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| Steve Jobs Luck |
At 21, he had started his first company; by the age of 25, he was already worth a hundred million. But Jobs' life, his work and his dreams has never been about money. Like that of a holy being, his life seemed to be a series of "tests" as his fortunes climbed to peaks and dived to depths. After the down times' - his failure to initially transform his computer to the big league the way Bill Gates did - and then roaring back with the Mac - then at the age of 30 being unceremoniously dumped by APPLE, the company he had founded, in a Boardroom tussle that he lost - and then many years later after he had given the world the incredible iPod and iPhone, Steve Jobs discovered in the midst of his most triumphant moments that he had cancer!
Never once through these amazing trials and tribulations did he waver from his life's purpose. I have NEVER read of him saying anything negative about anyone or expressing any kind of frustration or self pity.
Steve Jobs absorbed the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune in a way that must surely only inspire us - even when he was supposedly out in the wilderness, sacked from Apple, he did not rail against the man responsible for having him kicked out. In fact, first he apologized to those who had supported him, hanging his head in contrition and apologizing for having "failed" them, then later said it had been "the best thing that had happened to him" - to be kicked out of the company that he had himself founded!
He viewed the humiliation as a release from the pressure to perform. He felt "liberated", he told those closest to him, liberated enough to let his inventive mind once again flow free.
That was when Steve Jobs set up NEXT and PIXAR, and gave the world new manifestations of his creative genius. Pixar is today the world's largest and most successful animation film studio and we owe today's great animated movies to the heritage of TOY STORY and FINDING NEMO. I do not need to rehash the Apple story after he returned to his old company many years later, after APPLE "acquired" NEXT, because much of his triumph, his legendary presentations and marketing skills, and how he converted millions of customers into die-hard APPLE fans has already been written about.
HOW AWED WE ALL ARE...
I only want to say how awed we all are - from the oldest amongst us like me (who cannot live without my iPad these days) - to our staff and to our grandchildren, as young as Jack and Joshy who play games, watch cartoons and fiddle around with the other apps. The iPad is truly the best nanny around - it will keep even the most restless child occupied for a couple of hours - such is the breadth of the iPad's functionality. What kind of brain invented this?
So yes we are awed to realize, at this moment of his passing, that such a man lived amongst us, so brilliant in his thinking, so compassionate and single-minded in his quest to benefit the world and so sweeping in the way he made his great creativity flow for all. The products he designed were made to look pure, cast in pristine white, reflecting the clarity of his ZEN mind. And all achieved against a backdrop of trials we can only guess at. Steve never let on the pain he felt nor frustrations - he just kept going.
THREE THINGS
Today, I read that he stayed working to the end. Those close to him revealed the three things he strived to finish before he went... (Jobs' presentation bytes always come in threes) - like the famous commencement address he gave to the University of Stanford graduates in 2005 - an address quoted so often it has become his classical sermon. That was when he talked about connecting the dots, about love and loss, and then about Death. That time he had recovered from cancer, living an additional six years. This time he knew that death was certain. So Jobs set himself three tasks to complete before dying. All three are to benefit others, not himself.
FIRST
He worked on products to safeguard Apple's future. Blueprints for updated versions of the iPod, iPhone and Macbooks are in place. Steve Jobs also worked to finish iCloud and this will enable storage of music, photos and other documents remotely. Apple has announced there are at least four years worth of new products/models in the pipeline.
SECOND
He thought to get plans approved for a spaceship-style head office in California - big enough to house 12,000 employees in Cupertino where the company presently has its offices.
THIRD
Steve Jobs agreed to cooperate in the writing of an authorized Biography by Pulitzer Prize nominee and author Walter Isaacson granting 40 interviews in all. At the last interview, he explained to his children why "I wasn't always there for them. I wanted rny kids to know me, to understand what I did." It is clear he wanted his biography to be the ultimate love letter to his family. This explains why he agreed to a completely open book espite living a famously private llfe.
On the final visit, a month before his passing, Isaacson found Jobs coiled up in pain downstairs, where he had moved being too weak now to sleep upstairs... "but his mind was still sharp and his humor still as vibrant."
"I later realized that he had called me just before he was going to be operated on for cancer for the first time. As I watched him battle that disease, with an awesome intensity combined with an astonishing emotional romanticism, I came to find him deeply compelling, and I realized how much his personality was ingrained in the products he created. His passions, demons, desires, artistry, devilry and obsession for control were integrally connected to his approach to business, so I decided to try to write his tale as a case study in creativity."
Rumors about Jobs' health had been buzzing around Silicon Valley all year, but anyone who knew him and read that resignation letter understood the end was near. He had been so good at distorting reality, so good at bending everyone - competitors, consumers, the press, and especially himself - to see the world his way. By relinquishing control, Jobs acknowledged that he had finally met the one force he could not charm or bully or out-think: his own mortality. To find out more, you can check out Steve Jobs Luck.