Keen On... Walter Isaacson: No, Steve Jobs Wasn't a Tweaker

Keen On... Walter Isaacson: No, Steve Jobs Wasn't a Tweaker


Keen On… Walter Isaacson: No, Steve Jobs Wasn’t A Tweaker (TCTV) | TechCrunch

@Bailey Jones
Please don't flame me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like Steve Jobs was Steve Jobs.
@Thomas McGuire
Breaking news. Two peoples opinion on Steve Jobs differs.
@Franklin Fuji Biswas
Apple made great things and I love them!
@Travis Powell
This isn't usual the definition of "tweaker".
@Razvan Suprovici
Every innovation is the tweak of existing tools. Human brains from 10,000 years ago weren't that different from ours; You don't expect them to go inventing iPads.
@Jeff Burke
Steve Jobs in my opinion was someone who genuinely wanted to make things better. To make a difference. To make this world a better place by changing the way we do things. A perfectionist, a dreamer & someone who would not take no as an answer. I am sure many don't agree with everything he was or everything he did, but at the end of the day he did do many amazing things we can appreciate and admire, and we could use more people like him leading different industries, and what matters most is this country! Interested to hear some more opinions in a pretty entertaining idea. Someone with a proven record of change, progress, and inspiring others all over the world in politics? I don't know about everyone else, but I am pretty frustrated with what is happening to our country. www.obamaandsteve.com
@Boz Bundalo
I don't think making a music player or designing a phone can be classified as making the world a better place. People have lost touch with what's really important in life. He made tech gadgets and tried to simplify your usage of them so he could separate you with more money. He just paid a bit more attention to the styling of those tech gadgets. It hardly changed the world for the better. Better consumers, sure. And of course he was a tweaker.. every single big thing Apple made during this reign was taken from others and just stylized and packaged nicely. They just had one hell of a cult following and amazing marketing people.
@Sunny Clark
Boz Bundalo oh you are so wrong, they build TOOLS for people to go on with their life, I know having an iPod helps motivates me to work out because being on a treadmill is boring but with an iPod , its much more entertaining. And how does the Mac not help make a better place? They ALREADY sell computers to help people around the world. They make tools that make small business run better, next your going to tell me accounting software kills jobs and we should all go back to the stone age or something.
@Boz Bundalo
Sunny Clark you are obviously too young to realize what's important. not a single thing you mentioned has anything to do with making a world a better place. Marthin Luther King or other great people who gave their lives and fought for your freedom, against racism, against discrimination, for peace and so on made this world a better place. You getting motivated to exercising on a treadmill by an iPod is beyond ridiculous to be even considered making a world a better place. This disconnect with the real understanding of what making a world a better really means. I guess it stems from the ignorance of being a follower. Sure, if you are so entrenched into Apple cult you will try to glorify anything. The bottom line is that Steve Jobs, made consumer devices and the goal behind it was to make it easier for you to give him money. I'm sure he liked doing it, but that doesn't mean any of those tech gadgets made a world a better place. People who make laptops for kids in Africa and give them away for free are making a world a better place, not Apple who sells it at twice the price of it's value to you so you can get motivated to exercise.
@Sunny Clark
Boz Bundalo I am not in highschool, stop assuming, I am a self taught software developer. And now is time for you to learn something today, there are 2 factors to determine how "rich" a country can be 1: size of market, 2: how north the country is, (the colder the country the more likely to be more organize because you have to be to survive cold weather). Africa will never be lifted out of poverty until they get free trade. USA has 300 million people and anyone can trade with anyone. You want to stop poverty? Centralize food production, it wasn't that the USA was "smarter" or "harder working" than other countries to develop technologies like the phone or go through an industrial revolution, it was the fact that MANY people didn't have to wast their time feeding themselves so that they can focus on other things like making clean water. Sacrifice is not the only way to help people you can also give them an opportunity as well and the biggest opportunity you can give is making it so that they can trade with anyone. The people who run hollywood weren't all born in hollywood so why would you draw borders around african countries and expect them to compete, you have to be run by great ideas not hierarchy but you wouldn't know that because you don't know steve jobs.
