A key to Apple's success: Products over Profit

[Selene]

Brant:

You would have made a good officer.

Adam

[sjw]

Brant, I made no specific remark about Dennis's actual psychotherapy skills, just a generalized remark about psychotherapists in general. You go too far in your suggestion to the contrary, and you owe me a retraction and apology.

Shayne

[sjw]

If Dennis requests, I'll edit it. It is certainly not my intent to harm his business. I just think that it is in no way a criticism of his actual business.

On the other hand, he accused me of a mind-body dichotomy. So maybe he can take that back too.

Shayne

[Dennis Hardin]

Thanks for the kind words, Brant. I fully expected sjw's response. He is nothing if not utterly predictable. As George has consistently demonstrated, he has a charming way of revealing when he knows he has lost an argument.

People who are sure of their positions do not need to fall back on personal attacks. An honest person would acknowledge that he was brazenly wrong and ignorant in his assessment of the Objectivist position on making a profit. I simply clarified the Objectivist viewpoint, as anyone knowledgeable in this matter would have done.

I don't know how old sjw is. Let's just say I hope is on the young side. He has some growing up to do.

[9thdoctor]

Thanks for the kind words, Brant. I fully expected sjw's response. He is nothing if not utterly predictable. As George has consistently demonstrated, he has a charming way of revealing when he knows he has lost an argument.

I advise not interacting with him. It works for me.

[Brant Gaede]

If Dennis requests, I'll edit it. It is certainly not my intent to harm his business. I just think that it is in no way a criticism of his actual business.

On the other hand, he accused me of a mind-body dichotomy. So maybe he can take that back too.

Shayne

You are not a psychotherapist so the mind-body thingy is just par for the Internet flame war course. But suppose he had said you might be a lousy engineer? That you probably gave bad construction advice? Or likely screwed up customers' software? It's worse for psychotherapy, though; that's when you can grab somebody deep down and squeeze hard. And it's not a business, it's a profession. The business part is why you can afford to do it.

If Dennis had made representations about psychotherapy here I thought were misguided I'd call him out on them. Nathaniel Branden used to have a Yahoo Group group. It was mostly psychology. It's still there, but shut down. Several years of postings available for public perusal. Go check it out. If enough of us want to talk psychology on OL I suppose we could, but I strongly recommend against it, especially personal psychology and problems. On his list Nathaniel was always in the background, at least, and he wasn't the only psychologist there.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

Thanks for the kind words, Brant. I fully expected sjw's response. He is nothing if not utterly predictable. As George has consistently demonstrated, he has a charming way of revealing when he knows he has lost an argument.

People who are sure of their positions do not need to fall back on personal attacks. An honest person would acknowledge that he was brazenly wrong and ignorant in his assessment of the Objectivist position on making a profit. I simply clarified the Objectivist viewpoint, as anyone knowledgeable in this matter would have done.

I don't know how old sjw is. Let's just say I hope is on the young side. He has some growing up to do.

I haven't really followed the making a profit thing. If you can't you probably won't last too long not. My understanding is it's mostly a discussion about who serves whom, the customer or the producer. Well, a proper customer is also a producer or from a productive family--not always--so most everyone should have multiple perspectives if they ever bother to even consider or think about them. Produce for your customers or customers for your production? The more production, the more choice; the more of that type of freedom.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

Brant, I made no specific remark about Dennis's actual psychotherapy skills, just a generalized remark about psychotherapists in general. You go too far in your suggestion to the contrary, and you owe me a retraction and apology.

Shayne

I deleted my hot button response to this. I will merely note I was talking about your post's last sentence.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

Brant:

You would have made a good officer.

Adam

No. I'm too much of a pussy unless I get mad. In any case, enlisted men are much more powerful than junior officers, who have to salute almost anybody.

--Brant

[Selene]

Brant:

You would have made a good officer.

Adam

No. I'm too much of a pussy unless I get mad. In any case, enlisted men are much more powerful than junior officers, who have to salute almost anybody.

--Brant

Understood. An operations sergeant then.

[Brant Gaede]

I agree with this. The reason is while Randian heroes are depicted as creative geniuses, the creativity of them (and Rand) is of a different order than that of a Steve Jobs, Mozart, or Frank Lloyd Wright. In the first instance it seems forced, even contrived as with Rearden, in the second it seems to flow.

