Geoff, it'd be easier to take your comments if you knew what the fuck you were talking about. I didn't know the guy, but your posting is fairly devoid of fact and shouldn't go unanswered.

Now that I have your attention ;-)

First some credentials: I was the Principal Engineer for QuickDraw 3-D and was thus much closer to Macintosh development than probably everyone here. I also worked at Xerox PARC in the early ’80’s.

Wozniak had nothing to do with the Macintosh. He was working on the IIgs and III when the Lisa and Mac were being developed.

The GUI did not come from PARC. The concept of GUI came from PARC, and then many companies did it. Apple, SGI, Sun, Apollo, Lisp Machines... Having personally used all of the above, I can tell you that the Macintosh and Lisa GUI’s were nothing like any of PARC’s GUIs (PARC had more than Cedar).

Ironic note: the lead for the Lisa was Jef Raskin who was likewise taken by pancreatic cancer some years ago.

As for the charter school issue, you pretty much called it in what they are. Extreme positions don’t help, though. In Job’s case, it’s his wife who’s active in that area, in the city of East Palo Alto. You’re probably not familiar with this burg: it’s very low income (yes, here in the heart of Silicon Valley) and used to be - officially - the murder capital of the US. Like most other municipalities in the US, it’s broke. Unless it ever gets fixed, the only way for kids there to get out is to get good education. What’s currently being done are the charter schools Mrs. Jobs is involved in, as well as busing kids to schools in adjacent cities (look up Tinsley Act).

As for comments about him being a humanitarian, if you’d been paying attention a couple of months ago, no less than Bono was defending his record. From what I understand Jobs preferred to not make a fuss about what he did. He obviously did plenty if Bono publicly took his side.

And as for being a heartless family man, that’s just vindictive. Yes, it took him a while to own up to Lisa, but he eventually did, and from his subsequent conduct, had taken that experience to heart. In the last couple of months there have been literally dozens of articles by his immediate neighbors about him being a neighbor and family man. I’d say the people who’ve been living next to him for twenty years have a lot of credence. I’ve seen him myself at various local activities being the doting father, e.g. daughters’ dance recitals, buying diapers, ...

You don't know a thing about what it’s like working in Silicon Valley. 80 hour work weeks are typical and have been for decades. Industrial Light & Magic *officially* had a 50 hour work week until employee action got it rescinded. Calling him out for what’s SOP just makes you look like you're on a vendetta.

Yeah, he’s done some abominable things in business. Less than Gates, and MUCH less than most other “captains of industry”. He did a lot more to change the world for the better than AT&T. Or Bank of America. Or Chevron. Or the Koch brothers. Or ... get the picture?

So he wasn't perfect. Who is? He wasn't the demon you tried to make him out to be. It's clear that he learned and became a better man from his life experiences, and he also gave the world at least some understanding that you [generic, not you specifically] don't have to settle for crap.

-- 
Dr. Julian Gomez ** http://www.polished-pixels.com  **  twitter:3Dscientist


On Oct 6, 2011, at 03:25 , Geoffrey Heard wrote:
> 
> I appreciate the Macintosh but . . .
> 
> "Wonderful human"? Are we talking about the guy who denied paternity of his first child, going to the bizarre extreme of claiming he was sterile and thus it was impossible for him to be the father (he later, much later, admitted paternity; how nice of him)? Who drove his employees mercilessly -- 80 hour working weeks are spoken of (sure there were big rewards for some, but for those who buckled it was the door)? Who out-Microsofted Microsoft in using litigation to jam down on any competition? Who along with Gates and Tea Party types has been supporting the formation of charter schools which undermine the public school system in the USA? Who used charity donations as a marketing ploy early in Apple history and didn't revive them when the company began to be hyper-successful?
> 
> He was a very smart businessman but also a very ruthless one. Like Gates.
> 
> Wozniak built the Mac. The GUI came from Xerox. Jobs's creativity was clearly in business tied to an unrelenting drive that meant he stopped at nothing.
> 
> I admire achievement in any field but I don't admire the output of the PR machines that turn ruthless businessmen into wondrous, well rounded, caring, human beings -- or rather, the facsimile of same.
> 
> Cheers, geoff
> 
> Geoffrey Heard
> Business & Environment Writer, Editor, Publisher
> The Worsley Press