Q&A: Was Steve Jobs the Walt Disney of the consumer electronics world?
Posted by James on July 11, 2013 · 2 Comments
Question by Chris C: Was Steve Jobs the Walt Disney of the consumer electronics world?
People are looking for comparisons between Jobs and other industry luminaries. Like Leonardo da Vinci, Edison etc. While Jobs had great vision he was not so skilled either as a product designer or a programmer, but he had great vision and focus; and lead a team of talented engineers very effectively. Similarly Walt Disney was no great artist but was an effective figurehead and man of vision. Furthermore it is hard to recall any other name associated with Apple or Disney except their founders – despite the obvious talent that lay behind the leaders. Is such a comparison fair? Let me know.
Best answer:
Answer by PoohBearPenguin
I wouldn’t put Jobs in the same category as Da Vinci or Edison, but comparing him to Disney seems somewhat apt. As you point out, Jobs’ real strength lay in his vision and leadership skills. He didn’t create the computer, or even the original Apple Computer, but it was his vision that created the Home Computer. Likewise he didn’t invent the MP3 player, but it was his vision that brought it to the mainstream market bundling it with iTunes.
However, unlike Jobs, Disney did create Mickey Mouse, and one of the first animated shorts to incorporate sound. Later Disney also created Minnie Mouse, Goofy, Pluto and Donald Duck. He created other characters as well, like Clarabell Cow but they haven’t survived as well as the others. So in this regard, Disney is closer to Bill Gates than Jobs.
Know better? Leave your own answer in the comments!
Just for the record, Walt Disney did NOT create/draw Mickey Mouse. Ub Iwerks did. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mickey_Mouse#Creation_and_debut
Personally, I was not that impressed by anything Mr Jobs did. He always seemed to me to be rather like a manipulator of technology rather than an innovator. Which is to say, creating a mobile phone does not impress as much as creating the telephone to begin with. The same with the mp3, the same with a laptop.
But, to answer your question, I think Mr Jobs was a calmer and more focussed individual than Mr Disney who was notorious for his rages and deep hatred of others more successful than him. Plus, of course, Mr Disney’s ‘vices’ were women and drink whereas Mr Jobs was an experimenter in, shall we say, more ‘illicit’ drugs. But in a nation with no aristocracy, the next ‘best’ thing is celebrity and wealth so, Mr Jobs had both and an early death always helps to promote legend status.
Yeah I put Steve Jobs with Walt Disney. Both were risk-taking visionaries and geniuses that hired the best talent and inspired them. Both were good with their technical skills, but their talents were more in leadership, marketing, forward-thinking, and knowing the potential of what can be done and knowing what the consumer wanted before they realized it.
Behind every forward-thinking visionary, they had a technical genius who made it happen. Steve Jobs had Steve Wozniak. Later it was Jonathan Ive. Walt Disney had Ubbe Iwerks.
Both were screwed over which help make them great. Universal Studios took away Disney’s animators except loyal Iwerks and his popular “Oswald the Lucky Rabbit” cartoon. He started his own studio calling it Walt Disney Company.
After Jobs was forced out of Apple, he started NEXT and then bought Pixar(turned it into an animation powerhouse) and later came back to poor performing Apple and turned it around.