You know you are a cult figure when.... you are a bobble head.
Steve Jobs was a cult figure.
By Brandon Griggs,
October
5, 2011
Steve Jobs, the visionary
in the black turtleneck who co-founded Apple in a Silicon Valley
garage, built it into the world's leading tech company and led a
mobile-computing revolution with wildly popular devices such as the iPhone,
died Wednesday. He was 56.
The hard-driving
executive pioneered the concept of the personal computer and of navigating them
by clicking onscreen images with a mouse. In more recent years, he introduced
the iPod portable music player, the iPhone and the iPad tablet ~ all of which
changed how we consume content in the digital age.
His friends and Apple
fans on Wednesday night mourned the passing of a tech titan.
"Steve's brilliance,
passion and energy were the source of countless innovations that enrich and
improve all of our lives," Apple said in a statement. "The world is
immeasurably better because of Steve."
More than one pundit,
praising Jobs' ability to transform entire industries with his inventions,
called him a modern-day Leonardo Da Vinci.
"Steve Jobs is one of the great innovators in the history of modern capitalism," New York Times columnist Joe Nocera said in August. "His intuition has been phenomenal over the years."
Jobs' death, while
dreaded by Apple's legions of fans, was not unexpected. He had battled cancer
for years, took a medical leave from Apple in January and stepped down as chief
executive in August because he could "no longer meet (his) duties and
expectations."
Born February 24, 1955,
and then adopted, Jobs grew up in Cupertino, California ~ which would become
home to Apple's headquarters ~ and showed an early interest in electronics. As
a teenager, he phoned William Hewlett, president of Hewlett-Packard, to request
parts for a school project. He got them, along with an offer of a summer job at
HP.
Jobs dropped out of
Oregon's Reed College after one semester, although he returned to audit a class
in calligraphy, which he says influenced Apple's graceful, minimalist
aesthetic. He quit one of his first jobs, designing video games for Atari, to
backpack across India and take psychedelic drugs. Those experiences, Jobs said
later, shaped his creative vision.
"You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future," he told Stanford University graduates during a commencement speech in 2005."You have to trust in something: your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life."
While at HP, Jobs
befriended Steve Wozniak, who impressed him with his skill at assembling
electronic components. The two later joined a Silicon Valley computer hobbyists
club, and when he was 21, Jobs teamed with Wozniak and two other men to launch
Apple Computer Inc.
It's long been Silicon
Valley legend: Jobs and Wozniak built their first commercial product, the Apple
1, in Jobs' parents' garage in 1976. Jobs sold his Volkswagen van to help
finance the venture.
The primitive computer,
priced at $666.66, had no keyboard or display, and customers had to assemble it
themselves.
The following year, Apple
unveiled the Apple II computer at the inaugural West Coast Computer Faire.
The
machine was a hit, and the personal computing revolution was under way.
Jobs was among the first
computer engineers to recognize the appeal of the mouse and the graphical
interface, which let users operate computers by clicking on images instead of
writing text.
Apple's pioneering
Macintosh computer launched in early 1984 with a now-iconic, Orwellian-themed
Super Bowl ad. The boxy beige Macintosh sold well, but the demanding Jobs
clashed frequently with colleagues and in 1986, he was ousted from Apple after
a power struggle.
Then came a 10-year
hiatus during which he founded NeXT Computer, whose pricey, cube-shaped
computer workstations never caught on with consumers.
Jobs had more success
when he bought Pixar Animation Studios from George Lucas before the company
made it big with "Toy Story."
Jobs brought the same marketing
skill to Pixar that he became known for at Apple. His brief but emotional pitch
for "Finding Nemo," for example, was a masterful bit of succinct
storytelling.
In 1996, Apple bought
NeXT, returning Jobs to the then-struggling company he had co-founded.
Within a year, he was
running Apple again ~ older and perhaps wiser but no less of a perfectionist.
And in 2001, he took the stage to introduce the original iPod, the little white
device that transformed portable music and kick-started Apple's furious
comeback.
Thus began one of the
most remarkable second acts in the history of business. Over the next decade,
Jobs wowed launch-event audiences, and consumers, with one game-changing hit
after another: iTunes (2003), the iPhone (2007), the App Store (2008), and the
iPad (2010).
Observers marveled at
Jobs' skills as a pitchman, his ability to inspire godlike devotion among Apple
"fanboys" (and scorn from PC fans) and his "one more thing"
surprise announcements. Time after time, he sold people on a product they
didn't know they needed until he invented it. And all this on an official
annual salary of $1.
He also built a
reputation as a hard-driving, mercurial and sometimes difficult boss who
oversaw almost every detail of Apple's products and rejected prototypes that
didn't meet his exacting standards.
