Steve Jobs' Horrible and Destructive Legacy
"We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas" — Steve Jobs, Triumph of the Nerds, 1996
"I'm going to destroy Android, because it's a stolen product. I'm willing to go thermonuclear war on this" — Steve Jobs, Steve Jobs, 2011
Apple now is following the diktats of its lost leader. It is using its cash and patents — the nuclear weapons of large corporations claiming that this is the application of natural justice against a great wrong.
It is extremely offensive to talk of the mobile phone business in such terms like Jobs did. He must have known that such actions are not essential to guarantee victory, let alone survival.
Android, after all, is guilty in that sort of behaviour that Jobs once gloried in.
Yet he said that controversial statement. He may have been comfortable with the consequences for consumers, for the economy, for the ecosystems that drive innovation, of closing down competition.
