The night Steve Jobs passed away I was having dinner with some friends. I can’t overstate the impact he’s had on the way we all live our lives, even in some small way. I raised my glass of coke, everyone at my table did the same “To Steve!”, we said in unison. The two tables to our sides raised their glasses, one by one, with a knowing nod. Cheers.
There’s no shortage of things to read about Steve Jobs’ death; about its abruptness, about the aftermath, about the future of Apple, about him and about his legacy. And there’s nothing I could probably add or say better or more factually than them.
Steve was sick, we all knew that, but I didn’t care for the opinion that he was not long for this world. People would show me some new picture that their friend had forwarded them from some other friend showing a gaunt and impossibly frail Steve, at which point I’d quickly dismiss that as a photo doctored by some fat slob with too much free time and too big a bladder to keep his ass planted on that long-suffering desk chair of his through the long nights he must have endured to make that picture look as real as it could. Crazy optimist was a label that, now more than ever, you could have badged me as.
Before it happened, the death of Steve Jobs to me was, like in his own words “a useful but purely intellectual concept”. All the things in my head concerning Apple at the time revolved around being right in predicting the iPhone 4S (gadget lust) launch. More accurately, I was busy plotting how I was going to shove my rightness into the faces of the friends and acquaintances morons that were so obnoxiously sure that an iPhone 5 would be launched instead of a 4S to precede it. Yeah, fuck you too, but I was right.
But then I woke up on Thursday morning. 8.50am.
It sort of irritates me that a text message can be enough of a jolt to yank me out of sleep, but my head happened to be on the edge of the bed by the end table where my phone was. It plainly said “Dude, Steve Jobs is dead.” and it was from one of my ex Apple colleagues who I wouldn’t put down as someone who’d pull a prank, especially about this and at this time of day. I fell back into bed and let out a few sighs because I couldn’t think of much else to do or say (to myself).
I was sad and I was confused; got out of bed, tripped on the sheets that were still wrapped around my leg and opened Apple.com – there it was. No escaping it now. It might seem difficult for you to get a handle on the why. I mean, sure I never met the guy and these emotions seem more warranted for somebody I actually knew closely. In a way I did know him closely, he just didn’t know me.
Ever since I could use a computer I’ve always coveted Macs, and as I learned more about them an admiration grew for the man who championed them: The innovator, the tyrant, the visionary. To a 13 year old boy living in Alor Star, a town in northern Malaysia, a Mac was almost god-like to behold – especially in contrast to my beige-ugly-as-fuck slow ass PC at the time1 . I’d surround myself with info about the Mac, about Apple and about Steve. The TV at home was almost always stuck on TechTV whenever I was around, with the remote “missing”. I was hooked. If you follow technology, I’m sure Apple’s renaissance2 and meteoric rise back to power (and then some) must have been impressive to say the least. It was utterly and unblinkingly awe-inspiring for me.
I doubt that there’s any publicly available footage of Apple and of Steve that I haven’t seen, and seen many times. And I’ve read more stuff that I can care to mention – books, magazines, blogs. I grew up with and around him and the values he held close are the same values I have always wished for myself. And what better mentor to have at such a young age.
Knowing how Steve is, he’d probably not want people like me feeling grief over his death. He’d want us all to move on, to follow our hearts and to follow it forward. He had a great life and he wouldn’t want to keep us from living own greats lives by dwelling on this.
And he’s right, again.
It still amazes me how well I tied everything off and how the subtly irony flies past the brows of most of us. Here I am typing this entry about him on a Macbook Pro. I first heard of his death on an iPhone. He cryptically said “That day has come” in his resignation letter and neatly put his successor into place at Apple and he eloquently spoke of life and death during his speech at Stanford University in 2005(→), a year after he underwent surgery to remove a cancerous tumor on his pancreas. You just couldn’t make his story up for a movie. I feel lucky to have lived in a time when the appreciation for this man and his contributions are at its peak. He really did change the world.
“Stay hungry, stay foolish”
So it goes. Thank you, Steve.
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