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Originally Posted by kennyc
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Thanks Kenny, this is an excellent (and brief) piece.
Jobs did a lot of things well. Most of his detractors try to attribute his influence to one small area (salesman, integrating emerging technologies, control freak), but they fail to acknowledge the sweep of his vision, the many levels at which he made Apple function, from the efficiency of their supply chain to design to imposing new commercial paradigms (iTunes, etc.).
On a human level, I am most impressed by his life story: adopted by working class parents, he made his own way in the world, without the family contacts and inherited wealth that so many of his competitors (Gates, for example) had.
One of his great strengths was his dedication to Apple. In the age of CEOs pumping up stock values for short-term profits so they can get their bonus and move on to the next company, Jobs was planning ten years ahead to build his company into the best he could imagine it could be (the same could be said of Gates, who also founded his own company). He made an interesting comment once about how company founders who sell out early for a lot of money miss out on the challenges of working through the inevitable crises and learning more about who they really are. Ironically, in this aspect he was more like a classic company man than a new-age, high-tech CEO.
Our best and brightest will be learning from him and trying to copy his success for many years to come.