@Jeff Burke
Boz Bundalo I believe this is a very subjective discussion. There are no right or wrong answers. How I look at it with respect to the comments is that Steve inspired millions to progress. By setting a level of perfection, style and all around greatness to try and live up to. True they may technically be just a music player & phone but there is a reason why the devices have been as successful as they have. Our lives are surrounded by content and communication, and he managed to create an ecosystem, beyond the devices, platforms for millions to create opportunity for themselves. With his consumer products he instilled so many valuable traits that in my opinion are and will continue to make this world a better place. Simplification is one. Attention to detail and beautiful design is another. Hard work, and extreme focus and dedication is another. No need to go on with what I believe are valuable lessons to be learned from Steve, but who's to say giving a computer to a kid in Africa will be for the better. Who's to say they would ever be educated on how to use it to it's full potential in a positive way. I strongly believe the most important gift someone can give to others is hope, inspiring others to progress and better themselves, and opportunity. He did all of this, and very, very well. I don't think most people realize how much he really contributed. Lets just wait and see what's in store for the new TV!
@Paweł Pachniewski
Boz Bundalo just spews cliche anti Steve Jobs propaganda with a slippery slope fallacy and diminishing his legacy to "making a music player" and "marketing". He tells somebody else you're "too young" - he seems too young to understand what Apple did to the music market, demonstrating the viability of selling music online, long after Napster was thought to be the death of it. Giving a channel for a lot of independent artists to sell their music. Not to mention with NeXt they focused on providing schools and research teams with great hardware. he pushed great technologies into wide-spread use which benefited all people around the world. Autistic children who have trouble communicating had to rely on a 10K Microsoft surface, but with the iPad now a normal affordable alternative arose(and with its success countless other tablets) and now the tablet market is viable. He created countless jobs, inspired countless people and entrepreneurs...and he still does. That is his legacy.
@Carlo Delallana
Boz Bundalo But hasn't technology made lives better? Even have a hand in toppling abusive governments? These devices are merely blank slates, it's what we are enabled to do with them and through them that changes the world.
@Andrew Palm
Leave your western world and go visit a 3rd world country and see what issues these people have to deal with day to day, then you will really see that Steve Jobs hasn't made the world a better place.
@Carlo Delallana
You don't need to go to a 3rd world country to see that there are people in need. But to diminish the impact Apple computer has on the advancement of technology and computing for the masses just shows how blind some folks are. I grew up in a 3rd world country and my first encounter with a computer was an Apple II. That changed my life profoundly. We may use these devices for entertainment, but in developing nations this kind of technology can make a big difference. Steve Jobs and Apple are part of the larger movement that took computing and technology to a mass market, much admired by Nicholas Negroponte (OLPC) - http://www.forbes.com/sites/velocity/2011/10/05/nicholas-negroponte-steve-jobs-influence-not-influenced/
@Santiago Imperatrice
Boz Bundalo , leave the apple fans... they just don't get it. The ask Siri before replying. Steve was great, for Apple and is pocket! Both Microsofr and Apple imprisioned software and it's evolutions, it was free 20 years ago. Now open source is comming back fortunately. Gates is now more interested in trying to eradicate malaria than in overseeing the next iteration of Word. Philanthropy on the scale that Gates practices it represents imagination at its grandest. That's changing teh world, thats evolution and creativity. In contrast, Jobs’s vision, brilliant and perfect as it was, was narrow. He was a tweaker to the last, endlessly refining the same territory he had claimed as a young man. So... Steve died thinking about a phone, a tablet, doing them nicer so we pay a higger price... thats really sad.
@Justin Alexander
No Max Woolf comment? What is this I don't even.
@Ryan Evans
How about if TechCrunch focuses more on tech and less on individuals? Yea, Jobs contributed to tech industries. I appreciate that. I appreciate the products and the industries he created (or tweaked, depending on which side you take in this stupid argument). I don't give a flying Fig Newton about him as a person.
