Smart enough to get very rich. Dumb enough to die for no reason

  • taiyang@lemmy.world
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    22 days ago

    To be fair, he was never the smart one. Woz was the smart one, he was the opportunistic one.

    • jaaake@lemmy.world
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      22 days ago

      Woz was definitely smarter when it came to chip design and computer architecture. Jobs had a ton of flaws (the thread illustrates a major one), but to discount his overall intelligence and label him solely as an opportunist does a great disservice to him. He had a unique vision and passion that changed the direction of Apple and altered the course of several pivotal pieces of tech. From stealing the mouse from Xerox and using it to make a more approachable user experience, to harping on about font support in core operating system he directed the team at Apple in a way that genuinely did make personal computing more approachable. Similar stories about tyrannically obsessing over optimizing the size of the iPod and simple wheel interface made it more desirable than other options like the Nomad Jukebox. When he advocated for the acquisition of FingerWorks to bring multitouch to a device that was almost entirely touchscreen based, fit in your pocket and was a combination of a music player, an internet broswer, and a phone, he lead the industry in a direction towards consumers and away from the focus on business (like the market dominant BlackBerry).

      Jobs wasn’t a genius in the sense that he made all of these things himself. He was a genius in his focus on the user experience and ignoring contemporary wisdom about what a computer was. Again, tons of flaws, probably not a nice dude in a lot of ways, but he changed the world.

      • MutilationWave@lemmy.world
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        22 days ago

        He literally washed his feet (which were constantly bare) in toilets. He smelled fucking awful. I’ll give you that he wasn’t stupid but he was gross and a huge asshole.

      • SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world
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        21 days ago

        Also Woz was nothing more then an honorary employee when Jobs returned as CEO, he had nothing to do with Apple’s revival. While he is a smart engineer he isn’t a business man or marketeer. If Woz never met Jobs his hobby computer would have stayed a hobby.

  • prions_for_pets@lemmy.world
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    22 days ago

    ISAACSON: If you were listing the 1,000 adjectives for Steve, nice would not be [one of them]. Kindness would not be up there. I told him, “Why are you that way, Steve?” and he said, “This is who I am. This is the way I am.” People say, “Well, he didn’t put a license plate on there. He sometimes parked in the handicapped [spot], or he cut in line.” He actually seemed to live as if the normal rules didn’t apply to him.

    https://www.commonwealthclub.org/events/archive/transcript/walter-isaacson-talks-steve-jobs

    • boonhet@lemm.ee
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      21 days ago

      People say, “Well, he didn’t put a license plate on there. He sometimes parked in the handicapped [spot], or he cut in line.” He actually seemed to live as if the normal rules didn’t apply to him.

      Didn’t he lease a new car every 6 months specifically to avoid having to put license plates on his Benz? And it was an SL55 AMG to boot, not one of them peasant Mercs.

      Rules don’t apply when there are loopholes that the rich can take advantage of.

  • iAvicenna@lemmy.world
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    21 days ago

    Same story as the submarine guy, these people trust their own ideas so blindly they sometimes cant see the obvious. That is why they will easily blast the whole surface of earth flat if they think it is justified for some reason.

    • Agent641@lemmy.world
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      21 days ago

      A perfectly flat surfaced earth, you say? We could all commute by skateboard then! I see literally zero downsides!

  • Nougat@fedia.io
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    22 days ago

    Mmmm, I seem to recall that Jobs had pancreatic cancer, which is pretty bad. I don’t remember what stage it was, but I also know that pancreatic cancer is generally not discovered until it’s quite advanced.

    • FourPacketsOfPeanuts@lemmy.world
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      22 days ago

      Apple founder Steve Jobs’ faith in alternative medicine likely cost him his life, says Barrie Cassileth, chief of integrative medicine at New York’s Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

      Jobs was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2003. But Jobs, revered as one of the brightest minds on the planet, chose to delay surgery, the only treatment that had a chance to save his life, Cassileth says.

      For nine months after his diagnosis, Offit writes, Jobs treated his cancer with acupuncture, herbs, bowel cleansings and a special diet of carrots and fruit juices.

      Jobs eventually had surgery, and even a liver transplant. But it was too late.

      He died in 2011, eight years after diagnosis.

