To be fair, the fame of Steve Jobs is some of a different story: after his departure from Apple, he had been kind of a persona non grata, and later, with the demise of NeXT (BTW also known for its flat hierarchy and salary structure), not much talked about, either. It was really with the resurgence of Apple and Jobs' 3rd or 4th comeback that he became idolized, especially after the iPhone. This is quite a biography, and it took 30 years and rebuilding the then most valuable company from what seemed to be its sure ruin to achieve this popularity.
I was just a teen when Jobs becaome iCEO at Apple. It felt like a big deal and the only thing that could have made it bigger was if Woz stepped on stage as well. It really did have the air of the band getting back together. At least that was the case for the Apple faithful.
On the other hand, Jean-Louis Gassée was well remembered and there had been high expectations regarding an integration of BeOS, and even rumours of Sun maybe acquiring Apple. Compared to this, Jobs' return felt much like a "small (village) solution" with vague prospects to some. (Notably, this notion of "small" is somewhat ironical, given that Apple had been once one of the most successful startups in US corporate history, second only to Xerox.)
I couldn't tell you the names of the founders of contemporary PC builders like North Star or Cromemco, either. But that's just because none of them lasted more than a decade or so.
Even the founders of Commodore, which was 10x more successful, are not household names.
E.g., Ken Olsen is hardly a household name, founder of DEC, once the second largest and hugely influential computer company, and, while staying modest, then the second richest individual in the US. (If you are using an interactive computer, you're sitting on the shoulders of what DEC built.) Also (among those who do know him) well known for flat hierarchies and his support for a diverse group of employees. (DEC even founded a dedicated bank, which is still in operation, when employees faced problems with applications for mortgages and credits on the free market, often for racial bias.)
> she is cast as a villain ("Ice Queen") and relegated to a footnote in history.
The company failed for multiple reasons and some of those were a result of sexism. So, I wouldn't say it was the sole cause for their decline.
> She told Harp that one man had complained to her about “the awful bitch who was running the company."
While Jobs and to some extent Gates were called eccentric geniuses for all their misdeeds in their early years, I have no doubts on what Harp & Ely would be called if they attempted to do even half of the bad things Jobs and Gates did.
It's kind of gross and sophomoric to try and portray eg the Harp's relationship in terms of good and evil. I can't imagine that you would characterize their relationship in the same way if the roles were reversed, and what does direct beneficiary even mean in this context? Money was rolling in so suck it up?
> Her company, and it's legacy, ultimately destroyed by men
> A portrait of the insidious nature of sexism.
A tad ironic to make these two statements in succession don't you think?
I'm not saying that sexism doesn't or didn't exist (especially in that time period), but trying to dismiss the discrepancy on Wikipedia as sexism, when Jobs helped build a literal worldwide business empire that is Apple of today, doesn't help your case at all. In fact it's the opposite, it sounds like you're fighting windmills.
>A tad ironic to make these two statements in succession don't you think?
Where's the irony? You'll have to point it out to me.
> As a result, Harp McGovern had the opportunity to see, sooner than most other companies, what Microsoft was adding to its own operating system in an effort to capture the market.
> It was a switch that Harp McGovern herself was inclined to make, so she contacted Gates and negotiated a provisional contract for Vector to pivot to using DOS instead of CP/M on far sweeter terms—and at a much faster pace—than were being offered to other manufacturers. “We had an amazing relationship with Microsoft. I’d signed a contract where every update and every new system in perpetuity we would get at no increased royalty,“ she explained.
> The deal was taken to the board, but the collective decision was made that it was better to stick with the known quantity that was CP/M for the in-development Vector 4.
She negotiated a sweetheart deal with Microsoft before their big break. She had a personal relationship with Bill Gates. This decision killed the company.
> but trying to dismiss the discrepancy on Wikipedia as sexism, when Jobs helped build a literal worldwide business empire that is Apple of today, doesn't help your case at all. In fact it's the opposite,
The final line was a summary of the article as a whole, not specifically the difference between Jobs' legacy and hers. I recognize the difference.
> Where's the irony? You'll have to point it out to me.
> The deal was taken to the board, but the collective decision was made that it was better to stick with the known quantity that was CP/M for the in-development Vector 4.
Because, if you find it relevant what the sex of the board members that made that mistake was, how is that any better than the alleged sexism that McGovern had endured? If you think that, you must also think that a board consisting mainly (or fully) of women that makes some mistake has to do with them being women, right?
> Because, if you find it relevant what the sex of the board members that made that mistake was, how is that any better than the alleged sexism that McGovern had endured?
You've done some subtle editorializing here to try and make your point stronger, allow me to correct it:
> ultimately destroyed by men
is not what I wrote, what I wrote is
> ultimately destroyed by the men who overrode her decisions and opted to take the 'safer' route.
They convey two very different ideas. The strawman that you wrote implies that I believe men, by virtue of their sex, are responsible for the companies failure. This is not the case.
