[lbo-talk] Jobs

[// ravi]

On Oct 5, 2011, at 9:43 PM, brandelune at gmail.com wrote:
> On Oct 6, 2011, at 9:57 AM, // ravi wrote:
> 
>> Yes. But I have a problem with the word innovation/innovator (though my peeve is with how it is used within the tech industry and by management types, not the more direct/straightforward way you mean it). Here’s what I wrote a while ago: http://l.ravi.be/q42Vri (nothing particularly insightful; just timely).
> 
>> From your text: "He is unabashedly common-sensical and bullshit-free."
> 
> I think that's what Doug means when he wrote "he was like the last remaining innovator in the U.S. economy". Innovation is a huge lot about no BS common sense, about simply linking the dots. Cook said that yesterday about Apple, basically that the company is trying very hard to link all the dots in a "I just works" way. I pretty sure that's not going to go away from Apple before a long while.
> 

Agreed.

However, I am not so sure that’s not going to go away. If Jobs had any value, it was that he had the brazenness to confront jargon based thinking and movements within the industry. It’s tough to do that - because your questions sound naive in comparison to the calculated sophistication of the jargon peddlers. Especially in tech. Consider arguing on any point against Object-Oriented fanboys, Design Patterns fanboys, Python/Ruby fanboys, Eclipse fanboys, Virtualization fanboys… often, all you have are simple questions like “I just don’t see how that would work or what benefit it offers” (more self promotion: http://l.ravi.be/p1JQB6). So when there is all this bullshit going on about Web 2.0, unlimited storage, unlimited bandwidth, cloud this or that, it’s difficult to stay rational, and build and sell products the old-fashioned way.

Cheers,

	—ravi