      “He had the only kind of pancreatic cancer that is treatable and curable,” Cassileth says. “He essentially committed suicide.”

      https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/06/18/book-raises-alarms-about-alternative-medicine/2429385/

      • Tyfud@lemmy.world
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        22 days ago

        Worse, he took a good liver from someone who needed it, when he was absolutely terminal, without qualifying like we all have to for the organ transplant list, because money.

        So he very likely killed someone who could have had that liver save them, on his way out.

        A true billionaire.

      • Nougat@fedia.io
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        22 days ago

        Thank you for looking up what I was too lazy to.

        What a fucking idiot.

        • shawn1122@lemm.ee
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          22 days ago

          Probably jumped the transplant list with $$$ at the end too. Likely costing someone else their life too.

          • iAvicenna@lemmy.world
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            19 days ago

            Eh imagine your loved one dying because some fuckwad billionaire, who dismissed modern medicine in favour of carrot juices, fucked him self up and then paid tons of money to get a liver which would only extend his life by a year.

    • MrGG@lemmy.ca
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      22 days ago

      Yeah, “pancreatic cancer” and “highly treatable” rarely go together. Obviously he was quite private with his health so we’ll never know for sure, but I do recall him needing a liver transplant so it’s safe to assume it had metastaticised quickly and was pretty advanced. But regardless, he was an abusive asshole billionaire, so obligatory “fuck Steve Jobs.”

      • mister_flibble@lemm.ee
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        22 days ago

        He apparently had, like, the only variety of pancreatic cancer that actually is treatable. Dude got about as “lucky” as it is possible for a cancer diagnosis to be and still pissed it all away on woo woo bullshit.

        • kopasz7@lemmy.world
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          22 days ago

          In a weird way, I have to give it to him, he really did what he preached in thinking different.

          • MutilationWave@lemmy.world
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            22 days ago

            As I commented elsewhere, people say he smelled awful from not bathing but had a habit of washing just his feet in fucking toilets. Yeah he was thinking different.

            He was a huge asshole and even fucked over the real genius, his partner Steve Wozniak, early in their career for a relatively small amount of money. Woz didn’t find out until a book came out many years later where Jobs told the story it. And it made Woz cry. Fuck him.

            • kopasz7@lemmy.world
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              22 days ago

              Yeah, all I’m saying is he wasn’t pretending. Not that he was admirable. That’s all.

      • Burninator05@lemmy.world
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        22 days ago

        The question I have on that is why did we put a liver in someone with (effectively) untreated cancer? Seems like a waste of a liver.

        • MrGG@lemmy.ca
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          22 days ago

          Money.

          Not to say that you can just buy a liver if you have enough money, but being rich and famous you get to the top of lists and can afford the private jet to immediately go across continent to get that new liver hardware installed

          • MutilationWave@lemmy.world
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            22 days ago

            He also used his wealth to establish some kind of residency in a bunch of states so he could be on all their separate donor lists.

            And I really do think you can just buy a liver now. Maybe not in the US. Maybe yeah you’ve just got to have the right connections to big time criminals that owe you a huge favor.

          • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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            21 days ago

            Private donations are a thing. You just can’t be seen to pay for the organ. Just like bribery is illegal but paying for their new deck after they coincidentally make the new policy in your favor is fine.

            So yes, his money got him a liver.

      • Subverb@lemmy.world
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        21 days ago

        I have pancreatitis. Once my doctor and I were discussing it when he said “At least you don’t have pancreatic cancer. If you’re able to detect it, it’s already too late.”

    • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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      21 days ago

      The 5 year survival rate for PNET is 53 percent overall with the worst rate being 23 percent if it’s spread further than just the surrounding area.

      Steve Jobs’ cancer was found early, with no spread yet giving him a 95 percent 5 year survival chance. People who do the treatment at this stage have a very high chance of a normal life expectancy as well.

      He specifically declined surgery at the early stage to attempt homeopathic treatment. So instead his cancer spread and his 5 year survival chance went down each year he delayed the surgery. By the time he had the surgery he was looking at far less of a chance and of course we know it wasn’t enough to save him at that point.

      I’m not a fan of making fun of people for effectively choosing death but we shouldn’t shy away from the truth either. He is dead because he did not follow medical advice.