An Ode to Steve Jobs

I think for anyone who knows me, I hate Apple. I hate Apple for all it stands for, I refuse to buy their product (now), I have never went into an Apple store out of my own fruition. But, with the passing of Steve Jobs, I have to say, he is an amazing human that has revolutionized our world as much as Henry Ford, Andrew Carnegie, and John Rockefeller.

Steve Jobs gave us a new form of thinking. He was Apple. There's no doubt about it. He epitomized what Apple is about and what they stand for. He first thought of the personal computer that was easy to use for non-computer people. Bill Gates and Co. gave us a great computer, but it was Jobs' first MacIntosh that allowed the every-man to use a computer. It wasn't a smashing success, but made people realize that usability is as important, if not more important, as functionality. To him, usability is king and if your product is not easy to use, then it's useless. Jobs first epitomized this in the tech world. Everyone else, followers.

I think it will be a banality to speak of the success of the iPod and iTunes, it was great, I had one. But moving on. The innovation of Jobs is amazing. He had the ability to see opportunities and applications of new technologies that no one else even fathoms. The first time the multi-touch touch screen came out on TED, no one, not even the inventor, knew what to do with it. A year after the debut on TED, iPhone came out. It was revolutionary. Nothing touched it until iPhone3G. Everyone else, including the benevolent gods of Google, was late and a copycat. Jobs had the insight to see an opportunity that no one else even fathom what was happening. The only reason why Google and HTC can get large market share is due to pricing, and not innovation.

Steve Jobs is also not without failure. In fact it was his triumph from failure that ranks him with the greatest entrepreneurs in human history. Let's list the failures of Apple: iMac, G-series towers, the partnership to make a Intel Inside computer, every MacIntosh, PowerBooks, iBook, the list goes on and on. But he triumphed, through all of the failures. Most people would have stopped after any one of those failures, probably no one could have gotten new investments after any one of those failures. But Jobs did. Again and again. He defied the financial analysts, pundits, bloggers, everyone.

Finally, Jobs had pancreatic cancer. He's a person known for guarding his privacy. We don't know how long he has had it, but the last time he went on sabbatical and got a liver transplant, the smart money would bet that the cancer had metastasized in his liver. He carried on, for years. And this is a cancer with a 93% mortality rate in the first year.

Steve Jobs, I salute you and mourn a great lose. May you rest in peace and continue to inspire.

Steve Jobs 1955-2011