@Matthew Leeper
I have this book. Steve Jobs was a great man and was a big part of my life (even though I only saw him once).
@Jeffrey Rufino
Excellent interview, Thanks TC for bringing this to us. RIP STEVE JOBS. Thank you for your vision.
@Raja Muhammad Zeeshanullah
Steve Jobs in my opinion was someone who genuinely wanted to make things better.
@Andrew Palm
Yet there are still starving people in this world who don't have access to clean drinking water, and Steve Jobs did nothing........
@Baptiste Kumala
Apple products still are way more expensive than their rquivalent, how is that making a better world ? Especially when a new model comes out every year to milk you ? The fact is, with or without Steve, the world would have beem the same. Except spoiled kids with no personality are called hipsters and think they are creative because they take pictures with Instagram.
@Chris Domico
Baptiste Kumala Such an old and tired argument. Apple stuff is not just for the hipster crowd anymore. My 58 year old parents own an iPad now. Not a good enough example? Ok...I took my 4 year old son with me to the Apple store the other day. They had the kids area set up by the genius bar with four Macs and four big beautiful screens to play around with. He has never shown any particular interest in my Windows laptop or tower, but when he started using the Mac, I couldn't get him to leave. And if you're going to sit here and tell me that my four year old has hipster bias, than I don't really know what else to say. Also, did you really just take Apple to task for coming out with a new model of their hit products every year? What do you expect them to do? How many "flagship" Android phones did Samsung release this year? How about Motorola? Do any of these companies hold a gun to your head and force you to upgrade? And finally, whether or not Steve Jobs made the world a "better place" is certainly up for debate, but what he definitely did was CHANGE the world. His ideas weren't always original--tablets, MP3 players, smartphones, and PCs all existed before Apple created one, but Apple has always (in my opinion) made a BETTER one. I would have never used a tablet until the iPad. I hated MP3 players until I got my iPhone. I now have only one Windows PC left in my house. And trust me, this is coming from a former Apple hater.
@Baptiste Kumala
Chris Domico Quiet the opposite for me. I've been using Apple since my childhood. I started with the Power Macintosh 5200. My brother now owns the latest powerbook, he got the ipad2. I even have an iPhone 4 (that I don't use). So I'm not saying their products are no good. They obviously are very user friendly, I liked my iPhone4 a lot, and I understand why your kid would enjoy a mac (even though, there are a lot of equivalents on PC or Linux to entertain and educate children, one should just look for them). Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but the people sleeping outside Apple Stores to get their latest ipad or iphone or whatever, are not kids or elders. They are 20 to 30s, waiting to buy something they don't really need (the ipad1 still works if you don't get the ipad2) and feel somehow belonging to a community with an annualy fee of several thousands of dollars or euros. So Yes, they force you to by, because otherwise, you re not hype anymore. I never said Samsung is better. they may actually be worse, they just are or will run over everything. But at least, they sell you a product, not a lifestyle or some karma points for coolness. To have a large variety of models has always been the logic behind Samsung. For TVs, Computers, and fridges. And they don't try to state otherwise. They don't tell you to think different. I don't need anybody to tell me to think different. I reach out for technologies or behaviors that make my life better, that is why I always had an MP3 player since the first models and why I know I don't need a tablet. And if you're going to sit here and tell me that you need Steve to choose what innovations are an improvement for you, than I don't really know what else to say. If Apple changes the world because it makes visible to the masses technologies that are usefull and making life better, good for the people. But problem is, they get used to it. Why look out for innovation when Steve is gonna bring it to my door, packed in a beautiful cool product ? This is how they made people blindfolded so that they don't even notice other products may be as easy and well-designed, if not more. I just feel like we took three steps behind with Apple. We struggled so companies would recognize the power of the user, its part in the innovation process, turning top-down into bottom-up and now, Apple can launch any product they want and people will adopt it thinking its awesome.
