Who isn't writing about Steve Jobs today? It would be sinful not to mention his passing but, then again, the utter lack of originality of sharing his Stanford's commencement speech is another sin in itself. Well… let he who is without sin cast the first stone, so I’m going to join the web-crowd in celebrating Steve Job’s genius.
I don’t know anyone who doesn’t own – and love – an Apple item: be it an ipod, ipad, iphone, macbook, mac-pro… and, in many cases, all of the above. Apple – mostly through and because of Steve Jobs – has become part of our lives, with its innovative and audacious inventions. People who would have abhorred anything slightly techy or gadgety were suddenly hooked on Jobs’ zen, calculated and almost theatrical product-launch presentations.
As a die-hard music fan, finding it virtually impossible to endure life without a permanent soundtrack, I was more than delighted to replace my deadbeat walkman and discman for an ipod my parents got me for Xmas almost 10 yrs ago. It was THE best present ever and, to this date, I am yet to find a (supposedly) futile gadget that serves so much purpose and joy.
I’m certain Apple will remain a key market-player and tech leader: When Steve Jobs stepped down as CEO a few months ago, this was already largely discussed and, despite a one-day stock-loss, Apple is still the greatest valued company in the world. I have no idea if Tim Cook will match – or even outdo – Steve Jobs as head of Apple but it will certainly be very difficult to match his charisma: although many of those who worked with Jobs slated his autocratic, temperamental and egotistical persona, it’s impossible not to admire him and be engulfed by his magnetism.
As I mentioned, Steve Jobs’
Stanford commencement speech in 1995 (with over a staggering 6 million views on youtube – and I’m pretty sure this number will increase wildly over the next couple of days) is being shared and shown worldwide – and
I myself posted it here a couple of years ago. It is, without a doubt, one of the best speeches ever made and, regardless of how many times I’ve heard it, I get emotional each time because it (still) hits a cord. The speech was first sent to me by a dear friend from college who, like me, was in a pivotally difficult professional situation. We were both lawyers, each at very high profile law firms, yet we both loathed our jobs. I can easily say that, to this date, I’m yet to engender as much revulsion as I did for my former job and bosses. We were deeply unhappy at how our lives turned out professionally but felt we were in a dead-end and lacked the audacity to quit and move on. Well, at least for a while. My friend quit her job a month later and went on to work on a completely different project and I left my own (now former) job, albeit in the worst circumstances ever, and also moved on to different shores. I vowed that never again would I let myself plummet in that life-sucking, depressing spiral.
Steve Jobs emphasized that “[y]ou've got to find what you love”. Thing is, I still haven’t found what I love. I’m turning 30 next year and am still clueless about what I want to do in my life. Being academically successful, I always assumed that being a straight-A student would automatically bring me professional bliss. Sadly, this is not the case. But I haven’t lost hope and refuse to surrender to it being too late.
Steve Jobs said: “Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle”. I won’t settle. I too will find what I love and succeed, make a difference and be happy with my job. I doubt I’ll accomplish 1/100th of what Jobs did but, still, I want to achieve something.
My life is, has always been and, I suspect, will probably always be, highly improvised, unpredictable and varied. Most of the times I struggle to find logic or reason to the events in my life but I take comfort in Jobs’ words: “you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future”.
This was yet another sad battle unfairly won by the shittiest thing around: cancer. As remarkable as it was that Jobs fought quite literally for his life for almost a decade, cancer has claimed yet another victim and Mankind is definitely poorer today.
RIP, Steve Jobs.
