The world has lost one of this generations greatest influencers. There’s not many who can lay claim to have profoundly shaped the world that we live in, but Steve Jobs can. I did not know the man but my career has been shaped by the products he created and my children grow up in a world where iPhones, iPads, Macs and the AppleTV are all second nature.
My experience goes back to my early childhood, my Dad was Deputy Principal at Napier Boys’ High School where he set up the School’s first computer lab with AppleII computers. He’d bring one of them home in the weekend and it was through this, at the age of about 10 that I started to be drawn to computing as a career. Firstly playing games like…Pong, Brick out, Lemonade Stand…and then programming from about the age of 12 – started by copying out assembler code from computer mags for games like Frogger, Space Invaders (both of which I’ve just reinstalled on my iPad).
Steve Jobs had an undeniable passion for what he did. Passion, to make a difference. Such passion is well established as one of the key ingredients in the world’s most successful businesses. It’s something we’ve come to actively look for in the people we back…have they got a little bit of Steve Jobs in them?
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.
Steve Jobs
My early exposure to Apple, the influence of the undeniably approachable Apple technology and Steve’s entrepreneurial example have shaped what I do today.
Thanks Steve, go in peace.
Well said he will be sadly missed. If New Zealand had just one Steve Jobs imagine how different this country would be today. RIP
Well said, a sad day indeed. Another Steve Job quote:
”No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And 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.”
Nice tribute Phil.
Steve Jobs, together with Steve Wosniak, made it possible for schools at the time (1978-9) to contemplate buying in to computer technology. Napier BHS had been using IBM System 3′s for basic administration but needed to work on business sites. The Apple II and the IIe (education model) made it possible to have computers in the school. While still expensive at the time, local businesses and benefactors (the late Kel Tremain brought the second one for the school after challenging us to raise money for the first) made it possible for us to get started. The impact on the students was immediate and from those early classes people like yourself and Rod Drury have gone on to great things. Another I remember was Andrew Johston who now has an Apple retail store in Napier. None of this would have been possible without the genius of Steve Jobs whose dream at the time was to make computing personal. Steve put the dream into the minds of bright young students who dared to take up the vision of what could be. He never stopped dreaming and his greatest years were the last ten where the Apple iPxxxx devices he inspired have changed the world forever.
His life has been tragically cut short, but he blazed a trail across the internet sky so bright that everyone looked up and were amazed with what they saw. The meteor has been extinguished but the legacy remains. Thank you Steve for dreaming what could be done, and then doing it.