The creator of so many of our toys and tools has passed away. He may have been controversial, kooky, and perhaps a pain to work for, but he was undeniably brilliant and touched all our lives.
Probably his fundamental product genius was the ability to always look at what the product could do better for the user, regardless of how previous products did it, internal momentum, or how difficult it might be to achieve.
My Apple based “origin story” as a programmer and computer guy is here.
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
Steve Jobs, Stanford commencement speech, June 2005
/sigh
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