Steve Jobs Warned Obama of Becoming a One-Term President, Offered Education Ideas
Steve Jobs and President Barack Obama are two if the most iconic and important figures of our time. The late founder of Apple, Jobs was a creative genius and captain of industry and Barack Obama is, of course, the dynamic politician who captivated the nation with a messages of hope and change in one of its darker hours.
Today the release of Walter Isaacson’s book Steve Jobs: A Biography is giving a the world a glimpse of what happened when these great minds connected. Representing the private sector and big business, it seems that Jobs had a few choice words of advice for the POTUS leading a country in the midst of economic crisis.
According to the Huffington Post Jobs offered to create political ads for Obama’s 2012 re-election bid despite his distaste for some of the Obama administrations economic policies.
The two met in fall 2010 at a San Francisco hotel to discuss education, the economy and the needs of innovative businesses like Apple. In typical fashion Jobs was straight forward with his assessment, reportedly telling Obama “You’re headed for a one-term presidency.” He later explained that the administration needed to be more friendly to businesses so that they could compete with foreign powers like China. Jobs used the example of the ease of building a factory in China versus the red tape required to build the same factory in the U.S. to illustrate his point. The call for less regulation was a decidedly right wing opinion from a man known as a “hippy” in his younger days.
His right-leaning perspective is also apparent in his take on education; Jobs thought that teachers’ unions were partially to blame for poorly performing students and schools. He’s quoted as saying “”Until the teachers’ unions were broken, there was almost no hope for education reform.” He proposed that faculty be held to much higher standards and that students should be made to work harder with school days ending at 6 p.m. and school year that spanned 11 months of the year. According to Jobs principals should be empowered to hire and dismiss teaching staff based on merit.
What do you think of Jobs ideas? Are businesses too strictly regulated? Are unions partly responsible for poor educators and underachieving students? Leave a comment below and let us know what you think.
I think Mr. Jobs is absolutely correct in both ideas. Will it actually work for America? Not necessarily, too many people dislike a Black Man calling the shots and fail to realize his efforts in making this Country great again. President Obama has been fought hard on the very things he was elected on which is CHANGE.
If What the prsident is doing is working why fix it if it ain’t broke? Why not continue in office? I personally think that there are too many regulation with loop holes in Big corporate business that are geared for (their) benifit not (ours)I don’t think factories should be built in China, build them here in The USA and ENFORCE the law!! The teacher’s unions work for the school board; it’s almost as if the rules and regulations are fixed and there is no room for change. To me no change = no progress. Extended school days and school hours would bring in more teachers and more pay.The idea of students being able to choose whether to attend morning or afternoon session; would give students more incentive to STAY in school, and may even be able to work and go to school.
I think that Jobs was right, Teachers (not all) but most don’t really care about their students and i wouldnt say schoold should end at 6pm …I dont want my kids to come home that late and grow tired of it then they won’t want to go to college. But they need more attention, less violence, drugs n gangs. If teachers are not producing FIRED them… I also believe Teachers from other countries should be given a chance
I agree with Jobs’ thinking that teachers’ unions are a lot of the problem with poor quality public education in America. My three kids went through the public school system, but it did not provide them with the necessary learning to succeed at the university level or in life. It was parental involvement compensating for incompetence of too many classroom teachers and freeloading administrative staff (tolerated in their positions due to a protective NEA). I gave my kids extra homework, then checked to see they were doing it, staying up late many nights helping them understand the knowledge they were obtaining from their courses of study. All three are now successful in their careers, in spite of the failed public school system.
School vouchers allowing poor folks to send their kids to high quality private schools would be a big step in the right direction. It’s a travesty when thousands graduate from public schools across the country every year without being able to read, do simple math problems, or have almost no knowledge of geography, history, or government. It’s no wonder our unemployment rate is so high…not for lack of jobs, but rather unemployable people.
I can understand Steve Jobs’ shift from young “hippy” to older Democrat with “right-wing” positions. As a 40+ homeowner, paying taxes, I “feel” that! However, companies aren’t opening factories in China just because of less red tape. They’re going to China because of lower environmental standards, lower wages, lower taxes and government run banks offering very low interest loans. I don’t think that employment “trumps” environmental standards, and living standards such as the minimum wage. Jobs was correct regarding Teacher Unions, and length of school days. American kids (especially inner city kids) need longer school days for library access, tutoring, and physical education, in a safe, supervised environment. Teachers deserve much higher pay, but they should work all year, just like the rest of Americans! No one will support paying more taxes, to give teachers $75,000, to teach for 9 months, with winter and summer vacations! Finally, of course the principal should be able to hire and fire! That’s just common sense!
ok…. some agreement, but some argument here…..
I know a number of teachers, and my mom was a teacher.
1. many teachers feel like they’re constantly getting hit on the head about some random criticism from a random direction, so they may look to their unions as the ONLY voice to keep them even slightly protected from whatever random theory or new principal’s whim of the week…
2. YES, there is a LOT of cronyism and crappyness about which teachers get laid off and which stay, it’s often the opposite of what should happen. Teachers know this. Their trust-level in “the right thing will happen” is getting very, very, very skeptical.
3. There are a LOT of CRAP teachers, just as there are a lot of students eating nothing but cheetos and orange soda, parents who do little except watch TV and play the lottery and drink beer…. it happens…. blaming teachers for EVERYTHING is a bit old
4. Obama has inherited a mess that will take more than 4 years to fix…. we all know that… I fear that as a country, we will go in a bunch of random directions for about 10 years, then whatever party or policy is in place when things finally get better will artificially get all the credit and be hailed as “the answer” when it’s really just a long slog through shittyness…..
5. The republicans are DEFINATELY playing a game of “heads-i-win, tails you lose” if you look closely…. they’re trying SO HARD to BLOCK almost every Obama admin plan to help the economy as if they MAY ACTUALLY BELIEVE HIS IDEAS WOULD WORK, because the DO NOT WANT the economy to get better until he loses the next election due to their blocking everything. The Republicans can scream and yell about how their policies would help the economy without the actual risk of trying them until the next election.