I know Fernando, and I'm hopeful that this will be a very cool project that could further spur entrepreneurship in the US. The key will be to demonstrate not just the successes, but the toil too! I hope it's not just a glamorized view of Silicon Valley. There is so much selection bias via TechCrunch and whatnot that I think so many people think it's all "champaign wishes and caviar dreams." This could be a real opportunity for people to see what really goes into building a startup, not the Social Network.
Knowing Fernando, he'll do a great job. Good luck!
I don't know you, so I won't judge. But, I will say that you sound like someone who thinks that all the honor is in the academic/theoretical exercise- that there is little or no challenge or value in making something used by real people.
Well that's well and good, but it's also smug and elitest. The value a person creates is a function of the single achievement and the number of people who use or benefit from it. By that measure, I think you would have to say that even if you consider the Mac, iPod, iPhone, and iPad small achievements the multiplier means Jobs created TREMENDOUS value.
If, by salesman, you mean someone who understands the needs of people and satisfies those needs even when they don't recognize them for themselves, then yes Steve Jobs was a salesman. And, we should all aspire to be such salespeople.
It's wonderful and good to pursue knowledge and discovery in a vacuum when everything is insulated from reality. It's a whole other thing to take the theoretical and apply it for practical use in a culture of incredibly complex and changing people. Arguably, this is much harder than the academic pursuit because the target is ever-changing.
What Steve Jobs did was not some smoke and mirrors bullshit. He was not a snake oil salesman. He CREATED! And he CREATED things that people love to use.