California Nominates Steve Jobs for Its American Innovation $1 Coin
81 comments
·February 22, 2025baxtr
I really miss him in today’s world. I fantasize how he would have had the intellectual ability to dissect the craziness we’re seeing and putting it into perspective with some smart words.
smolder
I think he'd be lined up with the other tech leaders just doing what's needed to gain power. He wasn't a saint, he was just a bit of a visionary with the greed to succeed.
consumer451
Personally, I hold him in somewhat high regard. At the same time, he made billions while conspiring to deprive many HN users of their just rewards. This should not be forgotten, or forgiven.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/04/24/306592297...
https://old.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/y9eyxq/til_d...
DC-3
> just rewards
* liberalised labour market rewards
unless you think there is inherent moral justice in being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to write software
sneak
He was a criminal who literally conspired to steal billions.
It wasn’t just deprivation; it was stealing.
BurningFrog
I don't think anyone has claimed he was a saint...
He had a genius for dreaming up products the world didn't know it needed yet, and for developing those products to perfection.
Several of those products were quantum leaps that the world would not have figured out for several years, if ever, without Jobs.
Hizonner
Um, bullshit.
Apple II: Very similar to contemporary products. Interesting improvements added by Wozniak.
Lisa: Stolen from Xerox (and made worse). Jobs' contribution: cosmetics, mostly.
Mac: Oops, the Lisa was too good.
Next: A somewhat better Xerox ripoff with a mix-in of other common stuff.
Newton: OK, somewhat innovative.
iPod: Stolen from a whole bunch of people
iPhone: Nothing but a PDA with a phone integrated in it. Obvious next step.
As for "developing to perfection", well, if a smooth, candy-colored shell around a deliberately limited device is perfection, then yeah. I guess you can credit Jobs with a willingness to break from standards, but not with unusually good judgement about when to do it.
kortilla
“greed to succeed” is a simplistic trope. He was already wealthy by the time he went back to fix Apple.
someothherguyy
"Already wealthy, no desire for more" is a trope as well
khazhoux
> he was just a bit of a visionary
Maybe he deserves "a bit" more credit than that?
colechristensen
I’d say he was… half as bad.
teleforce
His vision for PC based world even far surpassed of Gates with the Next platform in which two important technology underpinning the online world were invented using the platform namely the WWW by Berners-Lee and the Doom by Carmack. Not to say that now most of the Apple devices from smartphone, laptop, PC, tablet, smartwatch, etc, are currently using Next derived system as their operating systems.
He also envisioned one of the ultimate aim of computers is creating an experience where we can resurrect Aristotle intelligence and interact with him to receive his wisdom, not unlike something like LLM that we have today.
tgv
He’s by and large responsible for mobile phone/social media addiction, which is bad enough on its own, but also enables divisive propaganda, and you think he could offer perspective?
wqaatwt
That’s like Henry Ford is by and large responsible for most traffic related deaths since 1910s. Technically correct, I suppose. Entirely meaningless, though…
cbozeman
This is hilariously offbase and untrue.
Social media was already taking off long before the iPhone was on the scene. Facebook was open to the public in 2006, MySpace had already taken off like a rocket at that time, receiving more visitors than Google and Yahoo in the US. Twitter launched in 2006 as well.
The iPhone wasn't the first smartphone - not even close in fact. It was just "the best" in terms of user experience, and caused a rapid acceleration of development for Android, which had started to shift to mobile phone development in 2004 anyway, but really hit overdrive when the iPhone was debuted.
Windows Mobile 6 was out at this time - 2008 - and it was straight trash. I had a T-Mobile Wing that I got in 2006, I believe it had Windows Mobile 5.1. It's usability was a joke compared to the iPhone. This pushed Microsoft to create a mobile OS, and eventually they had something that could have been a real contender, because Windows Phone had a really fantastic interface that actually was a lot more usable than iOS or Android, but Microsoft made fuckup after fuckup in a series of events that almost defies belief.
antris
Jobs didn't believe in cancer treatment https://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2011/10/24/steve-j...
I'm pretty sure he'd have fell in line to the fascist insanity just like all other billionaires. He lived at the time of the height of neoliberal ideology, when most people believed in the conjured public images that the tech bro CEOs gave out in PR. Behind the scenes, things were quite different. Jobs has been reported to be petty, insulting and belittling of his employees
ConradKilroy
Thank you for referencing his idiot behavior leading to his own demise, I hope that will be on his coin.
khazhoux
Why do you say that?