The forced, contrived aspect you're perceiving might have come from her Russian background. The Communist work ethic is -- work, work, work! Maximize profits for the good of the State! The purpose of work is profit, and the purpose of profit is to enlarge the power of the State. (See "The Masks of Communism", http://www.amazon.co...s/dp/B0007E2FVG ).

A value-creator's purpose in work is much different. It is to create an object of love, to further human life, to strive for what one is capable of. It's not merely about profit maximization, although profit can certainly be instrumental to specific ends.

It is ironic that idiot Dennis accuses me of a "mind-body" dichotomy, because this "pursue maximal profits" philosophy that I am repudiating is precisely an example of the mind-body dichotomy. An individualist doesn't pursue maximum profit, he pursues maximum life value, and life consists of far more than just profits. In the case where it is of great value for you to create the best possible computer, obviously that requires a great deal of revenue in order to do that. But the goal is the computer, not the revenue. This was Jobs' very healthy motivation, not the "profit motive", but the human values motive.

Shayne

I strongly suspect Jobs' motivations were a lot more complicated than this. But the motive you've alluded to helps explain his great creativity.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

Brant:

You would have made a good officer.

Adam

No. I'm too much of a pussy unless I get mad. In any case, enlisted men are much more powerful than junior officers, who have to salute almost anybody.

--Brant

Understood. An operations sergeant then.

If I had wanted a military career I'd have been an officer, but I didn't. A fighter pilot if I had had the eyes and aptitude for it. I would have hated being stuck in a Minuteman silo. If the Vietnam War hadn't been such a cluster-fuck I'd have gone back for more, but there was almost nothing right about it and I figured that out pretty fast. I'd have also volunteered for other duty, like Thailand, to get laid--cough, cough--I mean, to explore and enjoy the local culture.

--Brant

[sjw]

Thanks for the kind words, Brant. I fully expected sjw's response. He is nothing if not utterly predictable. As George has consistently demonstrated, he has a charming way of revealing when he knows he has lost an argument.

I advise not interacting with him. It works for me.

It would work for me too.

Shayne

[sjw]

You are not a psychotherapist so the mind-body thingy is just par for the Internet flame war course. But suppose he had said you might be a lousy engineer? That you probably gave bad construction advice? Or likely screwed up customers' software? It's worse for psychotherapy, though; that's when you can grab somebody deep down and squeeze hard. And it's not a business, it's a profession. The business part is why you can afford to do it.

If Dennis had made representations about psychotherapy here I thought were misguided I'd call him out on them. Nathaniel Branden used to have a Yahoo Group group. It was mostly psychology. It's still there, but shut down. Several years of postings available for public perusal. Go check it out. If enough of us want to talk psychology on OL I suppose we could, but I strongly recommend against it, especially personal psychology and problems. On his list Nathaniel was always in the background, at least, and he wasn't the only psychologist there.

--Brant

I really don't understand your angle. It's all par for the internet course. Dennis's idiotic flaming of me, my returning his flame in kind, his next flame, etc. etc. My only point is I made no critique that plausibly is directed to my actual experience with him at work. I wish you hadn't brought that up, it's below the belt to accuse me of dragging his professional name through the mud without substantiation when I did no such thing.

Shayne

[sjw]

Brant, after seeing what some government licensed psychotherapists consider "work", I have to wonder whether Dennis even knows the meaning of work. Who knows, maybe the idiot actually gives people good advice, but I doubt it. Shayne

Shayne,

I often think of you as a Ferrari: 0 - 60 in 3.2 seconds.

Dennis is perceptibly no idiot, and I thought his post balanced out the good point that you have made.

Over all, I agree with you on creativity motive above profit motive - but not by too far! Survival matters.

I do believe there is an excess of admiration for the Trumps and Gates' of the world, in O'ist circles. The bigger the better, to fit the perceived Randian mode - but I wonder if she'd have had any respect for them.

I spare many thoughts for entrepeneurs who didn't make it big, through bad timing or ignorance of marketing, or whatever.

You and Dennis put forth good arguments, and I'm not even trying to be diplomatic.

(Does this make me half an idiot?)

Tony

It's black and white. Either my post implied mind-body dichotomy or it did not. I think it's obvious that it did not, and Dennis is just trying to spin because he has vicious motives. So you got sucked up into his spin. So sorry, but I don't know what I can do. Learn to read in an "A is A" fashion.

Shayne

[sjw]

Thanks for the kind words, Brant. I fully expected sjw's response. He is nothing if not utterly predictable. As George has consistently demonstrated, he has a charming way of revealing when he knows he has lost an argument.