By the late 2000s, his
once-renegade tech company, the David to Microsoft's Goliath, was entrenched at
the uppermost tier of American business. Apple now operates more than 300
retail stores in 11 countries. The company has sold more than 275 million
iPods, 100 million iPhones and 25 million iPads worldwide.
Jobs' climb to the top
was complete in summer 2011, when Apple listed more cash reserves than the U.S.
Treasury and even briefly surpassed Exxon Mobil as the world's most valuable
company.
But Jobs' health problems
sometimes cast a shadow over his company's success. In 2004, he announced to
his employees that he was being treated for pancreatic cancer. He lost weight
and appeared unusually gaunt at keynote speeches to Apple developers, spurring
concerns about his health and fluctuations in the company's stock price. One
wire service accidentally published Jobs' obituary.
Jobs had a secret liver
transplant in 2009 in Tennessee during a six-month medical leave of absence
from Apple. He took another medical leave in January this year. Perhaps mindful
of his legacy, he cooperated on his first authorized biography, scheduled to be
published by Simon & Schuster in November.
Jobs is survived by his
wife of 20 years, Laurene, and four children, including one from a prior
relationship.
He always spoke with
immense pride about what he and his engineers accomplished at Apple.
"Your work is going
to fill a large part of your life, and 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," he told the Stanford grads in 2005.
"If you haven't
found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart,
you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets
better and better as the years roll on."
THE SPIRITUAL SIDE OF STEVE JOBS
As Jobs put it, "we're here to put a dent in the
universe."
STEVE JOBS' TOP 5 SHOWMAN MOMENTS
"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone
else's life," he said.
TIMELINE: STEVE JOBS' CAREER
WEB MOURNS JOBS' DEATH, FINDS INSPIRATION IN HIS LIFE
STEVE JOBS, "STAY HUNGRY. STAY FOOLISH."
This is a
prepared text of the Commencement address delivered by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple
Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, on June 12, 2005.
“I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal.
Just three
stories.
The first story is about connecting the dots. I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?
The first story is about connecting the dots. I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?
It started
before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate
student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that
I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to
be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife.
Except that
when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a
girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of
the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?"
They said: "Of course."
My
biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from
college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to
sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my
parents promised that I would someday go to college.
And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life.
And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life.
So I decided
to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the
time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute
I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me,
and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.
It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great.
It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great.
It was
beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture,
and I found it fascinating.
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography.
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography.
If I had
never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had
multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just
copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them.
If I had
never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and
personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of
course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in
college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.
Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something ~ your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
My second story is about love and loss. I was lucky ~ I found what I loved to
do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents’ garage when I was 20.
We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a
garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees.
We had just
released our finest creation ~ the Macintosh ~ a year earlier, and I had just
turned 30.
And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you
started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented
to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But
then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling
out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out.
And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was
gone, and it was devastating.
I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down ~ that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me ~ I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down ~ that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me ~ I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me.
The
heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner
again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most
creative periods of my life. During the next five years, I started a company
named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman
who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the world’s first computer
animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation
studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I
returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of
Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family
together.
I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was an awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick.Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers.
Your work is
going to fill a large part of your life, and 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.
Don't
settle.
As with all
matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it.
And, like
any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on.
So keep
looking until you find it.
Don't settle.
My third story is about death. When I was 17, I read a quote that went
something like:
"If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right."
It made an
impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the
mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my
life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the
answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to
change something.
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life.
Because almost everything ~ all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure ~ these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.
Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the
morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what
a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer
that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six
months.
My doctor
advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for
prepare to die.
It means to
try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to
tell them in just a few months.
It means to
make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for
your family.
It means to
say your goodbyes.
I lived with
that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an
endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a
needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but
my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a
microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare
form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and
I'm fine now.
This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:
This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:
No one wants to die.Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there.Yet death is the destination we all share.No one has ever escaped it.And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life.It is Life's change agent.It clears out the old to make way for the new.Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away.Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life.Don't be trapped by dogma ~ which is living with the results of other people's thinking.Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice.And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.They somehow already know what you truly want to become.
Everything
else is secondary.
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called "The Whole Earth Catalog," which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch.
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called "The Whole Earth Catalog," which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch.
This was in
the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was
all made with typewriters, scissors, and Polaroid cameras. It was sort of like
Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic,
and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
Stewart and his team put out several issues of "The Whole Earth Catalog," and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age.
Stewart and his team put out several issues of "The Whole Earth Catalog," and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age.
On the back
cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road,
the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous.
Beneath it
were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish."
It was their
farewell message as they signed off.
Stay Hungry.
Stay Foolish.
And I have
always wished that for myself.
And now, as
you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.
Stay
Hungry. Stay Foolish.
Thank you all very much."
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