It must have been difficult for many journos to come up with something new to say when Steve died. After all, they shot their wad by writing all those pseudo-obits when he resigned. The answer for many was to simply ramp up the idolatry.
The
dead are so often canonized in their passing. Mere mortals become gods once
they enter the grave. Washington Post, Wall
Street Journal, Forbes, CNBC, The
Smithsonian Blog and Robert X. Cringely called him a modern day Henry Ford,
Even actor Alec Baldwin twittered, “Sad
about Steve Jobs. On par with Henry Ford…”. [1]
Was Old Man Steve really on par with Old Man Ford?
Steve often spoke of Henry as one of his
personal heroes. Both men were cranky tyrants who decided
what people should buy without bothering with egghead market research. Both men
gave their customers as little choice as possible because they felt they knew
what’s best for them. They both had colour fetishes. Steve liked white and
Henry liked black – but for very different reasons.
Henry
preferred “Japan Black” because it dried quicker and therefore he could push
more T-Models out of his factories. Whereas, Steve liked white.. well.. because
he had a thing for white. Steve delayed the release of the white iPhone 4
because the shade wasn’t quite perfect.[2] Henry’s black was six
shades of ugly because it was choc-full of bitumen, which made it damn tough –
good for the customer who just wanted a car that didn’t rust.[3]
Unfortunately
for poor Henry, car buyers became spoilt by the gargantuan auto market that he
had built. Drivers began demanding more colour choices. General Motors kicked
Henry’s butt by offering every colour of the rainbow. On the other hand, Apple
customers enjoy a masochistic comfort in Steve’s lack of choice. They are like
the Japanese bondage queen, hog-tied to the ceiling by intricate rope-work,
waiting for Daddy to tell her what to do. Lack of choice worked for Steve, but
not for Henry.
Nevertheless, Henry’s butt-ugly-black car was
the first automobile that was affordable enough for the men who built them to
purchase for one for themselves. Henry democratised the automobile by passing
the savings he made to the American Everyman. He then raised wages and built a
happy factory culture enjoyed by generation after generation of American workers.
Steve
was the antithesis of the above hero. Rather than lower his price tag, Steve
raised his price tag higher than the
competition. He
then shut down his American factories and contracted the Chinese to build the
same pricey products for a bowl of rice and mattress on the floor. His savings were not passed onto his customers. He was no Henry
Ford.
Charlie and The Chocolate Factory reads like Steve’s own handbook
of management style. Wonka’s sub-human workers were chosen because they are so
kowtowed that they won’t sell-out his secrets. The mixing of chocolate via a
waterfall seems superfluously complicated but it creates an illusion of
specialness around its manufacture. The capricious Wonka provokes the citizens
into fighting each other for the opportunity to see inside his top secret
factory. Undesirables are eliminated from his inner circle if they prove to be
bozos. Accidents occur in his factory, but Wonka is unperturbed, as he seems to
enjoy a diplomatic immunity from his indiscretions. If anyone were to complain,
they would find that the complaints process so complicated that they wouldn’t
bother with it. Wonka prefers to pass
his factory on to a child so that he won't have to deal with an adult trying to
do things their way. One can’t help but notice that magical glass
elevator is reminiscent of Steve’s magical glass Apple Stores.
Here’s Wonka-rism that Steve repeated almost
word-for-word. In 1989 when he was
showing off his NeXT factory to Popular Science Magazine he said:
Steve Jobs: "…and
it's built completely untouched by human hands" [4]
Willy Wonka: “Uh, Little Boy, My chocolate must be untouched by human
hands” [5]
Steve's
idea was to do a Willy Wonka with it. Just as Wonka did in the movie, Steve
wanted to put a golden certificate representing the millionth iMac inside the
box of one iMac, and publicize that fact. Whoever opened the lucky iMac box
would be refunded the purchase price and be flown to Cupertino, where he or she
(and, presumably, the accompanying family) would be taken on a tour of the
Apple campus.
