Apple's candy colored products are superbly designed to tickle the fancy and entertain the consumer, but whatever happened to changing the world?

Sugar Water

by Del Miller

February 12, 2000

Apple is just not like other computer companies because it possesses something unique; it has an ideology. I don't mean the common, corporate mission statement, but a real, live philosophy that relates the company to the world around it. The philosophy is informal and bigger than the company itself -- it says that Apple is out to change the world.

This philosophy was forged in a different kind of thinking long before "Think Different" was Apple's advertising slogan and came directly from Steve Jobs during the earliest days of Apple. Now, an ideology of any value carries with it a burden, the burden of being relevant and contributing to its higher principles. Simple business success doesn't quite cut it. If Apple is to live up to its charter, it has to live up to its promise of making a better world.

Steve Jobs used the same argument to convince John Scully to head apple many years ago. When Scully declined the initial offer, Jobs was said to have asked him, "Do you want to spend your life selling sugar water to children or do you want to change the world." Scully had little choice but to accept.

But Scully didn't really understand the message, nor did Michael Spindler who followed, nor did Gil Amelio who came after him. The clear signal of changing the world became lost in the noise of corporate politics and financial survival. By the time that Gil Amelio left Apple, early in July of 1997, it was clear that Apple had lost its vision. There was no apparent path to relevancy for the company -- the goal of changing the world had been forgotten.

Upon Amelio's departure, Steve Jobs agreed to manage the company on an informal, strictly temporary basis, based upon the understanding that a new CEO would be found as quickly as possible. While the rumor mill held that Steve Jobs would be offered the top job at Apple, Jobs demurred, torn between his love of Pixar and Apple's desperate situation. Obviously he himself didn't fully believe that Apple could be salvaged and becoming its captain only to go down with the ship was a dubious career move for a man already happy with his hard-earned success at Pixar. By the end of July, the Wall Street Journal reported that Jobs had turned down the job of CEO, stating that "he only wanted to point the company in the right direction and see a good CEO hired."

In the weeks following, Jobs repeatedly declined the helm of Apple, and while I could easily understand his decision, I wanted Apple to grow and once again reshape the world and its future. In my mind, the only man who understood the importance of this didn't want the job. Finally, out of fear and frustration I did something I never thought I'd do; I wrote a letter to Steve jobs:

8/25/97 7:48 PM

From: Del Miller

To: Steve Jobs

Subject: Days of Future Past

 

Mr. Jobs,

 

Three theories regarding Apple Computer:

 

Axiom 1: The ubiquity of the personal computer has had

an impact upon human society as profound as the

invention of moveable type and has spawned a

self-accelerating cascade of technological and social

change that will, in time, surpass the age of enlightenment

or the industrial revolution.

 

Axiom 2: The personal computer's universal acceptance

was made possible (and perhaps inevitable) by the

adoption of an ergonometric interface which made

computing accessible to the masses.

 

Axiom 3: ALL commercially relevant, contemporary,

personal computer technologies are derivatives of the

Macintosh design from Apple Computer. Further,

without the Apple II, IBM would likely not have

developed the IBM-PC, hence no Microsoft either.

If it weren't for Apple Computer, the personal computer

age probably wouldn't have happened.

 

Theorem 1: If it hadn't been for the strength of vision

and the commitment to principle of Mr. Stephen Jobs

there would not have been an Apple Computer, nor a

Macintosh, nor universally acceptable computer

technologies, nor a personal computer industry as we

know it, and we wouldn't be embarking on a new age

of civilization. As the one figure who supplied the vision

and the drive to make this story a reality, Stephen Jobs

will be remembered as one of the most influential men

in history.

 

***

 

Axiom 4: Apple Computer's leadership role in creating

this brave new world ceased when Steve Jobs left the

company. Despite subsequent management so

astonishingly inept that it would have killed any other

company, Apple has still grown, almost entirely on the

strength of Steve Job's core vision.

 

Axiom 5: That vision never died at Apple Computer

nor with the millions in the Macintosh community,

who are still waiting for something...

 

Theorem 2: Good management alone won't do it,

Apple Computer needs Steve Jobs. It needs the touch

of the founder's hand to revive the vision that changed

the world.

 

***

 

Axiom 6: Pixar can radically change the

entertainment industry.

