Steve Jobs is gone. It took a few days for the news to sink in and for me to realize how great a contribution he has made to the world. Without him, the PC industry would have been like the car industry: there are the very high end Langbergini that normal folks like us could never afford. And then there are the rest of cars on the road that are basically functional machines that are not even close to a piece of art. So in essence what Jobs has done was to achieve the impossible----to elevate middle class folks out of the daily mundane to reach a level of elegance that used to be reserved for the privileged few.
Jobs had the genetic set up of an artist. Yet he was raised by an engineer that taught him how machines worked in the heart of the engineering capital of the world, the silicon valley. The magical collide of the world of art and the world of engineering produced Jobs. Who in his words described how in order to achieve the aesthetics he sought after, a ton of engineering was put in every apple product.
Jobs once said I actually think there is actually very little distinction between an artist and a scientist or engineer of the highest caliber...They've just been to me people who pursue different paths but basically kind of headed to the same goal, which is to express something of what they perceive to be the truth around them so that others can benefit by it. (Smithsonian interview 1995)
To Benefit others, in other word, is to love others. So what Jobs is really saying, is he loved us so much that he devoted his whole genius in his products to love us. Is it a surprise then he was so sorely missed by so many?
