Steve Jobs, in Mike Langberg's "The swagger is back," is the youthful Levi's- and sandal-clad upstart, opposed to Larry Ellison, all grown-up and sophisticated in an expensive Sartoria Attolini suit, as depicted in Mike Cassidy's "Ellison suited to NFL's brutal competition."

The differences go deeper, of course.

Langberg's Jobs, with his well-chosen and undoubtedly pricey casual clothes, embodies the attention to style that has made Apple products industrial design leaders almost from the start.

The chain of Apple retail mini-stores Jobs launched yesterday - the pretext for Langberg's article - "are made from imported Japanese stainless steel .... Perforated with hundreds of small holes for ventilation and fire-prevention sprinklers, the walls look much like the front of Apple's stainless steel Power Mac G5 computers."

But, the Koolhaasian interior design leaves Langsberg cold.

"I felt like I was standing inside a giant Sub-Zero refrigerator" he reports.

It's not just the architecture that makes Langsberg chilly. He complains that, despite a recent bout with cancer, Jobs persists in his familiar "unshakable -- even arrogant -- confidence in his ideas."

I wonder. Could it be - given the dramatic success he's achieved, having lost Apple to a soda-pop salesman then returning to bring the company back from near-death, and having juiced the movie business with Pixar and its digital wizardry - that Jobs' confidence is justified?

Cassidy touches on the pillar of Ellison's Silicon Valley reputation, his $14 billion net worth, as he builds his article around a rumor that the Oracle chief wants to bring a National Football League team to Los Angeles. Purchasing an NFL team would be merely the latest example of Ellison's well-known habits of conspicuous consumption.

Cassidy moves beyond money and goes to the essence of the Ellison legend, painting him almost as a time-traveling Roman aristocrat (complete with expensive Italian suit) drooling blood-lust over gory Coliseum games.

"Where else is he going to find brutal competition, blood, mud, macho men and a primal drive to win at any cost?" Cassidy asks. "I mean, once the PeopleSoft trial is over."

"Ellison must be thinking," Cassidy rhapsodizes, " 'Finally, a game where it really isn't enough for me to win. My opponents actually do have to lose.' "

Cassidy is having almost too much fun, in my humble opinion, with this fantasy of Ellison pummeling his opponents on the football field.

Silicon Valley has long presented two faces to the people who know it best.

"Fortress" companies like National Semiconductor and Intel enforced strict work discipline in a chew-them-up-spit-them-out approach to employee relations. Ellison is just the latest in a long line of Silicon Valley CEOs who exude the take-no-prisoners, work-'til-you-drop, tough guy ethic.

Apple was an early model of the touchy-feely enterprise that woos productivity increase by tickling employee senses with tasteful interior decoration, elegant food in a comfortable company cafeteria, on-the-job massage, and sensitivity training. (Although Jobs himself is said to be a bear to work with, whence the need for the compensation of soothing surroundings and other pleasing perks.)

This isn't the only divide that splits Silicon Valley these days. The gap between 40- and 50-something Baby Boomers and the 20- and 30-something Dot.com Bombers probably creates more on-the-job culture clashes than any other.

The Jobs/Ellison sandals/suits dichotomy seems to be the one with real legs, however, dating back some 20 years, when hippified hackers and their home-brewed microcomputers startled the computer industry "suits" at the first Renaissance Computing Faire. But, that's another story.

Links:

The swagger is back by Mike Langberg

Ellison suited to NFL's brutal competition by Mike Cassidy