@Sunny Clark
Baptiste Kumala Typically BS argument. Apple makes TOOLS , what people do with them is ON THEM. Stop acting like doctors and lawyers dont use iPhone and iPads to improve their productivity. Look at the app store , most SALES are games, thats not their fault, people CAN download apps that help themselves but they don't. If what you were saying was true then why isn't the library full of people all the time? Next you are going to say we need to "regulate" the internet because their is too much porn, because porn is being "forced" to people. You just can't believe they actually make great products sold at store with great service.
@Baptiste Kumala
Sunny Clark Have you even read what I wrote ? I'm saying all along that Apple products are great. I never said anything about the products per se, but mainly about how they are sold. I'm explaining that what is pissing me off is how Apple clients think of Steve Jobs as a genius because he changed the world while what he just did was to embrace and use changes already in motion to make huge profits. It is the job of the CEO of an innovative company, like hundred of thousands people in the world do. It has nothing to do with having a vision and you don't get to be compared to Ghandi or Ford for that. Or you need to reconsider your values. Yes, doctors and lawyers use Apple and they had something better to do that to drop candles at the nearest Apple Store and cry for days like people we saw on the news. The media coverage is insane. I know I'm being forced to think great of Steve Jobs especially on this site. Now I don't really see the link between what I wrote previously and libraries or porn. Librairies improve lives. bring convenience, so they should be full ? First, I don't know where you live, but most cities I lived in have highly visited librairies. Their role as a unique place for accumulation and preservation of knowledge has never been questionned. That people think books don't fit so well in modern lifestyles and the fact they face competition from the Internet is another debate. Au contraire, I'm glad people start to feel comfortable with watching porn (thank you Hollywood for trivializing porn and the image of the porn consummer through mainstream movies). I'd rather display my extensive knowledge and taste in porn than define myself by what computer I own. The porn industry is not hypocritical. They sell sex so you can wank or spice your life. And while they don't claim it, they actually have a significant influence on modern sexual patterns and have a real direct impact on our lives. In opposition to Apple, they don't want you to snob people, but rather step down to you primal instinct, a level where eveyone is equal.
@Sunny Clark
Baptiste Kumala Free trade will cure any 3rd world woes there might be, PM me if you want to learn more.
@Anand Ghosh
Tweeting is great way to have new ideas as its like avalanche. Ideas generate new ideas. No wonder Steve has tweeted a lot but yes how many can actually sum them up and give shape to a new vision? As always admired I believe Steve is a visionary than anything else and there is his greatness. Researchers also look journals for ideas, its just a tweet! Just a smart form of taking the brief.
@Sam Wright
Steve jobs has never tweeted.
@Anand Ghosh
Sam Wright that's interesting, a tech gig in this social media age never tweeted!? like do u have any solid proof, just curios? even not with a different name or somebody tweeting and picking ideas !? i doubt... but wteva! once again there is nothing wrong tweeting, its just a source! n hats off Steve Jobs for his contribution even if he tweeted or not tweeted.
@Martim Cortez de Lobão
Umm.. Don't you mean tweaking?
@Oye Aborishade
Taking people's ideas and perfecting them is a creative role in itself.
@Michael A. Robson
If you want to understand the lesson's Steve learned about product marketing (as Walter discusses in this video), check out Innovator's DIlemma http://goo.gl/wjYvg.
@Jesse Murithi
tweaker or no tweaker, Jobs left the world a better place for us all.
@Magnus Sognefors
He made a huge difference in many ways!
@Harmanjit Singh
Friends, I just finished Steve's biography by Isaacson yesterday & what I have concluded is he was a man who learned from many, even stole ideas but not for greed but to create great products. He often asked for advice from his top lieutenants before making the final decision..
@Kyle Wilson
Andrew Keen needs to stop motioning back and forth uneasily in the intro, that's one sure fire way to make guests uncomfortable.
@Devon Nullz
I hear Steve Jobs is still dead. But hey, easy readership is easy $$$. So keep milking the non-news.
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I hope U would like the picture http://initiaty.wordpress.com/2011/12/15/steve-jobs/
@Jacob Wunderlich
Well, he didn't actually invent the major tech innovations he tends to get credit for, so I'd say there's some truth to that.