People who are sure of their positions do not need to fall back on personal attacks. An honest person would acknowledge that he was brazenly wrong and ignorant in his assessment of the Objectivist position on making a profit. I simply clarified the Objectivist viewpoint, as anyone knowledgeable in this matter would have done.

I don't know how old sjw is. Let's just say I hope is on the young side. He has some growing up to do.

I have learned from this thread and from past interactions that Dennis is a dishonest debater and constantly spins things to his own bias, refusing to deal in terms of facts but instead appealing to ad hominem. Note in this post, where he pretends (spins) that I react as I do because I lost some argument. I think it's clear that I have the stronger argument, or at the very least a quite plausible position. Is Dennis an idiot? Does he lie to himself? Or does he merely think he can manipulate a bunch of fools? Give his education about the human mind, perhaps he is very aware of what he is doing. Or perhaps he is a senile old man and is quite unaware. One thing is almost certain: I will never find out which is the actual case. I have learned that when you get this kind of bizarre irrationality from someone like Dennis, or Ninth, you never get to the bottom of it. It's just a brute fact of reality. And that's the nature of irrationality: if the irrationalist were to explain, he would cease being an irrationalist.

Shayne

[john42t]

Jobs had his faults of course, but his primary motives were heroic. One of his faults is what may have gotten him killed (as his biographer points out).

Jobs is the person that can be compared to Roark or Rearden. Not completely, but in a general way. But Gates -- the antithesis of Jobs -- is the one that Objectivists have historically most connected to business heroism.

I wasn't aware of that, and it's weird indeed.

In fact I see more heroism in Ballmer than in Gates on the superficial glance I took, when it comes to Microsoft.

However, note that not only Apple, but also Google (Page Rank was there before they made profit or had any business model at all) and Microsoft now follow the "Roark-principle". If more people could understand the beauty, scope and ambition of the .NET strategy, all those slashdot-hippies who whine about how Microsoft only goes where the money is would shut up. I don't know who that is within Microsoft that drives this forward, but the notion of this company making money with "market abuse" is now becoming absurd even for those who still believe there is such a thing.

[Brant Gaede]

You are not a psychotherapist so the mind-body thingy is just par for the Internet flame war course. But suppose he had said you might be a lousy engineer? That you probably gave bad construction advice? Or likely screwed up customers' software? It's worse for psychotherapy, though; that's when you can grab somebody deep down and squeeze hard. And it's not a business, it's a profession. The business part is why you can afford to do it.

If Dennis had made representations about psychotherapy here I thought were misguided I'd call him out on them. Nathaniel Branden used to have a Yahoo Group group. It was mostly psychology. It's still there, but shut down. Several years of postings available for public perusal. Go check it out. If enough of us want to talk psychology on OL I suppose we could, but I strongly recommend against it, especially personal psychology and problems. On his list Nathaniel was always in the background, at least, and he wasn't the only psychologist there.

--Brant

I really don't understand your angle. It's all par for the internet course. Dennis's idiotic flaming of me, my returning his flame in kind, his next flame, etc. etc. My only point is I made no critique that plausibly is directed to my actual experience with him at work. I wish you hadn't brought that up, it's below the belt to accuse me of dragging his professional name through the mud without substantiation when I did no such thing.

Shayne

Please stop. You're just hitting yourself.

--Brant

[sjw]

Please stop. You're just hitting yourself.

--Brant

Enough with the ad hominem Brant. Be a man. Stick with the subject. Or put your tail between your legs like Ninth or Dennis and scurry off. But knock it off with this self-serving spin of yours.

Shayne

[sjw]

Roark and Rearden are better than Jobs in this important respect: both were intimately familiar with the details of their creations. They knew not only what they wanted as a final result, but how to accomplish their ends. Rearden depended on others not because he couldn't do each of their jobs, but because he was only one man. Jobs was utterly dependent on people like Wozniak.

I don't see that a Rearden would be able to exist in today's very mixed economy, just as in the end, his company didn't survive to the end of Atlas. Some argued that Bill Gates was comparable to Rearden (I don't agree, but for the sake of argument...) and that his going into philanthropy was him retreating from the unjust attacks on his company. I'm sure there is some truth to this. (There's a lot of truth to Jobs' criticism of Gates as well.)

Jobs was the one with just the right about of mix of contradictions, and some great luck concerning his return to Apple, that he was able to combine the creator personality with the corporate realm and achieve some great things. He's not a Randian hero. I'd like to see a Randian hero thrive in this corporate setup, but I think he'd have an even harder time than Jobs.