 

Axiom 7: Apple could change the world.

 

Theorem 3: Steve Jobs could make Apple great

again; could change the world again...

 

...and make Pixar look like sugar water.

 

 

Sincerely,

 

Del Miller

Three weeks later, Steve Jobs changed his mind and accepted the position of interim CEO.

Did I really change the world?

I have no idea whether Steve read my letter and if he did I couldn't begin to speculate whether it had any effect on his decision to take the reins at Apple. In my heart of hearts, I want to believe that using his own sugar water argument did the trick.

So, while Jobs has turned Apple around financially, it is with mixed feelings that I see his notable contributions to the "The Next Big Thing" consist largely of computers in Kool-Aid colors, a new user interface that you want to lick, and a company focus on games and on turning home videos into movies for the consumer's pleasure.

Are we changing the world or are we just selling sugar water?

Now I am an ardent admirer of the new Macintoshes and I've been outspoken on the positive value that aesthetic and emotional appeal has upon the computing experience, but however pretty, and however savvy these accomplishments are in the business sense, it is difficult to see how they change the world. These frills on the computing experience may have been instrumental in returning Apple to viability as a company, but do they materially contribute to either the soul of the machine or to making an appreciably better planet?

Perhaps I'm simply shortsighted. Maybe these baubles are necessary to make Apple strong enough to take the huddled masses to the next plane of awareness, and it could be that the froufrou accouterment of the latter day Macintoshes are simply the tools that the next paradigm shift will need to truly change the world. After all, when I first saw the Macintosh back in 1984, I had no inkling that its impact would ultimately be felt throughout our entire culture. In truth, the Macintosh didn't change the world as much as it leveraged the abilities of people to affect that change.

I probably wouldn't recognize a planet shattering computer innovation if I saw it in front of me. The value of new paradigms can only be realized in light of how society ultimately puts them to use, which requires the widespread and invariably slow acceptance of new ways of doing things. The Next Big Thing is never invented, it grows.

The pursuit of happiness

I live in a country whose very charter proclaims that one of the most basic, inalienable freedoms of any people is a right to the pursuit of happiness. So what conceit would make me claim that a computing experience that adds to the day-to-day happiness of millions of people is somehow unimportant. It would be a fine thing if the newly reconstituted Macintosh helped find a cure for cancer or bring about world peace, but as a marketing plan it might be just a wee bit ambitious for a maker of desktop computers. On the other hand, if Apple wanted to change the world it could do worse than to expend some effort attracting the fields of science, engineering, medicine and higher education to the Macintosh platform. These are "creative" endeavors too, and the Macintosh benefit could leverage them to improve life for everyone.

But as much as I question Apple's headlong shift into consumer entertainment, I don't really know if Apple could change the world any faster or any better if it focused on selected fields that might seem to offer more real value to the world. The sheer dynamism of the computing industry churns a chaotic stew of products and ideas into a future that none of us can really predict. Perhaps the best thing that Apple can do for the world is to make computing so much fun and so enjoyably liberating that creative, well meaning people are drawn to it and empowered by it. If a critical mass is achieved, then the applications that change the world may arise spontaneously in unforeseeable ways. That's how it worked for the original Macintosh: The unlikely trio of MacWrite and MacDraw and MacPaint begat an entirely new way of creating art, doing business and communicating with others, so who is to say how the flashy appeal of the Macintosh will translate into the broader culture.

And perhaps we are reaching that critical mass. The entire personal computing market has already begun to take its cues from Apple. The changes on the desktop are rapidly filtering onto the net and with that arises the potential for world-wide changes in how we all live. Someday we may look back on the candy colored iMac as the force that really changed the world.

I freely admit that I have no real wisdom for Steve Jobs on how to change the world for the better, and I should probably just have a little faith that the guy who made the last revolution work will do so again. Creating computers that change the face of consumer computing may end up being the best way to serve the old Apple philosophy of "putting a dent in the universe." If the intermediate steps in this process look to me suspiciously like sugar water, it may be that I'm simply missing the bigger picture.

But I hope that while Steve Jobs is busily changing the face of computing, he still has his sights set on changing the world.

Copyright 2000, Del Miller. All rights reserved.

Del also writes the "Difference Engine" column at www.macopinion.com

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Friday, 10-Feb-2012 10:49:59 EST