Steve Jobs Dies

[Ronstar]

A true visionary and passionate man. He will be missed greatly.

 

[ziggy29]

A true visionary and passionate man. He will be missed greatly.

Here's what the president had to say (certainly we won't make *this* one political!):

The world has lost a visionary. And there may be no greater tribute to Steve's success than the fact that much of the world learned of his passing on a device he invented.

 

[Ronstar]

Here's what the president had to say (certainly we won't make *this* one political!):

True that many heard of his death on devices he invented. DW heard about it on her iphone and told me while I was downloading a movie from my imac to my ipad

 

[Bikerdude]

For this geek, watching Job' perform his magic at the Macintosh launch, back in 1984 was better than any rock concert, I'd ever been to before or since.

I abandoned Apple products shortly after Jobs was fired from Apple.

I don't think it is possible to overhype his accomplishments.

I agree. Steve was a geeks geek. He knew how to inspire creative people.

 

[mountaintosea]

I was sad when I heard about his death even though I expected it. As for pancreatic cancer my sister died from it last year the day after Labor Day. By the time they discovered it she was too far gone. She lasted about 2 weeks. Apparently Steve had a form that if discovered could be treated for awhile. I found a research paper that noted that high fructose syrup really feeds the cancer. Sugar feeds cancer, HFS even more so, the paper equated it to smoking cigarettes. Needless to say I read labels and try not to eat the stuff even though it is ubiquitous throughout. Google HFS and cancer. I've also heard that pancreatic cancer is on the increase.

 

[ERD50]

Here's what the president had to say ... :

The world has lost a visionary. And there may be no greater tribute to Steve's success than the fact that much of the world learned of his passing on a device he invented.

That really says something - very fitting.

How many people could something like this be said about? Samuel Morse maybe? Marconi? Philo Farnsworth? Possibly whoever invented the first printing presses used for newspapers?

Pretty rarefied territory. And all accomplished by 56.

-ERD50

 

[Meadbh]

I'm sorry to hear it. He sure gave Bill Gates a run for his money.

It's amazing how much pancreatic cancer has been in the news lately. The leader of the Canadian opposition party just died of it, I've heard of two or three others in just the last month. My BIL has it but seems to be doing well on chemo for now.

It's sad to see the great ones go.

Jack Layton had prostate cancer. He did not reveal the origin of the "new cancer" that killed him. Do you have some inside knowledge?

 

[ziggy29]

How many people could something like this be said about? Samuel Morse maybe? Marconi? Philo Farnsworth? Possibly whoever invented the first printing presses used for newspapers?

Morse and Marconi were my first thoughts. But in reality, most people learned of Morse's death not directly from a telegraph, but from a newspaper which reported a story that they received via telegraph.

 

[clifp]

For all the talk and gnashing of teeth about overpaid CEOs these days, Jobs was one of the few who was unquestionably worth every penny. When you think of the value he added for Apple customers, employees and shareholders -- from its near-death 15 years ago to the highest market capitalization out there -- it boggles the mind. Any compensation he got, no matter how massive, was still a drop in the bucket compared to the value he added.

Yes at $1/year salary, he could get quite literally a one billion percent pay raise and still be vastly underpaid. On the other hand how lucky he was to have a job where I am sure he felt at $1 he was overpaid.

 

[mh]

I just reread his biography . I had no idea he started Pixar . He was truly a genius and one of a kind . He will be missed !

He wasn't involved in starting pixar (if i am remembering correctly).
He did a lot to resurrect it though, it was in dire straits there for a while..

 

[Sue J]

I recently read a very good book about Steve Jobs -

Amazon.com: The Steve Jobs Way: iLeadership for a New Generation (9781593156398): Jay Elliot, William L. Simon: Books

Written by the former Senior Vice President of Apple.

I've never had a Mac computer (my son has 3!) but I've had a variety of the iPods and I love each of them, early Shuffle, Nano and an iPod Touch. The Nano is still my daily pal, the iPod Touch is just the slickest device in the house!

I love Steve's presentations and product demos. He was always so proud to show off some new device we all didn't know we needed but soon desired.

I'd like to find earlier presentations and watch them again. I bet they are on the Apple site or YouTube.

Purron, he was born 3 days after me.

 

[pb4uski]

Jobs is the Edison of our generation. His gift was being able to combine a sense of what people would want and how they would use technology with what was technologically possible. The other thing that is impressive is that despite his incredible accomplishments it didn't seem to go to his head and he seemed to keep it real (at least as far as his public persona).

 

[pimpmyretirement]

You have to wonder about the timing - exactly one day after the announcement of the new iphone. It's almost like he was waiting.

 

[eytonxav]

I am really saddened over this, honestly brought tears to my eyes. A genius like him will not come along again for a very long time. RIP Steve

 

[Bestwifeever]

Very sad. An interesting article on where he would fall among the giants: Where Steve Jobs Ranks Among the Greats - Yahoo! News

 

[ERD50]

I recently read a very good book about Steve Jobs -

Amazon.com: The Steve Jobs Way: iLeadership for a New Generation (9781593156398): Jay Elliot, William L. Simon: Books

Written by the former Senior Vice President of Apple.

