RIP... you know WHO...

Buenas readers,

It has been a while since I have been thinking about writing this article. I wanted to write a short article for Steve Jobs on the day he passed away (‘died’ avoided intentionally), but then decided to hold on for a while as all the blogs and the whole of the internet would be flooded with articles about him.

                Steve Jobs, a name anyone tech savvy would know, has (‘had’ avoided intentionally) become an icon of entrepreneurship and innovation. Much like ‘Dell’, Apple too started in a small garage making computers; or rather ‘assembling’ computers. I am aware all the readers of this article would have read lot of stuff about Apple, so I would not venture into those grounds. I wish to write about my feelings and my interpretation of Steve Jobs’ life and working methodologies.

                As seen on Wikipedia, and any other source, Steve can be described as a ‘perfectionist’, ‘temperamental’ and ‘erratic’. I would say, all the great minds of the world would comply with these three descriptions. This is how great minds think. Steve Jobs as a kid was inspired by Edwin H Land, a person I have no idea about, nor have I tried to find out about, most of the kids have Albert Einstein, Bill Gates, Salman Khan or Slash as their icons. (By the names mentioned, I refer to their genres) What I mean to say is, you go in any direction looking for a person to follow or to learn from, you will definitely find him to have the three features, or rather, characteristics as used for Steve. I wonder if he would ever become some kid’s icon…

                I appreciate the products of Apple a lot, I am a hardcore fan. I personally own an iPod and an iPhone only (Plan to buy a Macbook soon), but what pulls me to Apple is that Apple never came down to selling cheap products. Even during the critical years when the sales of Apple were low and pink slips were distributed like candy, the products did not come to dirt cheap price selling like many others in the market did. When Steve was fired (or resigned) from Apple, and when he formed another computer company (NeXT-in the same year) with an initial investment of about 7Million USD, he targeted only the research based and educational market to provide a high quality product with a high price tag. NeXt suffered 8 lossy years before making the first profit, but Steve did not compromise on quality or on aesthetics, be it apple or NeXT. This is, probably, the most important factor which makes me an Apple fan. 

                When I heard about the passing of Steve jobs, and read the following articles on the internet and elsewhere; a thought that erupted and stuck in my head was, “Legends are born after their Death”. Look around, all the people we call ‘Great’ or ‘Geniuses’ were acclaimed to be so after they died. Whilst they were alive, they led difficult and suppressed lives. Also this has made me wonder if this is how the world is; we condemn revolutionary thinkers or innovators by using the terms like ‘impractical’, ‘non-profitable’, ‘too-futuristic’ and the worst of all ‘Impossible’. What comes to my mind while writing this article is the typical life story of a genius:

1. A genius is born.

2. He tries to show the world his ways.

3. He is condemned with the above mentioned words.

4. He fights/ or works alone and proves himself right.

5. He dies an unknown man, and after his death, he is acclaimed as god of his field and people suddenly love him and respect his work.

This makes me wonder, whether the people who hold the topmost positions in companies are jerks (highly unlikely) or that’s how we are, we don’t want to change anything unless we know that its hugely better than what we do now. We resist change. These 5 steps that I have mentioned may not be true to every word for all the intellectual ‘Legends’ that you know, but if you look closely, I am sure you will definitely find resemblance of this life story to the one of your ‘Legend’'s.

Any-hoo, I do not wish to take much of your time as now I am typing in word and I am on the 2^nd page, which would make a very long article on my blog. J So, I will check out now with these words:

“O’ people of the world, occupying the high positions in the intellectual and commercial world, please be open and help young minds. We see your ‘Young/Smart mind/champ/etc. development programs’, and we also know they’re all a lie. Be true, be futuristic.”

Also I would like to quote one of Steve Jobs’ quotes which was quoted originally by ‘Wayne Gretzky’ (A hit Ice hockey player):

“'I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.’ 

And we've always tried to do that at Apple. Since the very very beginning. And we always will.”

Learn something world, look beyond the horizon, that’s where the new stuff is; getting where others are is no big deal, set new standards. Don’t follow others, make followers.

Namaste.