EDITOR'S NOTE:
In Memoriam: Steve Jobs
by Barbara Brynko
While we were busy putting the finishing touches on this issue, the news of Steve Jobs’ passing hit the media. Although most of us didn’t know him personally, he sure changed our world and for the better.
Whether you were a PC or a Mac lover, you couldn’t deny that Mr. Jobs had a vision. Many have compared him to Albert Einstein and Henry Ford. We grew to expect great things from him, and he delivered. But the greatness wasn’t his alone; he learned to share the limelight with the talented team surrounding him. Sure, he achieved greatness, but his life wasn’t easy. He was adopted, a college dropout, and even fired from Apple, the company he co-founded with Steve Wozniak 10 years before that had grown to a $2 billion enterprise.
In his speech at Stanford University’s commencement on June 12, 2005, Mr. Jobs was honest and candid. “Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick,” Jobs said. “Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did.”
After Mr. Jobs left Apple as a self-proclaimed “public failure,” he entered what he called “one of the most creative periods” of his life. He launched NeXT Computer and then Pixar, which rolled out Toy Story, the world’s first computer-animated feature film. When Apple bought NeXT in 1996, Mr. Jobs returned to Apple, and as they say, the rest is history.
“Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards,” said Mr. Jobs at Stanford. “So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something—your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”
Enjoy the issue.
— Barbara Brynko |
