Steve Jobs 1955-2011
Steve Jobs, the inventor of the personal computer, the graphical user interface, the computer mouse, the mobile music player, the online media store, the smartphone, the tablet computer, and the touch screen as we know them today, has died.
Tonight is the first time I’ve shed a tear for the death of someone I’ve never met. America has lost its most successful and inspiring industrialist, and the world has lost a visionary who has more than anyone else in my lifetime transformed our culture and our technology, and demonstrated that the two things are forever symbiotic.
In general I believe the accomplishments of great men and women are inevitable — that conditions would have led someone else to make those same innovations had they failed or declined — but Steve Jobs was one of the only people who made me question that assumption. The possibility that one person really can change the world was profoundly meaningful to me.
I will not forget that inspiration.
Jobs, before his death:
“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.”
“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.”
President Barack Obama on Jobs: “The world has lost a visionary. And there may be no greater tribute to Steve’s success than the fact that much of the world learned of his passing on a device he invented.
Stephen Spielberg: “Steve Jobs was the greatest inventor since Thomas Edison. He put the world at our fingertips.”
Bill Gates: “The world rarely sees someone who has had the profound impact Steve has had, the effects of which will be felt for many generations to come.”
