“Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.” – Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs, one of the greatest innovators of our time died today at the age of 56. Steve Jobs will be remembered for his role in creating Apple, the iPod, the iPad, iTunes, the Mac, and Pixar. In addition, he inspired so many to have that innovative spirit.
Some interesting facts and quotes I read from a Washington Post article by Patricia Sullivan included the following:
“Steven Paul Jobs was born Feb. 24, 1955, in San Francisco to unwed parents, University of Wisconsin graduate student Joanne Carole Schieble and Syrian exchange student Abdulfattah Jandali. Paul and Clara Jobs adopted him shortly after his birth.”
“His innovations led Business 2.0 to call him ‘easily the greatest marketer since P.T. Barnum.’”
Speaking on when he was fired from Apple, Steve Jobs said: “I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.”
“Mr. Jobs had a genius for understanding the needs of consumers before they did.”
“And by changing the way people interacted with technology, Jobs and Microsoft founder Bill Gates transformed their era in much the same way Henry Ford and John D. Rockefeller revolutionized theirs with the mass-produced automobile and the creation of Standard Oil.”
For more on this subject of innovation, check out “Following is Leading Backwards”, Invisible Influence and Innovation, and “Has Listening to Church Attenders Led to the Decline of the Church?”.
Steve Jobs, you will be missed….
