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Steve Jobs, 1955-2011: Goodbye to a true visionary
Friday, October 07, 2011
As a company dedicated to deliver cost-effective solutions to its clients by making full use of agile development methods and the SCRUM project management approach, we join the world in mourning the loss of the man who changed the face of technology forever. We at Codelean, Inc. will surely be inspired by his extraordinary vision in the years to come.
A few years from now, October 5, 2011 will surely be remembered as a dark day in history as it is the day when the world lost a true genius, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, the man who reinvented the personal computer, music and mobile phone industries. Jobs died peacefully at his home in California. Jobs was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2004.
It was back in 2005 when Jobs gave an inspiring commencement address at Stanford University where he opened up about being afflicted with cancer and being advised by the doctor to get his affairs in order, which Jobs felt was a doctor's code for "prepare to die."
The experience clearly compelled him to ruminate on death, as he said,"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma -- which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."
It was in 1972 when Jobs listened to his inner voice when he decided to drop out of Reed College at 17 years old after only a semester back, admitting he "couldn't see the value in it." In 1975, out of college, Jobs started to hang out with Steve Wozniak, a fellow college dropout, at a computer club where engineers and hobbyists gathered. Here, they were able to lay the groundwork for the Apple I and Apple II computers and, in 1976, Apple was officially born.
In 1983, the company had its first brush with failure as they released the Lisa, the first commercially sold computer with a graphical user interface which cost millions of dollars to develop, to dismal sales. Unfazed by the disappointment, Jobs and Wozniak decided to release the Macintosh a year later with a groundbreaking ad. The Mac then became the first successful personal computer to have a graphical user interface and mouse.
However, Jobs was not able to enjoy the fruits of his success for long because, amid a power struggle with then Chief Executive Officer John Sculley, Jobs was let go of his job at Apple. Ironically, it was Jobs who initially convinced Sculley to take a job at Apple. Jobs would later admit that this experience was "devastating" but that it was also "the best thing that could have ever happened to me."
Jobs was never one who would run away from failure. He got back to work, starting NeXT computer, Inc. and acquiring George Lucas's computer graphics shop, renaming it Pixar Inc., which released "Toy Story" in 1995. A year later, Jobs was rehired by Apply as a consultant to help the company revamp its flagship Macintosh software. And revamp, he did. In 1998, with Jobs as interim CEO, Apple unveiled the iMac, and a few months later, Apple shares jumped an impressive 19 percent.
In January 2001, Jobs, now officially CEO, unveils iTunes, a free software program for organizing music. In October of the same year, Apple introduces the iPod, its first portable digital music player.
"We did iTunes because we all love music... It's not about pop culture, and it's not about fooling people, and it's not about convincing people that they want something they don't. We figure out what we want. And I think we're pretty good at having the right discipline to think through whether a lot of other people are going to want it too," Jobs would later tell Fortune in 2008.
In 2003, Apple launches the iTunes Music Store and, in its first week alone, it was able to sell about 1 million tracks.
In January 2007, Apple unveiled the iPhone, which revolutionized the mobile phone industry. It was reported that the opening weekend sales of the iPhone reached five hundred thousand. To date, Apple has sold more than one hundred million iPhones and thirty million iPads worldwide.
In June 2011, Jobs made a surprise appearance at the Apple headquarters in Cupertino, California, appearing gaunt and frail. This would be his last public appearance.
In August 2011, Jobs resigned as CEO of Apple, turning over the position to Tim Cook. The news of Jobs' death, despite his illness already widely known at the time, brought the whole world into shock. When the news broke out, several news sites such as CNN and the Washington Post reported spikes in Internet traffic and Twitter posted a record of 10,000 tweets per second. Luminaries from politics to business shared their sentiments on Jobs' death.
Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, said,"The world rarely sees someone who has had the profound impact Steve has had, the effects of which will be felt for many generations to come."
But it is US President Barack Obama's words that seem to sum it up the best as he said,"Steve was among the greatest of American innovators -- brave enough to think different, bold enough to believe he could change the world, and talented enough to do it. The world has lost a visionary.