As you have undoubtedly heard by now, the great Steve Jobs is dead. Many columnists have done the same old story about how great he was and then finished with the “Stay hungry, stay foolish” quote from his 2005 Stanford commencement address. I am going to attempt a little deeper, more personal tribute type of column.
I have always been an IT guy, and I have always been an Apple guy. I develop apps for the iPhone and iPad now, but it all started when, as a young kid, I got to use a friend’s Apple II. After hacking some programs together using BASIC, I persuaded my dad to buy our first home computer (something that Steve made possible). I remember my dad asking me “Are you sure you want the Apple IIc instead of the IBM XT.” “Yes!” I said. I then got a 300 baud manual switch modem and began dialing bulletin boards, (yes I was online before AOL and the web). Eventually I joined a local Apple Users Group (AUG) mainly because I bought a 1200 baud modem, but they didn’t have a cable that worked with the Apple IIc, so I went there, met a crazy guy that knew wiring diagrams and pin outs, and we built one. I learned that day that the user base of Apple users/fans really makes the product special too. Needless to say I kept buying Apples and have several now and all the latest “i” devices. My career and ultimately my company would not exist had it not been for the vision of Steve, and if you are reading this on an iPad or even online with a Windows machine, you can thank him too.
I remember watching Steve deliver a keynote, and being taken in by how this man had such a passion for what he was doing and also being impressed by his presentation skills. Not to mention, I have still not seen a CEO demo his own products to this day. Being a huge Apple fan and admirer of Steve, I made it a goal to go to a keynote and be a part of the experience many would call the “reality distortion field,” referring to how he can convince you he is right and you want to buy this now. I made some calls to some friends that work at Apple and got a VIP pass to the 2008 keynote. It was awesome and I sat about four rows from the front. Still on my list of cool things I have done, especially when Steve came down into the crowd to hug a close friend of his after the keynote, just a few feet from where I was then standing.
Steve was known for his perfection, drive, innovation, forward thinking and his passion for wanting to create insanely great products. He once said, “The computer is the greatest invention because it is like a bicycle for our minds”. I think that is an apt description considering how it has moved how we communicate and connect our collective thinking forward. Steve was hard on people, in that he expected you to do your best and not settle for less than perfect, or less than he knew you could achieve even if you didn’t. He knew how to motivate people to build things that had never even been thought of. He understood what consumers wanted before they knew it was possible to even want it. He didn’t believe in focus groups. He believed in his vision and he sought to fulfill it, and in so doing he changed music, film, publishing, phones and computers forever.
When I read that Steve had died while browsing the web on my iMac, I wasn’t really surprised, given his ongoing health issues, but I was by my reaction. Many people around the world placed pictures and flowers and notes at their local Apple store or even at his house. I found myself truly sad, as if I had lost a member of my family. I looked up to him from many levels including leadership, business, innovation, his passion for what he was doing and fearless determination to do what he set his mind to. He said once that he “wanted to put a ding in the universe” and as I type this on my iPad so you can read it in a medium likely changed or invented by Steve, I’d say without a doubt, he did.