Remembering Steve Jobs on the 10th anniversary of his passing
Today is the 10th anniversary of the passing of Steve Jobs. In recognition of this, Apple has dedicated its homepage to “Celebrating Steve,” which includes a short letter from his family, and a three-minute tribute video that is absolutely worth your time. Steve Jobs was a unique individual. He had an amazing mind for product-creation. Under his time at Apple he oversaw the development of the Macintosh, the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad, and Mac OS X. He was also a brilliant communicator capable of speaking directly to the consumer about how his products would benefit them. Few people succeed in being either a brilliant product person or a brilliant communicator. Steve Jobs was both in one. He will be studied in history books hundreds of years from now.
I was first introduced to Steve Jobs via Robert X Cringely’s documentary, Triumph of the Nerds, sometime in the late 90’s. As I wrote last year, I was immediately drawn to Steve’s charisma, personality, and the way he viewed what he was doing at Apple with the Macintosh as changing the world. More than anything about the Mac itself, Steve Jobs made me a Mac user, and I’ve been one for twenty-one years now.
One of the great joys of my life is that I can say that I worked for Steve Jobs. No, not directly. I never got the opportunity to meet the man. I worked in Apple Retail from 2005-2012, some of the most pivotal years in Apple’s history. My time at Apple began shortly after the launch of Apple Retail and saw the introduction of the iPhone and iPad, the Apple TV, the iPod nano, and many other pivotal Apple products. One of my most treasured possessions is a plaque I received in 2010 celebrating my first five years with Apple, featuring Steve Jobs’s signature at the bottom. Sure, it’s a stamp and not his actual signature, but it signifies to me that I got to go along with Steve on a pretty incredible journey.
I’ll never forget the way people left notes and flowers at the Apple store after Steve’s passing. And I’ll never forget that Apple closed down every single Apple Retail location in the middle of a busy shopping day so that we could all watch the live stream of Steve’s memorial service held on Apple’s campus. They didn’t have to do that, but it shows what kind of company Apple is, and they knew what Steve meant to every Apple employee.
He’s been gone a decade, but I have no doubt that he’d be very proud of the success that Apple has had since his passing. We don’t know how different Apple would be today if Steve were still with us and still helming Apple. That’s why I generally decry statements asserting what “Steve Jobs would have done.” These sorts of statements always come in the form of criticisms of something Apple is doing.
All I know is that I miss Steve. Mostly I miss Steve the communicator. Apple has continued to release incredible products since Steve’s death. And they’re still great as a company at communicating their product vision. But they’ve never had anyone else who could singularly speak to consumers in the way that Steve did, and I very much miss that. Steve was also a brilliantly independent thinker. In an era in which dissident views are punished stridently in society, we need more people who Think Different. Where have you gone, Steve Jobs? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you.
On an even more personal level, it’s not at all a stretch to say that I owe my career to Steve Jobs. Following and writing about Apple isn’t just a hobby to me. Outside of the few years I spent working in Apple Retail, I’ve spent most of the last twenty-one years working in the information technology field supporting and managing Apple devices. I couldn’t imagine a more enjoyable career. Thank you, Steve for giving me that remarkable gift.