Shayne

[Brant Gaede]

Please stop. You're just hitting yourself.

--Brant

Enough with the ad hominem Brant. Be a man. Stick with the subject. Or put your tail between your legs like Ninth or Dennis and scurry off. But knock it off with this self-serving spin of yours.

Shayne

I'm not going to keep repeating myself while you try to obscure the issue I raised, not the other guys, by puffing up the matter and introducing complexity. I'm not here to deal with blather. Anyone interested can go back and read what I first wrote about the matter and the two or three subsequent posts by me. Like many on the Internet you keep violating the first principle of parallel parking: if you don't do it right the first time start over.

--Brant

[sjw]

In fact I see more heroism in Ballmer than in Gates on the superficial glance I took, when it comes to Microsoft.

I don't know what to say... it's good that he knows who counts in his company:

I don't know who that is within Microsoft that drives this forward, but the notion of this company making money with "market abuse" is now becoming absurd even for those who still believe there is such a thing.

Microsoft is certainly involved with significant unjust market activity, especially of late, where it is profiting (via corrupt patent law) on something it didn't even create: Android.

Shayne

[Brant Gaede]

Roark and Rearden are better than Jobs in this important respect: both were intimately familiar with the details of their creations. They knew not only what they wanted as a final result, but how to accomplish their ends. Rearden depended on others not because he couldn't do each of their jobs, but because he was only one man. Jobs was utterly dependent on people like Wozniak.

I don't see that a Rearden would be able to exist in today's very mixed economy, just as in the end, his company didn't survive to the end of Atlas. Some argued that Bill Gates was comparable to Rearden (I don't agree, but for the sake of argument...) and that his going into philanthropy was him retreating from the unjust attacks on his company. I'm sure there is some truth to this. (There's a lot of truth to Jobs' criticism of Gates as well.)

Jobs was the one with just the right about of mix of contradictions, and some great luck concerning his return to Apple, that he was able to combine the creator personality with the corporate realm and achieve some great things. He's not a Randian hero. I'd like to see a Randian hero thrive in this corporate setup, but I think he'd have an even harder time than Jobs.

Shayne

No one is a Randian hero in the hard sense. A real life Rearden would be different in many respects than as depicted in Atlas Shrugged. I'd note two things about Jobs and Rearden: absolute passion for their work and a great courage in the face of adversity.

--Brant

[sjw]

I'm not going to keep repeating myself while you try to obscure the issue I raised, not the other guys, by puffing up the matter and introducing complexity. I'm not here to deal with blather. Anyone interested can go back and read what I first wrote about the matter and the two or three subsequent posts by me. Like many on the Internet you keep violating the first principle of parallel parking: if you don't do it right the first time start over.

--Brant

You're wrong. But why do you insist on beating your dead horse? It has nothing to do with the thread. Did you bruise your ego? Are you ashamed that you went over the top and are now trying to save face by pretending I did worse than you? You're the one that needs to stop Brant. Or if you won't, how about you do something new for a change and squarely deal with the matter rather than throwing off generalized, unsubstantiated, self-serving remarks.

You took exception to how I framed the insult Dennis earned. I went so far as to clarify for you that your interpretation is not what I meant, even though the clarification was not necessary. I'm not married to the particular form of insult, so I even offered Dennis to rewrite it if that's what he wanted. Evidently he didn't care as much as you do. Evidently he believes that I appear so foolish, that my opinions, which are clearly uninformed of actual experience with him, won't hurt his business. Seems a rather sane response given the premises. Yours on the other hand makes no sense.

I don't know what you want. You seem to want me to tell you were right when in fact, you went way over the line. Maybe my insult was in bad taste, but your response went far further than bad taste.

Shayne

[sjw]

No one is a Randian hero in the hard sense. A real life Rearden would be different in many respects than as depicted in Atlas Shrugged. I'd note two things about Jobs and Rearden: absolute passion for their work and a great courage in the face of adversity.

--Brant

A Randian hero can have imperfections. I think they exist, but they don't rise to the top of industry in today's very mixed economy. Indeed, Rand was a Randian hero. She chose a pursuit that didn't depend on creating a large infrastructure of people, and so could exist as a Randian hero. Businessmen have a more difficult time.

Wozniak added another element that Rearden had and Jobs was missing: tenacity at solving engineering problems.

Shayne