• Steve Jobs's bad judgment led to the Apple II, Mac, iPod, and iPhone.
• John Sculley's good judgment led to the Apple Newton.
That assessment seems like a refusal to be impressed by the public idolatry of Steve Jobs. Yet even if he wasn't some superhuman philosopher king, nor even supremely technical, he still had talent, and did help bring some seminal tech products into the world.
It's an "innovation" coin, not a "judgement" coin or a "profitability" coin.
For some reason, people get the idea that innovation comes from executive management. It doesn't. Popularization may. Commercial success may. Innovation generally doesn't.
Jobs had talent for (a) packaging up existing stuff, but not in shockingly innovative ways, (b) recognizing and refusing to accept garbage products, and (c) selling the stuff. That's all execution, not innovation.
• Steve Jobs's bad judgment led to the Apple II, Mac, iPod, and iPhone.
• John Sculley's good judgment led to the Apple Newton.
That assessment seems like a refusal to be impressed by the public idolatry of Steve Jobs. Yet even if he wasn't some superhuman philosopher king, nor even supremely technical, he still had talent, and did help bring some seminal tech products into the world.