Anil Dash points out something hilarious; I’m quoting the whole thing because it’s brilliant:
For the past several days, Apple’s stock has been rising high enough that the company has flitted between being the first and second most valuable company in the world. Regardless of the final value of the stock on any given day, it is without a doubt the greatest comeback or turnaround story in the history of American business: A single company has gone from being just 90 days away from shutting down to becoming the unequivocal leader in innovation, design, branding and now valuation, and the transformation happened in less than a decade and a half.
Most interestingly, there’s a unanimous consensus, from fans and detractors alike, both within and outside the company, that a single man bears the lion’s share of the credit for the vision, leadership and execution that’s made this achievement possible.
So, who is this man? He’s the anchor baby of an activist Arab muslim who came to the U.S. on a student visa and had a child out of wedlock. He’s a non-Christian, arugula-eating, drug-using follower of unabashedly old-fashioned liberal teachings from the hippies and folk music stars of the 60s. And he believes in science, in things that science can demonstrate like climate change and Pi having a value more specific than “3”, and in extending responsible benefits to his employees while encouraging his company to lead by being environmentally responsible.
Every single person who’d attack Steve Jobs on any of these grounds is, demonstrably, worse at business than Jobs. They’re unqualified to assert that liberal values are bad for business, when the demonstrable, factual, obvious evidence contradicts those assertions.
It’s a choice whether you, or anyone else, wants to accept the falsehood that liberal values are somehow in contradiction with business success at a global scale. Indeed, it would seem that many who claim to be pro-business are trying to “save” us from exactly the inclusive, creative, tolerant values that have made America’s most successful company possible. I side with the makers, the creators, and the inventors, and it’s about time that the pack of clamoring would-be politicians be put on the defensive for attacking the values of those of us on this side.
By the way, before people whine about Apple stock being expensive, there’s a case to be made that AAPL is actually undervalued. Put simply, they’re just about printing money in Cupertino, get great return on what they spend, and don’t make stupid choices like some companies we could name.
Dash makes but one critical error of reasoning in his essay, and it’s a whopper. Note where he refers to Steve Jobs as an “anchor baby”, suggesting that Jobs is the offspring of two anchors.
Anchors are inorganic; they have no biological component. As such, they cannot reproduce.
Under the weight of this obscene fallacy, Dash’s essay utterly collapses.
This is funny because the same liberals were seething out how Jobs was keeping everything proprietary with his closed source capitalistic and heavy handed methods just a few years ago. A reason Jobs can offer more benefits to his employees is because of his outsourcing for production to other countries that allow their workers to toil in slave conditions and have their masters pollute the environment with all sorts of toxins that would make a hippie shudder and actually smell better than average. Get fucking real. I love Jobs, his products and just about everything Apple. I love his stock. Let’s not paint him as some liberal prodigy because many of his business practices are far far away from the myopic liberal fantasies of business and How The World Should Be.