GLOBAL – OCTOBER 6, 2011: Today the internet stands still. With the peaceful passing of Steve Jobs, those whose lives have been touched by his genius are paying tribute to the man who transformed music, mobile and computing forever. A billionaire and one of the most influential people in the world, Jobs was known for his trademark black mock turtleneck and blue jeans. He gave us the future in shiny (and sometimes neat little matte) packages that inspired artists, startups, problem-solvers and dreamers. And even those who have never bought or owned a Mac, iPhone, iPod or iPad (and a good many of us do) generation know that his spirit will live on in the next generation because he enabled us to think different.
Jobs was a college dropout who grew up with his adoptive parents in Mountain View, California, helping build what is now Silicon Valley by making lives simpler with complicated gadgets. He founded Apple Computer Co. in 1976 with Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne, and the personal computer was never the same again. Neither were marketing and advertising, with the iconic bitten-off fruit, one of the world’s most recognizable wordless logos, and the “1984” spot, which was aired only once and is still regarded as one of the world’s best ads. But the path to the Apple Macintosh to the iPad wasn’t a smooth ride for Jobs. Ousted from Apple in 1985, he founded what is he founded what is now Pixar Animation Studios, and remained a director of the Walt Disney Company.
When his succeeding venture NeXt was acquired by Apple, he found himself back in the company and engineered an unprecedented turnaround with groundbreaking products, filing patent after patent, building on existing techologies and making them better. He credited a calligraphy course he took as an undergraduate for his attention to typography, an obsession that doubtless carried over to Apple’s design philosophy.
Described as a brilliant and sometimes difficult man, Jobs had his fair share of flops and failures. But he was never disheartened. Ever the showman, he won hearts and minds at launches, effectively selling products even before they arrived on shelves–not that the cult of Apple needed prodding.
Despite his pancreatic cancer and poor health, Jobs steered Apple into one of the world’s most valuable companies. Although criticized in the technology sector for turning Apple into a closed system, he was admired by his competitors, and still is.
He changed the way we live, as well as the way we work. The vast majority of our industry’s output passes through his beautiful machines, machines that could have only come from one of the crazy ones.
The commencement address he gave at Stanford University in 2005 rings true now as much as it did when it was delivered. "The only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work and the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. And don’t settle."
May we learn to live, work and look at death the way he did.
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Steven Paul Jobs, February 24, 1955-October 5, 2011
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Image by Matthew Yohe via Wikimedia
