Steve Jobs, Demi-God



(image via newyork)

As former Editor-in-Chief of MacDirectory Magazine, The Corsair has had over the years an interest in Apple's CEO Steve Jobs. Today he gets the cover treatment at New York Magazine. No one of his generation except perhaps Bill Clinton and Paul McCartney -- and, of late, Al Gore -- gets such reverence. It is almost disturbing to see otherwise hugely rational Boomers act as if in the presence of the Second Coming. Otherwise mighty folks gasp at a Steve Jobs sighting; otherwise ice-cold journos go out of their way to accommodate.

And now: The i-Phone, which, when it drops, may -- or may not -- finally confer elusive i-Godhood status to Steve Jobs. From John Heilmann's article:

"The Steve Jobs story is one of the classic narratives—maybe the classic narrative—of American business life. Its structure has been rigorous, traditional, and symmetrical: three acts of ten years each. Act One (1975–1985) is 'The Rise,' in which Jobs goes into business with his pal, Steve Wozniak; starts Apple in his parents’ Silicon Valley garage; essentially invents the personal-computer industry with the Apple II; takes Apple public, making himself a multimillionaire at age 25; and changes the face of technology with the Macintosh. Act Two (1985–1996) is 'The Fall': the expulsion from Apple, the wilderness years battling depression and struggling to keep afloat two floundering new businesses, NeXT and Pixar. Act Three (1997–2007) is 'The Resurrection': the return to Apple and its restoration, the efflorescence of Pixar and its sale to Disney, the megabillionairehood, the sanctification as god of design and seer of the digital-media future.

"The consistent thread running through all three acts is Jobs’s singular persona. His messianism has been present from the start: 'He always believed,' says Wozniak, 'he was going to be a leader of mankind.' Yet the most common descriptor applied to him, by friends and foes and even Jobs himself, is 'asshole.' (Running neck-and-neck for second are 'genius' and 'sociopath.')" (New York)


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