Steve Jobs lives on.
I’m sitting in my car in a parking lot, writing this post on a device I still can scarcely believe exists in my lifetime. I’m 57 years old and I’ve been a science fiction fan pretty much my entire life. Now here I am routinely using a marvelous blending of hardware, software and infrastructure that was a far-out crazy pipe dream in my youth. It isn’t just as good as I dreamed — it is BETTER than I could imagine in those days.
I’m looking at what is essentially a magical window which can bring me almost anything I want. Information, entertainment, communication — if I’m hungry the Pizza Hut at the top of the hill nearby will prepare food for me and have it ready pretty much by the time I can drive there.
This device has no wires, no tethers. I carry it with me pretty much 24/7. If I’m not in the shower, it (or its smaller brother on my belt) is probably within my reach. It is too useful to leave behind. I have it — we have it — because of the incredible drive and vision of Steve Jobs.
I used to read about such a device in tales of the far-off future. I had no idea how fast the future would catch up with me, or me with it. In grade school I read Heinlein’s stories of people going to the moon. In 1969, I watched it happen. I’ll ever get there myself, sadly. (D.D.Harriman, how I understand you now…) But I can hold an incredible futuristic device in my hand and use it every day. I’m so grateful I’ve lived long enough for that to happen.
And it all started in a garage in California, and came to my attention first when I saw a young Steve Jobs demonstrating the new Apple II on a morning TV show. I loved the idea of computers, bit this was the first timeI ever had the notion that I could actually own one and use one.
I bought my first Apple computer, paying for it out of my writing income. I’d borrowed an Apple II+ from my new publisher, and I used my first royalty check to buy an Apple IIe of my own. A steady stream of Apple computers and devices have followed — an Apple IIc whose portability delighted me, then the very first Macintosh 128 ever seen in our little Southern Indiana town. (I still have both…) A Mac Plus followed, still from my writing/game design sideline. I learned to be first a bad graphic designer, then a pretty decent one, using those Macs during the early days of what would soon be known as “desktop publishing”. I got to know Macs and embraced what Guy Kawasaki codified as “The Macintosh Way”.
I became good enough at it that I was hired as a salesperson by a small local Independent Apple retailer, which was subsequently bought out by a larger regional dealer. I became their primary Macintosh expert, trainer, and on-site troubleshooter for corporate clients, and for the first time started traveling to regional Apple offices for training and new product introductions.
When our regional newspaper decided to move from graphic artists with drafting boards to electronic ad design, they sought me out as the local “Mac Guy”. In one year I took them from 2 Mac IIs used to do the occasional comp ad to a completely Mac-based design operation with 25 networked design stations. In another year, I helped move the entire newspaper off pasteup onto Mac-based full pagination. I became the “Mac Guy” in charge of hundreds of networked Macs used by the creative side of the business.
During that time, I got to see Steve Jobs in person for the first and only time. Sent by my company to Macworld Expo in Boston, I was in the audience at the keynote address where Steve was joined (on a huge screen) by Bill Gates. Jobs had just returned to Apple and was moving to bring it back into line with his vision of the future. Not long ago, I found my presence there had been forever preserved. Watch the excellent documentary Welcome to Macintosh, where an excerpt from that keynote is seen. Just after Gates appears on the screen, there’s a crowd reaction shot. The heavy-set guy in the glasses and blue shirt, nodding and smiling — that’s me.
I left behind traditional publishing, frustrated by the inability of people who were supposed to be building the best way to communicate to see how communication was changing. I was caught up in the Steve Jobs vision. I still am.
Though my current “day job” puts a Windows computer on my desk (which still owes it’s existence to Steve Jobs) I rely on Apple products every day. Actually, that’s not adequate. I delight in using them every day, recommending them to anyone who will listen, and writing about them here.
My life would be totally different if Steve Jobs had not existed. Chances are that, even if you never worked in the tech field, your life would be entirely different without him as well. We throw around the phrase “changing the world” so lightly today. Steve Jobs really did it, again and again and again. He did it through the force of his will, the uncompromising drive of his vision, and his unparalleled ability to attract and motivate other people of vision to work toward the goals he saw so clearly.
I owe Steve Jobs for the life I’ve enjoyed, the work that made me useful, the philosophy that drives me. He was and is one of the major influences that made me whatever I have become. Many, many, many of you are thinking the same thing tonight.
He encouraged us to seek our own vision and pursue it doggedly, and took it as his personal crusade to create and drive a company that would build the tools we need to seek our vision. And he started doing this before most of us had any idea what those tools would be.
Apple is not one man. It is a company built on vision, as realized by many, many individuals who banded together to pursue their vision, and share it with the world. Their work, their vision will continue, preserving and sharing the legacy of inspiration that drives the company. Steve Jobs lives on in every one of them, and every one of us.
If you want to thank Steve Jobs for his life an dedication, all you have to do is be true to your dream, share it, work for it, and refuse to let it go. That is the way to change the world.
This is not the time to Think Small, Look Back, Be Careful, Dig In, Stop Growing. When Apple tried that, they failed. It is a time to Be Bold, Try Everything, Reach High, Dream Big. When you do, you will succeed, and you will honor the legacy of Steve Jobs.
