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Tim Cook Sends Email to Apple Employees Reflecting on Second Anniversary of Steve Jobs' Death
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While it's obviously important to remember the influence of such an important person within the company, is the anniversary of his death the best one to pick? Why not instead of reflecting on the loss on his death, reflect on what he achieved on the anniversary of his birth, or the founding of the company or something?
It just seems to me there has to be a more positive way to look back at his contributions than to remind yourself that he isn't there anymore. It also kind of sends the wrong message, like Apple is still thinking backwards rather than forwards. The important thing should be to consider what he would have thought about Apple's current direction, and how his influence can live on into future decisions, while still letting Apple try all new things.
It just seems to me there has to be a more positive way to look back at his contributions than to remind yourself that he isn't there anymore. It also kind of sends the wrong message, like Apple is still thinking backwards rather than forwards. The important thing should be to consider what he would have thought about Apple's current direction, and how his influence can live on into future decisions, while still letting Apple try all new things.
The high point of HP was well before the tech industry was "cool" enough for the media to take an interest to.
Now it's a mostly sad story. At least, the real HP is still around as Agilent.
Good stuff; but most consumers won't care.
There's plenty of people the industry owes. Noyce wouldn't have succeeded without William Shockley. etc.
While it's unfortunate that most people wouldn't know or appreciate the others, it's also the basis for why they appreciate Steve Jobs.
William Shockley invented one of the earliest, commercially useful transistors. Physicists and analog electrical engineers appreciate that.
Robert Noyce invented in microchip. Analog electrical engineers and logic designers appreciate that.
Ted Hoff invented the CPU. Logic designers and computer architects appreciate that.
... and so on.
The researchers at SRI and PARC invented the GUI. Other researchers appreciate that.
Steve Jobs invented computers-that-the-average-person-can-use. Most people appreciate that.
(Of course, in almost all these cases, these inventions did come to be because of other uncredited people's influences. But yeah, we typically credit the primary drivers. That's just the way it is.)
<fanboy mode on>
What Steve Jobs did was REALLY incredible. He took a broken company and turned it into the biggest company in the world. He significantly changed many lives.
<fanboy mode off>
I think it's appropriate for Tim to note the anniversary. But I get your point.
I agree fully - the guy wasnt quite the second coming of St. Francis of Asisi when it came to relationships and all that. Difficult to deal with.
But, whenever someone famous dies, we tend to cling only to the good memoris and this is no different.
As someone else pointed out here, Apple needs to move on and go forward. Steve's gone and thats that.
He has nothing to do with function. He is Senior VP of DESIGN. No where in that job title does it talk about function.
Love for Steve isn't grounded in how he started. It's grounded in what he ended up doing. Nobody loves HP enough to care this much about their story.
Why would anybody love a CEO?
Especially one who treated most people like serfs.
Btw, Steve cared about HP's story.
Apple started in a similar fashion to HP.
Design has nothing to do with function? Since when?
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Talk about a reality distortion field.
Sad thing is I'm sure you really believe everything you said. You say that....but there have been many ugly things created that have functioned wonderfully.
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Why would anybody love a CEO?
Especially one who treated most people like serfs.
Ask all the people who set up spontaneous memorials at Apple stores at the time Steve died.
He did more than that. His life is extremely inspirational. If you haven't, check out his speech at Stanford University for, what I think, is his finest speech.
steve jobs stanford commencement speech
He had a lot of wisdom and he did much more than most men could do in a hundred lifetimes.