Eulogy for Steve Jobs

I was screaming in the car. I was ecstatic; it was the one thing in the world that I wanted more than anything. I had just come home, my brother had gotten it for me, it was waiting for me on the dinner table. In the packaging, and on the side, it said in a big Myriad Set font: iPhone.

Steve Jobs is more than just a visionary. He is an idea, a philosophy, a way of thinking about life and technology that transcends the technical, and ventures into the creative. He gave a voice to those of us who were voiceless. We all knew things sucked; everything sucked. People hated using technology and we didn’t really know why. Hindsight is 20/20 and we can now clearly see what was wrong and laugh about it, but physical keyboards were cool, and styluses were in, cartoons were for kids, and computers were for scientists, but all that has changed.

Steve Jobs was my first boss, he created a company that I admired and tried hard to work for. I tried to get an internship at Apple three times, and I failed twice. Failure was never an option for Steve, and I never let it be a failure. Coming in second is reason to try harder, reason to improve, it’s a great motivator.

Steve knew early on what it takes to make a good product, he assembled a team to work with him that understood that. The team extended beyond just the senior vice presidency. All the employees who work at Apple understand the Jobsian ethos, if not explicitly, then implicitly. Before the first iPod was sold, Jony Ive knew that they were designing an icon.

The closest I ever came to talking to Steve Jobs was brushing shoulders with him at the cafeteria, but his presense was always felt, was a visionary, a legend, and a thought leader. You will be missed Steve, you meant the world to us.