About Steve Jobs -

[kyburg]

Like most people, I didn't like hearing Steve Jobs had passed. 56 is way too young for anyone to thrown out of this game, and particularly when you are this good at it? Ridiculous. Apple has more money in it than Enron ever did, the products it makes are everywhere and who would question what Jobs did with Disney after Eisner? I mean, really.

The ubiquitous quote taken from that Commencement speech he gave at Stanford in 2005, you know the one - "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 own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition."

Wow, that's a great speech. Wonder what the rest of it was like -

"...Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true."

Well, then.

Then the reports of the child labor abuses...that are actually worse this year over last...from factories making Apple products. Known problems, had been known for quite some time it would appear.

I hadn't known he was an adoptee - I also hadn't known he was a paternity denier as well. What I do know is that this was a very private person - for good reason. If you're going to be your own person, and damn the torpedoes - you're not going to please everyone.

But to imply that everyone gets old and useless and be grateful Death will get rid of all that?

Is it schadenfreude to note that he stopped working only a few weeks before he died? That he got a really good lesson in Death stealing a vibrant, successful lifespan before he was kicked out of it? I hope so.

Death is a damn thief, at any age. Aging beyond egocentricity isn't wrong. You have the right to follow your heart at any part of your lifespan, not just at the start of it.

So noted by the widow of a electrical electronic engineer who programmed for Voyager at 14 - and died at 36.

Bah.

Comments

[taiki.livejournal.com]

I think you misinterpreted what he said. My reading of it is that the fear of dying before doing something amazing should be a great motivator to everyone to do something great.

Also, Foxconn makes stuff for everyone, not just Apple. This isn't just an Apple problem, it's a problem for the whole industry.

[dsmoen.livejournal.com]

Both of these points, too, in addition to mine below.

[rednikki.livejournal.com]

The other aspect to all that is that the speech he gave was just after he'd been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

And had gone into remission, lucky guy who got that one they could cure - point, but that only made me cock my head more.

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

Nope, not giving him a pass on it. Dying is a great thing, remember - it gets rid of the old so the new can take over. That's nearly a direct quote.

No, you should fear becoming the old to be cleared away - inevitable and certain. Bah, I say.

[dsmoen.livejournal.com]

But to imply that everyone gets old and useless and be grateful Death will get rid of all that?

I think you're reading that in a far more negative light than was intended.

He was not a sentimental person. he believed in innovation, in loving what you do, and that time was simply limited, and it's that very constraint that pushes people to make the most of their creative drive -- at any age.

When I think about how sick he must have been at WWDC this year, it makes me sad. Sadly, I missed it this year (even though I was signed up to work) because I had shingles. I never saw him again (though honestly I rarely saw him anyway, it's a large campus).

When his bio father sent him birthday greetings, he'd say thank you (and only that) in reply. That is a pretty wordy email for Steve, who was notably terse.

When I look at all the emails I got (that weren't official communications and thus wordier), most were forwards that simply said, "Sent from my iPad" or "Sent from my iPhone." (plus the forwarded text, obviously)

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

It *is* what he said, and I tend to believe he was quite serious about it. It was intended to be a warning and a very clear one.