iOwnTheWorld.com

That’s the problem with youth, they get half the info and think they know WTF. He should really do some research and find out that Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were like brothers back in the day. Ripped some poor old guy off for MSDOS which Gates wrestled away from Jobs, and Microsoft was off and running. And Jobs came back the hard way. This clown comedian apparently doesn’t know anything about those old dinosaur Apple computers. It quite a story actually.

+8

And when David Lee Roth left Van Halen they went from classics like “Romeo Delight” to sap such as “Love Walks In.”

+2

Steve Jobs was a brilliant marketer, but he couldn’t have done it without the Woz, or Mike Markkulla, for that matter. Apple wasn’t one guy — ever. It was a triumvirate from the very moment Markkulla’s angel investment allowed Jobs to move out of his parents’ garage and incorporate.

+9

“I don’t know. I just don’t understand what the big deal was with that guy”

Describing Mr. Burr’s whole career in a nutshell.

+8

Gryph, No dude he was the concept (big picture guy). I agree with the support you writing about. But flip it around. Those guys would be working at Fry’s Electronics if not for Steve Jobs.

+3

And while we’re on the subject, I gotta ask…

Why would anyone name his company after a description of a part of his anatomy?

Ok….I’ll leave now.

+1

@Bad Brad

Not really. Markkulla was independently wealthy before he ever knew who Steve Jobs was, and Woz would have been secure at his job as an electronics engineer at Hewlett Packard had he not quit there to go into business with Jobs. Woz’s parents, incidentally, thought that Woz was nuts to take such a big risk. Steve Jobs was the keystone of the operation, sure, but one stone does not an arch make.

+3

Gryph, Sounds like we both grew up in Cupertino. My point is, Apple, only became Apple because of Jobs vision. The other would not have succeed with out him and I do believe eventually he would have succeeded with out them. Keep in mind Venture Capital was almost free back then.

+1

Bad Brad, I guess you and I will have to disagree on this point. I didn’t grow up in Cupertino. To be honest, I’m a midwestern boy through and through, and I was born two years AFTER Apple incorporated.

That being said, I do know enough about Apple to know that Steve Jobs really didn’t know shit about breadboarding and circuit theory, and Mike Markkula took a chance on Jobs while some of Markkula’s business associates were clicking their tongues and describing Jobs as a “refuge from the human race.”

I think Steve Jobs was absolutely brilliant. One of a kind. Bill Burr is an irredeemable douchebag. No doubt about it. But I also think that Steve Wozniak was brilliant. And so was Mike Markkula. They came together to create something that was not only bigger than the sum of its parts, but ended up being far bigger than any of them would have imagined while they were marketing the original Apple II (the first project the three of them worked on together).

+3

Gryph: Agreed. From my vantage point, Concept is everything, mechanics is dirt cheap.

0

Bad Brad, Genius is never cheap. Even if it’s mechanical genius.

There was a story that circulated in the 1980′s about something that happened when Steve Jobs and Woz were hanging out in the early 1970′s. Jobs was working at Atari at the time, in a job capacity that he was somewhat underqualified for, and they had a contest to see who could eliminate the most chip slots from a certain circuitboard design. Whoever eliminated the most would win a certain amount of money per chip eliminated.

Jobs was out of his league in this contest, but Woz, who was working at HP at the time, was just the guy for Jobs to go to. Woz eliminated so many chips on the circuitboard design that, as Woz redesigned it, it was impossible to mass produce on the available production equipment. Atari made good on their promise though, and Jobs lied about how much money he made, keeping most of it for himself.

Along those same lines, because of a non-compete clause that Woz had signed for HP, he had to submit the original Apple I’s design to HP first and they weren’t interested because they couldn’t understand the schematics that Woz gave them. The circuit design itself was wayyyy ahead of its time.

As for Mike Markkula, one of his most important and lasting contributions to Apple as Employee #3, years after his $250,000 of angel investment, was the Disk II floppy drive system. Markkula and Woz initially designed it out of practical necessity when the spreadsheet Markkula was programming became too big for a tape drive, but it ended up being a defining feature of the Apple II, and later the Apple IIe.

I would not dare deride Steve Jobs. He deserves all the credit he gets and more, but I really do believe that they were all geniuses, and Jobs couldn’t have done it himself.

+4

Gryph: I’m on the manufacturing side. We would have a good time sitting down over a couple beers discussing this. That was a fascinating era any way you want to look at it. Better times than what we are going thru now. The sky was the limit.

+1

Love that breadboard talk. I still have the same ones I was using back in the year 7C8. If you can figure that out I’m always looking for somebody who speaks hex or octal. Or anybody who uses a 555 timer for a pacemaker even. Breadboard is just sitting there collecting dust.

0

He kinda almost made fun of 0bama there for a split sec. Ooooh so close. The obvious gubmint fuck ups aren’t funny at all, huh Mr. Comedian?
Sheesh.

+6

He’s kind of describing how Edison worked in his later years. Edison would come up with a concept and then have his staff build the design he concieved…the phonograph wasn’t built by Edison but by a guy working for Edison who had no idea what it was or what he was making and was just as surprized as the rest of the world when recorded sound was played back from that first wax cylinder.

+2

Jobs didn’t build that.

+2

@Mary Jane – What was it he said just before the audience went “oooooh”? Played it back a couple times but can’t make it out.

0

Never heard of Bill Burr. Have heard of Steve Jobs.

+3

Burr should apply his perception to Obama.

+1

“Go make it happen!” Michael Scott – Apple’s First CEO 1977- 1981
“Go make it happen!” Mike Markkula 1981 – 1983
“Go make it happen!” John Sculley 1983 – 1993
“Go make it happen!” Michael Spindler 1993-1996
“Go make it happen!” Gilbert Frank Amelio 1996-1997

“Go make it happen!” Steve Jobs 1997 – 2011

“Yes sir!”

+1

@Unruly,

Looks like you’re saying 1968 to me but I haven’t had to read hex since the early 80′s.

0

Interesting the reaction when he’s doing his bit about Jobs. You could almost substitute Obama for Jobs and the audience and O’Brien would react almost the same, stunned and offended.

By the by, while Jobs was a brilliant innovator (it doesn’t matter who cobbled together the first iPhone it was done under Jobs direction/orders) he was always a better marketing person. Having said that, it was facinating to see him almost destroy Apple then be brought back to save it and in doing so make it the biggest US firm in history

0

@Stache

No, not that far back. 1968 would be 7B0. I’m a bit rusty myself. Had to use my old Casio fx-115D to check.
Thanks for the reply. Most people look at me like I’m crazy when I try to talk digital logic. It’s good exercise for the brain.

0