Steve - Thank You and Goodbye

Now that the outpouring of grief and emotions have died down, I thought of paying my respects to Steve Jobs. As we all know he was a genius and like all of us he had his flaws. He was a great designer of products. Perfectionist to the core. Finicky. He could be charismatic and charming one moment and in a split second turn into the most ruthless person you could have imagined. To me he was a visionary, the world had never seen before.

He was like Howard Roark, the protagonist in Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead. One line from the book which caught my imagination “We live in our minds, and existence is the attempt to bring that life into physical reality, to state it in gesture and form.” Steve Jobs was Roarkian to say the least. He conceptualized products at a time when the rest of the world couldn’t even comprehend his dreams.

He got booted out of Apple (the company he founded) and was brought back to prevent the ailing company from sinking. In the span of one and half decades, he steered the company from sure-bankruptcy to the title of most valued company. What Apple accomplished under his stewardship is already folklore.

I reproduce the lines from “O Captain! My Captain!” by Walt Whitman. I think these lines sum up what I have felt in the last couple of weeks ever since Steve said Goodbye.

O Captain! my Captain! Our fearful trip is done;

The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is won;

The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,

While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:

But O heart! heart! heart!

O the bleeding drops of red,

Where on the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead