Steve Jobs

One of my children asked why I had not written anything on my blog about Steve Jobs.  My answer was that I could not think of anything to say that had not already been said (and by better writers than me).

Then, to my surprise, I thought of two things:

#1.  For some years, I have noticed some parallels between Jobs and my grandfather, Jim Crawford, Chief Engineer of Chevrolet.

• Grandfather often mentioned his lifelong argument with GM's marketing department.  They perpetually asked him how he could design what would sell without market surveys to discover what the public wanted.  His answer was always (his words), "How do they know what they want until they see what we have to give them?"
• After Jobs returned to Apple, he built the business to the point that Apple's market value surpassed Microsoft - the dominant company in the industry.  Grandfather joined Chevrolet in 1929. By 1936, his redesigned Chevrolet outsold Ford - the dominant company in the industry.
• Neither Jobs nor my Grandfather graduated from college.  Jobs dropped out after one semester and audited whatever classes interested him for a while.  My grandfather never entered college.  After High School he trained to be an artist at the Art Institute of Chicago.

#2. Politicians and other pundits who have never run a business like to tell us that businessmen are scared to hire or borrow to grow their business because they are uncertain about future government policy and regulations.  Steve Jobs never complained that he couldn't grow Apple Computer because he was uncertain about future government policy and regulations.

Back from Siberia

(It's worth clicking on this photo to increase its size and see the detail.)

We are back from taking the Trans-Siberian Express across Mongolia and Siberia to Moscow.  We caught the Express by flying to Beijing and then taking a Chinese train to intersect the Trans-Sberian line.  After Moscow we took a high speed train to St. Petersburg where we stayed for three days before staying home.

The picture above was taken from the north shore of Lake Baikal in the general vicinity of Irkutsk, looking at a small river just before it enters the lake.  The fall foliage - largely birch trees here - was at its peak.  We got off the train and had a Barbecue dinner at the spot where this was taken.

This trip ties with Antarctica as the most stimulating, beautiful, mind expanding, and difficult trip we have ever taken.  The cabin in the train was tiny.  Between the cramped sleeping space and a lot of physical exercise walking every day we were reminded of camping out.  The exertion was worth it.

We had never taken a National Geographic trip before and were pleasantly surprised that our fellow travelers were so interesting and congenial.  The friendships we made were one of the best aspects of the trip.

I have put up a few photos at the this site: