Steve Jobs, Another Genius Gone Too Soon
I don't agree that Steve Jobs was as great as Michelangelo, as some people tend to compare. There are similarities for sure, but there are also some differences. Both were said to be very dedicated, both were meticulous, both were very focused. Both produced great art.
But Steve Jobs was also more than just a great artist (not your traditional definition of artist anyway). While Michelangelo changed the Sistine Chapel (which of course was also a great achievement in itself), Steve Jobs changed far more than that, he changed the world and our worldview. He touched many lives and generations with his great products and innovations. His impact is far bigger and wider with the iPhone alone selling more than 90 million units to date, his iPad being a big game-changer, creating a category all its own. He changed the way we consume music, and so much more. He was the world's No.1 CEO, growing Apple by so many folds since he returned to the company, after an 11-year absence due to an infamous fall-out with the company he co-founded. This is just on the mobile communications sphere. He also had immense impact on the film industry having founded Pixar, the world's greatest animation company they say.
For sure, Steve Jobs' greatness as an innovator, a tech CEO, and so on, is unparalleled at this point. And in his death, people tend to focus on the great positive things he had achieved in his lifetime. Millions of fans adulate him as if he were God. However, it is also mentioned somewhere that he was by no means a Saint. He was a bully, he was not a philanthropist like Bill Gates or Warren Buffett, he tolerated poor working conditions in Apple factories in China. On the other hand, he did not tolerate mediocrity from his design teams. Some would say he was abrasive and a harsh critic of his staff. We never know for sure if these are all true accounts. But what we know for sure is that he created these great products, and because of them, our lives are more convenient and beautiful in many ways - he allowed technology and art to blend, once thought to be mutually exclusive fields.
While having dinner last night, my husband and I were talking about the scarcity of genius in this world. And that once in awhile, God sends a genius into this world, to make it a better place for us mere humans. Steve Jobs was probably one of those genius whom God sent into this earth, and we are fortunate that we are on this earth when this genius passed by. Let's hope that it wont take a long time before another genius will pass this way again.
