The Doglion

(The following article was originally published in the German news magazine “Der Spiegel”. This is a translation into English that I wrote myself. I’m not certain if this is copyright infringement, but I do own the magazine in physical form, and one could argue that the entire text of this post is manually translated, as opposed to copy-pasted. Anyways, enjoy )

There is probably no other company in the world that is so easy-going and at the same time so powerful as the entertainment enterprise Apple. Its founder and CEO Steve Jobs, despotic and multiple times fallen severely ill, does not only determine what we buy –  he wants to determine how we live.

It was hot, no shadow in the stadium of Stanford. The students had been drinking, they grinned and giggled, and that is why it took some time until they understood that over there was a ruler of the western world, stepping forward to confession.

His products, recognizable by the bitten apple, are products that mankind demands, because mankind apparently believes that these products alleviate the modern life, and even more: that the modern life consists of owning these products. But the ruler does not talk about himself, usually. He is shy, say some who know him well. He only says something, smiling kindheartedly, when he has something to sell, a new telephone (iPhone), a flat miracle device (iPad) or a new advertisement platform (iAd), or when he, like last week, announces new record earnings: 3.07 billion dollars in the latest yearly quater, 90% more than the previous year. Apart from that he keeps his silence, and he demands silence from all those who he lets into his contiguity, and he does not let others tell him why he, on that June day in Stanford, reveals what his drive is, what he fears, what he thinks – only there, this one time, and never again. Read More