Here’s to the crazy ones
Short URL for this post: http://plp.me/nG5aQzAn Era ended yesterday as the mighty Steve Jobs, who recently stepped down as CEO of Apple, passed away at 56 years old after a long battle with cancer. It's sad. It's really fucking sad. For Mac, iPod, iPhone and iPad lovers it's sad. For compulsive audiophiles, digital historians and designers, it's sad. For the millions of people he and his disciples championed and inspired, the tech reporters and the business analysts, it's sad... But most of all, we've lost a a pioneer, a leader and an icon.
You cannot help to be humbled before Jobs' many accomplishments. While at Apple, he gave Microsoft its fiercest competition in personal computing for decades - the only one that really must've given Gates sleepless nights. He also stood behind a UNIX kernel that really must not have been much to look at back then and used it at the core of Apple's every computer and spent years perfecting every little detail with such efficiency and attention that modern-day UNIX-based platforms still pale in comparison. He's largely responsible for my generation moving from this dinosaur to these puppies. In his forties, he completely and irrevocably transformed enormous markets, cultures, technology and paved the way for countless new innovations.
Back when people were still walking around with Treos and BlackBerrys that looked like they were fresh out of a Tamagotchi factory, Jobs and his pirates were taking every manufacturer to school with Apple's iPhone line, leaving the rest of us dizzy over the mere implications of the technology. And he did it again with Apple's tablets, the iPads, a few years later, always opening the trail.
We have a lot to be grateful for from Steve Jobs. He was a truly brilliant man - the kind that surface two or three times in your lifetime. A ferocious and determined businessman - a true a visionary who shepherded society itself into a concrete bigger and better future for everyone. Steve's legacy most certainly lives on, with over 100 million iPhones, 300 million iPods, nearly 10 million iPads and 10 million Mac computers sold every month, it's safe to say his influence will still cause ripples for exciting years to come...
