I remember a few months ago... I wrote something here that might have been a little short-sighted (shocking, I know) about how the world seemed to be missing those figures... those people... the kind that change the world. We were missing those DaVinci's or Ben Franklin's or Tesla's... the kind of people that were absolutely brilliant, not just a little crazy, entirely dedicated to changing the world & so totally lacking one direct focus that they not only managed to change a field of study but the entire way that the world functions as a result of their innovations.
I was wrong... we weren't entirely lacking them... but we are now.
Steve Jobs died yesterday after a long battle with cancer. And we've lost probably the biggest innovator in the way the world functions of the past half century.
No... Steve didn't invent the computer. He didn't invent the internet. He didn't invent the tablet or the smart phone or the mp3 player or the laptop or the desktop or digital music distribution or anything like that. Hell, the guy wasn't even a terribly talented programmer. Woz was that guy in the beginning. The original Mac team were those guys. The NeXT team were those guys.
No... what Steve did was make all of these very useful but very cold & inhuman devices and apply one simple principle to them: They had to feel warm & welcoming & human to the user. He was a visionary & a salesman. He was an idealist & a perfectionist but left the "how do we do it?" up to the guys and girls that he paid to figure that stuff out. He was the perfect General. The model for the Chief Executive of any company.
Was he perfect? Not by a long shot. But he was intensely human. He fucked up sometimes. He was a dick sometimes. He was petulant when he didn't get his way. He had an ego of rather massive proportions.
But without his demanding nature, his arrogance & his focused determination, his talents as an innovator never would have been fully realized.
That determination & innovative nature pushed his company into, at least for a few moments, the spot as the largest & most valuable company on the planet. But #2 isn't exactly something to complain about when you're playing on the world stage.
Windows might have been the reason that every office desk in the country has a computer on it, but Apple is the reason why the internet is sitting in the pocket of a good chunk of the worlds population. Apple is the reason that you can sit on the crapper or on the couch watching tv and have the entire internet at your fingertips. Apple is the reason that you can go to the gym or run a marathon & never have to listen to the same song twice. Apple is the reason that you can hear a song on the radio & own the entire album or discography from that artist in a matter of seconds without ever leaving your house.
And Steve Jobs & his unfalterning focus & vision is the reason that Apple is Apple.
Not many people can claim that they made the world a better place & truly innovated the way the world communicates & shares information & media. He had a vision of harnessing the raw power of all these communcation tools & packaging them into slick, smooth, easily operated devices & turning them into Weapons of Mass Personal Empowerment. And he accomplished it. He changed the world.
That is his legacy. And in another 100 years, he'll still be remembered as the visionary that he was. He will be in that group of visionaries of a bygone time. But his impact will be felt for decades to come.
Thank you, Steve.
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