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| Steve Jobs. Picture courtesy: Apple.com |
If it were possible, Steven Paul Jobs, co-founder
and former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of technology giant Apple, would
have designed a sleek Apple iPod, iPhone, iPad, or Mac, that would eclipse the
effects of pancreatic cancer with just one smart touch. Or better still, store
a hundred more years in his personal iCloud. But even the
great computing entrepreneur, inventor and visionary, with an eye for
perfection, understood and acknowledged the mortal boundaries of his creative
genius. After a seven year battle with pancreatic cancer, and two months after
he resigned as Apple CEO, Jobs passed away on October 5, 2011, at the age of 56.
With his inventions, he changed tthe world and how it communicated and listened to music by causing a technological revolution
. At the last count, Jobs had over 300
patents to his name. But he would be notably remembered for creating revolutionary consumer electronics products like the
Apple iPhone, iPad, iPod, iMac and iTunes. The son of two
unmarried university students - Joanne Schieble
and Syrian-born father, Abdulfattah
Jandali, Jobs was adopted by working
class Californian couple, Paul and Clara Jobs, and fell in love with technology
as he grew up in his adopted parent’s home in Silicon Valley, the headquarters
of US electronics industry. He dropped out of
college after one term and in 1976, at the age twenty-one
in his parent’s garage, with his close
friend Steve
Wozniak, Jobs co-founded Apple and
turned it into a multi-billion dollar technology empire -
the world's second most
valuable company by market capitalisation, after the oil giant Exxon, with more
than $50 billion in the bank. Earlier this year, it surpassed the oil giant as the world's most valuable company.
“For Steve Jobs, every day was
like Christmas morning and nothing could shake that feeling,” said Chris Taylor, a technology writer for TIME in the 1990s and 2000s. Going by Jobs own
words, Taylor had a point. “Death is very likely the single best invention of
Life. It is Life's change agent…. Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever
encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything
- all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure -
these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly
important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to
avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked.
There is no reason not to follow your heart,” Jobs explained in a speech
delivered at Stanford University in 2005.
“Steve was among the greatest of American innovators –
brave enough to think differently, bold enough to believe he could change the
world, and talented enough to do it,” said US president Barack Obama, who
revealed that Jobs personally gave him an advance copy of iPad 2 before it was
unveiled to the rest of the world. “For those of us lucky enough to get to work
with him, it's been an insanely great honour. I will miss Steve immensely,"
noted Bill Gates, Microsoft founder; while Michael Bloomberg, New York Mayor,
said that "America lost a genius who will be remembered with Edison and
Einstein, and whose ideas will shape the world for generations to come".
Like Obama rightly
pointed out, "” there may be no greater tribute to Steve's success than
the fact that much of the world learned of his passing on a device he invented”.
A statement on Apple’s website read, "Apple has lost a visionary and
creative genius, and the world has lost an amazing human being. Those of us who
have been fortunate enough to know and work with Steve have lost a dear friend
& an inspiring mentor. Steve leaves behind a company that only he could
have built, and his spirit will forever be the foundation of Apple." Enough said.
Born February 24, 1955, Steve Jobs reportedly died
peacefully surrounded by family and friends, barely a few days after the release
of the Apple iPhone 4S.
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