Comments on: Steve Rips Me a New One in Henrico County

By: PJM

PJM — Fri, 03 Mar 2006 07:52:14 +0000

Hey Mike!

Have you seen Steve’s Macworld bloopers video at:
http://www.tuaw.com/2006/02/24/freemacblog-finds-macworld-blooper-video/?

Funny thing about Steve is that his screw ups don’t even come across as major screw ups at all.

By: Mike Evangelist

Mike Evangelist — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 22:59:18 +0000

Reg – Unfortunately I didn’t have an extraction program with me; had to make do with what we had.

By: Reg

Reg — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 22:46:32 +0000

Great story typifying the quixote moods of Mr Jobs!

But I’m afraid you’ve implicitly admitted you’re no hacker. The REAL solution would have been to rip the Gravity video from the DVD you had using MacTheRipper (or DVDExtractor if it was 2001). 5 minutes, tops.

Piece of cake. Maybe Steve should have fired your ass for not being a true Silicon Valley pirate!

By: Ben There

Ben There — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 20:34:22 +0000

I feel your pain. In the Army it was RHIP (Rank Has Its Privileges). In corporate America I’ve heard it called executive privilege.

Both are examples of people occasionally exercising power just because they can.

Great save.

By: Smittie

Smittie — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 18:49:06 +0000

People who change the world rarely do so by making everyone who works with them feel warm and fuzzy. This is especially true in the world of business and retail products.

Aloha

By: scottm4321

scottm4321 — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 18:07:27 +0000

Apologists for Steve? I worked for a guy with Steve’s aggressive attitude and obnoxiousness for about 2 years. It was 2 years of hell, but it made me so much better at what I do. I am at a level professionally that I never thought I’d be at…. I still hate his guts though. He’s Bob K. at Benchemark Printing in Schenectady, NY.

By: motech

motech — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 16:37:26 +0000

it doest seam like they used dvd studio pro because it was faster,
rather to make a DVD with a snapshot of Gravity. iDVD wouldnt be able to do this without the actual gravity movie on hand, so he had to fake it.
he faked the menus because he didnt have the correct content.
it wasnt a time issue, as he said he had an hour to spare at the end.
i think the time difference between dvd studio pro and iDVD could not be more then a 15% diff in speed.

regarding steves stuborn aproach to getting what he wants.

steve is a genius, with vision.
when you ahve a vision,
no matter what it is, you need
it to be as accurate to your vision as possible
for him to represent it correctly. because steve
truly believes in what he’s doing.
if he doesnt believe in it – its probably
much harder for him to deliver.

does that last part make sense?
basically it was all for his mental goodness ,
and even though you didnt see a difference
in the quality of video content,
its what made him feel more confident
about the delivery. and thats really what matters.

they dont hand out jets for nothing . . .

By: kingston

kingston — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 12:56:43 +0000

I meant “can’t best the master showman…” It’s still real early over here…

By: kingston

kingston — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 12:38:25 +0000

Thanks for the interesting story Mike. I think a lot of “can-do” types have been in the situation of having to solve a self-imposed “problem” like the one you’ve described. However, unlike you, most of us work for pretenders (managers who pretend to know more than everyone else, who pretend to have vision, who pretend to have experience, etc).
I think your attitude is what makes you valuable and I think you (and Steve and Cheryl) know that. One thing I find odd though is why you thought that you could “predict” Steve’s moves after having worked with him for so long. You must know that you can’t best the master showman – sometimes simply because he won’t let you.

By: flowolf

flowolf — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 12:05:16 +0000

i love that story! it shows that there can and do go things wrong. even when you’re prepared to the limit of precaution. apple always seems to be so perfect and well planned, this finally shows that things can go wrong. and sometimes be perfect anyway.