A Few Words from Mr. Jobs

I distinctly recall the moment when I knew I would never look at PCs in the same way again. We were living in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania, in January 2002. I don't know why, or how, but a copy of the current TIME magazine caught my eye, and it showed Steve Jobs and Jonathan Ive standing proudly next to their latest, greatest creation - at the time. It was the G4 iMac, and it was beautiful. Realisations then were twofold - why aren't all computers like this? Why does everyone make their computer in a dull grey box? Secondly - What? It doesn't run Windows? What does it run then?

As is my wont, I delved deeper into the history, origins, products, and people at this company. And I was won. When I switched then, the mac was the countercultural choice - used by creative professionals, design nerds, and few others. Most people only knew Windows PCs and didn't want to know anything else.

Watching the company's growth over the next 9 years has been astounding. From the much-mocked, much-maligned countercultural choice, Apple now makes the #1 MP3 player, the #1 smartphone, the #1 tablet, the #1 laptop, and the #1 desktop….mostly thanks to the vision of one man, who passed away a few hours ago, at the age of 56. He had been struggling with pancreatic cancer since 2004, and eventually, it won.

The most he ever revealed about himself was in the commencement speech he gave at Stanford in 2005, and I'm going to quote a few of my favourite lines. He tells three stories, and then the lessons he learns from the three. The whole video, as well as the whole text, is a Google search away, for those who want it…
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"Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life."


"I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle."


"Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart."


"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."

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Apple will continue, in much the same way that Disney and Ford continue and succeed when they lost their legendary founders. Will what you build today continue after you leave, and carry your legacy into the next generation?