Time Names Steve Jobs as One of 'The 20 Most Influential Americans of All Time'

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Posted July 26, 2012 at 3:50pm by iClarified

Time Magazine has named Steve Jobs as one of 'The 20 Most Influential Americans of All Time'.

The list includes: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Sacagawea, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, Abraham Lincoln, Sitting Bull, Alexander G. Bell, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Wright Brothers, Margaret Sanger, Albert Einstein, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Louis Armstrong, James Watson, Martin Luther King Jr., Muhammad Ali, and Steve Jobs.

Here's what they had to say about Jobs:

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He was the high priest of the computer age, and as the pancreatic cancer that would kill him at age 56 took its toll, he appeared ever more gaunt and ascetic in his uniform of jeans and black turtleneck at the live introductions of his latest Apple products. There was always something of the monkish seeker about Steve Jobs, from his days as a part-time student at Reed College in Oregon, through his Wanderjahr in Asia to his pursuit of perfection in the dazzling products he and his colleagues created.

His business career started where all the best Silicon Valley stories begin: with two pals fiddling with computers in a garage. While IBM and other large firms were creating huge mainframe machines, Jobs and his software-genius partner, Steve Wozniak, cooked up the first small personal computer, the Apple II. Then, thanks to a visit to Xerox's local research lab, Jobs got a glimpse of the future: a computer with a graphical design interface, operated by a mouse. Inspired, he drove his Apple team to create a giant stride forward in digital design, the Macintosh computer. Debuting in 1984, it swept the world, and by age 25, Jobs's net worth was $100 million. But he was a tough, abrasive, pushy manager, and after his failings as an executive led to his ouster from his own company, Jobs entered a period of exile in which he founded a new computer company, NeXT, and ran Pixar, an innovative studio that revolutionized film animation with its 1995 computer-generated hit, Toy Story.

By 1997 Apple was on the skids, a victim of executives who lacked Jobs' vision. He returned to his former company, retooled it - and commenced the greatest comeback in business history, introducing a clutch of breakthrough products that created a new digital landscape: the iPod, the iTunes store, the iPhone, the iPad. Apple's retail outlets became the highest-grossing stores in the world, and as of 2012, Apple was the world's most valuable company.

Jobs was a visionary whose great genius was for design: he pushed and pushed to make the interface between computers and people elegant, simple and delightful. He always claimed his goal was to create products that were "insanely great." Mission accomplished.
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Check the entire list at the link below...

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Time Names Steve Jobs as One of 'The 20 Most Influential Americans of All Time'

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Phil - July 26, 2012 at 5:13pm

@Russell - A decidely mixed bag. Your first post, while nasty, was essentially accurate. Your second post, not so much. Govt had no case; no surprise that they were willing to settle. I was shocked, however, that Apple was willing to settle. A curious list that Time chose for their top 20. The most surprising is Watson, widely considered by his peers to be a clown as a scientist. He strictly rode Crick's coattails. And FDR? A terrible president whose contributions were almost entirely negative. Influential, yes, but is that really what Time had in mind?

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Russell - July 26, 2012 at 11:36pm

For over 100 years, the antitrust laws have had the same basic objective: to protect the process of competition for the BENEFIT OF THE CONSUMERS, making sure there are strong incentives for businesses to operate efficiently, keep prices down, and keep quality up.... The Sherman Act outlaws "every contract, combination, or conspiracy in restraint of trade," and any "monopolization, attempted monopolization, or conspiracy or combination to monopolize."...These include plain arrangements among competing individuals or businesses to fix prices, divide markets, or rig bids. These acts are "per se" violations of the Sherman Act; in other words, NO DEFENSE OR JUSTIFICATION ALLOWED.... The Clayton Act addresses specific practices that the Sherman Act does not clearly prohibit, such as mergers and interlocking directorates (that is, the same person making business decisions for competing companies). Section 7 of the Clayton Act prohibits mergers and acquisitions where the effect "may be substantially to lessen competition, or to tend to create a monopoly."... http://www.ftc.gov/bc/antitrust/antitrust_laws.shtm Steve wanted to enter the ebook market, but the profits were too low for his liking. So he colluded with publishers to increase prices, thus violating both laws. Some people (mostly booksellers), feel Amazon is a monopoly and that was justification for increasing prices. The law says NO.

Russell - July 26, 2012 at 4:34pm

Violated antitrust laws by colluding with book publishers to raise the price of ebooks for customers. "Many critics of the settlements view the consequences of the conspiracy -- higher prices -- as serving their own self-interests, and they prefer that unfettered competition be replaced by industry collusion that places the welfare of certain firms over that of the public," the DOJ's lawyers wrote. "That position is wholly at odds with the purposes of the federal antitrust laws -- which were enacted to protect competition, not competitors." http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/259676/apple_booksellers_oppose_proposed_ebook_pricefixing_settlement.html