3 min read

Steve Jobs always stayed hungry

News of Steve Jobs' passing has everyone talking about technology and innovation

Most people who know me believe I’m a big Apple hater. This is untrue. What I don’t like about Apple are its business tactics toward the solution provider community and the way they communicate to the media.

No company in high tech is perfect. Each and every one of them has flaws, and Apple is no different. As for Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple Computer Inc. along with Steve Wozniak, what can you say that hasn’t already been said.

What I found covering Apple and Jobs over the years was his remarkable ability and vision to turn a piece of technology completely around and make it better. Steve Jobs didn’t create the computer, for example, but the Macintosh drastically improved the performance of personal computers and ushered in the age of desktop publishing. Apple didn’t create the MP3 player nor did it establish music file sharing but with iPod (released 10 years ago today) and iTunes he made it much easier for people to listen and carry their music wherever they go. He also made music much more affordable. With Pixar animation, again the cartoon was a long established art form, but with computer generated imaging (CGI) technology he transformed the art form into something amazing.

Laptops, cell-phones and tablet computers; again, Jobs and Apple didn’t invent them but his vision for these products produced devices that millions of people can’t live without, and absolutly love.

I never had an opportunity to interview Steve Jobs. The closest I got was interviewing Gilbert Amelio, the CEO of Apple before Jobs. He was in Toronto and I asked him why it was important for him to bring Jobs and Wozniak back into the fold and acquire NeXT, the company Jobs founded after he was booted out of Apple. From what I remember, Amelio told me that it was time to bring back the founders of the company to reestablish the culture of innovation. That was something that Apple was lacking at the time. The company was a shell of its former self and was only doing well in niche markets such as graphics and education. What Amelio did in my opinion was a selfless act to try and light a fire under Apple.

His decision reinvigorated the Mac faithful, a community that was lost in the 90s. Jobs eventually got the Apple board to side with him and removed Amelio from the corner office. Jobs became the iCEO, if you recall.

From that point in mid-1997, Jobs’ reign is the stuff of legends.

In 2005, Jobs made a fantastic commencement speech at Stanford University where he told the graduating class to always stay hungry and stay foolish. He also talked about getting fired from Apple and these words resonated with me: “I’m pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn’t been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.”

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