I only ended up mentioning Steve Jobs because the Apple II came to mind as a piece of technology that was so awesome and beyond its time that it really ought to sell itself. It just so happens that Steve Jobs was the sales side of that business at the time (at least according to the biography).
I tremendously respect what Jobs achieved, but I don't think I'm putting him on a pedestal. Are you guys suggesting I should deliberately avoid using any of Apple's products or achievements as an example for anything because I might end up having to mention Jobs? That seems extreme, but it's the natural conclusion of your reaction...
Apple II came to mind as a piece of technology that was so awesome and beyond its time
Well... So the last man standing from the 8-bit days tells us (I mean Apple, not Jobs himself obv). But in truth, the C64 gave a lot more bang for the buck, esp. when you include the price of disk drives! And was just as hackable, etc. Similarly, the ST and Amiga were much more powerful and cheaper and more hackable than contemporary Macs. The Jackintosh was the first machine to deliver 1Mb of memory for under $1000. I just think we need to keep things in the proper perspective. Apple made and indeed makes some great products. But it's also true that they smothered technically superior but not as well commercially managed competitors. History is written by the winners.
Compare directly to the 64k IIe, then. $595 vs $1200, according to Wikipaedia.
Anyway, my point is not to take anything away from Apple or Jobs, but it's a stretch to say that they were so far ahead of everyone else. If you need a hero for rhetorical purposes, try Jack Tramiel :-)
But I don't care about what was going on 5 years later. My point is that when the Apple II came out (not the IIe or the Mac or any other Apple product) they were miles ahead everyone else, and it was a product that in theory could have sold itself, but still needed a kick-ass salesperson to get off the ground. What happened years later is totally irrelevant to this point.
Yep, fair point, your mentioning Steve Jobs made sense in the context of the article (good article by the way, I agree about engineers tending to undervalue decent sales guys). I don't know about babarock, but I was thinking more of the "10 business secrets of Steve Jobs" linkbaity articles you see floating around. Hence my pre-emptive apology for taking this comment thread off-topic. (I also think this is one issue with nested comments like this as opposed to traditional linear forums).
(IIRC the one time we spoke on Twitter I was also offering some vague criticism so I don't want you to think I'm some faceless internet critic. I'm actually a big fan of your blog).
I tremendously respect what Jobs achieved, but I don't think I'm putting him on a pedestal. Are you guys suggesting I should deliberately avoid using any of Apple's products or achievements as an example for anything because I might end up having to mention Jobs? That seems extreme, but it's the natural conclusion of your reaction...