The whole contrast-with-Google angle makes no sense, holds up to no scrutiny, and serves no purpose other than to reach the punchy conclusion that Apple is "irredeemably evil." By Kahney's logic, any company that is different from Google —- and clearly most companies are far more different from Google than Apple is —- is evil.

It's a dull knife. Gruber's argument, not Kahney's, founders on its specifics. When Kahney calls Jobs a "notorious micromanager," Gruber retorts that Google VP Marissa Mayer approves every minor change to the Google homepage. There's no comparison: Jobs is a screaming jerk who wouldn't last one minute in the cuddly Googleplex. Gruber's real argument, I suspect, is that he should be writing cover stories for Wired. John, why don't you just pitch Chris Anderson directly? That seems easier.

(Photo by Randy Stewart)

And today, if Google hasn't made itself a Greenleaf-esque slave to its employees, it's at least a cruise director:

Kahney goes on:

The Mountain View campus is famous for its perks, including in-house masseuses, roller-hockey games, and a cafeteria where employees gobble gourmet vittles for free. What's more, Google's engineers have unprecedented autonomy; they choose which projects they work on and whom they work with. And they are encouraged to allot 20 percent of their work week to pursuing their own software ideas. The result? Products like Gmail and Google News, which began as personal endeavors.

Leander Kahney: It's not nice to shout at people. It makes people gun-shy and miserable. Management by fear alienates good workers. Only certain personality types can withstand it. It's better to motivate with carrots than sticks.

Fake Steve Jobs: Leander, you are a hopeless pussy. This kind of attitude is why you're a hack at Wired and not running your own multi-billion-dollar company. Carrots, not sticks? You must be joking.

Fake Steve Jobs is Wired's Leander Kahney. Former editor Nick Denton's meticulous analysis of FSJ's prose leads him to believe a fellow ex-Brit is the pseudonymous Steve Jobs blogger. It isn't just wrong, it's patently ridiculous to Kahney's colleagues — the guy's just not mean enough.

Drunk employee crashes 365 Main's colocation site. A tipster uses credible inside knowledge of 365 Main's operations to pass new editor Owen Thomas a timely, credible story that turns out to be completely wrong. The story delivers 145,000 pageviews worth of wrongness. Lesson: Even autistic sysadmins can be full of baloney.

Mark Zuckerberg cashes out. A rumor published at midnight on a weekend during the holiday season gets sprayed all over the Net inside of an hour. Wall Street Journal reporter Kara Swisher shows up at my door in person to tell Owen he's a frigtard.

Steve had an off day, sure. But all he was announcing was a new desktop (which everyone expected) and a rack-mounted server (who even cares?) — not the same as this winter, when the Apple CEO launched the first Intel-based Apple, or last year, when he pulled out a video iPod. He'll be right as rain when he announces the inevitable iPhone, right?

Maybe Leander's old schtick of questioning the Power of Jobs is just wearing thin, so Leander's blowing what he has left while he looks for one last book deal for his "Cult of ___" series.

Has Steve Jobs Lost His Magic? [Wired News]

Look, Jobs revived a for-profit, stockholder-beholden company. That's all. Well, bully for him. He didn't walk on water, although a lot of you seem to believe that he can.

Tough talk, sure. But what journalist hasn't soured on Jobs?

Alan Deutschman wrote in The Second Coming of Steve Jobs about the grumpy billionaire being a jerk to a friendly Wired editor. Jobs "stormed into" his interview and answered softball questions with, "I don't have time for this philosophical bullshit."

But why did this story wait for a book? Why wouldn't Wired go public right away? Fear of Jobs. Reporters feel fine dishing dirt to each other about Jobs' ranting antics. But no one wants to lose the Mighty Apple Marketing Dollar or be banned from the fancy keynote events. Kudos to Long for speaking up, but will the rest of the Valley journalists please stop kneeling at the Jobs altar?

Worship Not These False Idols [Wired]