At 10:54 AM +0200 6/10/11, Farid Benfeghoul wrote:

Dear Kino,

When I woke up this morning, I heard Steve Jobs passed away, at age

56. Somehow, I thought, with detachment, that this how life is. But

a couple of hours later, watching those inspiring, uplifting and

touching videos you kindly posted for us, I realized what a

wonderful human Steve was -- beside of being such a creative genius!

Yes, thank you Steve!

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