Graham uses Steve Jobs as an example. He knew what was and wasn't an Apple product. A hired CEO would have to have that explained to him. Sculley, who Graham cites, is a perfectly nice person in my experience, had no idea how to deal with Windows. Very different from a consumer product like fizzy water. Who but Steve Jobs would have thought that an iPod was a proper product for a company that made PCs. I think he himself wanted it, and that's what made something an Apple product. It's probably why post-Jobs Apple is pretty much stuck selling only the products Jobs created for them. He told Cook to innovate on his own vision and timetable, probably knowing full-well that nobody would be able to do it. 😄
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Another rule for whoever runs a tech company, they must themselves be a fanatical user of the company's product. They must love it the way a founder loves it. They must think the users are the smartest people in the world because they love the best product in the world. As a founder, I could not visualize the day I left the company for the last time. In hindsight I felt that was the one factor most responsible for the success of the company.
The Talk Show: ‘Good Enough to Be Pesky’
Special guest Taegan Goddard, longtime writer and founder of Political Wire, joins the show to talk about the past, present, and future of independent media.
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August is archived. Let's start September.
It's worth reflecting that the press took its best shot at Kamala Harris, and it was a big puff of smoke, she just cruised right through it.
Thread: Blogs and the social web will merge.
Platform drivers for textcasting
Feature I really need: A way to search all of my conversations with ChatGPT. It's the one feature I'm most missing, and the most surprising. I'm sure there's a huge amount of utility locked up in that.
What if Trump had been killed in the assassination attempt. What would have happened next? Biden was still the Democratic candidate.
I was thinking about Wisconsin news orgs and remembered we called the two Madison papers the Crap Times and the Wisconsin State Urinal. I don't know why that's so funny. Everyone does it. We used to call our own company Living Videosex, and the company that bought us out was Cementech or Sementech. Still makes me laugh. And there are company names that are funny without changing them like Microsoft. Sorry.
AnandTech Is Closing Down
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I use my blog in the earliest part of the day to warm up and procrastinate.
News needs a web distribution system
In elections we get to say who we are, ie who comes closest to who we are. It's all made of imagery. Bernie Sanders is someone you either love or don't. He reminds me of people in my own family, who I would never want to be president of anything. But this ad, the best ever imho, says wait a minute, please reconsider. A campaign is a series of messages from candidate to electorate: "Is this who we are?" The great ads tap our optimism, imho. The Sanders ad says we're nice happy people who have jobs and help each other.
The Talk Show: ‘Pinkie Swear’
Chance Miller, ace reporter (and editor-in-chief) for 9to5Mac, joins the show to talk about the latest changes to Apple’s DMA compliance plans with iOS, expectations for the September Apple event, and more.
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