- Virtually all of the more than twenty countries whose school test scores in Math, Science, and Reading are higher than the USA are countries who support teachers unions in their public schools. The countries with the strongest unions typically rank in the top five in all categories. And yet, the right wing Republican talking point is that teachers unions are at the root of America’s failing schools.
- In every nation on earth that has a form of government backed universal health care, there is not one nation with a significant number of its citizens organizing to support a more market based private system of government.
- The number of abortions per thousand live births is consistently lower when a Democrat is in the White House and at its highest when a Republican is in the Oval Office.
- Virtually all the technology that makes a smart phone “smart” was conceived by and funded by the federal government of the USA and yet somehow this is not mentioned in the biography of Steve Jobs.
- Thomas Jefferson supported a progressive tax code.
- Benjamin Franklin supported the notion of an Estate Tax.
- Adam Smith argued for the necessity of a living wage.
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Bravo on all points.
On a personal note, I knew and worked with Steve Jobs. He attempted to recruit me to come work for him on three separate occasions — twice at Apple and once at NeXT. I turned him down all three times and I’ve never regretted it.
The mythology about Steve Jobs is wildly different from the reality. Steve Jobs was insanely great at the things he did well. He had superb taste, he was masterful at manipulating reality, and he was at least very good at product definition.
He was a TERRIBLE executive. The eventual success of Apple happened after two dismal failures — each directly caused by his hands-on executive style. NeXT was a disaster from the get-go (that was an important reason why I declined his offer to join NeXT). He came back to Apple after running Pixar into the ground.
There is a great deal of hard-nosed reality left out of every biography of Steve Jobs that I’ve seen.
As I recall you’re not a big fan of the other giant of the computer industry – Bill Gates – either.
I had great respect and admiration for Steve Jobs. My issue is with the mythology after his death. I have nothing good to say about Bill Gates, at all.
I couldn’t believe the coverage his death got the day it happened. It was presidential death levels.
By the way, there was a third “wunderkind” during the birth of the PC era — Mitch Kapor, who founded Lotus (later acquired by IBM). Lotus123 was the first programmable spreadsheet, and completely dominated the industry until Microsoft killed it with Excel.
While Lotus was hot, companies were buying “Lotus machines” (IBM PCs running MSDOS with Lotus123 as the main application). That was followed by Lotus Notes, another successful product. Lotus was a local company, headquartered in Cambridge (by the Hotel Sonesta).
Mitch Kapor made his fortune early in life and moved on after attempting a second startup (ON Technology).
My favorite of the lot:
“Virtually all the technology that makes a smart phone “smart” was conceived by and funded by the federal government of the USA and yet somehow this is not mentioned in the biography of Steve Jobs.“
You will probably enjoy this book:
The Entrepreneurial StateDebunking public vs. private sector myths
By Mariana Mazzucato