Who is Jobs 2.0? Bezos, of course!
Steve Jobs was a really cool and important icon of our ultra-tech times. The press treated him quite favorably and not just because they all own Apple equipment, but because he made their easy job even easier. Tech reporters have super easy jobs already (spend an hour using some new tech toy and then write 1500 incisive words with lots of strong verbs), but the super lazy ones, like Walt Mossberg of the WSJ or MG Seigler of Techcrunch, simply parroted Jobs’ pronouncements. I swear those guys would get an inside crumb of data on some new Apple release and then stretch it into a full article. Jobs probably knew that the rabid fanboys were the plankton of the tech ecosystem and intentionally leaked this stuff. Working your way up the chain, whenever a new Apple product was released, entire pages of Engadget and issues of Wired (before they got smart) were devoted slavishly to this stuff. Anyway, fearing they might have to do real research for a living, tech writers have informally nominated Bezos to the role of Tech Don. I have never seen so many articles declaring the Kindle Fire a complete win and even an iPad killer. Seriously? I keep seeing gushing reviews of Amazon Prime when, a few months ago, it was a rare mention.
Bezos is a good guy, no doubt about it. Boil it down though, and he’s a really good businessman that can innovate. Jobs was an innovator that happened to be able to run a world-class company. Bezos isn’t all that unique (see alternate versions: Tony Hsieh, Eric Schmidt, Reed Hastings, and Arianna Huffington). Jobs was one-of-a-kind and I don’t see any real successor stepping up. Bezos being named Jobs 2.0 smacks of Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize — kinda cheesy, most senseless, and, though possible, wayyyy wayyy premature. Let’s wait awhile and see what Bezos can deliver over the next 3 years before we crown him king.








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