THE MAN WHO MADE THE FUTURE
The greatest man of our time just died. Steve Jobs, co founder of Apple Computer, Chairman, and CEO until his health failed, passed away at 56 years old. Jobs was our Thomas Edison and Henry Ford rolled into one. Inventor, developer, manufacturer, marketer, and most importantly entrepreneur, he utterly changed our world-- infinitely for the better.
How? Well, let’s start out like I did: with the Apple II. Steve Jobs put the computer in ordinary people’s hands. But computers were tricky little beasts. You had to speak geek to keep them chugging. So Jobs scrapped his model and the result was the Mac, which is why you’re pointing and clicking, not using typed commands. After a spat within Apple, Jobs left, founded and failed at NeXT.
Then Hollywood. Then Music. Then Communications. Then Everything.
Then he went to Hollywood and revolutionized moviemaking with Pixar. The first all-computer animated film? Toy Story! Along the way, I read an interview with Jobs, I believe at WIRED Magazine. Here’s how I remember it: Jobs took exception to the term ‘downloading music.” Call it what it is, ‘stealing.’ Why do people steal music? Because it costs too much and the tech makes theft too easy. But give people easy access to music at a proper price point, and they’d buy it rather than steal.
I remembered those words a year or so later, when the IPod and ITunes broke onto the scene. So after transforming the computer business, and the movie business, Jobs now revolutionized the music business so you could hear what you wanted. Then, he revolutionized communications with the I Phone, and married the telephone to the computer. And the I Pads… Sure, Amazon got the Kindle out first, but the Pads are making the laptop go the way of the record player.
But The Real Focus was Freedom.
But all that is top layer. The main thrust of Jobs’ revolutions was freedom for the individual. How so? Well, I’m writing and editing my own words, and sending them out as I choose, not submitting them to a publisher who presents his choice, and edits my copy. You can read this anywhere, anytime, check on my fact assertions, reply to me ASAP, and even ”publish” your own “newspaper” yourself.
As for music…well, kiddies, in the old days, music companies decided what you would buy. They chose the bands and presented the product. Availability was controlled by what you could hear from a radio station. Today, you sell your own product from your own website, and find your own audience. Sure, it’s chaotic, but if you believe freedom is good, then you have to cheer. Jobs set music free.
He Gave Us All A Great Gift...and Gave At the Office.
There’s another angle to all this as well. Jobs improved all our lives, even in the poorest neighborhoods where folks walk around enjoying the pleasures of their self-chosen music and communicating with people as they choose. Countless folks like me were freed to pursue careers that might not have been possible without Jobs and his devices: for example, professional writing.
He didn’t do what he did as charity—he was a businessman and he did make profit. In his later years, Jobs took some criticism for an apparent lack of generous personal philanthropy. The obvious retort was that Jobs gave at the office. His business and products did more for everyone than any cash gifts would have.
And finally, there’s another lesson in the story of Steve Jobs. Thirty years or so ago, America was in a situation much as now. Our economy was in tatters, and the President was saying we deserved decline because we’d gone soft...no that’s our current President. Back then, Jimmy Carter told us we should accept permanent decline and a lower standard of living than in our past. In the election of 1980, we clashed over two visions of America: inevitable government-managed decline or American rebirth and resurgence. Resurgence won.
In 1980, We Had A Choice...Though We May Not Have Known it.
When Ronald Reagan spoke in 1980 of freeing American ingenuity and enterprise, he was speaking of Steve Jobs, although he didn’t know it. No one had heard of Jobs, and “Apple” was the Beatles’ label. The tsunami of creativity and growth which changed the world and spawned an American Renaissance with entirely new industries lay in the future. The present was ‘malaise’ and disco. Our choices: More of the same or Steve Jobs, if we could have faith in America and a free economy.
So as we lie again in economic doldrums, led by a President who thinks America’s great days are past, told to accept inevitable decline, exhorted to hate American business and enterprise as evil villains from which an all-powerful socialist state will protect us, let’s think of Steve Jobs. Not only the one who just died, but the next one, who is most assuredly out there, somewhere, right now, ready to invent the next American future. If we want it.
