual heft with a golden age of aviation or industrial controller aesthetic (along with David Clarke green). A functional colour and the average color of the universe http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap091101.html
Black works better.
Beige turns into a fairly nasty color with age.
Every Apple computer made between 1977 and 1998 was beige (‘putty’). Apple began using brightly coloured cases long after Sun, SGI etc.
Umm, WRONG!
Even the earlier SGI machines like the Iris and Indigo (I have an Indigo from around 1992) were blue/purple color hence the name “Indigo”. The Indy was a light blue, the Indigo2 was a darker purple, but I think came a different colors as well.
So, SGI used bright colors since the early 1990’s
That’s what he’s saying, that Apple was still making beige boxes long after some other companies had moved on.
Ooops, my bad, momentary dyslexia kicked in and I read the previous post backwards
The Apple //c and IIgs were both white, although at this point, most surviving examples are closer to beige.
The worst ever Macs would be the LC series. LC obviously meant ‘Load of Crap’ because they weren’t cheap – just nasty.
The Powermac G4 was an absolutely gorgeous machine. Beautiful hardware architecture, fantastic case design, far far far and away better than the glued together garbage that Apple is putting out today.
If it wasn’t for OS X, there is no way I’d buy any new Apple hardware made today.
I think the little quad core Mac Mini that is my current home desktop machine is a nice piece of kit; excellent build quality and totally silent….so, I would disagree with your last sentence for sure.
The last Mac Mini was OK, but you can’t get a quad core any more.
All their new stuff is glued together, so you can’t repair or upgrade anything, and worse yet, they’re not starting to solder in the freaking solid state drives. THATS A FREAKING WEAR COMPONENT!!!!
Its like buying a car with welded in brake pads. Solid state drives wear out. So when that drive wears out, time to throw away that computer and shell out another $2000 for a new one.
Why can’t we have internal drives anymore, who the hell thinks its a good idea to have a desk full of external drives, especially when the stupid thunderbolt enclosures are like hundreds of dollars a piece.
I’m so disgusted with the new Apple hardware, that my newest computer is this 5 year old MacBook Pro that I’m currently using.
Yes…that’s why I purchased the 2012 Mac Mini, customized with 16 GB ram, the 2.3 quad core i7, etc. Runs Yosemite and Win 10 (via Parallels 11) like a champ.
A mac mini does not cost 2k.
Right……Mine, maxed out cost half of that.
True, but a MacBook Pro or a decently configured iMac does cost 2K, and as I develop GPU code, I pretty much need a box with discrete graphics which is not avail on the Mac Mini.
And the new Mac Pro is worthless as there is no way to add internal storage (sorry Apple, a desktop full of external drives in ludicrously overpriced thunderbolt cases is a nonstarter)
The MTBF for a current model SSD is somewhere around 2.5 million hours or 285 years. I wouldn’t be too concerned.
Jobs introduced conformity into being cool. Few other companies have been so incredibly successful with “You’ll take it, like it, and love us for giving you a load of hyped up mediocrity” than Apple. The reason they are successful at it is because their direct competition (Samsung phones, Microsoft Windows), on a general basis, is not even mediocre.
It’s amusing how many people are socking it to “The Establishment” by using Apple products and never realizing just how conformist and user hostile Apple’s message really is.
Your theory doesn’t explain why millions of Apple product owners are repeat buyers.
I’m not sure, but Harley-Davidson might have gotten there first.
I really wish people would stop idolizing this guy. He wasn’t that amazing.
I guess you think the same for people idolizing artists such as singers, actors and such.
Let people have their idols if they wish.
Steve Jobs was a crazy person. It’s easier to remember crazy persons.
I have an Iphone, but I think Apple lost something when Jobs passed away. Apple don’t make cool new technologies anymore (I don’t count the Apple watch as new or innovative. It’s just a hype with very limited actual use).
But worse, they have started to make design decisions that make their products less simple/practical to use. Somethibg Jobs would never tolerate.
The Iphones MP3 player keeps forgetting where in the song I stopped playing. Which is annoying when I’m listening to a book of 1 hour a piece. I have never owned an MP3 player before that doesn’t remember where in the song/book it was (except for when it runned out of battery).
Itunes as well went through a design change that made it a lot less intuitive to understand how to use it. The act of adding and transfering MP3:s are a lot more complicated than before.
The most annoying thing though is that recently they have changed the design of the player on the locked screen so that the “next song” and “previous song” button is so close together with the volume bar that I keep pressing the wrong thing. When I want to raise the volume I end up skipping songs instead and vice versa. So I end up having to unlock the screen and go to the player app and change there instead.
These problems are small, but they keep increasing in numbers, giving me the feeling that Apple cares less today about making cool, good products and just focusing on making products that looks cool on the surface and reap the profits. You know, like Apple did before Jobs returned. This “doing it right from the start” is one of Apples hallmarks, and without it Apple may see their label of being the “cool guys” erode faster than we might think.
the people the denigrate and reduce his role in industry add to his legend.
he’s on par with henry ford and edison, and throw in some of the iconic designers of european and japanese consumer products who’s name i don’t know.
in fact, the home computer and pocket computer might be regarded as more important than the affordable car or basic light bulb long after I’m gone.
we’ll never know, but don’t think history will forget the mac, the iPhone, the iPad, or steve jobs.
For those less interested in precisely how mad or marvellous Jobs was, and more interested in how he represents the scary, irresistible, amoral power of the charismatic, I recommend this series on BBC Radio:
The episode on Jobs and other business leaders is here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b067x3w7
… But I suggest starting at the beginning. All episodes are here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0695w4w/episodes/player
(Edit: Available for streaming or podcast download, but you might need a proxy if you’re outside the UK. Suck it and see.)
Edited 2015-09-08 14:13 UTC
Good documentary I think but there are some video clips in the movie, I think they are a video deposition, that I found hard to watch because Jobs is clearly in enormous physical pain from the cancer.
I had a close friend who died of cancer last year and he tried really hard to live a normal life right to the end but sometimes when we were talking he would close his eyes and writhe just like Jobs does in the videos and I knew he was having a moment of agony.
I wish they had left those clips out of the film, it felt too intrusive to watch someone in such pain.
When you look at the entertainment business, most folks can name Actors. Actors tend to be a primary marketing component to a movie.
Fewer know Directors, though they at times get more top billing than the Actors themselves. Music people know the composers.
Even fewer know Producers, Executive Producers, Cinematographers, etc.
Then there’s the legion of other folks in film, those nameless people’s names that scroll by at the end of the movie.
People in the industry know these people, know their work, etc.
WE know “the people” in our industry, and their contributions, but none of them are really “public” faces, regardless of their contributions.
Jobs is a public face of an “unglamorous” industry. Arguably, he’s one of the few “glamorous” figures of it, if not the premiere “glamorous” figure, certainly back then, and even today.
I bet more people know of Jobs in relation to Apple than Zuckerberg and Facebook, even though the latter has far, far more reach and users and even, arguably, impact.
just sayin…
Steve Jobs was not only a flawed man… He was a horrible human being.
A successful businessman, but a megalomanical asshole.
Good riddance he is no longer with us.
Edited 2015-09-10 19:52 UTC