Steve
had already instructed his internal creative group to design a prototype golden
certificate, which he shared with us. But the killer was that Steve wanted to
go all out on this. He wanted to meet the lucky winner in full Willy Wonka
garb. Yes, complete with top hat and tails.[6]
The Wonka comparisons began in earnest after
the first iPhone was released. In Dan Lyons’s Options – a fictional diary of Steve - Bono from U2 gives Fake
Steve a piece of his mind:
Jaysus, Mary and Joseph,
you’re like Willy fookin Wonka in his fookin chocolate factory, out there
baking up your fookin iPods, and meanwhile the fookin planet is fookin meltin,
ya fooktard. [7]
The founder of Tumblr, David Karp, says both Steve and Wonka are his
personal interchangeable heroes:
It’s sort of the same as Steve—the idea that
there is this magical factory, and you can’t begin to imagine what went into
these things… [though] Apple is way scarier than Willy Wonka’s factory. [8]
It is rumoured that
Steve played up to this growing parallel with Wonka. Steve was spotted wearing “a very funny hat — a big top hat kind
of thing.” whilst dining with
fifty NY Times executives in
Manhattan.[9]
One Macrumours
forum commentator asked the question, "Are Chinese like Umpa Lumpas?"
[11]
There was indeed a real-life Charlie in the Apple
Factory. Stephen Fry was invited by Steve to Cupertino to test drive the secret
iPad before its official announcement. He wrote how Steve gave him a
"personal demonstration" for an “hour alone" with the "latest piece of magical hardware ". The
comedian couldn’t help but "confess to the childlike excitement" and it "
tickled my vanity” at
being the chosen one. Stephen held the golden marketing ticket because (a) he
has the largest twitter following, and (b) he has a lifestyle predilection for
needing to feel special and
advertise his own expensive material wealth. The happy result is that any review
of Apple product by Stephen will almost certainly be an act of worship beyond
epic proportions. Steve’s instinct must have told him that this particular
“Charlie” is probably a hopeless gossip who can’t help but spill to everyone
about his special date with his man-crush. So, Apple made Stephen sign a bunch
of NDAs before he saw the iPad. Stephen reminisced about his special day on his
blog in a eulogy that ran almost as long as this one.[12]
[1] CNN (2011, October 6) Entertainment world mourns Steve Jobs. Retrieved from: http://edition.cnn.com/2011/10/05/showbiz/jobs-reax/index.html
[2] Cox, J. (2010,
October 17) White iPhone Seen in The Wild. PC
World.
[3] Berthon, D. (2008, September 26) Time for a T party: 100 years of Ford's famous Model T. The Age.
[4] Hawkins,
W.J (Jan 1989) Steve Jobs' Revolutionary Computer. Popular Science. Retrieved
from: http://books.google.com/books?id=sfQCZ2JhzawC&lpg=PA68&ots=Oqce14ppw9&dq=%22untouched%20by%20human%20hands%22%20%22steve%20jobs%22&pg=PA70#v=onepage&q=%22untouched%20by%20human%20hands%22%20%22steve%20jobs%22&f=false
[5] Dahl, R. (2011) Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. London:Puffin.
[6] Segall, K. (2012) Insanely Simple: The Obsession That Drives Apple's Success. London: Portfolio Hardcover.
[8] Schonfeld, E (2011, February 24) Tumblr's David
Karp: My Heroes Are Steve Jobs And Willy Wonka [blog]. Tech Crunch.
Retrieved from: http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/24/founder-stories-tumblr-karp-jobs-wonka/
[9] Maurer, D. (2010, April 2) Steve Jobs in Secret New York Meeting With Top Times Execs. New York Magazine
[10] CollegeHumor.com (2011,March 2) Charlie and the Apple Factory. Retrieved from: http://www.collegehumor.com/video/6440954/charlie-and-the-apple-factory
[12] Fry, S. (2011,
October 6) Steve Jobs [blog]. Retrieved from:
http://www.stephenfry.com/2011/10/06/steve-jobs/
