Jobs for Jobs

Although it's true that Steve Jobs never ran for political office, one could argue that in this time of high unemployment where everyone is screaming jobs, jobs, jobs, nobody has done more for jobs than its namesake Steve Jobs. As a college dropout, he not only co-founded Apple and turned it into the iconic definition of beyond cool, in the few years where he left the company (or was summarily booted aside), he just created Pixar in his spare time.

When one thinks about all of the people who currently have jobs because of Steve Jobs vision, one has to consider those involved in everything from Mac computers to the iPod to the iPad and of course, the iPhone and that doesn't even address the new iCloud. Now it's true that many of the above devices are actually manufactured in China but the ideas, engineering and technology comes out of Cupertino. Just as the Big 3 automakers in their heyday supported a raft of Tier 2 suppliers and vendors, think of all of the companies, many of them domestic, who are supporting in some way all of the Apple devices whether it be the creation of Apps for the iPhone and iPad or a skin for the iPhone.

Yes, it's true that Warren Buffet just tossed 5 bill into BoA to prop it up but that is most likely going to result in retaining jobs rather than creating jobs. As for a job creator, one would have to look at Steve Jobs as one of the elite entrepreneurial visionaries. If you then look beyond Apple at all of the companies who created copycat products to compete with just the iPod, iPad, and iPhone, well you have a lot of jobs created from one company's innovation. None of us really know if these ideas all sprung from the brain of Jobs while thinking in the shower but Apple has certainly not deterred us from this made for movie idea. With Apple's stock taking a hit upon the stepping down of Jobs, clearly others share this thought.