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What Are The Similarities Between Modern-Day Alcibiades And Steve Jobs

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Adraint Bereal UGS 302: First Draft Term Essay Spring 2017 Carusi The Modern-Day Alcibiades, Steve Jobs George Santayana, a notable historian, once said that history repeats itself. This is seen true to this day comparing two great leaders that have shaped societies and the way they function. Alcibiades and Steve Jobs had similar paths in which they took throughout their careers that led to their inevitable downfalls and successful endeavors. I will be exploring their paths and making note of the similarities concluded by information gathered from my sources through rhetorical analysis. To start, Alcibiades and Steve Jobs both had a distinguished bravado amongst their qualities that increased their appeal to society. Their good deportment, …show more content…

Plutarch is telling us this to establish some background information. This quote is vital, because right after he was described as the person who was solely the reason why Athens became a powerhouse in the seas and on land. The second part of this quote helps the reader insinuate that Alcibiades is not perfect. So, even though we are informed of his miraculous talents, Plutarch leaves it up for debate with his open-ended statement at the end of the sentence. This allows the reader to have more of a choice in deciding the leadership traits that he fairly represents. Plutarch's accounts showed us that the people mutually saw him in a good light, but this wasn't the case for everyone. This situation is similar to Steve Jobs specifically because many people saw him as "the man who would revolutionize technology" and the CEO of Apple. The company thought otherwise and looked at him as unorganized and not productive. This was reflected more specifically when Apple was making $100 million in revenue. The immediate attention from the media would be …show more content…

Both had a way of making it seem as if they were needed for Apple to survive and Athens to win the war. They both had intentionally positioned themselves in a way that made them almost untouchable. I say almost because eventually their manipulative abilities got the best of them. The faults that Alcibiades possessed were the root of his willingness to flaunt his wealth towards the people in a very distasteful way. This somewhat gave them more reason to exile him out of Athens. For example, Plutarch describes it as "…the grace of his eloquence, the beauty of his person, the strength and valiantness of his body, joined together with his wisdom and experience in martial affairs, were the very causes that made them to bear with him all things, and that the Athenians did patiently endure all his light parts, and did cover his faults, with the best words and terms they could," (Plutarch 103). This shows a bitter sweet moment in Athens history. They wanted to stay aligned with their values and morals, but the most they could do was be contempt with the way Alcibiades was acting. This shows us that they would risk their empire to remain in power and that their lust for this greed is what leads to their downfall. This was prior to them getting ready to go to war with Sicily. Plutarch helps us to understand the position that the people are in because we

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