The day many feared it would come sooner rather than later has finally arrived, one day after the announcement of the iPhone 4S, he receive the sad news of the death of Steve Jobs. Steve dies at the age of 56, victim of the cancer we had been battling of the last few years. A fight that slowly eat him away - as the world could see at each and every public presentation he did - and forced him to finally let go of his prized company, Apple, just a few weeks back.Steve always had big dreams, and wanted to change the world... and I think it's safe to say: he actually did it.
He leaves us a Apple at its highest peak, with more money than the US Government itslef, and in the past decade or so he launched products that changed the way society interacts and consumes, music, video, and accesses the internet.
Jobs came from humble origins, and even dropped out of college (though that would be just one of his many "defining" moments). He visited India in his youth, adopted buddhism as his religion, and he never compromised about what the way he thought things should be.
He founded Apple in 1976, with Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne, and it didn't take them long to start changing the world. The first Apple computers, the Macintosh... It would be just the start of a real-life adventure many fiction writers wouldn't dream of.
Steve was kicked out of his own company - another important moment that made in re-evaluate his bearings - and helped create Pixar; before being asked back to Apple years later, at a critical moment.
Since 1997, Steve Jobs has really been on a streak, changing the way people listened to music, with the iPod; the way content was distributed, with iTunes; and proving the world could be changed even when "everyone" was against him... with the iPhone.
With the iPad, Steve changed the world once again - while once again lots of people bet against him - and initiating a revolution that is still underway and will only be fully understood many years from now.
More than a true innovator and inventor, I think Steve was a visionary... Someone that was able to see what was there, and improving it to the point of near-perfection and as simple to use as possible, so everyone could actually use it. The iPod wasn't the first MP3 player; the iTunes wasn't the first online "music" store; the iPhone wasn't the first touch-screen smartphone; nor the iPad was the first tablet... However, he seems to be the first to actually do it "right".
For Steve Jobs, every day started with a question: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?"
And for the past decade or so I'm sure his answer has always been a reassuring: yes.
Goodbye Steve Jobs, you did change the world.
[February 24th, 1955 – October 5th, 2011]
A life story that will hardly be forgotten.
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