The Most Ancient Marketing | December 2011 | Communications of the ACM

Excerpt from a Jaron Lanier perspective; two other Steve Jobs articles in the December, 2011 CACM issue include Life, Death, and the iPad: Cultural Symbols and Steve Jobs (Genevieve Bell) and The Legacy of Steve Jobs (Michael A. Cusumano)

Jobs loved the Beatles and referred to them fairly often, so I'll use some Beatles references. When John Lennon was a boy, he once recalled seeing Elvis in a movie and suddenly thought to himself, "I want that job!" The theory is that Jobs saw gurus in India, focal points of love and respect, surrounded by devotees, and he similarly thought to himself, "I want that job!"

This observation is not meant as a criticism, and certainly not as an insult. It simply provides an explanatory framework for what made Jobs a unique figure.

The Most Ancient Marketing | December 2011 | Communications of the ACM