What I wrote implies that the board rejected her proposal because they thought they know better. Is it conceivable to you that this belief might have had something to do with the fact that she was a female CEO, formerly a housewife, in an exclusively male industry?
Surely you can concede that identifying sexist behavior and committing sexist behavior are not equivalent.
I don't think the article portrays the decision as disrespectful or disregarding of Lore's opinion, just that they took the wrong bet on the future.
While she says later on that she made a mistake not "forcing" that route following her instinct, I read that as a classic leadership dilemma where your gut says go one way but plenty of data disagrees. She is the visionary in this story, and visionaries often struggle with the hard routes their visions suggest and don't always follow them.
IBM made the opposite bet, against CP/M. This was a bold and risky decision at the time because CP/M was massively dominant in business. It was anything but assured that DOS would win.
> Their own husbands were resentful of their success. Despite being direct beneficiaries of it.
What partner, male or female, isn't resentful of that kind of success even when benefitting from it? To get there requires a complete domination of time and, it turns out, partners tend to dislike being ignored. Since you mentioned Steve Jobs, there is much the same story about the mother of his first child. Their relationship is told to have come to an end because Jobs was putting all of his attention on Apple instead, and she also expressed feeling unacknowledged for her contributions to the Apple story.
If you dig into the lives of any successful founder on that kind of level, it is likely you will find the same story over and over, regardless of gender. Nothing unusual here.
being married to a person and your job is one marriage too many. Divorce and unhappy relationships are very common when one person becomes obsessed with work and the other is left in the cold.
Sorry but that's just false for a huge number of successful male CEOs who not only have stable marriages with supportive wives, but even that the model of the ideal (male) CEO is one in a stable marriage/with a family as part of the "personal brand."
The hard fact is that many straight men even today are all about supporting their female partners until they actually have to take a back seat. The hostility toward Lore's success displayed by her first husband was the norm overwhelmingly then and still common today.
For a more balanced contemporary (from 1985) depiction of the Vector story, see [0]. Basically, Bob Harp was the main technical force behind all Vector products, akin to Steve Wozniak at early Apple. In 1982 Bob and Lore could not agree who should be running the company and Bob left. Soon thereafter Vector deflated.
Moreover, the company he founded made a succesful pivot to making IBM PC clones and outlasted Vector. Whether the sale to Daewoo represents a succesful exit is perhaps debatable.
Women are also resentful of their partner's success and their egos can not take it.
The paragraph you quoted, Ely's husband sounds jealous of the attention she got and her control over the company. That can happen in any kind of partnership.
You're dragging up sexism, where it is not the primary problem. Why?
You can go into a tirade of how women when achieving the same role as men are treated differently. But then you would be ignoring the underlying roles both were MEANT to play.
The man is meant to play the role of breadwinner. If he can’t do that, he is not seen as worthy. The women is meant to play the role of housemaker. If she can’t do that, she is seen as incompetent.
But if the other outshines the one at their meaningful role, it creates tension. It creates lack of confidence. It creates environments where the person feels small.
“I need to take care of the kids and therefore can’t go to conference” for men is equivalent to “I need to go to the conference and therefore can’t stay home” for women. Both are negatives based on the role they play.
If you want to create a new world where the roles are switched, or where both put equal time in doing both domestic and professional tasks, you would be ignoring their biological, physical, and mental strengths.
The last bit that makes the whole issue worrisome, male social circles are competitive on achievements rather than perceptions, While female social circles are vice versa.
There is a world where women can be successful and pioneering. It exists. But it doesn’t exist if there needs to be a tectonic shift. Like in the case here. And in the case of most normative systems where men and women play designated roles.
You can go into a tirade of how women when achieving the same role as men are treated differently. But then you would be ignoring the underlying roles both were MEANT to play.
The man is meant to play the role of breadwinner. If he can’t do that, he is not seen as worthy. The women is meant to play the role of housemaker. If she can’t do that, she is seen as incompetent.
But if the other outshines the one at their meaningful role, it creates tension. It creates lack of confidence. It creates environments where the person feels small.
“I need to take care of the kids and therefore can’t go to conference” for men is equivalent to “I need to go to the conference and therefore can’t stay home” for women. Both are negatives based on the role they play.
If you want to create a new world where the roles are switched, or where both put equal time in doing both domestic and professional tasks, you would be ignoring their biological, physical, and mental strengths.
The last bit that makes the whole issue worrisome, male social circles are competitive on achievements rather than perceptions, While female social circles are vice versa.
There is a world where women can be successful and pioneering. It exists. But it doesn’t exist if there needs to be a tectonic shift. Like in the case here. And in the case of most normative systems where men and women play designated roles.
Perceiving old systems that grew up on essential dedicated roles based on biology as sexist is a modern day bias against old eras that needs its own verbiage: time-ism?
Not to go into debate, but my overall outlook is that certain relational contracts are embedded in the formation of relationships. Drifting from those contracts creates a rift. This isn’t essentialism. This is expectationism.
