Genuinely Shocked
Claire Berlinski, Ed. ·
October 6, 2011 at 4:17am
I just woke up and saw the news of Steve Jobs' death. All of America has already had time to take in the news, write about it, and write about the way everyone else has written about it. So I'm behind the curve.
I didn't know him personally. I can't add much. I'm shocked, like everyone. I'm surprised that I'm shocked.
I'm going to memorialize him in the way I suspect he would have wished. I'm going to create something of value to someone else. I'm going to sell it. Then I'm going to use the money to buy an iPhone.
Rest in peace, Steve.
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Comments:
Jul '10
Re: Genuinely Shocked
In fairness, pancreatic cancer is not usually a survivable form of the disease.
Nov '10
Re: Genuinely Shocked
Nov '10
Re: Genuinely Shocked
The news isn't terribly old, Claire. So don't feel out of the loop. I was watching the Philadelphia Phillies lose when my daughter called to tell me. That was just two hours ago.
My daughter has always been a Mac user. Sadly, I did know he was very near the end.
Steve Jobs was a force of nature and an American Icon. So few actually change the world, but I think he did. Had he been a conservative, I would petition the Vatican. (A little irreverent humor. Hope people don’t mind.) RIP Steve Jobs.
Sep '10
Re: Genuinely Shocked
"Creation is not a transference of being or substance to the creature at the expense of the creator, for the creator gives without diminishing his own being. It is a work (opus) without toil (labor)."
-- The Gift: Creation, Kenneth L. Schmitz Aquinas Lecture, 1982
May '10
Re: Genuinely Shocked
Want to know the difference Jobs made in the world? How is it you are reading this website...on a personal computer. 'Nuff said.
Jun '10
Re: Genuinely Shocked
If you're reading it on an elegant and reliable personal computer that is.
Jul '10
Re: Genuinely Shocked
Yer post is the first news to Me and I actually got a knot in My stomach... and I've never owned anything Apple.
But I do know American Exceptionalism.
Sep '10
Re: Genuinely Shocked
Claire, like you I was genuinely shocked by the news. I actually gasped when I read the headline, even though everyone knew this day would come soon.
I still remember reading BYTE magazine's cover story about "Apple's Macintosh" in 1984, and the first time I saw a 128K Macintosh in person. To someone like me who grew up programming old computers with command-line text interfaces, it was a revelation. It completely blew me away.
Steve Jobs was the man who, more than anyone, realized that a computer could be a a kind of canvas for people to paint their ideas (almost literally, in the case of the MacPaint program). He didn't have all the ideas that made the Macintosh great--that honor belongs to Andy Hertzfeld, Burrell Smith and others. But he knew how to lead people to realize these great ideas.
Goodbye Steve, and thanks for the visionary leadership.
May '10
Re: Genuinely Shocked
etoiledunord
If you're reading it on an elegant and reliable personal computer that is. · Oct 5 at 7:49pm
Yes, my Asus is definitely elegant and reliable.
RIP, Mr. Jobs, even though I've never owned an Apple anything (even my MP3 is Sandisk).
Oct '10
Re: Genuinely Shocked
I. . .I can't believe it. We're all so used to nifty Apple toys. Maybe I should have paid more attention to their creator. I had no idea he had a terminal illness, I'd simply heard he had "bad health" and was expected to retire.
Mar '11
Re: Genuinely Shocked
"I'm going to memorialize him in the way I suspect he would have wished. I'm going to create something of value to someone else. I'm going to sell it. Then I'm going to use the money to buy an iPhone." I'll buy your next book - for Claire's Iphone fund. But as a writer you'll probably want a bluetooth keyboard to go w/ it. Typing this on my own Iphone - well you're not seeing my typos.
Re: Genuinely Shocked
I wasn't shocked. I assumed when he stepped down that he was dying. I didn't see him leaving Apple a moment before he absolutely had to, that company being really his supreme intellectual creation.
I wasn't shocked, but man, I'm sad.
Nov '10
Re: Genuinely Shocked
Oct '10
Re: Genuinely Shocked
My favorite obit, though not written as one:
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Steve Jobs, closet Ayn Rand devotee
Steve Jobs is one of the central heroes in our book I Am John Galt -- we trace his life and career as the real-world analog to Howard Roark, the heroe of Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead. But we never knew that Jobs was actually a Rand fan! He was, but his hero wasn't Roark -- it was Hank Reardon from Atlas Shrugged.
Here's a report based on a telephone interview with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak:
Despite times when Apple was in financial and structural turmoil, Wozniak believes Jobs’ speed of thought and endless drive helped the company move forward, believing that he may have adopted the ethos of the hard working, never failing Hank Reardon in Ayn Rand’s book Atlas Shrugged.
“Steve was very fast thinking and wanted to do things, I wanted to build things. I think Atlas Shrugged was one of his guides in life”
http://www.iamjohngalt.com/2011/08/steve-jobs-closet-ayn-rand-devotee.html
Edited on October 6, 2011 at 6:35amMay '10
Re: Genuinely Shocked
Me, too. And it kind of bugs me (not that you're shocked, that I'm shocked). I remember feeling something similar when Robert Bartley died, and also with Justice Rehnquist. Unsettled.
Dec '10
Re: Genuinely Shocked
Having seen a short video of Steve Jobs leaving a treatment center some months ago, I am only shocked that it took this long for him to die. It speaks to the durability and resiliency of the body and spirit -- particularly his. Godspeed, Mr. Jobs.
dogsbody's comment brings to mind another death I've experienced, in which, coincidentally, an Apple Macintosh was used for solace. My dad took 9 months to die after his ALS diagnosis. He was 72 years old and a technology hound. In the last week of his life, I set up a 512k Mac at the end of his bed and used the drawing program to design Christmas cards while he watched in amazement. It was September.
Oct '10
Re: Genuinely Shocked
Add me to the ones who aren't shocked, but have this kind of gnawing in the pit of my stomach. As a former Apple employee who'd met Steve (not at the same time), I share the sense that I think many have: Apple, during the time Steve was not CEO, was very nearly unmanageable, and certainly didn't maintain its defining impact. (Those who ignore Steve's impact on the industry because they've never used an Apple product miss the point: there were no consumer personal computers before Apple. The Apple I was released in 1976, a year before the Commodore Pet or TRS-80. By the time they came around, Apple had the Apple II. Apple invented the category).
I don't know what Apple's future will be without Steve, hence the gnawing. I feel better about Pixar, whose creative direction is defined by John Lasseter rather than Steve, so that's something.
But yeah. I'm grateful to have met him and worked at his company, and that's all, really, there is to say about that.
Mar '11
Re: Genuinely Shocked
Rest in Peace, Steve (typed out on my beloved MacBook Pro).