The New Republic

The New Republic

The newest issue of The New Republic is out! In our cover story, “The iGod: Steve Jobs’s Pursuit of Perfection—and the Consequences,” Evgeny Morozov imagines Steve Jobs as a CEO-philosopher. Elsewhere, Jesse Zwick takes a close look at the zaniest super-PACs and Molly Redden shows what it takes for the GOP to sell itself to Latino voters.  Also, be sure to check out an excerpt from Noam Scheiber’s new book, The Escape Artists on how the Obama administration’s economic team fumbled the recovery, and read Charles Homans on the search for the next Macaca moment. Don’t miss Timothy Noah’s TRB column on the best way to fix the deficit and the environment, Andrew Nathan’s commentary on a new biography of Den Xiaoping, and William Deresiewicz on Julian Barnes’s The Sense of an Ending. For access to these pieces and Leon Wieseltier’s Washington Diarist on the importance of libraries be sure to check out tnr.com. Subscribe to TNR Society today and get 20 issues/year, access to our archives, and TNR events invitations for only $2.25/issue. Be sure to follow us too on Facebook and Twitter!
Zoom

The newest issue of The New Republic is out!

In our cover story, “The iGod: Steve Jobs’s Pursuit of Perfection—and the Consequences,” Evgeny Morozov imagines Steve Jobs as a CEO-philosopher. Elsewhere, Jesse Zwick takes a close look at the zaniest super-PACs and Molly Redden shows what it takes for the GOP to sell itself to Latino voters. 

Also, be sure to check out an excerpt from Noam Scheiber’s new book, The Escape Artists on how the Obama administration’s economic team fumbled the recovery, and read Charles Homans on the search for the next Macaca moment.

Don’t miss Timothy Noah’s TRB column on the best way to fix the deficit and the environment, Andrew Nathan’s commentary on a new biography of Den Xiaoping, and William Deresiewicz on Julian Barnes’s The Sense of an Ending. For access to these pieces and Leon Wieseltier’s Washington Diarist on the importance of libraries be sure to check out tnr.com.

Subscribe to TNR Society today and get 20 issues/year, access to our archives, and TNR events invitations for only $2.25/issue.

Be sure to follow us too on Facebook and Twitter!

Steve Jobs: the ultimate CEO philosopher or just a marketing genius? “As Isaacson makes clear, Jobs was not a particularly nice man, nor did he want to be one. The more diplomatic of Apple’s followers might say that Steve Jobs—bloodthirsty vegetarian, combative Buddhist—lived a life of paradoxes. A less generous assessment would be that he was an unprincipled opportunist-a brilliant but restless chameleon. For Jobs, consistency was truly the hobgoblin of little minds (he saw little minds everywhere he looked) and he did his best to prove Emerson’s maxim in his own life. He hung a pirate flag on the top of his team’s building, proclaiming that “it is better to be a pirate than to join the Navy,” only to condemn Internet piracy as theft several decades later. He waxed lyrical about his love for calligraphy, only to destroy the stylus as an input device. He talked up the virtues of contemplation and meditation, but did everything he could to shorten the time it takes to boot an Apple computer.” - Evgeny Morozov, “Form and Fortune” Photo courtesy of The Guardian 
Zoom

Steve Jobs: the ultimate CEO philosopher or just a marketing genius?

“As Isaacson makes clear, Jobs was not a particularly nice man, nor did he want to be one. The more diplomatic of Apple’s followers might say that Steve Jobs—bloodthirsty vegetarian, combative Buddhist—lived a life of paradoxes. A less generous assessment would be that he was an unprincipled opportunist-a brilliant but restless chameleon. For Jobs, consistency was truly the hobgoblin of little minds (he saw little minds everywhere he looked) and he did his best to prove Emerson’s maxim in his own life. He hung a pirate flag on the top of his team’s building, proclaiming that “it is better to be a pirate than to join the Navy,” only to condemn Internet piracy as theft several decades later. He waxed lyrical about his love for calligraphy, only to destroy the stylus as an input device. He talked up the virtues of contemplation and meditation, but did everything he could to shorten the time it takes to boot an Apple computer.”

- Evgeny Morozov, “Form and Fortune”

Photo courtesy of The Guardian 

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life… Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.” -Steve Jobs Photo courtesy of fbcdn.
Zoom

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life… Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.”

-Steve Jobs

Photo courtesy of fbcdn.

“NEVER TRUST A COMPUTER YOU CAN’T LIFT!”

It was 27 years ago today — January 24, 1984 — that Steve Jobs demonstrated the Apple Macintosh to a crowd of about 3,000 people. Just two days earlier, Apple had debuted the “1984” commercial during Super Bowl XVIII, which introduced the personal computer for the first time. The short clip, which referenced the George Orwell novel of the same name, has since been recognized as a masterpiece in advertising and is considered one of the most successful television commercials ever released in the United States.

From the YouTube caption: “Andy Hertzfeld captured the moment quite well in his retelling: ‘Pandemonium reigns as the demo completes. Steve has the biggest smile I’ve ever seen on his face, obviously holding back tears as he is overwhelmed by the moment. The ovation continues for at least five minutes before he quiets the crowd down.’”