Was his refusal of cancer treatment more impactful on the world than his creation of Apple Computers?
lacy_tinpot
To imagine being anti-pharma, and big corporations used to be a Leftists/Hippy talking point.
lotsofpulp
Still is. Portland, OR shoots down fluoridated water every time.
antris
Hippies were never leftists, they were liberals. And when fascists come knocking, liberals flock to fascism.
Also, being anti big pharma isn't the same as believing in conspiracy theories. You can't resist if you don't live in reality.
thomassmith65
I'm pretty sure he'd have fell in line to the fascist insanity just like all other billionaires.
antris
Musk has massive ego too, and he's drinking the fascist kool aid, perhaps even more than Trump himself. Massive ego is more susceptible to fascist thinking, not less.
cbozeman
Musk is easily on the level of Jobs and arguably beyond him, not just financially, but on the scale of what they've done for Humanity as a whole.
SpaceX and Starlink just by themselves are enough to catapult him beyond Jobs, but you add on Tesla, which pretty much single-handedly pushed electric cars into mainstream culture, and he's easily there.
This isn't even really a subjective perspective, you could objectively argue it.
Mistletoe
I'm not even a Jobs fanboy but let's give him the benefit of the doubt. He at least believed in things, which is more than I can say for the tech giants that are bending the knee right now.
goosejuice
Oh they believe in things... https://a16z.com/the-techno-optimist-manifesto/
caycep
at least judging from his products sense, what he believed in was more grounded in the real world
antris
Well I'm just going by what's been reported in the media. It gives no indication that Jobs was an anti-fascist ready to resist.
jsphweid
> Jobs didn't believe in cancer treatment
His own health choices are a private matter as far as I'm concerned. He held off too long on modern medicine and paid the price for it. Bringing it up here is irrelevant and distracting.
bertylicious
It's not distracting, it's an important detail underlining the ridiculousness of this decision.
Maybe it's just me, but I think innovation awards are for people with scientific mindsets. Jobs obviously didn't have one.
antris
RFK Jr. is the Secretary of Health and Human Services.
bertylicious
What exactly did he invent though?
bambax
I kind of like Steve Jobs and think Bill Burr's take down is a little unfair; but it's funny and not without merit:
mike503
I came here wondering if someone had posted this :)
gizajob
Getting tech products that were 10*% better than the competition to the stage where you could actually buy and own them.
khazhoux
Steve Jobs is one of the founders and the long-time CEO of Apple Computers, which makes products that are widely regarded as some of the most innovative in tech. If you're familiar with the original Mac, for example -- that was Apple. The iPhone went against the grain of the time and introduced the touch-only interface (with multi-gesture). There's lots of other examples.
baketnk
woz $2 bill please
tdeck
If we aren't producing the penny, why continue to make $1 coins? Almost nobody uses them in the US. I don't think I see a single one in the wild most years, and the only time I get them is change from some train ticket machines.
Hizonner
Because as inflation continues, there's a risk of all those quarters in your pocket collapsing into a black hole? And the dollar bills crumbling to dust?
Admittedly, I haven't really used coins (or bills) on a day to day basis for years. I live in Canada but doubt the US is that different.
misiek08
„The last one CEO who cared about the product quality”
No updates taking 2 years to finish, no melting connectors, no overheating new phones. And firing people who proactively work against company they are hired by.
nomilk
The faulty keyboards of 2016-19 [0] were IMO the most egregious of Apple's hardware faults. Apple worsened it by taking forever to admit fault.
Trying to chat, code (or do anything quickly and precisely) with a keyboard that didn't do what your fingers told it to got extremely frustrating extremely quickly.
I recall public faux pas due to mistyped public chat messages, and CI runs failing due to two characters being where one should have been.
zfg
Wozniak would be a better choice.
zerr
Innovation in marketing?
MisterSandman
I mean, that is the most obvious choice. Even if Woz was publically well known, giving it to someone who is still alive is kind of tacky.
At least they’re not giving it to Elon…
bongodongobob
Gross.
fortran77
His preferred currency was back-dated stock options.
BrenBarn
Pathetic.
When you get $1 change, Apple takes $0.30.