Government // Enterprise Architecture
11:48 AM
Howard Anderson
Howard Anderson
Connect Directly
Repost This

20 People Who Changed Tech: Steve Jobs

Apple co-founder, more artist than engineer, blew up the status quo in multiple industries.

When John Sculley drove Jobs from the Apple temple and he wandered in the desert for 10 years, Jobs went on to build NeXT, a computer way ahead of its time. And it was the NeXT operating system, which Apple acquired, that brought Jobs back to Apple. (Moses wandered in the desert for 40 years because he didn't have GPS and because, as a man, he refused to ask for directions.)

Jobs gave directions. He would tell everyone where to put the unasked-for advice he provided. Jobs often said that the period after he was fired from Apple until he returned may have been the most creative in his life. He craved going against the conventional wisdom and proving it wrong. Think iMac, iTunes, iPod, iPhone, iPad, iTunes Store, App Store, Apple Store.

That awesome stubbornness may have caused his premature death, from complications of pancreatic cancer. He too long believed that homeopathic methods were better than conventional medicine.

Jobs was a showman in a way no one else in the history of the computer industry was. Not Watson. Not Gates. Not Bob Metcalfe. His sense of timing was impeccable. The press covered his every newscast and the loyal Apple-lovers genuflected and kissed his ring.

In the end, he would be one helluva venture capitalist and an even better negotiator. He bought part of George Lucas's Industrial Light & Magic for $10 million, dropped a bunch more money in, changed its name to Pixar, and ended up selling it to Disney for $8 billion. Thanks for Toy Story and everything that followed.

Global CIO
Global CIOs: A Site Just For You

Jobs started out making illegal blue boxes, which let people make illegal telephone calls, and he ended up creating the iPhone, the stalwart upon which AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and other carriers rely. Today, the electronics world is smartphones and computer pads and music devices, all of which are contributing to the inevitable decline of the personal computer and making life a living hell for HP, Lenovo and Dell. So it was Jobs, who was there at the conception of the personal computer, who led the charge to make it obsolete. Of course, who else?

Larry Ellison said at the Steve Jobs memorial service: "They say that no one is irreplaceable. I don't believe that, not anymore. Steve Jobs is irreplaceable ... the irreplaceable genius of our generation ... an intensely focused singularity who translated ideas into things that worked. In doing so, he reinvented entire industries -- computing and communication, music and movies. All done in one, too short, lifetime."

Winston Churchill once said he knew that history would be kind to him because he intended to write it himself. Steve Jobs knew that the future would be kind to him and his companies because he created it.

2 of 2
Comment  | 
Print  | 
More Insights
Oldest First  |  Newest First  |  Threaded View
User Rank: Apprentice
7/3/2013 | 4:54:13 PM
re: 20 People Who Changed Tech: Steve Jobs
Even his excrement was too good to flush away. So if he wasn't rich, he'd just be a jerk. Is that too harsh? I don't know any more than I just read, but I wouldn't like him based on this article.
He probably wouldn't like me, either.
User Rank: Apprentice
7/8/2013 | 7:05:45 PM
re: 20 People Who Changed Tech: Steve Jobs
I remember a presentation at bell Labs in 1970 on the global telephone network and the switching hierarchy. By that time, all of North America and Europe were equipped for direct dialing. There was a giant computer network dedicated to completing telepone calls. They were slices of bandwidth that could be used for anything, but most people used it for voice.
Years later I started using an early version of the internet that allowed me to download articles and papers from universities and laboratories around America and most of Canada. It was all FTP, and like the telephone network, you needed the exact address to even get to a directory of files. It looked like a big version of UNIX that bridged many computers. They promised that the internet thing would remain academic and pure.
It wasn't until prodigy and the web crawler that the first graphic image started appearing on screens. A few years laer a couple of guys came up with a fast search called google. They started using advertising. Then, Al Gore started chattering endlessly about the internet.
It started out as a pristine informaiton that stopped only at schools. libraries and research facilities. Since then, it has become an endlesss stream of billboards advertisements and a means of identity theft. Social media has turned it into one big rumor mill.
I guess the digital world mimics the physical world. No sooner do we get something nice than we try to monetize it and turn it into a piece of trash.
Register for InformationWeek Newsletters
White Papers
Current Issue
Twitter Feed
Audio Interviews
Archived Audio Interviews