Think Different - Just Like Steve Jobs Tells You To

The New York Times referred to Steve Jobs as this generation’s Thomas Edison.  I have no problem with this comparison for the sole reason that I have as much contempt, if not more, for Edison as I do Jobs.  Edison was a patent thief who ruthlessly crushed all competition (sometimes using physical violence) and succeeded by being an all-around asshole and a marketing genius.  And that is also all that Steve Jobs is: a marketing genius.  But the announcement of his resignation from Apple has some people reacting as thought they just found out Christ was going to be crucified again.

Let’s review something here: marketing is simply the science of convincing someone to buy something and, possibly, at the same time convincing that same someone that a similar product offered by a competitor is not as good.  That’s it.  That is the entirety of Steve Jobs’ career.  He made expensive computers and convinced a large number of people to buy them.  That is not an earth-shattering achievement.  He has not done anything that really betters mankind, changes the world, or fixes any of the major problems we face as a species.  He is just a man who made a shit load of money.

It really strikes me as a symptom of the culture.  People seem to heap praise upon those who earn an ungodly amount of money.  Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett – all of them are revered by a large number of people because they were able to become rich.  As if that is the only indicator of success in life.  Never mind the fact that numerous artists, writers, activists, scientists, and other influential people died without a penny to their name, but made a lasting impact.  People who truly changed the world through ideas, altering the way others think and shaping society for the better.  Instead, this country seems to have become so jaded that all anyone can care about is money and how to make more of it.

True, people like Buffett and Gates try to do some charity work with their money, but it seems to me that a great many of the causes they work for would be better addressed if there wasn’t such a massive gap in income between the incredibly wealthy and everyone else.  But Steve Jobs doesn’t even do that.  He actually shut down Apple’s charitable giving when he came back to the company.

In the end, Jobs has sold a lot of luxury items and made countless people around the world desire those items.  And even more so, he has sold the idea that those people were being different by buying those products – different just like everyone else buying them.  The man is not a hero or a role model.  He’s a businessmen, and that is all.