X Years Ago…Remembering Steve Jobs
Ten years ago tonight the news broke that Steve Jobs had passed.
I was home. Watching the news. It wasn’t wholly unexpected as Steve had been sick but it felt like I’d been punched in the gut when I heard the actual news. I was working for Apple at the time, actually I was just a few days shy of my tenth anniversary with the company. I remember telling my wife. I recall texting some friends. I remember feeling numb.
Steve was my hero. Flawed, never perfect, and not a hero I’d ever wanted to meet, but a hero nonetheless. Steve had changed the world with product after product that impacted my life in some very big way. The Mac. OS X. iPod. iPhone. iPad. These were all just pieces of technology, but they spoke to me. I found ways to stay connected, discover new information, share my thoughts, become immersed in music, movies, and photography. Anytime I have a presentation to give, I watch Steve introducing iPhone. Steve had a way of inspiring while informing, of making the ordinary seem extraordinary (the “reality distortion field”)
Steve’s company gave me a career. Unfortunately my time at Apple was marred by terrible human beings that took the worst parts of everything and twisted Steve’s vision in ways that made my time there less than ideal. It’s interesting though, that when Steve died I headed straight to the Apple Store. I wanted to be there. I needed to be there. A few friends had the same idea. We converged at the store and cried, laughed, shared stories, and cried some more. While we were there we received word from Cupertino to dim the lights on the Apple logo. Something I don’t believe had been done in a decade. It was surreal and probably a little dumb, but watching those lights go out was incredibly emotional and symbolic.
Steve wasn’t a perfect man. In fact, by most accounts he was kind of an asshole. But he was a genius. He had a vision that he was able to manifest time and time again in ways that changed the way we looked at, interacted with, and appreciated technology. Some people don’t get it. And that’s fine. I’m glad I was one of the ones who did.
My time at Apple is long in the rear view, and honestly a lot of my passion for the company has also dimmed much like those lights the night Steve died. I still love and their products, I still think of Jobs as an innovator, a legend, and a hero. RIP Steve. Think Different.
