Now, this is absolutely amazing.
Steve Jobs made an inspiring speech. You guys should read the whole transcript. And EagerBeaver thinks it was arrogance!
Steve Jobs is a man with a severely flawed character but what he said that day was absolutely spot on. Yes, all things considered, it was a pretty bad move from the business perspective, but it was morally correct.
__________
Steve Jobs Has Guts
By JAY GREENE
February 21, 2007
Steve Jobs has guts — enough guts to speak his mind about what he thinks is wrong with public education even at the risk of harming his business interests.
In a speech on Friday, the chief executive officer of Apple and Disney honcho declared: "I believe that what's wrong with our schools in this nation is that they have become unionized in the worst possible way."
The problem with unionization, Mr. Jobs argued, is that it has constrained schools from attracting and retaining the best teachers and from dismissing the less effective ones. This, in turn, deters quality people from seeking to become principals and superintendents. "What kind of person could you get to run a small business if you told them that when they came in they couldn't get rid of people that they thought weren't any good? Not really great ones because if you're really smart you go, ‘I can't win,'" Mr. Jobs said. He concluded by saying, "This unionization and lifetime employment of K-12 teachers is off-the-charts crazy."
There is a price to be paid for this kind of frank analysis and Steve Jobs knows it. " Apple just lost some business in this state, I'm sure," Mr. Jobs said. Of course, Apple sells a large portion of its computers to public school systems. By taking a stance against school unionization, Mr. Jobs may lose some school sales for Apple.
Sharing the stage with Mr. Jobs was Michael Dell, the chief executive officer of Dell, a competing computer manufacturer. By comparison, according to the description of the event, Mr. Dell "sat quietly with his hands folded in his lap," during Mr. Jobs' speech while the audience at an education reform conference "applauded enthusiastically."
Read more...
