R.I.P. Steve Jobs: 1955-2011
“Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me … Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful… that’s what matters to me.”
-Steve Jobs [The Wall Street Journal, May 25, 1993]
Rest in peace, Mr. Jobs. We will miss you, but your legacy lives on. You are a true inspiration to me.
In case you missed, it – my thoughts about Steve Jobs were articulated here and here.
http://submit.nytimes.com/steve-jobs
very sad news.. we all miss him.. may his soul rest in peace
Steve is true to his last name. He created thousands and thousands of them. May be it’s the ‘give back to the community’ philosophy he acquired eating Sunday night dinners at a Hare Krishna mission when he was a popper, or visiting India during formative age, or embracing the Buddism. What ever it is that shaped him, He is a Legend and His is the Legacy.
I strongly suggest that every body should watch his 2005 Stanford University commencement speech to really understand his roots and beliefs. I don’t know how to give a YouTube link for that speech here. If someone can help that’s great.
Hari garu, Follow one of the links what Mohan garu gave above!
He has done his job and gone. I can see he will be among the luminaries and ground breakers like Alexander Graham Bell, James Clark Maxwell, Michael Faraday, Thomas Edison who were pioneers in their respective fields, so is Steve Jobs in the area of personal computing and personal communications and he will be seen as one a century from now. None of this is hyperbole.
Another GEM from the article, the concept of which I love to be seen on all corporations.
http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/08/25/how-apple-works-inside-the-worlds-biggest-startup/
Jobs sees such specialization as a process of having best-in-class employees in every role, and he has no patience for building managers for the sake of managing. “Steve would say the general manager structure is bullshit,” says Mike Janes, the former Apple executive. “It creates fiefdoms.” Instead, rising stars are invited to attend executive team meetings as guests to expose them to the decision-making process. It is the polar opposite of the General Electric-like (GE) notion of creating well-rounded executives.
Great article! Thanks for the post.
From a Fortune Article
An executive who has worked at Apple and Microsoft describes the differences this way: “Microsoft (MSFT) tries to find pockets of unrealized revenue and then figures out what to make. Apple is just the opposite: It thinks of great products, then sells them. Prototypes and demos always come before spreadsheets.”
We will miss you Steve. I hope the business schools teach about him in future. Specially the way he ran the business.
I can tell one thing that captivated me the moment I switched from PC world to Mac, forever. In Windows they have this thing call ‘WYSIWYG’, which means ‘What You See is What You Get’. That is whatever the user operates and sees he/she operated on a control on PC will happen, ‘eventually’. Well to stick to this paradigm windows does some acrobatics of showing the result prematurely and pops the infamous ‘hour glass’ keeping the user waiting. On Mac it is actually ‘What you get is What you See’. If you can’t get something, it won’t be shown and fails(It has it’s infamous rainbow disc, but it happens rarely). We can see why Windows looks bad.
I believe Jobs’ relentless insistence on perfection enabled Mac to be far superior.
Ramana garu,
I do not own a mac yet, I am tempted to buy one now. The other thing with Steve is, he has seen the ups and downs more than anyone in his generation. He was a CEO of successful company before Microsoft was known to general public. He got fired by the same man he hired to help Apple. He went into oblivion for 10 years only to reincarnate as the “Jobs” we know. Truly one of the greatest leader.
Bhanu garu,
I am sure you will love it, except you will have to go the upper left corner to cancel a window than right corner. 🙂 Yep, Apple was popular before PCs I heard but way too costly and accessible only to elite. Now also they are a bit pricey but not as much for what you gain, is my opinion.
You know I hated Mac OS 9 and before as it was proprietory and not an open architecture, even though it was well optimized for Mac platforms. But OS X onwards Apple switched to unix based OS and boy how they excelled in making it dazzle in the most amazing way. Unix is not known for it’s user-friendliness, but Apple put this beautiful wrapper on it and how they enriched it with better event handling and media management is simply marvelous. Jobs was instrumental in making this switch to unix based one I believe. I work on systems side so I appreciate it a lot, may be too much. You won’t be disappointed to buy a Mac. 🙂
Well, sadly that day has come. Apple founder & CEO Steve Jobs passed away. A Buddist college drop out raised by adopted parents, he was a dreamer who steadfastly pursued his vision against all odds both business and personal and created so much real wealth and jobs for so many people unlike the wall street casino. I guess as a Buddist he may have believed in reincarnation! Can’t wait for another great business leader. Hope there is a deep bench of excellent innovators in Apple.
Amen!
Very well said. He is a modern day inspirational figure.
well said indeed! if after all this financial debacle if America still has some kind of respect is only because of innovators like Jobs. America for once can be proud right now.
There 3 Apples that changed the world.
1. The one Eve ate
2. The one that fell on Newton’s head
3. The one YOU built
Not my thoughts but an admirer of Steve Jobs..well said !!!!
Nice.