The King is Dead - Long Live the King

Yes folks, the sad day has come that Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple Computers, has passed away - about 2 years after he should have. Ol' Steve was the proud recipient of an organ transplant that garnished him about 2 more years of life. Cancer was the culprit what done him in.

What most folks don't know about this college-dropout-turned-Silicon-Valley-titan that he was clueless. He didn't know Cat 5 cable from Bailing wire (or at least not at first). But boy could he sell, and that was his saving grace.

Unlike his Microsoft counterpoint, Bill Gates, Mr. Jobs may have been excellent management and sales material, but he didn't know the nuts and volts of the systems. Bill Gates, on the other hand, was both handy with executive chores, and was a very good computer programmer as well.

On the flip side, is a guy known as Steve Wozniak - who ALSO co-founded Apple Computers. Steve Wozniak was the brains behind the operation. He invented, assembled and tested the Apple 1 and Apple II computers. Then Jobs went on to market and sell them. Together they made a fabulous, unstoppable team. However, together - they secretly hated each other. In a later interview, Steve Wozniak was quoted to say they were "not really good friends". A very political way to say that they never got along. It all started with the Apple I. The Woz wanted to market and sell it as a kit. Jobs wanted to sell it as a ready built computer. Guess who won that argument, and every one after that.

As such, after a plane crash back in the 80's, Wozniak decided to quit working for the computer giant "full time" (He continued to receive a paycheck and benifits), got married, changed his name, and went on to actually finish getting his college degree - something that many college-dropout-turned-Silicon-Valley-mogules never did do.

By the way - if you do want to find Steve Wozniak these days, he goes by Rocky Raccoon Clark, and in my humble opinion, would make a great addition to the leadership team at Apple.