I read this book several years ago, and thought it was excellent.

Amazon.com: The Second Coming of Steve Jobs (9780767904339): Alan Deutschman: Books

It busts some of the myths surrounding Steve Jobs, but I think the reality is actually more interesting, and more flattering in a way. He was not always the 'genius' and 'visionary' that people say. In some cases, he is clearly and stubbornly going down the exact wrong path, and it is his subordinates that eventually turn him around (Pixar is a great example of this).

But what I love about that is, once he sees the light, he grabs the bull by the horns and really takes off with new enthusiasm for this new path. That Pixar story is full of his stumbling, bumbling - but look at the eventual outcome. He couldn't have done it without that team, but they couldn't have done it w/o Steve. Same with the other Steve.

This guy was really something.

-ERD50

 

[Achiever51]

a tweet I just read on my iPad:

iSad.

R.I.P. Steve.

 

[Meadbh]

Here is a brilliant ilogo tribute to Jobs:

jonathan mak

 

[powerplay]

Here is a brilliant ilogo tribute to Jobs:

jonathan mak

Very nice, thanks for sharing.

 

[Dreamer]

Very sad and such a young age. I wonder what other great things he could have had us using in the future, if he had lived.

RIP Steve.

 

[samclem]

Pretty rarefied territory. And all accomplished by 56.

Yep, makes me think I'd better get off my tail and start building a legacy or I won't catch up with him!

Kinda like something Tom Lehrer once said: "It's a sobering thought that by the time Mozart was my age he'd been dead for five years."

 

[clifp]

Life imitates the Onion.

The Onion obit.

CUPERTINO, CA—Steve Jobs, the visionary co-founder of Apple Computers and the only American in the country who had any clue what the f*** he was doing, died Wednesday at the age of 56. "We haven't just lost a great innovator, leader, and businessman, we've literally lost the only person in this country who actually had his s*** together and knew what the hell was going on," a statement from President Barack Obama read in part, adding that Jobs will be remembered both for the life-changing products he created and for the fact that he was able to sit down, think clearly, and execute his ideas—attributes he shared with no other U.S. citizen. "This is a dark time for our country, because the reality is none of the 300 million or so Americans who remain can actually get anything done or make things happen. Those days are over."

Meanwhile the Economist had this to say.

As bad as their politics has got, Americans could always comfort themselves with the knowledge that their business leaders, entrepreneurs and workers were the most dynamic and innovative in the world. But they may look back on 2011 and see three events that undermine that story: the downgrade of America’s credit rating; the last flight of the space shuttle; and Mr Jobs’s death. The first, coming as it did on the heels of a debilitating and entirely pointless fight over raising the debt ceiling, captures how American political dysfunction has undermined the economy’s institutional pillars. The latter two symbolised the waning of, respectively, American public and private technological pre-eminence.
Of course, it would be foolish to count out Apple, much less an entire economy, because of one man’s death. Yet even if Apple remains as successful as it has been under Mr Jobs, that success long ago decoupled from that of the broader economy. Written on the back of my iPod are the words, “Designed by Apple in California, Assembled in China.” It was classic Jobs: reframing an issue, the outsourcing of American manufacturing jobs, as something inspirational rather than discouraging. The low-skill assembly jobs and the middle-class lives they provided may be leaving for Asian shores, but the brainy, wealth-creating parts of the process—the design, the engineering, the marketing—were firmly rooted in Silicon Valley. Free traders (including me) loved to cite the research that finds far more of the value in an iPod is added in America than in China.

 

[retire@40]

I am really saddened over this, honestly brought tears to my eyes. A genius like him will not come along again for a very long time. RIP Steve

Very true. There are certain people that rise to a level that others can't.

I remember when Johnny Carson left his show I thought, how difficult could it be to replace a nightly talk-show host? It hasn't happened yet and I don't see it happening any time soon.

The same may be true with Steve Jobs. He wasn't just a computer geek, he was a visionary. There are only handfuls of these geniuses in the world at any given point in time. They are people that stand out so much that very few, if any, can rise to the same level. Beethoven, Shakespeare, Lincoln, Einstein, Edison, Jobs, are all names of champions in human history.

 

[2soon2tell]

Steve Jobs RIP

It's my understanding that he had a form of cancer that attacks the islets of the pancreas. This is different than the more common adenocarcinoma of the pancreas which has a dismal 5 yr survival rate.

As chemist mentioned, patients who have had a successful Whipple surgery to remove the tumor have a 20% - 25% 5 yr survival rate. As a 4 1/2 yr. pancreatic cancer survivor who had the Whipple, chemo and radiation I realize I am extremely blessed. It's a devastating disease that tends to get diagnosed too late for effective treatment.

 

[kcowan]

I respected Jobs a lot and invested in his company in 2001. Thanks for the retirement security, Steve.