> From: Jeremy Derr <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > On Friday, March 21, 2003, at 07:39 AM, Don Hinkle wrote: > >> Al Gore, about whom I never thought anything particularly, has just >> upped himself in my esteem considerably by signing on to the Apple >> Board >> of Directors! > > no gripes about Gore specifically... but having a politician of any > type on the board seems.......odd.
I beg the people on this list who may think of themselves as "conservatives" to please not drag any discussion of Mr. Gore into a personal attack thread as I have seen on other lists. Mr. Gore is not running for office, so let's PLEASE leave politics out of it. You people are better than that. Oh, and the first person who makes a joke about the "inventor of the internet" being on board is going to hear from me. For now, all I'll say is that a) that remark and all you know about it has been very inaccurately reported -- you can visit snopes.com to get the truth if you are interested, and b) Al Gore *is,* in point of fact, one of the fathers of the modern internet -- a fact acknowledged by Vint Cerf *and* Tim Berners-Lee, who should know. The choice of Al Gore to the BOD seems, at first glance, like pure cronyism -- the same reasoning behind having Bill Campbell, Mickey Drexler and the recently-resigned Larry Ellison on board. But I suspect that Gore's election, along with the recent changes in corporate governance to Apple's board, signal a change of direction. Gore is and always has been a leader with some actual vision in the area of technology. He was an early and influential proponent of the idea of the public internet, and is almost single-handedly responsible for changing ARPAnet from a military/scientific-only network to a public one. He was the guy who beat the drum loudly and relentlessly for wiring our public schools, and he has been a senior director at Google during their rapid expansion (by the way, take note of that -- not a board member, a SENIOR DIRECTOR as in manager). Because of this, Gore still has enormous influence in what I'll call the "entrenched" areas of government, science and academia. Like him or not, he is a politician that scientists and other big thinkers respect and pay attention to. His joining the board at Apple (his first public board position) is a strong signal to those communities that Apple has impressed him with their content and ability to innovate. This could easily translate into big sales in certain markets. Gore is also the ultimate "switcher" story. He started out on Macs, but switched to PCs sometime before his last presidential run (and said so in an interview) because he felt that Macs had fallen behind PCs in terms of software. Now he has switched back BECAUSE of Mac OS X and Apple's (quoting from the press release here) "commitment to the open-source software movement." That might just inspire a few people to do the same. Gore is also a stickler for procedure. We can rest assured that he will take a strong interest in helping maintain a higher standard of corporate governance for the board. Some wag suggested that now that Gore was on board Apple might come out with the first wooden computer -- a joke I find hilarious BTW, but under all that wood beats the heart of a technocrat. While some may say that a technocrat is a bad choice for president, I can't help but think it's kind of a good choice for the BOD of a cutting-edge technology company. Ultimately, only time will tell if Gore ends up being a "good" board member or "good" for Apple. My gut tells me that as far as publicity goes this might be both a good AND bad idea (some people/institutions will take high interest in someone of Gore's technological calibre sitting on Apple's board; a handful of weirdos will sell their Macs and make LOTS of noise about it), but as far as the health of the company goes I'm inclined to think this is a win for Apple. _Chas_ Atheist having orgasm: "Ooo chemical chance! Chemical CHANCE!!" - Bill Hicks -- The iMac List is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | - Epson Stylus Color 580 Printers - new at $69 | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> iMac List info: <http://lowendmac.com/imac/list.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/imac-list%40mail.maclaunch.com/> --------------------------------------------------------------- >The Think Different Store http://www.ThinkDifferentStore.com ---------------------------------------------------------------
