There's a lot of buzz on the net about Steve Job's death, and rightly so. For those of us that work in or around the tech world, he was a giant. I fully attribute his company's products (the iPhone and the iPad) to what I like to think of as a renaissance in computing. These devices have changed the way we think about computers, the web, and what software can be—mobile & fully integrated into our daily lives. And not just integrated because we have to use this software, but because we want to use it!
So about Jobs. It's absolutely amazing to me just how many people admire his life and work. He's the quintessential example of the American Dream—something that I think most Americans have forgotten about. So what is it that makes him admirable?
- He was passionate about his work
- He was uncompromising
- He was tenacious. Indomitable.
- He was hard-working.
I can't know for certain, but I suspect that Steve Jobs' guiding desire was not "to get rich". He wanted to change the world by changing the way people used computers. There's a lesson to us all, here. We need to revive the American Dream, and it's guiding principle should be, "Change the World. Think Different."