Why Did Steve Jobs' Death Affect Me?
Saturday, October 8, 2011 at 11:57AM When Steve Jobs died the other day it affected me in an odd way. I felt sort of empty. I felt like something was suddenly missing. I have not felt this way about someone I have not met for a long time. I remember when john Candy died, and Pierre Trudeau, and Rocket Richard. I did not know any of them either of course (though I did shake Trudeau's hand when I was 12 while on a class trip to Ottawa, alas that is another story).
To be sure, this was nothing like losing my Dad to cancer, or my friend Duncan to the same disease. Those two guys influenced me probably more than any two men in my life. (When I don't know how to solve a problem at work I think 'WWDD' meaning What Would Dad/Duncan Do? Oddly, the solutions are almost always the same...)
No this was different. Why did I care so much about a billionaire? I mean, I understand Trudeau, hell, when I was a kid, until I was 19, he was the Prime Minister, ok except for that brief Joe Clark thing.... So, he affected me every day, I lived in Trudeau's Canada. The Rocket, well, I am a Habs fan, and we are big into tradition and history we Habs fans, so, I guess that made sense. I had heard the stories, I had seen grainy film etc. But Jobs, I mean why? He was, by some accounts, a ruthless and arrogant businessman. Then again, Trudeau was a ruthless politician, and often seen as arrogant. The Rocket was ruthless on the ice, and also often seen as arrogant. I remember when Gretzky came in the league, and the Rocket was asked how he would do in the 50s. His reply was something along the lines of 'He would win the scoring title, if he was on my line'. 
Jonathan Mak's excellent tribute logo.
Was this arrogance though? Trudeau had an IQ of 180. The Rocket was, up until the arrival of Lemieux and Grezky, the greatest goal scorer ever. They KNEW they were great. Did everything they did in their work turn out? No. The National Energy plan was a disaster politically for Trudeau. Maurice Richard was not the easiest teammate to have.
Jobs was a visionary. He guessed what we would like, before we knew we would like it. He saved Apple when he returned. He did this by doing stuff other people had done before (mp3 players, phones etc) better than they had. He was bold enough to use UNIX as basis of OS X. He, by all accounts, did not use focus groups. He somehow just knew. Oh he had his fuckups. The iPod HiFi, the Cube, Mobile Me (oddly, I sort of like Mobile Me...)
However, he did not let his screwups get in the way. He moved on. He came across, to me, as a genius, but as a flawed one. Not some fatal flaw, just flawed like all of us. As an academic I have known/know many people with the sort of drive, vision and flaws that Jobs had. Maybe that is why he resonated with me. He also made geek cool.
Strangely, I hated Macs until OS X. I had no interest in them, when I used them they bothered me, it all seemed clunky. OS X changed that. I did not have an mp3 player until the iPod came out. The first smartphone I bought was an iPhone 3Gs. His sense of what worked usually worked for me. Plus, it is way easy to zoom in on a Mac, and that helps me a lot what with the blind thing and all.
As he said in his famous Stanford address: 'stay hungry, stay foolish'. Maybe that is where Candy fits in....
Cancer, John Candy, Mourning, Pierre Trudeau, Rocket Richard, Steve Jobs in Rant, Reflection 
Reader Comments (4)
As a Linux Hippie, I hated that Apple took elements from Gnome and KDE and made them seem like they were Apple innovations. I hated the fact that OS_X was based off of BSD! The whole closed-sourced argument vs. open made my guts churn. From anecdotal evidence, he was a complete jerk to his employees.
He was arrogant, opinionated, and blunt. But he changed the landscape of tech for generations to come.
He was one of us, but still, way ahead of us.
You can't be mad at the sea when the tide goes out, just accept that it's gone...
Jim I agree. I think the one of us but ahead of us captures it nicely. The guy was a hell of a contradiction it seems. I hope this upcoming book is good, i look forward to reading it.
For a more soap-opera version, Pirates of SiliconValley [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirates_of_Silicon_Valley] does a nice job of chronicling the rivalry between Jobs and Gates in the early years (meaning the '80's). But the up-coming book's author actually got to talk with Steve, and that's going to put a bit more spin into it, I think.
Yeah I have seen that movie. I liked it though it does not have much depth so the new book really interests me.